Fightin' & Laura

I'm a little obsessed with this song. And Laura Mvula.

It's a grey day, light rain, you have to pay for the sunny days with something. I was spoiled over spring break, eighty degrees and a lake, it was slightly miraculous.

Turns out that it rains at the lake, too

When I was in middle school, my mother told me that I was in a chrysalis, fighting against the package I was sealed in, strengthening my wings until I burst forth. I resonate with the fighting part, I always have: if I could have stopped time, I would have done so already. I would have done it in September when a friend and I danced to Glen Ellyn. I would have frozen staring at my Christmas tree with my little brother. There would a snapshot of reading on the dock of Lake Marion that I could enter whenever I wanted to. But it's Wednesday and it's raining.

Photo Bombin'

Nordstrom employees weren't fans of our modeling

I didn't develop powers over spring break, but I did cultivate a bit of acceptance. I called it resignation at first, because I had no other word for it: I've been mourning May for a long time. But talking to a friend over lattes this morning, she mentioned the word and I realized that's what I meant. I accept that I am walking forward, out of February and March and April and into the vast unknown that lies after May 11.

You can see this kind of stuff from airplanes

It's not entirely unknown. I have an interview tomorrow and I applied to jobs last week and (in typical style) I have about five back up plans. But the fighting, trying to smash the puzzle pieces that I want to interlock together until everything's a little bent, including myself. The fighting is over. I don't stop. It's time to walk forward, to decide that the next seven weeks will be brilliant, to welcome the rain as it melts the snow and turns the soil into daffodils.

My Beloved City

She don't stop, she don't stop, she don't stop.

E

My Beloved Home