The Hummingbird and James Baldwin

Understanding home when it’s everywhere and nowhere.

I keep thinking about how I’m going to show up here. I’ve been away, and that warrants an explanation; or does it? I’ve been writing, just not publicly. Actually, I’ve been reading more than I’ve been writing, which is never public. Is that good enough? It’s not that what I’ve done in the dark is unworthy of the light, the truth is in fact the opposite—I wish only for the day that you will read the stories I’ve woven from the lives I’ve lived.

Until then, how are you? Are the spoons arranged pleasingly in the cupboard? What about the ribs of the Japanese maple tree now that winter has made a home in its bones? Had Dotti not paused, neither would have I. Did you notice these things? Did the banality of a Tuesday cross your mind? Likely not.

I think that’s what I’m trying to tell you, about where I’ve been. It’s not that anything personal has needed publicizing nor that I owe you a lesson or reason from the weeks past. I find that I’ve zeroed in on the small parts that mostly go unnoticed. This is because meaning often happens in hindsight and I am utterly aware that the body I am in as I write to you will not be the one that comes if you call for it in the spring.