Oh, it's a challenge, alright...

Quicker than you expect. Everything happens that way, doesn't it? Here in Alaska, we're inured. Sudden. Sudden onset of autumn, loss of daylight; sudden accidents in places we have come to expect-a plane crash, a shooting. Simply because it hasn't happened in a while, doesn't mean we don't know it could. Simply because it could, doesn't mean we've become immune. When one marries, or dates, or befriends an addict, one of necessity becomes accustomed to the notion that there is no past tense when it comes to dealing with addiction. I have said it so often in the last two years: There is no such thing as "recovered". There is only "recovering". What a tenuous thing our grasp on language, and therefore, on each other, can be. You see, I've been challenged. I mean this in an absolutely unambiguous way. And nor do I mean it to not-so-subtly refer to these two years past. I have been challenged. With language. With words. With an unabashed request that I use them. Type them down. Write them. Because I feel as if I've forgotten. Because it snowed in the mountains, today. Because it comes colder, and with a shortage. With a starvation, if you will. In any relationship gone awry, you lose your voice. In a relationship with an addict, you lose not only that, but your desire to speak. Your desire to craft full sentences. The satisfaction that generally comes with communication is lost. You are able only, even in the best of moments, to use loose change. Sometimes, not even that. Sometimes. Sometimes there is only silence, because you know from months of the hard way, that whatever you leave out in the open will be taken. Stolen. And used against you. You could leave a scrap of yourself on the kitchen counter with the grocery receipt. A dollar bill wadded into coat pocket, into crook of arm. An IOU whose signature line is too faded. It's all fair game, you see. It's all "ours". I am done with "ours". So as I have been challenged to find my writerly voice again, in turn I challenge you. Where best have you spoken? Do you remember the sound? Write it down. Today we spent half our time, my son and I, in the woods-as well you know I usually do when there's free time, or I feel somewhat lost. Get lost Then find your way out. And the other half? The other half I spent at the kitchen island with a chef's knife that was a wedding gift. And I halved things. Though they all ended up in the same pot. And I cored them. And dusted some with cloves, and other with curry powder, and all with a dash of lemon juice. Acid for preservation. Rind for flavor and color. Cutting across the core of one, I was compelled to stop and listen, to the decisive sound of the knife. To the quiet that followed. In the center, as we all know well, was a perfect five-pointed star. And I thought to myself, In the end, it was not temptation that Eve ate-if one believes that hype. In the end, it wasn't evil. It wasn't even curious. In the end, Eve ate the very thing we're all made of, didn't she?