I’m sure you’ve known something like this: the thing that didn’t become wrong, but somehow is no longer right. It sits inside that part of you with cowardice and inaction. Procrastination. Reluctance. Maybe tomorrow I won’t feel this way, you think. But you always do. Eventually, there must be an action.

I’m craving somewhere less safe, more permanent. I hope I find it. Until then, I won’t be putting anything new here. My Mental Milkcrate is full to the top.

And so I thank you. Friends, lovers, acquaintances, and passersby. The silent and the effusive. I found my voice in this space, and I’m grateful for all who witnessed, encouraged, and sympathized.

My email is jess(at)mymentalmilkcrate.ca, if you’d like to keep in touch. And I’m “milkcratejess” on Twitter.

Be well. I’ll miss you.

If, perhaps, there were more to say tonight, I would find myself curled around the steering wheel, resting on your wrist. And all the other secret places you never thought to lie about.

Lydia sighs into a pen and cups her palms around morphology that settles in elusively bold strokes on shards of used paper.

Meditation, following meandering paths, seems appropriate now. Escaping the weight of city life and people. Finding a place for myself among silences and snowflakes. I wrap myself in solitude. Slip past midnight into this new year.

This season is always both contemplative and chaotic. Something about the preparations and the people creates swirls and eddies in my thought patterns but leaves a kind of stillness in the centre. I’ve watched the sunrise this morning. Gradients of orange and yellow to purple-gray clouds. I haven’t actually seen the sun yet. Such a slow process at this latitude at this time of year.

There are some few last minute tasks. But they won’t take much time. As my dad would say, “It’s time to slip into dawdle.”

I came home with only Fiesta Red ink for my fountain pen. Feeling quiet and expansive. Shifting into this other self. Who is breathing gently into the darkness of mid-December, thrilled by every string of Christmas lights.

We fight against the gravity of small bodies. And leave the corners blank.

I am delighted.

Delighted doesn’t quite capture it.

I am gleeful. Elated. Kid-on-Christmas-morning out of my mind.

I’ve driven on the roads that have yet to be cleared. I’ve had to be pushed onto the road by a stranger. I’ve had to forward-reverse-forward-upshift-reverse-forward on several occasions times. Getting anywhere takes that tiny bit longer that seems to make other people cranky. None of that touches this vibration of excitement. This is how all Decembers should be.

That’s a big realization — and an even bigger admission. I knew, in an off-hand, not-really-admitting kind of way, that I was a good writer. I had a knack that perhaps, kinda sorta, people found entertaining. Oh, I’ve been encouraged (repeatedly). I’ve been prodded (persistently). And I’ve worn out my heels shuffling my feet along this dirt road. Choked on the clouds of dust I’ve been kicking up. Enough is almost enough.

Strangely, I don’t feel like I’ve wasted all these years with my indecision and self-doubt. I’ve been ripening and practising. I realized how far I’d come when I was writing a short profile article about two months ago. I wrote a bit of description that I was particularly pleased with. The words lined up in front of me and danced in perfect synchronization. But as the article took shape, I discovered that little bit of description detracted from the focus of the article. So I cut it. And my heart didn’t cry out. My world didn’t collapse. The article came back to me with a resounding 96% on it.

The problem is I’m not really sure what I mean to do. I’ve given myself another few months to suss out what I want. I feel like I’m on the cusp of something huge. It’s more like a chasm that I’m going to have to crawl down without knowing where my next toe-hold is. Or maybe I’m at the bottom crawling up. I don’t know. There’s a damn lot of rock, in any case. And only a few possibilities for the consequences of climbing.