This morning I went back to my journals. I opened March 2004. Here is something I wrote in my journal then:

So much in march. So much in it. The gray, gray sky.

Trees, burdened with late falling snow. Trees aching and arching. And limbs that break into goosebumps at the thought of brushing against them.

The buds were out red and proper and then the snow came and hid them. All winter long we’ve seen the deer tracks but now, we see, more easily, the tracks of the smaller creatures.

In Death Valley on the sand dunes, one can see patterns and twirls, shapes and road ways from the night before. The sidewinder leaves an ess behind. Rodents, beetles, tiny dropping prints. They fall in and out of shadow until the sun is too high and everything goes white.

No one will rush forward to defend beliefs. To help strangers. No one will force the car to stop. No one.

What will happen?

I ask this question over and over but it is never answered. I have no indication that anything will happen at all. Surely, though, just by existing things happen. They always do. They happen.

March, oh, March. You, damp and wet, you. You, dark and light, you. To feel your paper hands on my face once more is love. It is love.

The dog has the same eyes as my mother. He sees me with her eyes. I know who he is, my dog. He’s not telling me anything. He’s just here for me to take care of, to love.

Protect and protect and protect and covet, covet, covet.

It is as old and as cold as the old and cold sea. The snow exists forever. It blasts into the dark night where eyes wait to see it. It blasts. Blasts into the dark night, tracking the sky like all of the world’s born and unborn—stars and meteors and comets.

Did I dream it or did I find real pictures of my garden? I think it was a dream. Lying in the grass by the rows and rows of beans and lettuce. We just never ate it all.

No one really believes, I don’t think, that I will go back there.

There are tracks in the snow leading to the semicircle of gray, black. And moon. A meandering stream.

Snow wisps down and trickles, filling it all in.

Will there never be news that is good? I am ready to give in. Give in.

“Don’t try,” is what Bukowski’s tomb stone says. Maybe it’s a challenge. It means don’t try so hard. Just do. Or don’t bother but really meant as a challenge.

Don’t try, don’t bother.

I would like to go back to bed and be warm but I can’t. I need to wash the floors. I need to do so many things.

don’t try. don’t try. don’t try.
don’t bother. don’t try. don’t bother.
don’t try. don’t bother. don’t try.
don’t bother. don’t bother. don’t bother.

Someday it will all come out of me again. It will come and I won’t stop it.

Move. If you don’t move then you will stop. Move. Movement is the key. Use it or lose it. Move. Keep moving. Movement is momentum. Forward motion. With forward motion you leave a path for others to follow.

I have become slow and hollow. Need to move and fast. And move.

Tomorrow is the beginning of this new day when all movement is forward. It can still be reflective but it must also be forward. Okay? Yes.

Here is a piece I wrote two years ago, based on the journal entry:

There is so much in it.

The gray sky. Trees burdened with late falling snow, aching and arching with limbs breaking into goose bumps at the thought of someone brushing against them.

All winter long there were tracks of deer, leading to the semicircle of gray, black. And a moon. A meandering stream.

All winter long snow whispered down and trickled. The birds sang nowhere.

Then there are the tracks of the smaller creatures–the chipmunks and squirrel, fisher and fox. When the buds are out, red and proper, the snow comes again and hides them. Trees are slick with green and wet and one of them oozes white foam, like spit. A fat robin pecks at the earth. Snow melts and pools, shifts to raining. The balsams are feathery light and driveway gravel glows in the gloom. But nothing matches the sky for its whiteness. It is a desert of white–untouched, unmoving.

On the sand, on the dunes, there are patterns and twirls, shapes and roadways. The sidewinder, the rodents, the beetles–all leave something behind. Then they fall in and out of shadow until the sun is too high and everything goes white.

It is that whiteness.

To feel those paper hands on my face once more is love but they are as old and as cold as the old and cold sea where the snow exists forever. Where it blasts into the dark night, tracking the sky like all of the world’s born and unborn—stars and meteors and comets.

Two years have passed and I’m wondering about the choices I made. The clearing of the clutter. Where they the right ones? There is still work to be done. It’s exciting.