For awhile, now, I've felt like the things I used to post up in this space just aren't there anymore. And it's left me feeling startled. But not empty or void of anything that I wanted to be there -- anymore. I've wondered if being really happy in life (not sitting around late into the night with gaping wounds and bag fulls of self-pity and doubt and too much red wine) had left me without words -- without the ability to weave sounds into images that might tear at your hearts -- at least a little bit. I was worried I'd lost something of me -- of my ability to write love letters that make even the strongest of souls jump as if sneaked up upon by ghosts. But the other night, hunched up in the stairwell of my apartment building, alone. I didn't long to spill out my guts onto any page. About anything. And maybe that feels good for a change. Maybe not having to narrate a life means that I am actually just now living one. I don't have to write sprawling love letters meant to convince the love in my life -- of anything. We live love, together. And sometimes we spill it all over ourselves and make messes that have to be cleaned up. But those emotions work themselves out of me into him and back again. And there's usually not much left for this space -- or blank pages tied into a book. I use them all to live. To breathe. To share. I miss the rhythms that used to beat words in and out of sense in my head. That used to just spill out of me when I least expected it. And maybe that will return. The mimetic beats of the universe always seem to naturally even themselves out. But mostly, words have simply just felt cold to me lately. And muted. The cadence to them has been left out. Even my email messages come off a bit flat and rehearsed -- have a nice summer they all say.

It's the spring. And I am happy. And I do have things to say. (See how plain and ugly those statements sounded?) But it seems I've lost the voice with which to speak them into you. And after all, maybe that's a good thing. Because that old voice. She brought a lot of pain and hurt with her. And maybe now what I need to do is learn how to speak, again.