RETURNING TO THE WORLD

This is what you wake to: the world new blue, the streetlight nearly moon.  Your book is done, or nearly done for now.  The world that waited patiently went silent.  The dream you’ve tended through four seasons moved on to someone else.  It’s the reader’s dream right now; you’ve let it go.  Mr. Marsworth. Reenie.  They’re probably on a desk now in New York.  Of all the writing seasons—first glimpse, the wild beginning, writing and rewriting, seeing new and starting over--this one, this perfectly done day, this moment of new winter when you wake to new blue silence, this ending as beginning, it’s this season you love most.  If you never wrote another word, you will have this.  And isn’t that enough?   How beautiful it is.  How faithful.  How patiently it waited.  How much it wants you back where you belong.