language creeps back in

In the early days of November, at dawn, I walked along the sea.

I had been away from myself for a very long time. Anxious about the world, saddened by unkindness and untruthfulness of both the personal and political sort, not at all certain whether I would ever again find joy in many of the things that I love most.

I'm still anxious. I'm still saddened. But I cannot remain, I realize at last, inside this held breath, this paralysis. I'm no good to anyone if I'm no good within myself.

And so I again am taking refuge inside story. I am returning, in my imagination and in fact, to a young woman I came to know last spring—to someone whose dignity, voice, and absolute compassion deeply heartened me.

I will wake up thinking about her. I will write for her, perhaps just a sentence every day. I will move forward and again forward because her story must be told, and because I know how to do that telling now, and because language creeps back in.

I need the language I had lost to live in this world, to make a difference.