The Beating Heart

Three months ago, I unintentionally put this blog away. My veins felt empty, bled dry of words and images, and I didn't have the heart or the energy to get the blood flowing again. I folded up this space and tucked it into a drawer, waiting for a perfect writing day that seemed to never come. Since then, it has been a heart beating beneath the floorboards, a Siren call I can no longer ignore. So I'm sitting down to it, setting that heart at ease.

Wisconsin is currently an icebox, a monochromatic landscape of white and brown farm fields dotted with blips of red barns. The sun makes shadow patterns, giving the snow a blue sheen. I drive through it almost every day to and from work, escorted by Cormoran Strike, a private detective in a rainy London. I finished The Cuckoo's Calling and didn't wait long before I moved on to The Silkworm. Noir is getting me through the winter. Thanks, J.K. Rowling.

Nate and I wandered through Farm & Fleet last week, picking out Rubbermaid tubs and Plano shelves, so excited for our new apartment that we actually considered the afternoon a date. There is nothing so romantic as having your spouse pick out a tub for your canning jars. If you think I'm being sarcastic, then you don't know me very well. We have such hopes for this new place. It has a garden in the back and a river in the front. It has two bedrooms and a large kitchen. I almost wept at the counter space. I plan to embrace it as a grand adventure.

This has been the hardest semester yet, mostly because I'm ready to get that degree. I have a list of things I can't wait to do when time is my own again. Playing my tin whistle. Gardening. Baking bread. Reading stacks and stacks of books into the deepest hours of the night. Bike riding.

Sometimes I worry that I'm only living in the future, counting away the precious minutes of the present waiting for someday. Is that normal? Is that healthy? Am I being hard on myself? I never know the answer.