croaky

you see those little hunched up shoulders, the little sideways drooping head? that's pretty much how i've been feeling, these last ten days (it's incidentally not in the least how isabelle was feeling when this photograph was taken, she was busily observing a colony of ants stealing the fallen crumbs of our ontbijtkoek). the russia trip really hit me in the windpipe. like something really big's got a hold on my throat, and the words come out croaky, uneven. most of the time, i don't even know what i am trying to say, and yet it hurts not to say it. it's been, it is, a struggle, with what i want and don't want to say, and how to (not) say it. as well as the sheer impossibility of talking about anything else in the meantime. see what i mean...

(i also went back to work this week, for the first time in months, not easy. but on the bright side, have definitely found calling. now only need to find serious sponsoring for calling.)

and to keep breathing, with and into the hunched-up-ness, the droopiness, the croaking and the confusion, as always, only this will do:
forest walks... and very (very) wet kisses.