Digging In. Standing Up.

Do not be be deceived into thinking it is over just because the barrage has gone silent. This is a pause, not an end. You have to use this time to crawl up and out of your meager protective bunker and get your ass out into the sun where you have work to do. You don't know why or how, but some divine accident has opened up four fucking months of time for you to write what you say you need to write. The work has to happen now, before the skies again fill with the rain of commitments, of tests to grade, lessons to plan, meetings to attend, papers to grade, conferences to hold, web sites to build. If you fall back to nurse your wounds, you will be lost. You will never be able to again face yourself or forgive yourself. These are the days you have longed for, begged for, prayed for. Do not lose this opportunity. Yes, it hurts to move when you are so stiff, sore, tired, and full of the weight of grief and heavy poisons. You have to act in spite of it, to shift your gaze up and out and into the heat and cold and wind. Do not be afraid, but look to the end and feel the hopes of a hundred men behind you, dreaming that you might be one strong enough to tell the story. Lean into the years you have spent preparing for this. Remember the promise you made. Draw on the ineffable that you know waits for you the day lie down, calm in the knowledge that you did not back down, that you gave it more than you ever thought possible.