Waking Back Up

For me and several people I know, January was a smudge--until one day it wasn't any more.
I had, as one friend called it in an email this morning about her own: "an attack of the doldrums."

It does seem to come that way sometimes, as a sneaky attack from out of nowhere, and I've learned to just pay attention when it comes and figure out how to make it pass.  In my case, I was stewing about something I didn't yet have words or courage to express.  When I finally did, the doldrums passed, and I realized that stewing may be better suited to certain birds and vegetables than people.

On the other hand, the stewing is good--if we listen to what it brings up from the bottom of the pan.

I got an email from my good friend/editor/publisher, Jerri Strozier, this morning that described what I'm feeling: "waking back up to life." Jerri has had way more than her share of heating problems in this cold Asheville winter--not to mention other things on her big plate.  But when she woke up this morning, the heating finally fixed, the toll taken, she wrote: "So besides sleeping and resting, I'm sort of waking up to my life again."

Jerri and I often talk about writing.  "This morning I'm thinking if I were completely comfortable, I might not be a writer. And I'm glad I'm a writer, glad for the pebbles in my shoe."

Here's to making stone soup with the pebbles in our shoes!