It's November and

It’s November and I’m thinking about the stickiness between ourselves and every other self. How it pulls and feels like a weighted blanket, or a lost anchor. I’m thinking even of the sticky pull between ourselves and our other selves, every version we see in every mirror.

It’s November and I’m thinking of mirrors. In the puddle of leftover rain, I can see only my dinosaur tail. I am on a street in Long Beach, California, and so I feel like I’m home.

In an airport in Atlanta, a reader approaches and says hello. And so I feel like I’m home.

She asks if I still plan to blog. And a stranger I meet at my new job looks me up, and asks if I still plan to blog.

My dinosaur tail flickers in the puddle-light and my brain is not startled. It feels like part of me. It feels like home.

It’s November, and I’m thinking about if I still plan to blog, and what it takes to write on the internet through so many seasons of self. The stickiness between my now and all my past is always pulling. Sometimes an old version or an old perception pulls so far it tears away.

This morning, a teacher I do not know sends me an email. She says a teenage student in her class used a writing prompt from me, which turned out to be a writing prompt generated from ChatGPT’s understanding of me. The prompt was: A love letter to the monster under my bed: End the piece with an apology and a promise. The student credited me, and was honest about the use of AI to generate the prompt. The teacher was reaching out to see if I had anything to say to the student from the perspective of an author whose ideas were mined, and then refined, by a creation without a sticky, sticky pull to us all. With permission, she included the completed writing.

It’s November and I’m thinking about the monster under a stranger’s bed, and all the monsters under my bed, and how I take them with me into this world because we move through webs and weavings and tapestries. We move through this world as pullies. I’m thinking about how we are simple, simple machines. I am thinking about how we are sticky, sticky machines.

I’m thinking about how a love letter to a monster is inherently a two-way apology, and a promise that extends in all directions. There is simply no other way to love the tiny bites you got by reaching through the dark. No other way to stretch a scarred hand towards mirrored eyes and hope.

I am thinking of all my many mirrored selves, and wondering how many are stuck to others I cannot see. How many renditions and heresays and echos and remakes they could withstand before the stretch breaks them away.

Before I hear “Rarasaur!” in a busy airport, and do anything other than drop all my bags, and turn around with arms open wide.

NanoPoblano is the world’s least official November blog challenge. Participants and supporters are called Cheer Peppers. 🌶️🎉 The BIG goal is 30 posts in 30 days. You can share your goal and your progress and your posts on the Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1336744293025187/