after a long time

This was a long winter.

It followed a tense and difficult fall, and was only broken by a busy and stressful spring. Now summer is opening up on the Ranch with clouds of mosquitoes and the sweetness of Alberta roses. Mornings are warm and bright. Everywhere is green leaves or blue sky. I come in at the end of each day smelling like sunscreen and bug spray and horses. Just like I used to.

Except.

I haven't slept in a month. Every day I force my body to do the things bodies are supposed to do in the daytime: have open eyes, put food in mouth, go to work, speak to other people, shower, brush teeth, wait for sleep. When the day is over and I think sleep might come, it eludes me, always. I am awake while everyone sleeps. The dog snores. Eric faces away from me, buried in his pillow. I keep checking the time on my phone, lighting up the room with little disappointments -- it's just later and later and later.

If I didn't live in the wilderness, I would leave the house. We used to stay up until dawn, remember? Talking and talking and talking and talking over craft beers and sometimes pipe tobacco and sometimes campfires, and always Garneau. I don't know what they do now, if they still do that without me.

But now I'm in the quiet of the countryside. No cars, no backyard parties next door. Just the hum of bugs in the air and the wind in the trees. The breaths of horses and the songs of frogs. And at three in the morning, before the birds have woken up and before the sun thinks of rising, I'm awake and alone.

It's been months since I've written anything. I tried to strangle out a poem this winter, but it wouldn't give. I've been reading a lot about the creative habits of writers and artists, trying to glean what it is that makes art work for them and not for me. It is hard work for them, too, but they've got an idea to start with. Something to go on. To work towards finishing. The process after that idea comes is different for everyone.

How long do you wait for an idea? At what point do you just surrender to your life? To going to work, speaking to other people, making plans with friends, being a nice wife, a worthwhile citizen? To putting on sunscreen in the morning, running my hands over the smooth summer coats of our team of Belgian horses, to standing on the deck next to Eric and looking out at the wide green world? There is nothing wrong with any of these things. They could be enough, maybe.

But I would like both. The ideas, the words -- and to surrender to my regular life. And, of course: to sleep for a month straight.