Hello I say with my T rex arms, shortened because of the extra large 5 month old I have strapped to my chest. 

Let’s take a breath together. Smell the flowers, blow out the candle.

It’s time to decide about that scene, that vestigial scene that doesn’t quite fit anymore. That’s the problem with editing and re-writing a book over and over again. You’re left with so many vestigial scenes. 

Summer continues to toy with me. It’s a more traditional Seattle summer, cool, cloudy and green, which everyone here appreciates. I don’t though. I want it to be hot. I want to have all the windows open and for the sun to burn through the windows. I want our deck to be warm to the touch, and our animals sprawled on it, too sun-tired to misbehave. 

But, it’s not like that on June 29th, 2022. Most people today will wear pants and keep their patio doors closed. 

I have mine open though, because that makes our house feel bigger. Bigger, yet still it closes in on me. I could blame it on my kids, but it’s not them. It’s something to do with me—that I am always cleaning but it is never clean. There’s something wrong with the way I do things. I’m like a clogged vacuum cleaner, spewing out all the dust it tries to suck up.

I’m repeating things my daughter is saying to me as I type, to show that I am listening. “Aww” I say when she tells me about the baby owl in her book. But there is too much in my mind, too many words, too many sounds, and I can’t get that space clean either, I can’t make my mind the place I want it to be, and it is constantly behind, chasing all of the ideas, tasks, emotions. Me in high school, running my late summer cross country races, red faced, not breathing, not understanding how to do anything intentionally, just doing, and being frustrated that that wasn’t enough. Me, running, and failing, and finally just walking up the paved path in the golden hills behind our school. Ravaged.