In the Dead-Letter Office

It gets more difficult to write, in some ways -- or rather, to bring myself to click the "publish" button. I tire of hearing my own voice, for one thing. For another, the burden of my failures weighs on me: so much of my writing has been of the preaching and exhorting sort, and I'm feeling less and less that I have any standing for that. Who am I to advise anyone on eye-motes?

And then, I am ever more acutely aware of how very little time remains. I used to write to kill time. I'm not feeling so spendthrift, now.

And this weather, this dark, sullen, sultry summer overcast, is weighing on me. I want to reach up and sweep the clouds away. Where is the sun?

But: this is valuable for me. To stop and write. Even if I start by writing the same old thing: even that will nudge me towards replying to myself, to taking it further, to going beyond. And I am, maybe, learning how to write in my own house. Dangerous; difficult; long overdue.

I run a hand over the tickle of my beard, the rasp of my unshaved throat, listen to the whirr of the refrigerator and the keen of my tinnitus. There's a sound just barely audible beneath those: the respiration of some gigantic creature under the ground. I am still surrounded by messengers and messages. I need to attend, for me as well as for them. I have to let it be all right, if the letters are dead ones. That's not my business.