Morning light these summer days is an amber glow, like resin painted on the outside of my windows. This is not the sweet touch of sunrise; my state is on fire, and I happen to live nearly smack between the most major of these blazes. There is a thin haze of gray coating the horizon in all directions like a film and a sense that if you breathe too deeply you'll wind up needing an oxygen mask before long. Along with daily news of the worsening economy, the energy crisis and the cave-like isolation of new parenthood, this state of inferno has contributed to an apocalyptic feeling, as if the bomb went off and we're in its aftermath. And while that sounds depressing, it's strangely inspirational to my writing, which I am trying to reconnect with after pregnancy ejected my brain and new motherhood has continued to loan it out.

But it's slowly coming back. Yee haw.

JPR