My lovely bride and bright young boy have left me all alone in the great sunny February of 2010. While they are enjoying the dry heat of Arizona for a week I have blazed through 1,200 novel pitches, sent off applications to the NEA, Breadloaf, Wisconsin fellowships, and 4Culture, I’ve eaten a bunch of frozen pizzas, shivered on the white sands of Golden Gardens as the sun set behind the Olympic Mountains, paddled with otters in Mercer Slough and generally felt oh-so-lonely.

My list could go on, but it really only stands to show that my days can be full of to-do-ness and the weather can be gorgeous, but without my people I feel pretty empty.

It’s nice to have this missing forced on you once in a while because there is no taking for granted a small boy’s laughter when there the house is utterly quiet. I do quite alright on my own, but my family is really my rock and when they’re off rocking elsewhere I’m boundless in an unsettling way.

So here’s to being unsettled. May it make appreciation come easily and linger when family returns.