I used to write here almost daily–until, I didn’t; for oh so many reasons.

I became aware that certain people were reading. I became more interested in writing for publication. I became conscious of and conditioned to not write for free.

And yet.

Writing here is, and always was, about more than just me. It was, in so many ways, a conversation.

Blogs are not really the same thing they were in 2010 when I first started. And yes, at some point, I will probably promote my Substack.

But until I commit myself to writing consistently enough to have a Substack, this will have to do. And anyway, it’s the conversation I miss the most. I don’t know if people will comment anymore. I don’t know if that’s the done thing. But I’m back to find out.

Today, a poem appeared in my feed.

WATCHING MY FRIEND PRETEND HER HEART ISN’T BREAKING
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star
would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons.
The equivalent weight of how much railway
it would take to get a third of the way to the sun.
It’s the collective weight of every animal
on earth. Times three.

Six billion tons sounds impossible
until I consider how it is to swallow grief—
just a teaspoon and one might as well have consumed
a neutron star. How dense it is,
how it carries inside it the memory of collapse.
How difficult it is to move then.
How impossible to believe that anything
could lift that weight.

There are many reasons to treat each other
with great tenderness. One is
the sheer miracle that we are here together
on a planet surrounded by dying stars.
One is that we cannot see what
anyone else has swallowed.

This is the original version but it seems, edits have been made. And the below circulates in existence, too.

This is almost the version that Rosemerry reads here…

And, to whomever is reading now: Hello, and welcome.