The long and winding road marking the edges of my life has been more corkscrewed than usual over the last six months. The bad and jagged news is that my husband died in February. The tumult before and sorrow after have reshaped my existence.

As a writer I’d long tried on identities while creating characters, blending aspects of myself and of the people I observed. I chose habits and quirks to sprinkle into the stew of human traits. I liked to think I was searching for a deeper understanding, a richer broth. Now I stare at the stove, at a loss for what to do with the empty pot.

I’ve been looking at the wall in front of my face, and it’s blank. Life is flat and I can’t see my way toward something different. The shared perception of what defined our life is one-sided now, the chair I sit on has lost a leg, the world is tilted.

My children, grandchildren, relatives and friends, have been so kind. And I interact, I appreciate them and say so, I watch the movies and the news and curse the former prez with scabrous language when it’s appropriate. (It’s always appropriate.) But nothing feels real except the sliding away from what my life was, away from the bond that kept two halves cemented into a whole for over fifty years. I am not whole.

Here I am, taking first steps, knowing I have to move off the start square, knowing I have to reestablish, have to heal, like so many before me have had to heal and go on. Nothing will bring back my husband, nothing will bring back my old life, nothing will bring back who I was before February 21. There’s only after, and what’s left to fashion into something else.

This is crapwriting, but I’ve got to get words out, get feelings out. I’ve been reading–romance, mystery, history, science fiction, anything that will keep my eyes moving across pages, anything that will fill up the hollow in my mind. Writing down my thoughts has been so unimportant. And yet today I have some words to write. And maybe there’ll be more tomorrow.