While writing I need to write....

I promised myself I would not write about the virus, masks, quarantine, any of the daily conflagrations (however quiet they may be-- 

--especially from my writing studio on the second floor of a big house at the top of a small hill on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood, where daily we forget to wear masks when we leave for a walk, because we don't run into people right away.)

I promised myself, because I did not feel like privileging my experience, which has been a lot more benign than that of friends living in packed cities. 

And because everyone else is writing about it, and I always have to be "different" -- right?

But I'm breaking that promise because even though I do not live alone (and I cherish my partner), I have been feeling too alone of late, and it's strictly, I think, because of the New Normal. I am still "new" in Bloomington, and how do I meet people?  And now the pall on daily life, has thickened, because the current quiet belies the presence of thousands of students in every pocket of this big town/ little city, and their return is just one marker of "everything's fine, we have it under control" when we clearly don't. 

We/you/they/I -- don't -- have it. 

We/you/they/I -- not in control.

But because of this influx (of students, of potential virus), even though (for example) the art museum is open again, I feel I cannot go there--and I am dying to go (but I don't want to die and so... I am not dying. To go.) 

I bake almost every day to slake my hunger, but it doesn't work because what I'm hungry for is art; I need music; I need to hear other writers (and so on) and all of this is available via Zoom or half a dozen other digital platforms, but that is not REAL - to me (to you? Is it real to you?). The irony of course is that I am resorting now to making a new blog (gee, it's gotten lots more complicated to design a blog since the last time I did one) -- to occupy space virtually in a way I am constrained from doing in reality.

--But hey, "I" am behind these words; sitting at the table that suffices as a desk, facing a window onto our grand side-yard, which is basically a second lot that my partner has filled with plantings -- pollinators (Indiana natives), saplings, a couple of vegetable gardens... a chicken coop. There is so much life in this yard! (Be grateful, Merle, breathe in that life--).

--I am here, behind these words, in the body I inhabit that, much like yours, is a temporary and changeable shape.

And this writing is the kind that doesn't stop, it's always in my head so why not share it? -- 

Because the project I am working on right now is so lengthy, and yet I am determined to keep at it till it is "finished." 

But meanwhile the writing continues and I had shut off the valve because -- how much more material can I put into this project, a poetic memoir? (A "poememoir" -- thank you, Linda Norton.)

So voila -- "new material" is NOT going there... it's going HERE--

 as writing upon writing 

or adjacent, or existing in a cloud above the churning manuscript). 

If I figure out this blog, I may invite you to do some writing here, too.