https://youtube.com/watch?v=D1bUDS2rwP8 Fitting in is assessing situations and groups of people, then twisting yourself into a human pretzel in order to get them to let you hang out with them. Belonging is something else entirely—it’s showing up and letting yourself be seen and known as you really are. — Brené Brown Being seen and known as you really are…is there anything more terrifying? Or, when it finally happens, more freeing? Or, if lost, more debilitating? This morning the red-winged blackbirds are in full song.

Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly. – Epictetus I’m shedding clothing that I’ve kept for decades, things that I’ve held dear. A race t-shirt from 1990. A tailored, pinstriped suit from 1998. A black backless gown with beading along the hemline, the one that used to turn heads. I pull it all from the closet, sort it into piles for consignment, donation, and cleaning rags. What is left? Only what I really need. Two shirts. Four skirts. A pair of jeans. All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again, does it really matter all that much what we wear on our bodies? I know myself and adorn myself accordingly: I am a caretaker, a breadwinner, obedient to divine ordinance, pushing deeper into the closet toward the back wall and emptiness.

So many below freezing days, and then this storm of heavy and wet snowflakes that stung our cheeks as we walked. The pond, transformed by a layer of ice and snow, was a white meadow ringed by bare trunks. I snapped a few photos and then the wind told us it was time to turn back. Just as we started on our way home, I looked down and noticed: she’d worn her purple sneakers instead of her boots. Silly girl.

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. — William Morris We are moving in two months, so I am taking William Morris’ words to heart. I am making choices, selling off, giving away. I feel stripped down to a ribbon inside. I move from room to room, pulling items out of corners and closets. I hold each thing in my hand, feel its weight, and I whisper to myself: And this? Does this matter to you? Will its loss tear through you, leave you broken and wanting? ...

I leave the trail and follow a narrow deer path along the shoreline to a small, sheltered cove. I stand very still in sparse underbrush and listen to voices echo across the water. I drop to my knees in the middle of a stand of hardwoods. I bring my face close to moss, bugs and fallen leaves. I hover over clusters of soft, grey mushrooms. I stare too long at a patch of sunlight on bark. ...

I work with my hands to heal: A pencil roll for my sweet artist. New cotton coasters to protect wood. A Minecraft t-shirt repurposed into a journal for a birthday gift to a friend. Pages of pen and ink mandalas, to quiet my mind.

My interrupted photographs illustrate the Winter 2015 issue of online literary nonfiction journal Brevity Magazine. I clucked over this project like a mother hen, and gave it the majority of my spare time in November and December, to the dismay of those I love. Now this project is out in the world, and I bend to the task of redemption.

She has been folding her thoughts and the meditations of her heart into paper shapes, and I find them all over the house. A menagerie from her imagination. I didn’t know the hole was there before she came into my life to fill it.

When I am an old woman, I will be a milkweed seed pod drying in the sun, wrinkled and spotted. You will pull me open on the seam until my silver-white floss pushes through, and you’ll blow my sweet, tender seed to the wind until I am an empty shell.

Thirty minutes before closing. The grounds are dotted with little houses, each one filled with whispering old objects. Electric fans move the air inside the main building and I wander through three levels. A man browses through silverware on the ground floor. I see him again on the second floor, looking at a small wooden puzzle box. And then we’re on the third floor where the air is thin. We are spirits looking for lost possessions. ...