The nights are noisy with my dreams. In the morning, bits and pieces flash before me until the quiet silences them. I want to be quiet. I let the loud crashing of my demons simmer down. It’s hard to talk when there’s so much grief in this world. All the stories held in ink on all the pages everywhere, the weight of it holds me to myself.

This sounds poetic but it’s not. I just keep thinking about how loud the world is, how there are stories everywhere and what we take in matters. I take in my own stories and they are enough for an entire lifetime. Yet the media waits with her claws to tell me more stories.

This is the time to seek out the trees. The trees that still stand, pulling sustenance from the world. Our universe is 13.8 billion years old. We are flashes of light, lit then fading fast. Yet we take so much from our planet that its days are numbered.

Still I seek out the trees. What can you teach me about living with destruction? How do you weather change and make change? Spring arrives this week, and some of the buds are still pulled tight, gathering sustenance before they bloom. Some are opening. All draw sustenance from the unseasonably warm days.

I pull myself to myself. I make a bud out of my body. My body dreams. I wake several times, startled by my own body’s news. In the morning, I quiet my body down with a walk. The birds fly from tree to tree. Their buds hold tight as the day warms.

I’m making a space for my grief about this destructive world. I’m holding my ears and keeping some of her horrible news out. I’m learning to survive. My work is making a calm space for my girls to grow. My work is writing what I know to be true on these pages even when I’d rather turn away. My work is making a path even when I fear that humans have erased all the paths with their greedy selves.

My dreams scream and glow. I let them be and I make myself rise through habits I practice every day. I hold my ears to the trees. They know more than me.