pause to breathe

the first morning after i've finished a major writing project always feels like the first morning of summer vacation when i was a kid. inevitably, my mother let me sleep in. inevitably, i'd wake up right around the same time i always had to get up for school. and inevitably, i'd wander around the house wondering what it was i supposed to do with myself.

my desk is littered with scraps of pencils, pens and hairbrushes, old coffee cups, tubes of hand cream, lip balm and heart-shaped post-it notes. sheaves of drafts pile like dirty snow drifts around my feet. where to next, i think...and the voices of other characters rise in all too eager chorus.

but the big screen in my head stays blank.

my body feels a familiar, forward motion, even as my center pauses, stills. to connect back into that deep place, that still place, will be my task today.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.