Gold light bathed my apartment Monday morning, tinting my teal accents a suspicious green, rendering my curtains useless and waking me up before my alarm. It’s the kind of light that reminds me summer is coming soon, overconfident in its brightness — the kind of light that burns out too fast, too soon.

I got up, filled a glass with water and as soon as I turned around, the light had dimmed, returning my room to its familiar color. Summer is suspicious like that, the way sunlight shines with such confidence, clinging to skin and sunglasses and scalps, tattooing me with perpetual shadows.

The heat and lingering days threaten never to end, only to be replaced by fireflies when the sun finally relents, reminding me of summer’s beguiling character, its effervescent, overpromising light.

“You’re going to have the best summer ever!”

I’ve heard it several times; I mumble affirmatively. I’m traveling to London and Vienna with my mom and youngest sister. In London, I’ll finally meet the Twitter friend whom I’ve been Facebook messaging for more than a year now. I’ll play tennis obsessively, staying late at the courts until bugs hover in winged clouds under the lights. Continue reading →

My sister is right, the selfie lighting in my Des Moines apartment is excellent.

As I move through my apartment on Saturday mornings, watering my plants, removing a layer of dust from nearly every surface, both cursing and revering my giant south-facing windows, I listen to podcasts. I fill my home with others’ voices, their stories in rhythm with the tasks on my weekend to-do list.

For a long time, I was afraid of the silence in my own home.

There is sameness in silence, the way it always invites my pesky restlessness to the forefront, compelling me to counter it with chatter, sound, anything. I’ve felt alarmingly uninspired by my writing the past couple months amid the shuffle of law school visits, planning a European trip and making moving plans for the fall. Every time I sit down to write, I don’t know where to start: the planning, the quitting, the leaving, the moving, the resettling. It all blurs into feelings, anxieties and impatience I can’t bear to sort out.

But when I find myself unanchored in the one thing I can (usually) count on — words — I moor myself to the sounds of where I am, sounds that so often fade into the background of living, breathing, doing. Continue reading →