The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Hi friends.

I have a book coming out next week so I’m not going to lie, I’m a little distracted. Everything feels a little messy and chaotic. When I put a big project out into the world for people to consume it cracks open all these little wormholes connected to my past and I have to just be willing to receive whatever happens because I don’t have a choice anyway. And I will have some feelings that seem like they come out of nowhere. And I will have to define myself, to myself, to keep things steady. Like: Writer, middle-aged lady, person who feels things and that’s OK.

Plus all these weird things have been happening to me, like small personal disasters, or I’ve been witnessing other people do weird things. The Friday before Christmas I woke up early, like at 5 am, to take the trash out and I saw a man dressed in 18th century finery walking down the median outside my house, I’m talking a grey bag wig and suit and tails, and he waved hello and I was like, is that a ghost, or is this just New Orleans where people like to dress up and then end up having long nights and then they walk home because they can’t find a cab? But it sort of felt odd enough that I couldn’t shake it. Then New Year’s Day I saw a man busily picking apart some kind of slab of meat in a park near my house, and next to him there was just a pile of shredded meat he was building, and I thought: this is the opposite of abundance.

Meanwhile it’s cold and rainy and every night I end the day shivering in this drafty house of mine and I have to take a bath before I go to bed and so there I am, finishing the night in this liquid state, it’s been like that for weeks. I’ve been having lots of vivid dreams, too, and I just feel like my head is another place entirely. Last night I just thought to myself: embrace the chaos, lady. So I shall. Even though I don’t think my life is chaotic anymore, I don’t think of myself as a chaotic person. Although for so long I was. Or at least that was the story I told myself.