Yesterday took a lot out of me.

I don’t like driving back and forth to school in the dark, for this one class. There’s this one intersection where my nervous system is convinced that I’m going to die, every time. I hold my breath as I drive across it.

I go carefully.

In spite of the risk of COVID-19, I enjoy sitting in class with other humans. I am reminded that there’s a side of me that surfaces, in a room full of people, which dearly likes to entertain. In a room full of people, I may or may not end up saying things which are accidently hilarious. No idea where this comes from, because for years of my life I was pure awkwardness with nothing to say that could make anybody laugh. Even just over break, I’d forgotten that I could do this. It feels nice.

It’s terrifying, because there are like ten college students in one room and I don’t know how careful any of them are. But it’s also good, at the same time.

Driving home in the dark, I turn up the music. Katy Perry announces that she’s wide awake, over and over again. I am, too. Lewis Capaldi’d gotten “used to being someone you loved,” and I like that song because I can harmonize in that little slice of tenor range that is sometimes available to me.

I don’t especially love these songs. I just need something to drown out the creepy feeling of driving alone in the dark.

I think putting something between yourself and the empty silence rushing past outside is acceptable.

Still, when I got home I had to unclench my jaw, and sit on my toes, to thaw them.

I haven’t left the house to go anywhere in a long time. This felt strange. It felt odd to be in a building that wasn’t my parents’ house, to get lost in the stairways and the double doors.

It’s so strange to live in this time. It’s strange to cover our faces, and even stranger that nowadays an unfamiliar unmasked face looks naked, like there’s something wrong.

It’s strange to worry this much about going out into the world and living.

I don’t think I’ll take that kind of thing for granted for a long time. Not when this clears up – when it does – and not for a long time after. I think every time I leave the house without a mask I’ll feel like I’m forgetting something. I think every time I’m standing beside someone, closer than six feet will feel too close.

(tune in next week for another episode of “is this worldwide pandemic potentially traumatic??”)

To be continued.

Anyway. Yesterday took a lot out of me. Leaving the house at all was tough.

Today I’m lucky – I get to stay home, boiling eggs and drinking coffee, reviewing German cases, learning about Kepler’s third law and the mathematics of elliptical orbits. It’s good to move through the world like this.

But I’m tired.

Soo tired.

Reading Braiding Sweetgrass is like having a piece of summer in your pocket that you can take out and look at whenever you need it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys connecting to that feeling.

I’ve also been listening to songs from Danielle Ponder & the Tomorrow People. It’s beautiful music.

These two things help me feel less tired.

I hope it’s a good Wednesday. Lots of love.