In the morning, I dive around like a little minnow into the nooks and crevices in my heart. There I discover first fear, but as I give it my attention, it blossoms into hope. I spent the day yesterday at my childhood home, and at last, it seems we’ve turned a corner. I really will be out of there by month’s end. And not only that, but the rest of me heads into the ocean thrilled to catch the next wave.

I read a deep and honest and startling piece last night by my friend Erika Krouse. She’s one of those people and writers who plunges into life and then hooks all sorts of things, looks them in the eye, and writes about them.

On the other hand, we all get what we get. And what choice is there really but to look it in the eye, even the sewage, and write through it?

But the piece made me swallow hard. I found myself disturbed for a while afterwards. I’ve never seemed to have the stomach to digest cruelty, whether coming my way or at others. I’ve had to put great books down at times because I knew what was coming.

Yet some of my very favorite books and films: Bastard out of Carolina, Kiss of the Spider Woman, left me sobbing at the end. So art, so life. Love it, hate it, face it, or create layers of swathe for insulation and hope that the light also can find its way in.

I explained it to Christopher like this. “It was really good, but it was about her time as a Private Investigator.”

He said, “Like Sherlock Holmes?”

“Exactly. Well here’s the thing. A PI’s work often leads them into the worst in humanity. I mean they don’t send PIs to cover unicorns, they just don’t.”

And I long again for childhood and creating rich tapestries of worlds that contained all the confusion and unpredictability and mystery of life, but where the point wasn’t quite as sharp, not like a butcher’s knife anyway. More like a butter knife frosting a cake and there are colors that could still swirl into anything imaginable. It’s that place where anything, anything is possible.

Where maybe we could explore the vast varieties of kindnesses like a chef explores ingredients. And if we pick one up and it bites or stings, so be it. Because we will face the darkness one way or another—we must. But I want some say so.

Tina Fey employs a little sheet cake therapy to deal with Charlottesville’s aftermath.

And in the end, so does Erika. Her way in is as holy as life in a bucket, just like mine. Our choices define us. And yet, and yet, cast that net and we still have no idea what we’ll get. And the only real choice for the writer is to eat it. To eat it all.

We performed over the weekend at a backyard party at the home of our friends Bruce and Susannah. I’ve mostly put music gently off to the side during the move, but because this was a backyard, friends, and known material, I thought it would be easy to pull off in the midst of wild packing and unpacking.

During a rehearsal, I grew so angry at Christopher I thought I’d explode the house. I’m still new to acknowledge and digest anger and this white-hot searing rise of thunder was like nothing I’ve experienced before.

Long story short: It had to do with claiming my voice and power back from men after being silent for centuries. It was just a little hiccup to the “This will be easy” plan.

Christopher has taught me recently a new way of processing when we think the anger is at another, to just keep going deeper until the emotion is pure and individual.

This was hard with this one because I had layers of tribal communal rage to navigate, all the way down to needing to not care what anyone, what any man thinks of me or my voice. I am not asking for your opinion. I do not care.

And then deeper still. To a feeling of worthlessness, like my voice wasn’t worth sharing. Here, here in its deepest vulnerability, held in the space with love and grace, here is where healing happens.

I’ve learned our strongest furies are where we protect the things we do not want to feel. I had the same rage come up at our house meeting. Afterward, I felt deep down into a place where I was sure Christopher wouldn’t want to live with me because I’m a failure at living together because Steve didn’t want to be married anymore. And one of the reasons he gave was that I put the toilet paper on upside-down.

Disarmed and vulnerable, I performed in Susannah and Bruce’s backyard. We jammed. People cheered and a couple of people asked for an encore.

So we sang “God is claiming us,” a love song, and I felt into the lyrics to the point I almost choked on them. The light swirled. Christopher missed a note. I stayed present. The song continued. It was lovely and intense and beautiful and not tight or perfect. “That was messy and confusing like the real thing,” I said afterward into the microphone.

I stepped off the stage and into a row of three supportive women visible through the blue-black of falling night. Christina, a powerful woman of peace and a vocal master, said, “Never, ever apologize for anything you do on stage. It shrinks the energy of the performance. You sounded great. But if you apologize, the audience believes you that you messed up.”

At first I tensed up with the feedback, regretting the mistake. But then I opened up into the learning along with a lot of positive feedback and felt so grateful for the experience.

We think. It will be easy. I’ll choose this. But life finds us anywhere. We think we can protect our children, but they have a date with destiny. They have learning curves with their names on them. Like in the Fairy Tale Sleeping Beauty when the parents try to protect their daughter from the curse, it always happens, though it’s not always a curse forever. Curse/blessing, darkness/light, it will come for us all, whether through a thousand swaths of fabric or the open black sky.