The things that make my life really good right now are getting emails like this:

Dearest dear darling dearest darling dear,

In the fantasy of our apartment (which, in the fantasy, is a house), there is absolutely a porch.  I think there is also a tree house. I’ve never been in a tree house, but I bet you if I had one I would spend all of my time there, and I wouldn’t bring my cell phone, and I wouldn’t tell anyone about it, except for you, because it would be your tree house too.  

and having moments like 

being shoulder to shoulder on the dock with blood and blood, brother and cousin, looking up at the full sky of stars and making up our own constellations because we don't know the real ones. feeling one, and small. part of something, and large. whole, fragmented, and right. 

I was in Wisconsin, for a whirlwind of worry and preparation. The medicine card I drew right before I left was Squirrel. Gathering. Gather your strength and your courage, your love and your wisdom, to prepare for big changes and metaphorical long winters. Not worry, anger, fear. Not psychic junk. That is what I tried to do, but I didn't really have my presence. I was jumping around and jumpy and not really all there. We were all doing what we could and being what we could and I was being mostly small and frightened, and emptying wastepaper baskets and making inopportune jokes, and silently helping the food get cooked and eaten and the wine get drunk. This morning came and Grandma went into surgery and came out and is fine and we are all grateful and relieved and happy and loving, but there is still big pain all around.

Now I am back in Buffalo. There is a thunderstorm outside and it is hot and I am alone with the cats and my thoughts in the apartment, breathing, thinking, for the first time I can remember in at least a month. There are a million people to see and things to do in the coming week. I work all the days for the next foreseeable future. I am trying to plan a trip to Minnesota and Wisconsin for July sometime and not to be guilty about it, the money and the time, the people it means I will see and won't see. 

My heart is too big, and it is cracking. It is near capacity, if there is such a thing.

All I want is a vacation in my apartment. I would clean everything. I would wash the floors on my hands and knees and lemon oil them, and build a spice rack, and get rid of all the extra papers that somehow wend their way into my bedroom. I would lounge and bake strawberry shortcake, read Alice Notley and Roland Barthes, write poems, sing songs to myself, watch old French films. I would not talk to anyone but I would write letters and emails to all the people I owe letters and emails to. I would slow down and figure everything out. I would somehow make money, a lot of it. I would come out the other side Zen and so fresh and so clean, clean, and not snapping at everyone and hiding out and running running running marathons, or running running running away, like I am doing right now.