The thick, gray clouds just lay from horizon to horizon. The radar is green with rain. The weather alert on my computer says “wintry mix.”

I am waiting.

I feel like tea in a silken sachet. Hot water is poured over me and I absorb the water. Grow. Release.

Steep.

Wait. Siphon in the water. Be transformed. Transform the world surrounding me.

Wait.

I’ve been working on this post for 22 hours. Well. Not really. I started this post 22 hours ago. And then let it sit, Let it steep. Because the title came to me as I pushed the “Write” button but I didn’t know where the post was going to go. I needed to steep as well.

Since I have started my Mary Oliver posts, I am finding her everywhere. She shows up on my Facebook account. I read about her on the New York Times. Today, the poem of the day is Mary Oliver’s “Invitation.” She invites the reader or a person who is walking with her or just some person in the ether to stop. To pause beside a meadow brimming with goldfinches and exult in the musicality as the goldfinches call to one another, as they compete in a singing competition.

Creatively, I have been steeping. Just letting the next chapter kind of brew in my mind, let the words steep. Maybe. Really. Actually. I am avoiding writing the next chapter. Because of so many reasons…

Just because.

And yet, I feel like God is reaching out to me. Because the goldfinch is an important motif throughout my novel. Because I love Mary Oliver and have been writing again because of her. Because today I feel like I have been invited to come back to my life once more and partake.

I have been on hiatus, a sabbatical from my writing, from my life. I have been living in pause and just trying to most past my staticky self. I am pixelated. A bit broken.

I have been steeping. Gathering my tea leaves into little clusters so they can divulge my future.

But I own my future. To quote “Invictus,” “I am the master of my fate,/I am the captain of my soul.”

Oh Mary Oliver, lead me through the swamp. I have on my waders, but am so incredibly tired and worn. But lead on. Time to live.