I hope you’re well today, that the tragedies of the week haven’t beaten you down. Fires and hurricanes and losing the notorious RBG... it was a tough, tough week. I’m sending you peace today.

So here we are, my first missive from the new office. The first words written in what will prove to be the second half of my already very interesting life. There’s something special about this, yes? This realization that today marks the moment I move forward into a new space, a new realm?  I have a friend who would have the right words for this, something perfect and spiritual and meaningful and symbolic about starting anew. Me, I’ll just call this the reset.

We still haven’t moved, but since my office at home is denuded of all things including desk, computer, chairs, and bookshelves, we set things up here in a temporary office. I have a view out the window, and glass doors that give me a peek into the house. Even with the banging—tile going into the laundry room—it is serene. I can see sky. The room is light, airy. Soon, it will be filled with very tall bookshelves, and it will feel very much like me. I’m tempted to only put in a few bookcases, but I don’t know what I would do with the rest of the books. Give them away, I suppose. Which feels ... strange. I’m doing a real-live Marie Kondo of everything that comes into the new space. Do my books count? Can they be pared down?

Living in a staged house has given me both the tools to edit my life and the desire for less. Maybe the lightness I feel is not being smothered by my possessions.

Another interesting thing: I’ve noticed creativity starting to knock at my mind’s door. When I am here, it feels like there is promise. I wonder if I simply sapped all the creative spirit from our old house. It gave us so much over the years, perhaps it, too, needs to have the well refilled.

I am writing a new book, mostly just in my head and with a few notes here and there. It is going to be the most difficult book I’ve ever written. I know this going in, and wonder if I should even attempt this. Maybe now isn’t the right time. Maybe now, with this transition, this life-changing event of moving house, maybe it’s too much to tackle.

But the story won’t let me go. The characters keep revealing their little secrets to me. I can see them. They are not unmolded clay, they are vibrant and real, and ready.

So I will honor this strange moment in time, and give them a chance to come out to play. It is a book about transformations, after all.

Onward!

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What are you reading?

That’s it from me. I’ll see you next week! And I’ll leave you with this beautiful thought to meditate on today, from Mary Oliver’s poem The Ponds:

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.

Peace and hugs,
J.T.