Go Slowly

Advice for Writing and Living in 2022

It is okay to get started slowly; it is Monday, after all, and only the second of the year.

It is okay if you could not sleep last night. Neither could I, nor could Pearl, whose paws clicked back and forth from the hall into our bedroom and back again for hours; who followed me downstairs when I finally got up to write down a thought that kept percolating, a phrase worth remembering; who ran ahead of me to the back door and wandered the backyard in the moonlight and the wind; who did not want to come back inside. For me, the unusual sleeplessness may have been too many cups of coffee, though I suspect it was something else that kept us both up. She is an anxious dog. There is a lot of that feeling going around.

It is okay that I slept until 8 a.m., this last day of my son’s winter break (assuming his high school keeps its plan to open tomorrow). I woke with the heavy presence of sleeping dogs, Pearl and her more chillaxed brother, squeezing me like parentheses. I kept my face hidden because I have learned that until we make eye contact, they will settle down with a sigh and wait until I am ready.

It is okay that Pearl could not settle, that she rolled to her back for a belly scratch. Lucky for both of us, my extended hand landed in the right spot, so I could give what she needed or…