What to write when the world is burning? Anne Lamott says to put your butt in the chair every day and write.

But what to write about when the world is burning?

What could possibly matter?

The word that bubbled up for 2025 when I did my Year Compass review was DEEP.

The Star words chosen for me for Epiphany were Worth and Encourage.

But all I feel this morning is Frustrated. Annoyed. Angry.

The dog wants too many things. Up and down, begging eyes, no words.

The husband is home instead of at the office, filling our tiny living room with his presence.

I am hiding, hunkering in my cloffice (closet+office) instead – trying to approximate being alone.

It is my day off, and all I desperately want is to be alone. To be unobserved. Unnoticed. Unwatched. Unneeded.

The house is still covered in Christmas because the young adult children are still home from college, so the magic stays up.

At night, all of us piled up in the living room, fire roaring, cups and bowls of warm nourishment in our hands; it is cozy and snug.

In the daylight, the glare from the ten inches of snowstorm bouncing through the picture windows, it is all clutter and claustrophobia.

The floors are tracked with salty boot and paw prints from dogs and humans coming in and out from the snow.

The kitchen sink is never empty.

The kids sleep till noon. And then some.

At night, I cry, thinking of how empty all of it will be in ten days when they return to school, and I resent every task, every meeting that takes me from their presence between now and then.

I cry over how gray the light will be when the snow melts and the mud season begins.

Over how quiet and tidy the kitchen will be.

How unobserved I will be.