Monday, November 19, 2018

Genrephobia

Tonight in the realm of social media I encountered this post:

























I was fortunate at Elon to have some really great Creative Writing professors, but this was still a problem. Not only was genre fiction looked down upon, but it wasn't even addressed in writing courses. You had to take literature courses if you were interested in understanding the inner workings of these particular kinds of tales.

I always like to throw Ursula K. LeGuin, or Kelly Link, or the aforementioned Terry Pratchett, or Ray Bradbury, or goodness knows how many other authors in the faces of people who sneer at speculative fiction. Those same people usually sneer in general at all "popular fiction," which just makes them sound like hipster kids who can't like a band if more than five people have heard of it.

This kind of post used to make me fist-pump and shout "Hallelujah!" in acknowledgment. But now I think a touch of the devil's advocate has taken root in my soul. Because the reason my professors in college didn't talk a lot about writing genre fiction is that they were trying to equip us with a toolbox of basic storytelling fundamentals. The trappings of genre are important, but they don't work if you don't have a decent story framework to hang them on. And I begin to realize that many young writers lean too heavily on the features of genre - the unicorns and space ships, the serial killers and ghosts - which weren't designed to hold such weight on their own. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Ursula LeGuin and all the rest of them - they write good stories, that just so happen to feature flat planets and Other Mothers and wizards and dragons and all the rest of it.

There was a guy in one of my classes as an undergrad who decided to ignore the unwritten "no genre fiction" rule and wrote a short story about some teens who encounter the chupacabra in the woods. The parts where he wrote about the chupacabra were great because he was obviously excited about it, but the story fell apart and was ultimately a flop because those descriptions and the sequence of actions weren't grounded properly in a larger narrative that was crafted using the skills our professor was trying to emphasize in the class.

I think academia in general and creative writing departments in particular have a lot to learn when it comes to acknowledging and teaching genre fiction to students. However, I think memes like this sometimes get a little too gung-ho in condemning the snobbish behavior of such ignorant professors. I think progress lies somewhere in between.

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Or Maybe

Or maybe I'm just making excuses for the fact that I was unable to finish my degree in two years. Of the two other Masters students doing a thesis, one finished in 20 months while the other is taking an extra year. Neither had my problem with the student loans though. So I don't know. But basically, I'm a failure. I failed. And trying to put a spin on it like it was "research" for some character arc is low even for me.

Friday, November 16, 2018

Write What You Know

I've been writing my whole life. I wrote my first "book" when I was seven. All throughout elementary, middle, and high school I wrote stories - all of whom featured protagonists who were either thinly-veiled versions of myself or basically the person I wished I could be. Most of these stories involved mystery, action, romance, humor, and my favorite word of all time - ADVENTURE.

The thing with all of these stories is that no matter how outlandish the setting, plot, or characters, the stuff at the heart of the story - the theme, the emotions, the core - that was all me. It came down to what I knew and understood and had gone through. I can make up a fake language or an imaginary kingdom or a race of futuristic robot goblins or whatever, but I can't make up the grief you feel at a deep loss, or the bottomless pit of emotion that fuels teen angst, or the clumsy fumbling tenderness coupled with that squiggly feeling you get in your gut when you look at someone you're attracted to. Those were all things I had to experience before I could put them into words. You can tell the stories I wrote before I'd experienced those things because they weren't real; they were me copying other better writers I'd read, talking about things I didn't know about with a grasp of the language a bit advanced for someone my age. They were good, but not great.

When I was thirteen I started writing a story about a girl and her two friends who sneak into an abandoned house on Halloween only to find it's not abandoned at all, but home to a strange and spooky man with a lot of otherwordly secrets. When I was fourteen I started writing a story about a girl and her two friends who discover that their favorite fictional fantasy book series was in fact based on true events and that its author had started writing the books as a way to make money upon arriving here many years ago as a refugee from another world. When I was sixteen I started writing a story about a girl whose family (some blood kin, others found family) are a group of misfits and outcasts cursed to wander the earth until they can discover a doorway back to their home world which is the only place they can access the cure to their malady. When I was seventeen I realized that all three of these stories were actually parts of the same story and started the work of cobbling them together, of redefining and reshaping plot lines and reintroducing myself to characters, of expanding worlds and figuring out how to best interweave several different narratives into one.

One thing became apparent immediately: a common theme in all of this was the idea of HOME - of finding a home, making a home, longing for a home, etc. I had lived most of my life in the same place, venturing only a few hours away for college, traveling frequently but always for short spurts - the longest of these being six months in London, just long enough to satisfy my wanderlust but short enough that I could be back with friends and family for the usual summertime activities. In short, I had never known the kind of experiences so many of these characters I was writing about had gone through. And it showed.

I know it's preposterous to claim that writers need to go through the same things as their characters to write about them well. I know that with my head, and yet... something was missing. I was also at a complete standstill in my life. I was in a career that I enjoyed and yet was not making enough money to pay the rent, and it didn't seem like things were going to change there for me anytime soon. I applied for other jobs but nothing came of it. That's when I started looking into grad school, but all the places I would got for a Masters in literature were too competitive, and all the places I wanted to go for an MFA in Creative Writing were too competitive and too expensive, and it was only when I got drunk on prosecco one night and started trawling the internet for information on grad schools that I spotted something about a degree in folklore at a school up in Newfoundland.

Folklore. Hmm. I knew nothing about folklore, except for fairies and folk tales, both of which I liked. Newfoundland. I knew nothing about Newfoundland whatsoever, but all the pictures made it look cheerful with all those pretty colorful houses set against the craggy hills. It was in Canada, and a part where they spoke English so I wouldn't have to learn an entirely new language to go there. They didn't require me to take the GRE. Their tuition was actually affordable. Before I knew what was happening, I was downloading a bunch of information on the application procedures and making checklists about who I'd need to contact for letters of recommendation and what I'd need to do to get my study permit.

At the front of my mind I was thinking, "Hey, this is the way I will change my life. I can go and get a degree and by then I will have figured my life out and can come back and start an actual career." At the back of my mind I was thinking, "If I do this, I will finally know what it's like to be far away from home. I'll learn what it's like to not belong there, but then come back and find you've changed and the place has changed and you don't really belong at home either. I'll finally have what I need to finish this story." So I applied, I was accepted, and I went.

Right away I knew I liked folklore but that it wasn't a discipline I wanted to pursue with any seriousness. I felt like the titular character in The Ugly Duckling (though that's always seemed a rather self-congratulatory story to me). The point is, when it came to me and the other folklorists around me, we both had feathers and webbed feet and bills, we both glided through the water and flew through the air, and yet we weren't quite the same. It was subtle differences that made me understand I didn't belong there. But I had gotten drunk that one night on my couch, and I'd followed up on it after, and here I was in a new place meeting all these new people and having these cool experiences and even though I didn't really want to go through with this I might as well go through with it because what else do you do when you board a train except stay aboard until you make it to the final destination?

I didn't write a word of fiction in the two years I was away in Newfoundland. This is important. This is very, very significant. Because my whole life that's who I've been - the writer. And for two years I was unable to do the thing I loved most. Because I was trying to be someone I wasn't. Because I had signed up for this and thought it was what I needed to do. I tried to make it better by picking a subject for my thesis that I cared about. But I ran into complications there as well. I chose the subject of wizard rock, which involved attending events in Ireland (LeakyCon 2017) and the U.S. (MISTI-Con 2017 and some other wrock shows). I didn't realize that one provision for me receiving U.S. student aid while attending a foreign university was that I was not allowed to conduct research in the U.S. In order to continue to receive the funds I needed to continue my work I would have to either pursue a different subject, or continue writing about wizard rock but not using any information gathered in my time in the U.S. I was encourage by many people (including people in official positions at the school) to simply lie to the student loan office and conduct my research anyway. But I felt wrong doing this while signing an ethics document that claimed I was doing everything above board. So I left Newfoundland without finishing the degree, and am now back where I started, except working at a far less rewarding job, and appearing to basically everyone I know to have become a total failure.

But.

But I know some things now that I didn't two years ago. I know what it's like to not belong anywhere. I know what it's like to mess up, and badly, and in a way you can't fix. I learned (quite unfortunately) what it's like to do something unforgivable, and the weight you carry around with you always at the memory of it. I heard stories from actual refugees through my work as a research assistant for a professor. I met amazing people from all around the world. I made new friends. I figured out that even if home is a place, it isn't really. That human beings are these incredible creatures that have figured out a way to create a home wherever they go. I thought when I moved up to Newfoundland that I would be like this monk. That I'd have my little cell, and go about my days outside of classes in a sort of solitude, where I could work on my classwork and work on my book and be free of the connections that had also been distractions in my daily life before. But that's preposterous. I found people up there just like I have people down here. We forged new bonds, created memories, formed a sort of found family.

And I have what I need now to tell my story. I just need to get well (I've been sick, and it's terrible), get organized (I've been in a state of flux with too much stuff and too little space after moving and emptying my storage unit), and get serious (self-discipline has always been a problem for me, and it's the monster I'll need to tackle if I want to finish this book once and for all).

I'm only a failure if I stop here. If I get up and keep going and show everyone what I've been keeping inside all these years, then maybe it wasn't all a waste. We'll have to see.

Sunday, August 5, 2018

The Stone

They say it was Excalibur that chose Arthur, that the sword itself knew the proper soul to wield it, but I think it was really the stone. The stone held the sword so firmly all those years, resisting the strongest of men, and the stone ultimately chose to let go.

There are flashy tools with fancy names that will get all the glory, but if you want to look for real power seek out the plain things in this life.

In the end Cinderella's slipper wasn't important because it was glass, but because it was a shoe - and one that fit only her.

What's an enchanted key with no lock to open?

And why else do you think it's brooms that fly, mirrors that speak, and spinning wheels that prompt enchanted slumber?

Magic is everywhere, if you only know where to look for it.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Scraps

My hand pressed flat against the glass
palm lines looking like cracks
but no
just head and heart and life

Rain speckled on the other side
I thrust it open wide
and oh
the sparkles scatter down

It's just, I've been around
for long enough to know
that it's all come to nothing
and I should probably just go
We've known our share of sorrows
We've tasted hints of bliss
But nobody likes listening
to prophets reminisce.

Friday, June 29, 2018

Broken World

I've just discovered The Interrupters and am loving their new album, especially this song. It's simple, repetitive, and a bit shout-y. The lyrics advocate radical kindness and revolutionary empathy, and are so naively optimistic you can't tell if they're foolish or wise (or both); you just find yourself wanting to believe in them anyway.

(...so, basically it's like someone rolled my essence into a 2 minute and 42 second punk song that I will now proceed to play on repeat for the next week.)

Saturday, June 23, 2018

Reminder from Cape Spear


The guns of war have rusted and the dandelions grow.
Junk metal and a small, persistent weed.
Much of the world is strange to me but this I know:
Agents of destruction will one day be laid low
And a restless wind bears forth rebellion’s seed.



Sunday, March 25, 2018

I Love Love, Simon

I saw Love Simon for the first time on my birthday (the Saturday of its opening weekend).  Just got out of my third time seeing it tonight. (Spoilers ahead, so be warned.) The theatre was packed; even the front row was full, which made my heart happy because I want this movie to make lots of money so they'll make more like it. As things got started I could tell from many of the reactions that most people were seeing it for the first time. Yay! Love that kind of crowd. We settled in to enjoy.
During Simon’s talk with his mom later in the film ( ❤️) the screen started getting a bit dark and flickery but it self-corrected after a while so I didn’t worry too much. I was disappointed as it’s a beautiful moment in the film and I hoped it hadn’t detracted from people hearing what she was saying, because seriously… SO important. But I didn’t think much more of it at the time.
Anyway, we’re watching and Simon makes his romantic gesture Creek Secrets post, and we see the production of Cabaret, and his friends make up with him and they go to the carnival together, and it starts to get dim again and I’m thinking Oh no. But it’s still playing. He boards the Ferris Wheel. Ride after ride and no one shows. Last call ( 💔). Martin steps up… AND THE SCREEN GOES BLACK.
Every single person in the theatre screamed. Not exaggerating. One long horrified wail: Nooooooooo.
Then we’re holding our breaths because the audio is still working. It’s like the slo-mo of a clock in the movies where every tick of the second hand reverberates like a door slam. Will the picture come back? Does anyone dare leave their seat to report it? I can feel all these people in the dark around me praying to the movie gods: pleasepleasepleassssseeeee….
And - glory, hallelujah! - the image came back. Dim, and a bit wobbly, but just in time to see Blue bound up and join Simon on the Ferris Wheel. Everyone cheered. The girl next to me spilled the rest of her tub of popcorn on the floor and didn’t even care.
The picture held for the rest of the movie and even brightened to normal for the kiss, as if trying to make up for past sins. When the lights came up everyone was smiling, but with the wild-eyed relief of people whose plane had just landed safely after life-flashing-before-your-eyes type turbulence. We had survived a collective experience, y'allBut Simon got his man and we actually got to see it, so in the end all was right with the world.
(Still… here’s hoping viewing #4 isn’t such a nail biter!)

Thursday, March 15, 2018

:(

It's raining outside, and so gloomy.

I'm supposed to read three articles before class tomorrow and write engagement papers about two of them.

I'm going to see my friend Yohei perform in Rent in about 2.5 hours.

I'm dieting, which means it's hard to think about anything but what I'll be eating next. Dinner is the current upcoming meal. I have to keep it in the 500 calorie range. I'm trying to lose 68 pounds before Vanessa's wedding in August.

I'm struggling with the realization that I'm a failure.

I've told Katrina I can live with her when I come back but I don't think I can. My monthly expenses will come to $1,000 even before rent because of my stupid debt.

I'm struggling with the fact that easily 80% of that debt was accrued just in coming up here to get a degree I don't want in a subject I don't understand in a place I don't like very much.

I'm also realizing that if I don't really kill myself to get stuff done between April and August that I won't even actually get the degree.

I'm screwed in a lot of ways, and the rain is falling outside, and the sinus pressure headache I've been fending off with pseudoephedrine for a week is still there lurking, waiting to strike again.

It's my birthday in 29.5 hours, and I'm lonely and I miss my family and friends.

So, you know. Those are just some of the things I might tweet today on this twitter-feed-for-one. Except they're too depressing. Nobody wants to read what you actually think.

Unfollow.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Twitter for One (Without the Character Limit)

I'm trying this thing where anything I'd be tempted to post on Twitter I post here instead.

Today's entry:

When you have a migraine and a nosebleed at the same time, it feels like your brain's exploding and seeping out onto your chin.

#goodtimes

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Green With Envy, and Really, It's a Seasonal Color, So I Don't Know Why You're Judging Me Like That

I'm so bored here.

I don't want to do the things I'm supposed to do (i.e. read articles and books on boring, confusing subjects for class or transcribe for my grad assistantship or write my thesis).

I don't really want to go out and do things, with the exception of seeing movies (up here, it's all "heritage this" and "handmade or homegrown that," and a bunch of bands playing, which I might enjoy except there are all these unwritten rules that make me feel like a dumb outsider every time I try to go to one of these things).

I don't really want to get up and go out at all. Like, it's cold and drab outside, and where would I walk? To campus? Downtown, where there are shops for me to spend money I shouldn't be spending and restaurants for me to eat food I shouldn't be eating (I'm on the diet/exercise regime again, we'll see how long it lasts). I miss having a job, like a real job where I make an almost-living wage in exchange for the things that occupy my time. I was thinking about starting on some adventure boxes, because that was a really fun project over Christmas and I'd like to possibly expand it into a business opportunity, but I don't want to accrue any extra stuff up here because I'm going to have to figure out a way to get all my stuff home in about half a dozen suitcases between now and August, and I'm only returning home once before The Final Return. (Dramatic capitalization to emphasize feelings of dread.)

To be fair, most people I know all have obvious issues too. They have families and lives and responsibilities, but they're open about the fact that they don't have their shit together. Some days are hard. I appreciate that.

Then there's the girl I grew up with at church who was always so awkward and ended up marrying this military guy who seemed so controlling at the time that we all felt kind of bad for her. But she's travelled the world with him, going to all these cool places. She doesn't have my money problems or my health issues or seemingly any mental health problems at all. She has a spouse who loves her, friends who care about her, and in the last several years she's developed a passion for art and been going to conventions and selling her art online and making this successful side business with this creative passion of hers. And now, today, she's gone on Facebook looking for advice for people about whether she should self-publish her illustrated YA novel or try to ship it around to publishers. And the thing is, she's good. She'll find an agent and get the thing published, I know she will. And it's just like - gah. The envy in my heart right now. Like, I could burst into tears. Because she's had this pretty, nice, easy life, right? At least that's what it looks like from the outside. Like she has everything. And now she's going to be successful at the one thing I care about but have never been able to do properly. She's going to have this, and I'm just a failure.

Because of course that's the thing I should be doing with my time. Writing. But the walls inside my own mind seem to make even that impossible these days.

Maybe someday I'll be able to say this was all just me building up experiences I could use in my storytelling. Like, how could I write about how pathetic Sid's shut-in lifestyle is unless I experienced it myself? How could I write about Em's experiences with not having a home anywhere unless I knew that myself? How could I write about the Doorkeeper trapped in the House, unless I knew a bit of that eternal cabin fever myself?

But the thing about writers is our trade is in lies. Even failed writers like me are still good at making up deceptions. And the biggest deception I'm spinning is that somehow all of this will be worth it, that I'm any good at anything, that I shouldn't just give up and never try again.

Ugghhhhhhhhhh.

Maybe I should just call it quits, go back home to my family, and try to clean up all my messes.

Or maybe I should just take a walk to clear my head.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

If At First You Don't Succeed...

Trying this again. Here's a little tracker which will supposedly change as I progress:




We'll see!

My goal is to be down to 170 by Vanessa's wedding in August. This seems unrealistic to me, but I'd at least like to be below 200 which is slightly more manageable.

Let's do this.

Monday, March 5, 2018

Snow in St. John's

This is adapted from a journal entry I wrote on February 28, 2018.

It snowed yesterday for about seventeen hours straight, the first serious snow we've had this winter. (It's been unseasonably warm.) But this morning when I woke up the flakes had stopped coming down. Because of my attempts to correct my sleep inversion, I managed to be awake for all of it. I'm shifting my sleep schedule forward three hours at a time, and on this particular day I woke up at midnight and stayed awake until five. The flakes were falling thick and fast that whole time.

(I felt a bit like Gilgamesh, tasked to stay awake. Like it was an enchantment, and as long as I could keep my eyes open the snow would keep falling - soft and magical, and perfect.)

But I couldn't stay up. I was nearly cross-eyed after being awake that long, not to mention having done eight hours of transcribing work for my graduate assistantship. I'm not supposed to tell anyone about the contents of the interviews, but I'll be vague here: there was a part of this interview with a woman from Eastern Europe who came to Canada to work after university and just settled here afterward. She was talking about returning to the country of her birth and how it wasn't really home, how she doesn't belong there but she doesn't have roots in this new country either. "I don't really think I know what home is anymore," she said at one point. "That's something I won't ever know again."

With snow falling down outside the window, and this woman's words echoing in my head, I fell asleep that "night" and woke at three the next morning feeling a bit too much cabin fever to stay still. So when it grew light out I went out to wait for a bus so I could go to the mall, walk around indoors a bit, and maybe watch a movie.

It was foggy out, and chill, but not nearly as cold as I'd hoped. The snow piled high, high, high on either side of the road, so I was forced to walk through the remnants left behind by the snowplows  - that velvety brown mush that splats to liquid beneath your boot tread. The house behind the bus stop on Merrymeeting Road had these enormous icicles hanging down from the porch roof, drip-drip-dripping. But I climbed the pure white mountain next to the pole with the bus flag and stood waiting. It's a Rule of the Universe that I'm always either ten minutes early or thirty seconds too late for a bus. Fortunately that day was the former.

(I forget a lot, you know. I forget it constantly, that the sea is right there. Only a few days before this I'd been up overnight with my usual sleep inversion nonsense and realized I could take a walk outside and catch the sunrise, so I walked down a block or two, past the Sobeys grocery store and the Rooms museum, and I found the perfect spot atop this little hill, and I watched the sun come up, and it was such a surprise even then to realized that the glitter in the rosy light was water, and there were boats gliding across the harbour in that orange glow of daybreak.)

But today, in the snow, there was nothing there to remind me. It was cold and white and still like the world is after a snowfall. Even the people who were up and about seemed subdued, caught under its spell. And that's a world, a moment, a circumstance where I might expect to smell pine trees or wood smoke, or maybe mountain-type smells. But I was standing there looking toward the east, because that's the direction the bus comes from, and I smelled it. Not any of those things. I smelled the sea.

It's not a smell you can mistake for anything else. Nothing compares. (Cue Sineád O'Connor.) But seriously. I know that smell. I have a hundred happy memories linked with it - this same sea, glimpsed in Cape Cod or Topsail Island or Cherry Grove or Daytona Beach. I've smelled that smell most often in summertime, with sun beating down overhead, a warm prickle on the skin. I've smelled that smell with sand stuck to my legs. With sunsets and beach chairs, star-gazing and shell-gathering. While watching the waves smooth away castles and messages sculpted from sand. I know that smell like I know my childhood phone number, and the way it feels to hug my mom and dad, and the exact layout of the bookstore where I used to work that doesn't even exist anymore.

But I've never in my life experienced that familiar scent in this way. Standing up to my knees in perfect, pristine snow, surrounded by fog, listening of the plink of icicles behind me, as a bit of wind gusts full in my face and I smell the whole of it, that big, vast, immeasurable mystery, and I remember. The ocean. It's here.

It was the weirdest, most wondrous realization.

Two worlds crashing together, yet making not a sound.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Confession

Sometimes I say "migraine" when I really mean "depression."

People are sympathetic and forgiving when the former derails your day, but awkward and a bit impatient with the latter.

I do really have migraines some days, which confuses matters further.

But today was a depression day. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling a lot, then went in a social media spiral, and ate some hummus and beef jerky and the other half of the pan of brownies I made myself last night when I realized Bloody Mary had come to call (if you know what I mean). But mostly I just wished I could fall asleep again.

I have so many things I should be doing.

"Tomorrow," Depression says. "Always tomorrow."

So "migraine" it is.

Friday, February 2, 2018

A Song

If you're ever looking for a really good place to cry where no one will disturb you, stand in the middle of a graveyard on a hill overlooking the city of St. John's on a windy February night. And by middle I do mean middle - smack dab, as my Southern upbringing would have me say - on that point in the path where the top of the hill (where you're headed) and the bottom of the hill (where you've come from) are equidistant, and the graves roll back into the dark on either side, still and gleaming.

It's really just the act of stopping. You've been holding it all in, forcing yourself through the day, trying not to understand why this weight has settled in the middle of your chest and why you're holding your breath in a choke at the back of your throat. You stop for a minute as you walk up the hill and turn to look at the city, and it's just that act of pausing, of breaking stride - you breathe in the wind and the night and the lights of the town all around you, and the graves are wet, cold stone and the snow has melted into long white stripes on either side of the path, and you feel it let go and fall away and you

sob.



The lights look so pretty through the glimmer of your tears that you take your phone out and snap pictures, but of course your phone's cheap and the camera is lame and you just end up with something that looks like a smattering of yellow, orange, and white dots on a black rectangle. You could show it to someone, but they wouldn't be able to feel the wind tangling its ragged fingers through your hair. They wouldn't know what it's like to keep staring up and down the path, checking that no one else is coming, and the feeling of being hidden and yet so utterly, blessedly exposed.

You don't look pretty when you cry. Like in the movies, where the person (usually a woman) is blotting at her face with a tissue, laughingly lamenting, "I'm a mess," and all the while looking tragic and beautiful and like someone should sculpt a statue of her face including that one perfect tear rolling down her cheek. You do not cry like that. Your lips get puffy and your skin gets blotchy like you've broken out into a rash. And the wind keeps grabbing your hair and flinging it in front of your eyes, then away again.

I'm a mess, you think, and you really are.


It's okay, though. It's okay. It's good to be sad. It's a fine and wonderful thing to peel away all those layers, to be a raw nerve open to the endless dark. Because the thing about crying in the middle of a graveyard on a windy February night in Newfoundland is that it makes you feel things, and you haven't felt things for a really, really long time.

Blame the computer and the phone - all these screens you shove into your face every day. Blame the stress of the routine you've chosen for yourself. Blame genetics, and the melancholy temperament your father gave you along with his nose and jawline. Blame your own damn foolish self for all the mistakes you've made.

Blame away, but remember somewhere in the middle of all the rage and the regret to forgive. Forgive this broken world, and forgive the stranger yelling at you through the computer screen, and forgive your family. Forgive all the people who have the effrontery to care about you even though you keep holding them at arm's length. Forgive the darkness, and the rain that's begun lightly falling, and your bag that rests heavy on your back.

Forgive yourself.

You don't deserve it, but claim the grace of this moment. An unearned gift that makes you feel almost whole again.

Keep crying as you climb the hill, but now the tears are quiet. Your breathing is calming. Your footsteps are steady. Before you know it, you've reached the top.

Feel, feel. Look at those lights. What a glorious thing it is to be cracked open.

There's no music, but this feeling is a song.