All around, I see life reconvening. I love the fertile smell of the earth in April. I love the sounds of birds back. I am not so dead. My bedraggled soul not completely gone. I can be restored. I walked purposefully out to the brink and then looked back. Here’s what I saw:

A step outside. Another. And maybe then a long walk with no where in particular to go. Taking a book to the park. Sunlight on my face. A different view. A ride in the back of a bus. I will ride all the way around. A game of Frisbee.

I will take my camera outside, downtown, to the market, to the harbor side, to the lake, among the shoppers and the walkers and the crowds. Chatting with a stranger. A coffee in a café. Brunch. Brunch would restore this withered soul. A hotdog from a street corner vendor. I will load it up with cheese and bacon bits and everything that is bad for me.

A painting class. Perhaps, after all, a salsa class. A date. A kindness, a smile, a touch, might just be enough to crack this frozen surface. Discovering I have something in common with a stranger. A letter. An actual hand-written letter. I will write a letter to a neglected friend. It will be in my handwriting. It will be touched by my pen. And it will be so much more genuine than an email.

I will turn my computer off for a week. No typing. No porn-surfing. No online gaming. A pen. A notebook. A book. Something, after all of this electronic rigmarole, tangible. That sense, in fact, would be the quickest path. My ass touches the same chair. My feet touch the same space of floor. My hands on the keyboard. Touch has been the most quarantined. Touch will be the easiest road out of here.

Buying my new camera. I’ve saved up for nearly a year and I’m almost there. I can barely wait.

An official spokesperson for the Vatican, meanwhile, comes out in his robes and looks at everyone confused, and takes the stage and a bullhorn and says, “What? What are you still doing here? Why, why are you still here? It’s over. Go home.”

SS