I’m sober, writing, reading, meditating, and socializing – yet I still don’t know why my focus is so off.

A fog is whipped up by all the thoughts condensing in my mind about work, art, relationships, health, winter, housing, history, future, anger, purpose, fantasy, nature…

There is a stream holding each of my ideas and questions, ever growing. In this rushing water, I fish for decisions – opinions – complete sentences. How can I trace the plot of my worries in that turbulent solution?

Maybe I am supposed to just try. Do whatever I can. Exert myself more.

Maybe I’m supposed to yield, let the river splash out its insights.

Maybe I need to expand so that the flow slows down enough to clear.

This is the end of the year. Days race coldly across my vision, barely distinguishable. Time is as engulfing as a blizzard, and the snow packs as densely as my stress. I feel nervous for these storms, uncertain about shelter. I am concerned for the trees that are brutally cleared as if context, roots, and diversity don’t matter. Though the chickadees don’t seem to mind anything but the wind. They stare right into it, indignant that it would try to slow them down.

I need to learn from the stubborn birds that stay in this tumultuous place. Spotting them, knowing them, seems to be practice for finding that elusive and flighty clarity in my wooded mind.