I’ve sat here for four nights now trying to put into words the trouble that my most recent drawing has been.
Trying to find the words for the way its stomach-churning howl echoed through the rafters of my mind, splintered here and there by the continual stream of voices that have gathered there to do their horrible dancing. Locusts, insatiable and restless; humming, thrumming, buzzing, consuming, eternally.
My dad would say “better out than in” but it feels like dirty laundry. Like punching yourself in the nose, then showing off the bruise - and forgetting how you got it. A bad dream, a fit, imaginary. Was this real? Was it me? I can’t touch any of it.
Reaching the shore after this one merited tangible, palpable relief. I’m making a point of not looking back at it, either.
Today we had a warm spell and I felt alive for the first time since Thanksgiving. Muddy paws and boots alike - happiness all around. Chickadees (please please come visit us) in pines, bluejays in beeches, the eerie silence of a red-tailed hawk overhead, and the unmistakable trill of a lone kingfisher across the swollen river. Smiling in the sun, pale and ghostly from the winter, eyes squinting and stinging, the world looking washed-out in brightness, laughing with full hearts drunk on warmth and fresh air, feverishly wishing from the soles of our eight feet that it didn’t have to end.
