We moved into the new house on Wednesday of last week and since then it's been a frenzy of boxes and carloads of random things that were in a closet of our apartment and so many recipes for this cookbook I'm so close to finishing. 

Usually when we move it's the only thing on my plate, and I tend to be super sentimental and need time to process change. But this time we moved in and kept hurtling forward, so every now and again, in a quiet afternoon moment I'll find myself feeling sad that I'm not sitting in our South End apartment with the big bathroom and the grey granite countertops and the super bright bedroom with a citrus-green wall. I'll be sitting at the kitchen table in a sunny room full of light that I dreamed of for months and wish, not to be back at the apartment, but for something.

I keep forgetting how long it takes for a place to feel like home, and even though I love the house and the yard and the big open kitchen I suddenly feel nostalgic when Rob walks through the door after work and Ender isn't quite sure where to greet him. This is our first move from one place to another in the same city, and I almost feel like I'm channeling some of those new state vibes, even though we've been in Charlotte for almost two years and only moved ten minutes down the street. We had such a routine in the apartment, and now we're in the house but only slightly unpacked, so it feels like a great many different things, and none of them are really home yet.

Also, I'm tired.

I have written 118 pages in three weeks and I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. What an opportunity though, to write a book--as soon as I catch my breath I'll take the time to properly acknowledge the fact that one of my most passionate dreams came true.

Until then, some thoughts from a woman up to her elbows in Brussels sprouts and boxes, for you on a Tuesday. 

My friend Daci and I decided to do an email-powered writing club in 2016 because we love writing but don't do it enough and also I think because we miss each other a lot sometimes and this might make us feel like we're sitting together at Spyhouse Coffee as the sun streams in across our Moleskines and we sip lavender lattes.

She sent me a care package with coffee and pencils and a cookie cutter in the shape of Minnesota. There was also a notebook that says Fucking Brilliant on the cover in really fancy gold calligraphy. I cried while I rummaged through the box, because she wrote "2015 was the WORST. Here's to 2016 being a million times better." in the card and it meant everything to me because I think she meant it for me even though she didn't mean it for her, since 2015 brought a brand new gorgeous happy healthy baby to her life.

And then a day later, a text: "Can we do like a virtual writing club? Or is that what blogging is already anyway?"

Two good questions. Our text messages are often just inside jokes or very random things that made one of us think of the other, like the fine line between cute and ugly jumpsuits or the time Andrew McMahon walked into a Minneapolis restaurant with his baby like it was no big deal.

It's probably not surprising to anyone that January is almost halfway through and I haven't written an essay for our writing club yet, but I do have notes in my Fucking Brilliant journal. I wrote them when I was half asleep one night:

STORIES 

College

• Wes and Playground
  • First night
  • After breakup

Good enough, I guess. (Wes is a friend of mine from college who I used to go to this playground with, by the way. As I'm sure you can tell from my very detailed notes, there's a story there.)

So I was going to write the essay about my friend from college and the playground, but then Star Wars Episode VII came out and Rob and I spent a few days re-watching the old ones before going to see the new one, and I realized that never did it occur to me that any of the characters were in outer space, which is a big deal because I'm actually really afraid of outer space. If a meteor were headed towards Earth and we all needed to hop on a spaceship to escape safely, I'd stay. Like, Gravity came out and I made Rob go see it by himself while Daci and I probably ate French fries. So naturally I G-chatted her about it.

“i realized when i was going to see it though that space in star wars doesn’t scare me
why is that
very important life question here (M)

hmmm maybe because its not real space?
like you’re scared of the space movies where actual humans that live in our world are trapped and feeling actual feelings and thinking about actual Earth things that are familiar to you
such a good life question
maybe space should be a prompt (D)

that’s exactly what it is
those people in star wars are supposed to be in space
they’ve just always lived out there
but yeah i like space as a prompt (M)

theyre in their element
maybe your fear isnt space (D)

just bein a wookie (M)

its feeling lost
#DEEP (D)”

Because whether it's out there in the great beyond or somewhere in the ocean (another great fear of mine), nobody wants to be flailing around, gasping for breath, trying to figure out which way is up. And whether you're writing about a playground or the terrifying rings of Jupiter, sometimes you just need to get started and figure it out from there. Two writing prompts and a blog post. And a reason to text my friend in Minnesota. Better than nothing.

But I think we'll write the essays anyway.

Last night I found myself feeling uninspired so I did what I always do and flipped my copy of Old Friend from Far Away open to a random page and read what was there. This quote was staring me in the face and I was writing it down before I even had a chance to realize that I have already quoted it once right here.

“Don’t be hard on yourself...Allow the luxury of time, dreaming out the window, a little noodle walk through a dime store, then like a female lion after her prey, go directly into the animal art of pen across paper...

I know more but I don’t push it because there are things I don’t know that I want to come to me. I’m calling up understanding beyond myself. If I get too determined, too linear, I’ll miss the tugs of intuition at the periphery of my perceptions, the things I don’t want to say, the things I have never said...”

— Natalie Goldberg, "Old Friend from Far Away"

Maybe it's time for me to find some new books.

Either way, I feel this way every year and can't seem to escape it--September is here and there are pumpkin beers on draft everywhere but it's still too hot. Students are back in school and I am another year away from it all with dishes in the sink and essays I wish I had written months ago.

So I wait.

--

Currently I'm reading a collection of letters between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto and I'm simultaneously charmed and discouraged by their passion for food and politics and friendship and life and everything in between. Sometimes I wonder, did Julia ever have days or even weeks where she just didn't write a thing? Where she went to bed early and felt uninspired and grateful for takeout or leftovers?

I like to think that she sometimes woke up with a stuffy nose and a headache and decided to take a nap in the afternoon instead of folding laundry or working on her next project, which is exactly what I did yesterday.

"I'm enjoying it immensely, as I've finally found a real and satisfying profession which will keep me busy well into the year 2,000. But I wish I had started in when I was 14 yrs. old,." she wrote about the cooking classes she started teaching with two other women in France.

I feel that about my own life sometimes. But other times it is clouded by self-doubt and worry.

I think we'd all be a little more successful (and happy) if we could only get out of our own way.