I just cleaned my room for the first time since Germany!

There were piles of paper to sort through, drawers to flip upside down and reorganize, dust bunnies under the bed…

I may have lit enough candles in the attic to accidentally scare the shit out of my poor mother.

Also, Spotify helped me listen to some of the best of Leonard Cohen, and Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon, and also to The Dresden Dolls’ “Yes Virginia” album*

*because AFP liked my comment on her Instagram post a couple of days ago and I – that’d never happened to me before, and like I said it’s been a couple of days but I’m still kind of glowing on the inside

I may or may not have put on a floppy summer hat and the shoes I snagged at that one Goodwill in Burlington and had myself an impromptu and not particularly graceful dance party, in front of the mirror, by myself.

My cat was pointedly unimpressed.

But after a while, somehow, the attic felt cleaner. I unearthed my birth certificate, a medical insurance card, a set of earbuds that still seem to work, a jar of honey, a dusty stack of old CDs, and two diplomas. Plus I found an abacus and some origami paper to take to the college and also a handful of books I’ve outgrown to hopefully sometime donate to the library.

It felt like a relatively successful archeology dig. You can actually see some horizontal surfaces, in places.

I opened the windows to let the smoke out, earlier, and now the air in the room smells like candlewax and snow instead of dust

It’s been a comfortably productive time.

My little sister just sent a scholarship application in to Brockport.

My brother-in-law had a solid job interview at another brewery a couple of hours away, which has the potential to shift things around in my older sister’s life. The Chairman is old and sick, so things are already changing.

And I know that sometimes change is hard, and I almost got in the car today and drove down to Greensboro to be with all of them for shared beer and some bluegrass music and coloring, and too many things in the world were telling me not to, and so I didn’t.

So I didn’t want to let this day slip away from me, so I put engine oil in my rustbucket of a vehicle and cleaned my room all the way back to the corners

And there is pumpkin pie waiting for me in the kitchen downstairs. I hope it’s a good night.