I've kept to the house in a way that makes me think I could weather space travel without losing my mind. I stare out the window like a cat, with the cat. There are so many squirrels. I saw five on one tree yesterday, moving almost as liquid around the trunk, crawling all over each other. Lucky squirrels. Or maybe not. I've seen more hawks, too.
Before this, I baked a lot for the restaurant. Numbers were up. People noticed us and came back. Sometimes, they came just for pie. And then…
The restaurant's still open the only way it can be right now. Carryout. There's not enough money moving through for me to bake there the way I was. Now, I only eat sugar on special occasions. I baked a pie for myself on my birthday last month. A couple days ago, I made cookies for our anniversary because Josh asked for them. There's a belief if you fall out of your practice, you have to learn it all over again. Not true. The well is either empty or full, but it's made of stone. It doesn't go anywhere.
If I'm not eating sugar, and I'm not drinking, where do I pick up a good feeling? I read before bed. All of it fantasy. I bought six pounds of popcorn kernels, and I pop them on the stove half a cup at a time. I watch true crime documentaries and then read online all the information the documentarians left out. I push back the flight I booked for Seattle for May to visit my mom and brother. I hope for September, even though I know I'll have to push it back again. I work out every day and see the results in the mirror, and through the camera, and in the way the sleeves of a shirt don't fit the same anymore. I play a video game while the cat sleeps next to me, and then I sleep, too. When I wake up, I polish a silver ring then wear it while I ride the exercise bike.
I stay up past the middle of the night. Everyone in the house is asleep except for the small white ghost I confuse again and again for the cat. It passes from the kitchen to the living room. Sometimes, visible. Often, just a sound on the hardwood floor.