perfect

I am looking out again. This time, the view is different. In fact, it is a view. It is a new view on life and writing and reading and smiling and health and being. So here I am all moved in to the new place, to this place that really feels like a first home. It's homey. Homey apartment that is not a box. With a room for everything I need. With rooms that flow together, open rooms. With windows, tall windows that cross, diagonal, from one side, one side of one side, to the other. Furniture that belongs, that belongs to me and represents me. Furniture I bought and built. Snickers running through the place, turning corners, sleeping at my feet and on the patio.

Now that I'm settled, my mind is settling. I'm back at it. Things are right. I read "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard this weekend. It changed things, or reaffirmed things, or made me change or think. I'm reading "At Large and At Small" by Anne Fadiman. She changed things, reaffirmed things. Familiar things. The familiar essay is right, is what I'm doing. I'm working on five essays right now. I'm back at it. I'm at my desk, looking out the window, writing, thinking, believing again. I exercised on my indoor bike in this office watching an episode of "The O.C." online and then sat down to the writing again. I've discovered that there is this one spot at the meeting of two cushions on my couch that is perfect for reading. It feels right.

I turn off my bedroom light at night and open the blinds so I can see the sky. I've done this for as long as I can remember, but I haven't been able to see the sky for three years. My first night sleeping here, I opened the blinds and nearly cried at the sight of the moon through the slats, from my bed. I fell asleep following the moon again. Last night I saw lightning. It flashed through my room. I fell asleep to thunder and the flashes of lightning.

I'm home. And it's changed things. I moved in and felt the immediate dread of leaving. Only a year here, huh? That's sucks. I don't want to apartment search again in six months. I don't want the anxiety of it all again just yet. I want to enjoy it here. It's made me reconsider my urge to leave Lawrence immediately after I graduate in May. I could stay another year or so. I don't have to rush, right? I'm thinking about my possible book (thesis) and the job market and how I already have a job here and a good place and good people. And maybe I could stay here--not forever--but for another year. When the job market unfreezes, when I have a book and publications to my name, when I have a degree and a life outside of classes. I could stay here for a bit. For a little bit. Take it a bit slower. I'm open, more open to it. See? This place has changed things.