A Name I Wasn't Expecting

Late August. The message came in through the blog contact form, which I forget exists for weeks at a time, then remember exists all at once when something actually lands in it. It started with 'I found your blog through, ' and then a name. Not a stranger's name. Not a random. A name that made me read the sentence again, slower, with that very specific feeling of your understanding of a situation quietly revising itself.

I didn't click through on the share notification I got a few weeks ago. I mentioned that, I was holding it at arm's length on purpose, the way you sometimes don't open a letter right away because you already know it's going to require something from you. I thought if I didn't look, the question of who shared it would stay abstract and manageable. What I did not account for was someone just. Telling me. Indirectly, without drama, in the second line of a very normal message about the post itself.

the mug and the window and not knowing what to do with a name

I've been sitting with the name for two days. Not in a bad way, exactly. More in the way you sit with something when you realize you've been asking the wrong question. I kept wondering who shared it; I should have been wondering how long ago. Gerald put out another leaf this week, which I am, once again, choosing not to interpret. I made tea I didn't finish. I stood at the kitchen window for a while and looked at the alley and didn't do anything dramatic about any of it.

Gerald in the background. me, not typing.

I think what I'm actually going to do is nothing. Respond to the message normally, like a person with a normal blog that people sometimes find. File the name in the place I file things I'm not ready to turn over yet. The 'Why Did You Start It' post already cost me most of my nerve this month, I published it and walked to the end of the block and came back, and that was enough for one August. This is a question I can carry into September.