The random garden at my brother and sister-in-law’s house where I spent a few days ordering poems for a new book. The ocean close, communal meals, satisfying conversations. I returned home happy, living for a few days with familiar words and family near. For several days, I remained so. Then a deep dive. A wasteland, a losing one’s way. No sense of purpose, no light. The only brightness shining on what is lost and difficult. Not the missing but the missed. Landscape and community.
I find no remedy in the obvious: gratitude, the random pumpkins growing in the side yard, daily devotions, screeches from the eagle’s nest across the way, meditation. Only unnecessary suffering. Attachment. Little faith in irregularity. The burden of persistence. Notebook of rejection. Calendar of lacking.