Prodigal Writer

I haven't written in so long this feels strange.

I mean I've written. I've done work. But sitting in front of a computer for my own reasons has been something I conveniently avoided. The flux of returning from a year of traveling the world into a home-country ravaged by COVID-19 provided wonderful cover. Who could argue with my sincere explanations of needing space and time to process what had happened, what was and continues to be happening in the world?

Only, things are always happening.

The world is always turning and tragedies, big and small, are always here or on the horizon waiting to make grand entrances. The truth is much more garbled than the eloquence of global tragedy. The truth is lazy and scared and stifled. So today I sit in front of my computer, only a month late to my 2021 plans for myself, to write.

Writing when I travel has always been an easier task than writing at home. Life feels so much bigger when I'm recounting trying to chase a stubborn Jagenda, my chicken, out of the living room where she insisted on laying a single egg on the couch every morning; or having the kids (and adults) laugh at me as I tried to carry the water from the pump on my head like everyone else. But what convenient excuses those expectations of my daily musings set.

No random animal stories? My pen should be still. Not drenched in water and left with only half full bucket? My fingernails should not click against keys.

The last two years have been flush with lessons and realizations and triumph and terror and love...so much love. There have been quiet victories and small stinging tragedies that dwarf in the shadow of death and sickness and houselessness- but they are no less tragic to me.

So this year I want to return to my pen. Return to telling the tiny stories of food and fancy and friendship. Share the warmth I am able to gleam from those I love, the ones who by some magical turn of fate and gift from the heavens, love me too.