The world descends.
Such is the movement of winter: a plunge into chaos. The once sun-struck world, smug in its cool explicability, begins to de-strand. Landscapes soften with snow and humans smudge themselves to stubs. Who are we in winter? Embryos in gestation, seeds in hibernation.
I try to keep my spirits up, and often, I am successful (some day I will tell you my long list of tactics, all of which keep me above water). But on certain evenings, my brain waves begin a whole new dance, and I feel unmoored, and then consumed.
I remember my dreams too, of which there are many. One night I was a Muslim in a British cafe, and people were mocking me, threatening. I was unafraid- haughty even, in the face of their ignorance. Another night, my husband had printed off my manuscript into small, untitled books, and distributed them among two friends and an ex-boyfriend. I don't know why he gave it to the ex, but we met in the library to discuss my failures, and his was an endless list of bullet-ed literary complaints, explained with disgust. He even had a blog, which I looked up later in the dream, dedicated solely to enumerating my faults. This dream was expected, because I had dreamt about my book every night that week, as if my subconscious had only one concern.
My editor has my manuscript, which explains the concerns of my subconscious. He has had it for three weeks now. Unable to edit it myself, I read. I read books as if divining my own fate from their pages, reading classics as condemnation. Are they better than me? How much better? Some of them hurt to read; others are encouraging. I wish I could do more than this, wish I could write new things. But my brain is mummified, my body perpetually cold.
So I read, and wait.
-Sondra
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