Sitting here in Case Study, Americano on the table, computer on my lap - make myself at home - the way I've always done. I'm literal like that. It's not called a table top, this little machine of mine. My BFF. And anyway, you don't get the cozywarm legs if the computer isn't on your body. Personal space heater to counter all that fall coming in through the open cafe door.

Me, I'm the woman in the big purple headphones without the first clue what to write. I'll tell you a secret: my head is packed with sounds and thoughts and ideas, but these days every time my fingers get within three feet of the keys it's all poof, gone, right of the rails. Empty. It's empty up there. I got the music beyond the edges of my headphones, come and go traffic, a broom across the floor and the barista chatting up a guy at the counter.

Devices all around.

Out past the window, toddler unsteady stepping the sidewalk in the rain jacket both my girls wore at her age. Purple hearts up both yellow sleeves and butterflies taking up the front panel real estate. Lila was in that jacket back when we lived in one of the brick apartments across the street, whole of our lives crammed into 720 square feet. I could spin sentences all through the night, put breakfast on the table in the morning, drop them at preschool and make newspaper stories until pickup.

Back before Facebook.

The leaves have dropped and budded and spread their colors and shed their colors, again and again and again. My girls have long legs to carry them steady now.

And I'm still here.

Got a story for you, but not the first fucking clue what it is.

Stick around. I swear, I'll find it.