Embarrassed to admit it’s been a month or more, but I went back to my novel. I printed out the first chapter and read it on the plane while the plane bumped and whirled and the woman next to me prayed and read prayers and I thought, well, you’re good to go.
And I don’t know if the first chapter truly is good to go, but I know I am.
I’m ready to begin.
The skyline is different. The subway is different. The weather is different. My heart is different. Different meaning right. It’s hot and my skin is nut-colored as it was in my Georgian youth and my hair spirals like a rainbow sucker. And that’s right. I refuse to wear sleeves. My arm looks dirt polka-dotted from the bruises of falling. I wonder if my wrist will always hurt a little when it rains.
It is raining, silver-light. Birds are singing in the courtyard.
This is the most excited I have ever been and also the most calm. I’m ready to know. There’s no yearning. I do know: what’s important, what matters, what to do. What to do: seal chapter one into an envelope and mail. Sign the poem contracts. Start new poems. Send out resumes. See friends for coffee. Study cookbooks. Sing while washing dishes.
Getting one thing settled makes me not want to settle everything else in my life so much as know that everything else will be settled. I will get this book out, and that other one, and another that hasn’t even been written yet, but will be. I will get a job, teaching or otherwise. I will bake pear pies. I will learn the trapeze. I will be here and love.
Much hasn’t even been written yet, but will be. I will be here and love.