bursting into light

"Autumn Leaves" plays and a thunderstorm has just subsided and though it's summer, I can smell fall. Everything is burning and red and I'm living smaller these days, more carefully, less rhythmically. An old friend of mine told me my e-mail was an "opus" and I laughed, smallishly, because I write so few e-mails and letters these days. And none of them feel anywhere near the War and Peace-length pieces I once wrote. These days, my e-mails are all about the gray winter, the waveless ocean, the cold cheeks smashed to sand, to rock. I find myself tensing, easily hurt, quickly climbing into myself, wanting to bury my head amongst my own marrow.
I prepare for another move, another round of feeling slightly out of place. I'll be happier there, I guess though I'm clearly not sure, tucked somewhere away from the strip malls boasting too many CVS stores and even the pizza shops grate on me, being a constant, albeit silent, reminder that I'm here. When I tell people about Morocco, they tell me I'm brave to have gone there, and that makes me want to cry. I'm tired of explaining myself. I'm tired of never feeling like I entirely connect to anywhere. Except, of course, Wyoming and Morocco.