This word is one small stone. I lift it up onto the page because I told myself I’d keep going. I’d keep writing here every day past my November goal. Why? I can be sarcastic and mean to myself and say these words don’t matter except I know they do matter for me. I’m writing this for me. To make a place for my practice and who I hope to become: a better writer. Maybe with a little bigger audience. But mostly because when I get comments, it’s lovely. And when I don’t get comments, I’ve still rearranged my day to make a practice of writing here. I tell my writing students to write 10 minutes a day no matter what. If I tell them to do it, I have to do it myself. Even on weekends. Even on days when I have no writing work to do for work. And I want to do more work than the 15 minute free write I’ve been doing every morning. I want to craft a little bit but not a lot. Start the musings that might become essays, the kernels of poems, the beauty of what I see all around me. And the darkness too.

Like the way the birds with the black and white tails sailed past my eyes as I walked to work today. The sound of their feathers rustling the air and reaching my ears. I followed them with my eyes: their darting and settling, darting and settling.

I am darting and settling myself these days. Aren’t you?

Dart & settle.

Dart. Settle. & Dart.

Darn. I am darning my days together with words.