Hudson, age 3.75, is currently fixated on being “the good guy.” He suits up with imaginary bows and arrows, sticky splats, and “shooters” (his workaround because I don’t like guns) and goes to imaginary battle with all ranges of bad guys all day long.

One time, too late, I tried to ask my grandmother with dementia what it was like to live during WWII. Either because of her imperfect memory or mine, I don’t remember her having much to say about it, except, “oh well, times were tough.”

This wasn’t supposed to be some artsy photoshoot. It actually lacked any intentionality. I don’t even know what a lip mask is for, really—it just came in my FabFitFun box, and I put it on obediently so that, you know, beauty could happen.

It is coincidental at best that I am wearing a lip mask that presents me from speaking while I have been shaking out my bedsheets, trying to find where my voice is hiding. I’ve been thumbing through the pages of literature, like Peter Pan looking for his shadow. Scrolling online to see if my voice is lurking on a like button.

It isn’t.

I have a time sensitive window in which to see a shooting star.

And the time constraint is: how long does it take for my melatonin to kick in.

I’m wrapped in an old rescued creature comfort—the M&M blanket I stole from my sister, with bare feet on November pavement, and I’m looking up through the clouds in vain hope.

I only slept because I took a melatonin supplement. But when I wasn’t sleeping, I was thinking about Pennsylvania. And polling. And uncertainty. And protest.

But, I woke up this morning, too early, with a book of bad poetry next to my bed, with the most beautiful sympathy card ever written:

On the night of my miscarriage, I made dinner from Hello Fresh, and Jeremy moved a stack of 159 bricks into the garage. I took solace in the measured portions, the controlled steps, and the predictable outcome. Jeremy liked the neat stacking.

Still, I burnt the dinner.

There are big things in my heart.

Unreachable things. I keep burrowing. Rather than turn on my shows at night, rather than drown my day in noise that distracts and diverts, I sit in my bed and try to listen to the big things happening here in my heart.

My dad eats half an avocado every morning. He wakes up and leaves the house before dawn, but still, every morning, he slices an avocado and fries an egg on a special skillet that no one cleans right but him. There’s usually some sort of specialty cheese in his fixings. He consumes his breakfast in a hurry, because he’s got to leave time to empty the dishwasher (if he hasn’t already) before he heads out the door. He often takes homemade whole-wheat toast in a paper towel. I don’t know how he manages not to drip honey on himself while he drives. He often leaves the news on for my mom.