The Brochure Doesn't Have to Mean Anything Yet

Mid-November and the floor of my living room is apparently where I do my best thinking. I don't know when that started. At some point this fall I stopped making decisions at the table and started making them sitting cross-legged on the hardwood with something warm in my hands, which probably says something about me.

The community center brochure has been sitting in my bag since the beginning of the month, I picked it up on impulse, tucked it next to my transit card, forgot about it, found it again three times. Tonight I finally took it out and just... opened it. Flipped through the winter session listings. Ceramics. Beginner drawing. A cooking class that meets on Wednesday nights. I didn't circle anything. I didn't write anything down. I just read through it the way you read a menu when you're not sure if you're hungry yet, half-present, running your eyes over everything and committing to nothing.

not reading it, just... holding it

The thing I keep circling, in my head, not on the page, is that I want to do something with my hands. I noticed it a few weeks ago, almost by accident, in the gap after everything settled down with the Carol situation and the post I'd been drafting in various forms for two years. Everything went quiet and what I noticed in the quiet was that I hadn't made anything in months. The blog is making something, technically. But I think I mean something that takes up physical space, something you could hold. I don't know what that is yet. The brochure is just the first sign that the itch is becoming a gesture, and for now that's enough.

the tea gets cold while I think about it