This is not the week for that. I’m prepping for a road trip. There are lists and superseding lists spread across my kitchen countertops. Random piles of supplies are staged in different areas of the house, waiting for me to figure out the most efficient way to pack them into my Prius. Add to the mix our five-year-old granddaughter, come to stay for a few days. Toys, art supplies, and books have joined the cacophony. There’s an air-mattress on my bedroom floor piled high with enough stuffed buddies to populate a pre-school class. A visit with Charlotte is laced with wonderful question after question and a great deal of interactive play. It’s the very best kind of exhausting.

This is just another phase of my life. I’ve always been busy. There have always been things to do, tasks to complete, schedules to juggle. The cast of characters and needs may change, but I’ve always been more of a verb than a noun.

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that in order for a woman to write fiction, she needs (among other things) a room of her own, uninterrupted space to not only create but to think. I would expand that: in order for a woman to navigate the demands of a hectic life, she needs a place of her own to not only create and think, but to simply BE. The space can be tiny. Sometimes, it’s by necessity carved out of a bigger room. But it needs to be wholly hers, arranged as she needs to inspire clarity amidst the whirlwind outside its boundaries.

It took a long time for me to admit that I sometimes require a moment (or twenty) to recalibrate. We’re programmed to keep going. It feels like weakness to need a breather, however brief. But energy can’t continually pour out without providing an opportunity for it to refill.

I do have a space of my own. It probably speaks only to me, but that’s all it has to do. It’s my island of calm, my place to take a deep breath, gather my thoughts, and remember who I mean to be.

The most effective re-fuel allows you to bring your best to the world once you re-emerge into it. I’m not always good at that. I have to be careful to use my space for renewal rather than escape. But I’m a work-in-progress and a huge fan of tiny fresh starts.

Like now. It’s time to leave this room, assess all the moving pieces, and add my own unique energy to the constantly shifting mosaic that is life.

Looking northeast from the South Pier, I see the wide-open vista of Lake Superior. That’s when I begin to sense what might have drawn me here. Duluth is situated at the westernmost tip of this deepest and largest of the five Great Lakes. When you’ve lived your whole life on the east coast of the U.S., as I have, it’s easy to forget that there are significant waterways other than the Atlantic Ocean and the rivers that empty directly into it. But together, Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior make up 84% of North America’s fresh surface water. They’re vast inland seas, complete with heavy currents, mercurial waves, and violent storms that rival anything the salty ocean can dish out. They bring their own distinct mystique and maritime culture. Attention must be paid.

Most of the freighters cruising beneath the Aerial Lift Bridge are lakers, ships built specifically to travel the Great Lakes. They can’t survive on the ocean. They’re long and narrow, structurally unable to ride an ocean wave without snapping in two. Some can’t leave the Great Lakes system anyway–they’re too massive to navigate the St. Lawrence Seaway, the only connection to the Atlantic Ocean able to accommodate large commercial ships. Because a laker lives its life on the Lakes, never encountering salt corrosion, over 25% of them currently sailing are over sixty years old.

Ten to fifteen percent of the ships arriving at the Port of Duluth are ocean-traveling salties. Smaller than lakers, they entered the Great Lakes system via the seven locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which gradually lifted them approximately 226 feet to finally access Lake Ontario. From there to Duluth, the ships navigated the series of locks, rivers, and lakes that connect each Great Lake to another. The salties pay close attention to the calendar. Come winter, the St. Lawrence Seaway freezes, shutting down completely from around late December through late March. If an international ship doesn’t pass back out to the ocean in time, it risks spending winter trapped on the Great Lakes. Most salties exit the Montreal locks long before the weather can touch them.

I originally came to Duluth for the bridge, but I think I’d go back for the chance to see a ghost ship. These are the freighters that reach the Canal in frigid winter. Without salt, the Lakes freeze at 32 degrees. Heavy winds create a constant frenzy of spray. By the time a ship reaches the Aerial Lift Bridge, it can be sheathed in hundreds of tons of crusted ice, gliding through the canal like a white specter.

You can use the Duluth Harbor Cams to watch the Aerial Lift Bridge in real time. Check the schedule; maybe you’ll catch a freighter passing through on its way to port. Listen for the horn-tooted exchange between ship and control house as the ship approaches the bridge. Initiated by the captain of the ship, it’s usually the Captain’s Salute (one long blast followed by two short ones). The bridge operator will respond with the same pattern, welcoming the ship to the Port of Duluth.

Here is my orchid:

And here is what I know:

Orchids–at least the kind most of us have in our homes–are tropical plants. They like comfy, warm temps. They love humidity. (Clearly not my spirit-plant; they are as different from me as potentially living things can be.)

What orchids don’t like is over-watering. Even I know the ice-cube technique where you put ice cubes into the orchid pot and then forget about watering for a week. (In this the orchid and I are well-matched, since I often forget about watering for a week.)

I also know that after blooming like a normal houseplant, an orchid goes dormant for several months. Flower stems shrivel, often becoming dry and brown. Leaves droop and wrinkle. The once-resplendent orchid looks … well, dead.

We have already established that I am a terrible gardener. I try hard, but it appears that the only plants I can successfully grow are herbs (and not even ALL herbs–what do you want from me, cilantro?) But a potted flower? That’s not even outside. I should be able to handle that.

Here are some of the answers I’ve received when asking how to determine my orchid’s true state-of-being:

“Wait. You’ll know.” (Apparently, I don’t.)

“Just leave it alone. Orchids never die. It may take years, but they always come back.” (Years during which I inadvertently have a dead plant displayed on my shelf. As if my gardening reputation weren’t bad enough.)

“Look for little spikes. Those will be new blossoms.” (Little what, now?)

“Be patient. Keep doing the ice-cube thing.”

“Be patient. Stop doing the ice-cube thing.”

It’s been suggested that if it looks that bad and bothers me that much, I should just chuck it and pick up a new one. After all, you can find orchids at most grocery stores. But I don’t want to give up on any orchid before its time. I want to TRY.

Huh. While snapping photos of my orchid just now, I realized that the last leaf vanished some time overnight, and that something new-ish appears to be pushing up from the bottom of the stem. It may even be green. IS THIS A GOOD SIGN?

Any help is greatly appreciated. And while we’re at it, please tell me why my cilantro hates me.

As always, comments are welcome in both the Comments section of this post and via jillmorrowbooks@gmail.com.

Both my orchid and I thank you in advance.

Who can sleep with all this worrying going on?

It’s easy to see why anxiety runs rampant at night. Darkness shrouds way too much. Even familiar tangible objects appear grotesque and unrecognizable. There are physical reasons for the angst, too. Fluctuating cortisol levels, a sleepy pre-frontal cortex, and an unfiltered amygdala all conspire against us. Additionally, the middle-of-the-night brain is freed from busy distractions. It isn’t processing the information load that keeps it occupied during the day. Schedules, tasks, constant planning … all gone, leaving a void that anxiety is only too happy to flood.

For some reason, reading about this reminded me of life transitions. (Maybe this is because lately, EVERYTHING reminds me of life transitions.) Most of the major transitions we experience occupy our brains with new information. They spark busy-ness. We leave home for new places, begin new jobs, launch new ventures. We build relationships, raise children. All of this expands our minds, requires planning and engagement. But there comes a point where the transitions in our lives shift from “filling” to “emptying.” Once-new places are now familiar. Children leave home to begin their own adventures. Relationships end. Retirement takes away deadlines and the immediate need to problem-solve. There are spaces where there used to be purpose, which is a perfect invitation to the brain to kick into that default mode that fills voids with anxiety. It can feel like Night Mind 24/7.

Night mind and life transitions may not be related. But they seem to share the scary, uncomfortable root that we lack control over what comes next while careening toward the unknown.

What do you do when night-mind feels never-ending? I’d love to hear input from readers, either in the comments section of this post or via email. How do you handle either garden-variety night mind or Night-Mind 24/7?

Although I love road trips, this will be my first since 2019. I’d originally planned this upcoming one for summer of 2020 but, of course, the pandemic changed everything. Beginning in March 2020, nobody traveled anywhere. We not only didn’t travel, we were afraid to leave home.

History is marked by events that change both the courses and perspectives of those who live through them. Plagues, major wars, natural catastrophes–it’s impossible to collectively experience these traumas and emerge the same as we were before they happened. Wherever we spent the pandemic years, however we absorbed the impact, we all have some form of PTSD. It touches each of us in a different way, but we have all changed.

As I re-visit this particular trip, I’m aware of how different I really am. In the past, planning a trip was exciting. This time, I’m tentative to the point of indecision. It’s hard to commit to a reservation without my mind ticking through every possible thing that could go wrong. I probably won’t believe I’m taking this trip at all until I pull out of my driveway and make it through several states unscathed. I’ve dealt with blips on past trips–car trouble, unfortunate route surprises, days where I wasn’t operating at 100%–but this is different. I feel like a target for disaster, like if something can go wrong, it will. I’m more vulnerable, less in control (with no relief to be found in the current world situation).

This makes the trip even more necessary. There may be a few more safety nets this time (looking at you, trip insurance), but I need to prove to myself that I’m still capable of doing this thing I love. I need more than ever to escape the limitations of time, to challenge the undercurrent of fear that has insidiously ingratiated itself into my mindset.

There’s no going back to who we were before. The best I can do is engage my babbling mind in the drive so that I can get in touch with who I am now and regain clarity about what really matters.

A friend once asked if something could be considered art if nobody saw it. It’s an interesting question, one easily transferred to writing. Is writing “legit” only if it transmits an idea to someone else? If so, how many readers are necessary to support that definition? Is there a threshold number of readers needed to validate a work?

The word “validate” brings up another nagging question. For most writers, writing seldom yields financial compensation equal to the time and focus it requires. Sometimes, it’s hard to justify diverting so much attention away from other “useful” endeavors. At what point does taking time to write become self-indulgent?

I want people to read what I write. Writing is meant to communicate. It longs to communicate. Ultimately, though, I believe there’s value in the birth of the idea, that moment where thought is given tangible form through solid word. It’s the creation that counts rather than what happens next.

I need to write for other reasons as well. Writing helps me navigate the world. It’s how I interpret what I experience. NOT writing is like blocking one of my senses. We all have a super-power like this, a filter that helps us process information. It can be music, art, even math. Whatever it is, it’s inherent to who we are and how we deal with our surroundings. That can mean everything from helping us understand to giving us a way to blow off steam or cut through anxiety. (You do not want to meet me in the wild when I’ve truncated my blow-off-steam safety valve by not writing.)

I’ve given myself permission to write again not only because of what it brings to me but because of what it helps me pour back into the world. I learned a long time ago that I’m hardly unusual–if I’m thinking something, there are other people out there who are thinking it, too. If my writing touches even one person at the right time, that can be enough incentive to keep going.

Of course, nothing can happen at all unless a thought is given expression. Fortunately, that’s the one part of writing I can control.

All the noise provides a good excuse to skip meditation. Whenever I do attempt it, I spend way too much time stuffing the voices away, clamping them back into whichever box they escaped from as I try to achieve pure silence.

Doing that is pretty much anti-meditation. Trying to quiet everyone down only adds to the stress I’m looking to overcome. I’m defeated before I even begin.

I’ve always thought that because I’m incapable of achieving completely silent headspace, I’m no good at meditating. But the original definition of meditation (as derived from Latin) focused on contemplation and reflection rather than on emptying the mind. Required letting go came later.

Apparently, there’s more than one way to approach a meditative state.

Lately, I’ve started letting everyone have their say. Without me stifling them, words flow through my mind and upward, released into the stratosphere. Some phrases are nonsense, word soup strung together in non-sequiturs that don’t make sense. Sometimes, images appear after the words float away. They don’t always make sense, either. Why do I often see a neighborhood I never lived in and only briefly knew? Why am I sometimes in an alternate future that might have been but never was?

“Making sense” is relative. Maybe the trick isn’t to muffle the sounds and sights that pass through my mind, but rather to hear and see them. The frazzled, busy ones tend to dissipate, curling upward like wisps of smoke. The more resonant ones stick around, even out, invite me to stay with them for a while. I think of them as guides meant to lead me through memories and issues that still need resolution.

Finding my peace may be less dependent on stashing thoughts away than on understanding them more completely. Once I better understand a presented situation or examine a lurking fear, the nagging tends to go away (at least for the moment — my concerns can be very tenacious).

I’m grateful for however I find my peace. Inward focus helps me cope with the cacophony of the outside world, where the noise can out-blab anything my own mind produces. I need all the centering I can get to keep my balance there.

I was good at the game. Very good. I learned tricks and glitches, each ghost’s distinctive way of chasing Ms. Pac-Man. Pinky was the fastest ghost, while Blinky was the hardest to shake. Sue was slow, which could lull a player into a false sense of security. There were nerves-of-steel routes where Ms. Pac-Man could brush “shoulders” with a ghost without getting caught. But when I really needed a breather, I used safe-spot glitches on the screen where Ms. Pac-Man could hide and become “invisible.” Theoretically, she could stay tucked away in her little corner forever while the ghosts sped past, unable to find her.

Hiding was not danger-free. One little toggle of the joystick, and the ghosts buzzing around in frenzied search would immediately attack. It was way too easy to accidentally jiggle that stick, because somewhere deep inside, you were never completely convinced that Ms. Pac-Man was truly safe. You wanted to stay ready to GO in case a ghost’s eyes turned your way.

I could identify with this. I liked my own safe corner of the ice-cream shop. My “ghosts” were multiple term papers to finish in limited time, cramming for final exams, and (especially) what exactly I planned to do with my life after falling off the cliff of rapidly-approaching graduation. But safely isolated in the ice-cream shop, all I had to do was play the screen in front of me while the rest of the world whizzed past.

Of course, there was another factor to invisibility. Sure, Ms. Pac-Man was tucked away where nobody could find her. But she was no longer part of the game. She never did anything or went anywhere. Since she wasn’t eating pellets or fruit, no points accumulated. She didn’t take any chances, but nothing happened, either. She was just …there.

Playing it safe meant you missed stuff.

Back when I was super-good at Ms. Pac-Man, I once turned over the game. I went through many different iterations of the Ms. Pac-Man Acts (They Meet! The Chase! Junior!) I passed through screen after screen of images and colors I’d never seen in the game before. Even then, I knew I’d never experience that again. I’d just maxed out of Ms. Pac-Man.

You not only miss stuff when you play it safe, but there’s a second part, too: what’s the point of learning the game if you never give yourself the chance to use what you’ve learned? It was time to leave the ice-cream shop.

Put me in front of a Ms. Pac-Man screen now, and I’m respectable but not amazing. I could say that the game itself has changed (it has), but the truth is that once I stopped playing regularly, I lost my chops. But moving on came with new benefits. I don’t regret it.

Besides, it opened the door to pinball.

But they take a piece away from us as well. Their passing leaves one less person in the world who remembers our personal times and spaces, who witnessed our struggles and celebrated our victories. We lose stories–it’s hard to reminisce when our partner in crime isn’t physically present to chime in with their perspective of the narrative. Inside jokes fall flat; the one who “gets it” isn’t there to laugh, and nobody else knows what we’re talking about. We’re left to safeguard precious memories on our own.

The future is impacted, too. It doesn’t look like we thought it would. We lose the ability to hash out worries and hopes with a person who was always part of the scenario. We can no longer bounce ideas and solutions off someone whose insight we valued. A main character available to us in every vision of our future … isn’t.

The person we lose takes not only a part of our shared experiences with them, but a reflection of who we were in their eyes. Nobody else saw or will see us in quite the same way. Nobody will infuse us with the same energy or recognize the same potential in us.

We’re often reminded that our loved ones will always be with us and that we will see them again. Sure, but this isn’t that essay. This is the pissed-off, bewildered essay. What we lose is irreplaceable, and attempts to soften the loss sometimes feel pat.

I do know one thing: our person is gone, but for some reason, we’re still here. We still have the opportunity to radiate the essence of who they were. Did they bring joy? Clarity? Were they generous with their emotions, appreciative of the gifts others brought to a situation? We can still fill the void in both our hearts and the world with energy sourced from this. Emanating positive power won’t bring our person back, but it will reflect the best of not only who they were, but who they believed we could be …

…which may be the reason we loved each other in the first place.

The mall was more crowded than usual when I walked in. (I’m never quite sure how the stores in this place stay in business.) But busy or not, it was easy to spot a little girl of maybe two or three a short distance away to my right, holding onto her grandmother’s hand as she walked. She moved with that determined little march kids have when they realize how well they can navigate on two feet. But when I stopped to adjust my purse strap, I realized that her march had a set destination: me.

The little girl kept her eyes on me as she weaved through shoppers to come closer. She never stopped moving. Without a word, she grasped my hand and kept walking, not missing a beat. “Hello,” I said, falling into step beside her. The grandmother cleared her throat, at an uncomfortable loss for words. “I don’t mind,” I told her. “I’m heading to Trader Joe’s anyway.”

“We’re going to the parking lot,” the grandmother replied, clearly relieved that there would be a natural ending to this odd encounter.

The child stared at me as we walked hand-in-hand past stores, never loosening her grip or changing the solemn expression on her face. I imagine we looked a little silly walking as a linked threesome through the mall, but I didn’t see any reason to disengage.

“Thank you for the walk,” I told the little girl when we reached the doors to outside. “I’m going to the grocery store, now. I hope you have a very nice day.”

She let go of my hand. I waved. She waved back. Then we turned in opposite directions and left.

Never mind the cuteness factor; I appreciated the human contact. I don’t get enough of that these days.

I like face-to-face interactions with people, and those experiences are getting harder to find. I avoid self-checkouts in stores whenever I can, even though standing in line for the one or two checkout lanes still manned by real people means a longer wait. That’s okay. How else would I hear about the cashier’s surprise eightieth birthday party (and be impressed by the fact that this square-dancing grandmama is decades older than I thought she was). There’s no other way to meet the young man who knows so much about jazz, classic rock, and whiskey and who always lightens my day with a seemingly sincere compliment. And where else would I find the gentleman whose curmudgeonly comments reveal more about his interesting past than he realizes? Getting in and out of a place as quickly as possible is seldom my goal.

I don’t like crowds (and my definition of “crowd” has a low threshold), but I do appreciate opportunities for exchanges with people who … well, aren’t me. How do we learn to appreciate other people if we obliterate our chances to deal with them in everyday life? Online communication isn’t enough.

Kids need that human connection, too. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I still have fond memories of childhood lollipops from bank tellers who weren’t ATMs and book recommendations from librarians who either checked out my new stack of books or checked in the ones I returned. I remember the reminders to say good morning, please, thank-you.

My little friend’s grasp reminded me that despite a barrage of internet/text messages and the convenience of breezing more quickly through automated errands, something inside us still longs to just reach out and grab someone’s hand. We haven’t evolved beyond an innate need for physical human contact.

I hope we never do.