Dear Writer

Years spent with art are years spent in cocoon after cocoon after cocoon, always emerging changed. Writer, not only do you deserve to be changed in these ways, you need to be. ~ Maggie Smith in Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life

Cocoon
a capsule, 
a covering, 
a casing. 
A place of protection 
while you grapple with 
what you are doing 
(or not doing),
while you slow down, 
reconfigure,
recombobulate,
ready yourself.
To begin again.

I have been in a cocoon for a while, having retreated from activities that once drove me, that filled my calendar with long evenings and busy weekends — all good things, but sometimes, you know, busy turns to burden and retreat becomes necessary when searching for a way to move forward; or just searching for the way; or just searching (is this what a mid-life crisis looks like?) for the right direction in which to turn — redesign sounds dramatic, redirection too simple, but change for sure, because I’ve been in this cocoon for a while, and I am ready to emerge.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, / any thing can be made, any sentence begun. / On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp, / praise song for walking forward into that light. ~ Elizabeth Alexander, “Praise Song for the Day”