In two weeks time, I’ll be sending out packets to people who I have already explained the project to or at least alluded to this project. I still haven’t finished the last page and I still have no plans to until the 19th, which yes, leaves a scant three days before phase 2, but I think it’s important for me to sit with the feelings I’m having, including the hesitation and reluctance. I think a part of this book needs to live in that specific vulnerability. Plus, there’s so much else to still to work on during these trying times.

The title changed again. The title changed again because I was working on the capstone piece, which was originally titled “Mangling.” I was tinkering with a section of a stanza, retooling it and really trying to bring things back full circle. The thing is that most pieces are written in isolation, as a snapshot, and when a piece is suddenly in conversation with other snapshots, you realize that maybe that stanzas doesn’t belong. Maybe the order meant sense in the original draft, but the progression doesn’t work with the whole thing. So as I was revising this one piece, it got me thinking was “Mangling the right word?”

And perhaps at some point it was. And perhaps at some point it will be again. I still have several weeks before I have to commit to anything. But a lot of this book has not been me be conflicted, it is has been a lot of lamenting. It has been a lot of about venting frustrating. Funnily enough, this book is born from a strange type of compounded grief and not to too randomly interject some Dropout content, it is a book about mourning.

A mourning of what could have been. A mourning of what it is.

I have also very clearly shown no particular allegiance to anything at the moment, so we’ll see what happens next week as we near completion, but for now, it’s nice to know I’m not done discovering things. It’s nice to know that the time I’m taking is paying off in weird and unexpected ways.