The sky is hazy, a gray veil over pallid blue, as if dreaming of spring but not yet ready to leave winter.

Like the sky, I miss the sun, and strain toward the new season, knowing it will bring storms as well as sunshine, but longing for change, for newness.

My mind has been occupied with preparations and what awaits: a new house, a new state, a new church, a new city. For someone accustomed to small-town living, I have enjoyed living in the suburb of a city. It breaks the metropolis into manageable pieces. Makes the city not so scary.

In fact, since I’ve been here, I’ve not seen the city proper, just my small radius of comfort.

It’ll be much the same in the new place. However, I’ll be challenged to explore there: old friends live nearby, museums beckon, a memorial stands silent and compelling, history soaks into the very bones.

Once this frenzy passes, and preparation yields to action, then action to settling in, perhaps my mind will quiet enough to see the way back into a novel too long set aside by the expediencies of life. Perhaps I can sit in silence and play the story as if it were a movie hovering in the air before me, and once more populate empty benches with imagined characters.