Perhaps it was inevitable that after the immensity of the summit, an immense crash would occur.

I was writing, and then I wasn’t. At all.

Not the novel, not the blog, not the document, just a thin poor thread of journal, desperately trying to keep some trueness of self alive as crushing demands accumulated.

Every so often, the deeper self sensed a tiny clearing, and peeked out.

Then another demand came along, disappearing it for many weeks.

Many work trips.

Many family duties.

A fragile gasp of a peeking out at advent – and a suitcase full of beloved items was left behind by the airline, and subsequently lost. Lost under a mountain of 20000 other suitcases apparently.

The poetics had the preposterous exactitude of a cartoon.

Dozens of calls to the airline, to call menus uncanny in their kafkaesque precision, employees with their hands, minds and hearts tied by processes and mechanisms, every single trip another visit to the baggage desk, winsome conversation, fragile hope.

Nothing.

A fragile glimpse of an awaiting self at lent, a glimmer of hope, joy, strength – and an instruction by a corporate giant to please not leave the tall glass tower during the fire drill, for the sake of efficiency, left a continual ringing alarm sounding in the ears for months.

Alarm.

The work commitments are subsiding and the spring has arrived, blossomed and turned into summer. I was indoors, sometimes in a basement with no natural light.

Yesterday, I heard my voice for the first time in weeks. In the garden, of course.

I’m still destitute of many joys from the loss of my beloved things. I’m still destitute of peace from the continual ringing.

But the truest deepest self is peeking out, and I am taking care of her, and perhaps she will explain it all, and where she has been, and where we are going.