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Stop.
It is easy to think that I have to keep
going
but I’m not sure that’s the answer.
Yes, the novel is still bubbling,
and the plants won’t plant themselves,
and the emails!
the emails surely don’t answer themselves.
It is easy to think that I have to keep going
but
between bites of chicken and rice
I am finding the ease of stopping.
Because of course, I will write the novel — in fact, the week’s calendar welcomes it
— and of course, I will give these patient plants a new home in the earth
— and of course, of course, the emails will be returned with love
but not right now.
I told myself I would write and so I stop
all the world
to write.
It is not writing that needs to become anything
or solve any problem.
Though it is tempting to set the bar high and demand that I jump — JUMP!

It is 8:23am and I am writing.
And that is enough.
It is the glorious and unglamorous insistence that there is always time for
writing,
that it is consequential even when it’s not,
that it matters even when it doesn’t,
that it exists even if nobody sees it.
To begin, they say
is the hardest part.
And sometimes harder still, to begin again
after time away
to choose it, to welcome what is emerging
to honor what is accessible now
instead of wishing it were different
or perfect
someday
under different circumstances.
It is enough to stop.
And write.