People comment on my writing.
Say I’ve captured an insight in just the right light.

A perfect potion or equation, executed with style.

But I don’t usually pour over perfect words–at least not when I write outside of work.

I don’t weigh the letters in the balance, contemplating their cooperation, meaning, and destination.

It’s not how it works for me.

Words rip through me.

And without a keyboard or a pencil, there’s nowhere for the sharp edges to go except to rumble around in my body and settle in my ovaries or a kidney or two.

I have to write–lest the black hole behind me get a foothold and consume me. No matter the distance I’ve created, it’s there–pulsing and beckoning in my dark moments. Some out-of-the-blue moments too. I think it’s just going to be that way as long as there’s no one to face life with me.

I have always had an inner monologue.

I remember the day I first became aware of it. I was about 3-4 years old in the back of my dad’s Cougar, belted into some metal contraption that served as an early version of a child’s car seat in the 70s.

The moment was crystalized into my little head. The honey color of the bench seat, the angle of the windows, and the trees outside the school we were passing near the railroad tracks.

It was as if I simply woke up to life. And as I looked out the window at the green world passing by, I felt excitement.

And my little monologue said to my little self–

“I’m glad I’m alive and that I was born a girl. I won’t have to be so strong this time.”

A quirky little anchoring point in a quirky little life that was about to change dramatically.

Little did I know.

I’m not sure why that memory crystalized so for me, but I am grateful for it. It’s not my earliest memory, but it is the day I first remember being aware. And it was a good day. From that day forward, pondering became my favorite pastime. It also became my refuge.

It’s not exactly usual for a preschooler to think complexly and then remember this kind of detail.

Or to think, I’m glad I’m a girl–this time.

My family didn’t believe in heaven or hell, much less anything like reincarnation. So I have no idea where the words came from.

But the moment was comfortable.

And it set the stage for how I would learn to think, reason, and explore my world for the puzzle pieces waiting for me out there.

Somewhere close to my 6th birthday, Dad’s Cougar ended up totaled in a car wreck. The broken tank poured gasoline onto the dirt road as my dad carried me away crying.

And I never saw the Cougar again. We got a station wagon next.

It’s fine.