I’m sitting cross-legged on the couch. Across the street, through the window, I can see a small girl in purple pants practicing handstands in her front yard. She’s not very good at them, but I can see how she might improve.

Yesterday I got home from Ferndale.

(The girl just did a very neat somersault. She has been joined by a small boy in green.)

The entire time I was home (and Ferndale will always have that moniker, that place in my heart), I kept thinking, “I just need to write about this. I want to write about all of this.” Writing has always been how I process things. Such a fragile, tumultuous weekend, it needs to be processed.

I don’t know how, yet.

So many of the stories and emotions of the weekend are not mine to share. And I have this deep and abiding desire to write the linguistic equivalent of a hot bath, or the view when the sun sets over a calm Lake Michigan and its golden dunes, or a simple slice of a perfect chocolate cake. It’s impossible. It angers me, that it’s impossible.

There are people out there who I have loved and will love for years, who I know in minute detail, even with the passing of time. There are people out there I have met once or twice and still find myself fiercely caring and rooting for. I hugged both sorts, this weekend, wept with both.

Today I ate a slice of spanokopita that my mom made for me, and my dad had carefully wrapped in foil and wax paper. I can still feel the warmth of their arms.

Fuck all the shitty stuff. I’m done with all the bad news. Okay? Done. I think we really all need a break, a moment to breathe. Great, thank you, universe.

The girl, with purple pants, she’s trying the handstand again. I’ll keep trying to write.

On Sunday night I laid in the soft green grass of my childhood home’s front yard and stared up at the heavy boughs of the white oak tree and for a moment, it felt like time travel, and I was seventeen, listening to laughter and smiling at the streetlights.