I wondered where I'd be. I got the answer tonight; an answer that was nearly four years in coming. As usual, the answer wasn't what I expected.

It was less.

It was more.

There is silence, scented with bergamot, and a cup of tea that more than one friend has told me whose leaves smell "more like a big sweaty guy named Earl than some proper English tea called Earl Grey."

In the past month, the angle of the sun has changed enough that the guest bedroom now sees bright slats of midafternoon light. For the sixth autumn straight, the cats have made it a point to sunbathe and drowse amidst the motes. They doze in tangles of brotherly paws and tails, kitty-snoring into each others' ears amidst the fresh-folded laundry.

…and I thought about how sometimes I go to such pains in my writing. If I have made any promise at all to myself, it is that I will not live an unexamined life; I will not stumble blindly from event to event, from year to year. Even then, with that promise in hand, I find myself more often than not standing toe-to-toe with truths I don't always like—and more often than not, I'm the one to back down. It's easier to choose humor over honesty.

Two years, minus eight days, ago:

Comfort care, for the living, is the cell phone that rings at a random hour, with the voice of an old friend on the other end of the line who says, "Look, I know you're up. Walk out of the room and talk to me."
— 'Comfort care,' 18 March 2002

Part one of two. Yin: darkness.

In the process of moving on, there's an ill-defined moment when it's time to move the hell on with your life, because you've exhausted all the Magic Friend Juju your friends have to spare, and they just don't know what to do with you any more. If you're lucky, you realize you've worn out your welcome about five minutes before your friends realize it, and you get the hell out of Dodge to finish scabbing yourself over, hoping your friends acknowledge you when you next drag your ass back into town.I did that about a year ago. Learned to shut up, mostly because there comes a point when the one thing you absolutely can't stand is the look of pity, the sound of words that are meant to be comforting, but distorted through a haze of anger and grief come out as ...

noise.

"..and the prince and the drummer and the fire girls
Couldn't get our guitars in tune
And I knew it was over when the sound man said
"I wish we were still in ..."

June.

Every now and then, it's fun to reconnect with someone who has been out of the loop for a few weeks, just for the sheer fun of surprising them with what's been going on in your life.