Not Far from the Tree

I know I’ve been quiet on this blog. I’ve been quiet everywhere for a week as I find the rhythm of writing this book. It’s forcing me to evaluate how I expend my energy, because being of body means we have limited battery each day. I’m figuring out when and where to eat, when and how to exercise, who and how to see. Most of all I’m figuring out what to say and when, for communication requires the most energy of all. I have about a month to squeeze as much of this book inside my heart and head and hands into the world, and I’ve never better understood the double entendre of such words as produce, create, birth.

So the heavens and false prophets are roaring, the new year is starting, and I perch out of time, breezy and sun-dappled, in a house flanked by woods and sea. Blessed silence lent by a blessed friend. I write with Nina and Aretha filling the air and permakitten prowling the perimeters, tail and nose twitching. I love her so, not just for that sweetly striped fur but for the contract we share. A witch’s cat, she has duties and respects them. So do I. Small and sleek, she may look decorative but she guards us both and welcomes what she should. Her purrs and growls are better than any burglar alarm; her time and space shore me so.

Outside this house an old, gnarled apple tree spills her fruit onto the grass. The decay is sweet— heartbreaking, really—and as I work and Grace stands sentry we both sniff the air. Green, gold, g-d, and those apples not far from the tree. Like me. Here in the land of my birth, I am writing my way to the ancestors. Send love. I do.