Right now, as I’m writing this, it’s late Saturday morning at the end of January. My window’s cracked and I can hear light rain and birds chirping. My ceiling fan is on, the lamp next to my door is on. It sits on a small black bookcase. I’m typing rather than writing in my journal, which is my normal writing practice. I write by hand and then put it on the computer screen. For some reason, I feel the need to sit here and type. I can hear my sister and my mom downstairs talking in low voices. I’m looking at the botanical calendar on the wall. For the month of January, the botanical is juniper. I don’t know much about juniper, so I’m feeling the need to look it up. One of the search suggestions on Google is this question: What is the spiritual meaning of juniper? I click on it to see the response. The juniper tree represents strength because it has the ability to grow in harsh climates and can survive where there’s little water. I hear a car pass by on the wet road. I’m thinking about my guitar, which I just wrote about in my journal. I’m feeling the need to write a song later. It’s been a while since I tried to write a song. There are a stack of spiral notebooks in front of my bookcase. I’m going to use them as dream journals. A week ago I started a dream journal because over the last year I’ve been having a recurring dream where I get back together with my ex-husband (something I do not want to do). I read that a recurring dream is really the subconscious communicating that something needs to be consciously faced. I’ve been writing my dreams down almost every morning right after I wake up. I haven’t had the recurring dream since I started writing in my dream journal, but I already notice a theme popping up that’s related to it. I now think I know what that dream is trying to tell me. I’m lonely. This is not a revelation to me, but it means more to me now to know this because my subconscious has been trying to point it out to me. The candle on top of my bookshelf is white tea and sage. The top of my bookshelf is a bit of an altar. I keep a Hotwheels car on it as a good luck charm. It’s a 2007 Mustang and it’s black with orange stripes. I found it in the backyard two years ago. I have no idea where it came from. It’s a little banged-up. Whoever had it before me must have played with it a lot. The rain has stopped; the birds are still chirping; there’s a loud car engine in the distance. My cat eats from his food bowl next to the open door of the closet.