small thoughts

short notes from strange weeks

For the past few weeks I’ve existed in a state of glitch. The wells of deep thinking that arrive when I am well and calm and ordered have shrunk to puddles. I have splashed in them in unexpected moments: sitting in the garden, watching my son sit in my husband’s lap, the pair of them playing some game of their own creation, feeling untethered. The seconds of deeply comfortable silence found between an old friend in a sandpit, as our children busy themselves. A journey on the top deck of the bus.

April was a month when I felt barely removed from my son. He pushes into my bed, sleeps on my body. It’s unusual and not entirely welcome and while it happens I both hold him and tell myself that one day I will crave it while worrying that it will never end. April was a month when I prepared to release a book, something people call exciting but I find leaden with anxiety. I have existed between these two strange states: one of deep, near-claustrophobic intimacy with a child who has, at most, 120 words. One of great public exposure. I have oscillated between the two, glitching.