Since my first post, last week, I’ve been stressing about what to write and when to write, questions and feelings that used to grind on me from day to day and they, in a strange way, feel like home. I’m pretty sure, too, that they’re ultimately generative of actual things to write; it’s just part of it. Wanting to say things while not knowing what or how creates tension and friction, leading to sparks and, eventually, hopefully, words. However, when I’ll write is a question I’ll keep asking these mountains, rivers, and ponderosa pines.

Today I’m on fall break, Margaret and Gabe are in Taos, and I’m weirdly alone enough to let some sparks spark. I was going to write about seeing a steller’s jay with Marg, I opened my laptop and knock knock knock—the propane guy needed a woodpile moved away from the house because of pipes and county codes and the gods hating my guts.

Why do I even think I have to write, I wondered, dismantling a perfectly good woodpile. There is no good reason for me to repeatedly, year after year, imagine myself a writer. For isn’t it true that whenever I get weirdly alone enough and finally make the firm decision to write, someone shows up and tells me I have to move a woodpile? Or not that exactly, of course. It’s a metaphor for something on TV being really, really good or Margaret asking for a glass of water. It’s a metaphor for something, always something, for years and years of whiskey and beers, bars generally, getting in the way. Cocaine dealers. Lesson plans. How many hot showers and late dinners? Fights. Movies. Prior engagements.

It did seems weird how I so sabotaged all my love and quiet.

After the propane guy left, the woodpile needed restacking, left to right, next to the house. I reeled myself out of my mind and into my hands, grabbing each piece of wood, stacking each piece of wood, finding rhythm. What if each piece of wood, I wondered, was a word?  The sky is so blue here. The Truchas Peaks look on, serene and constant. Miracles await in animal movement, stacking wood, a little sweat. It’s getting late. I can’t wait until Margaret gets home.