I haven’t been reading—but I haven’t really cared that I haven’t been reading. I haven’t been writing—but I haven’t cared about that either. Even as, dimly, both have felt like the most urgent crises in my life. Standing in the front entrance of N and L’s home with a pen hanging in my mouth, watching a clutch of flowers wave in the wind, it’s like I finally understand. It’s a moment in a movie—a slow and maybe bad one, about a writer who has been chasing his own tail. I feel peaceful in this house, more peaceful than I imagined I would feel. I am recovering something, and it is coming on me accidentally. I have looked for this feeling for months.