normalise running off to stare at a tree to remember who you are.

a lyrical exploration of solitude and nature

This year, my great ambition is to make my brain a kinder place to be and reclaim the ability to sit inside a thought without feeling the need to escape. I’m trying to piece together a lot. You’re trying to make a few things work. Life keeps on coming at us, and for us, and for that we are grateful.

I am grateful. It’s just the way things are right now. It’s a barrage of stuff, right? The news. All the news. All the suppressed horror and the politics. All the politics. The lonely. The angry. The Easter Deals. All the not being quite where you want to be,

for whatever reason.

In other news, my downstairs neighbour put out a birdfeeder shaped like a house, but the birds don’t know how to act. There is bird feed littering the front porch and the pavement, and the little house is broken in half.

I miss something I cannot name - life before a bombardment of pings and flashes. A brain not drowning in information. I wake up thinking about what to do and how to survive. I wake up halfway through a monologue, where my brain reminds me of various never-ending tasks: to nudge x about y, pay the bill, contest the other bill, talk to my accountant, finally sync my calendars with my manager, and say something funny in the group chat. Call back Z so he can vent. I don’t like to wake up halfway through these thoughts; already on the train, as it were,

but so it is. So it is. So we are. Overstimulated, vaguely empty.

I remember the quiet. A memory appears: my baby brother and I, playing tea party in the backyard with sponge cake and cream soda, the sun warming our skinny legs. Even though all was not well back then, we were in a constant state of imagination and play. There was little else to do or think except watch the ladybirds while drinking pretend tea. No incessant updates, no feeling left behind. I ache for that unhurried rhythm.

I find a spot beneath a tree in this new park I happened across in South L.A. Nothing like the vast flowering parks in London, but still, a patch of green amid the city. Lavender, yellow and white flowers bloom, and toddlers run, delightfully hollering. Afternoon light filters through the leaves, and I wonder if I should have brought a book, but then I remember that this part is about sitting, nothing else. I stare into the green, watching the breeze stirring the higher branches.

My mind, so used to a swirl of constant input, freaks out a little.

I want to know if I said the wrong thing two days ago when I shot an email back in a rush, or how I’ll phrase a new email telling one of my reps I no longer want to work together. Or how to put together a carefully worded message for a company that Still Hasn’t Paid Up. My mind becomes more urgent: Do It Now…Just Do It Now or Plan Something or At Least Be Reading!?

At Least Be Replying To A Message. At Least Be Making A Shopping List.