I try loading my WordPress site and the rainbow pin wheel spins while a message reads “Resolving host…”

These days, seems everything is in resolve, including my internet connection, which is my lifeline to the Archives. I am a writer first, and a blogger second, so in keeping with my resolve, I am typing here anyway, hoping that once the internet gods bestow me with a better signal, I can post these words for your reading. Until then, the letters are just for me at 5:42 am, as I sit at my desk which is now in a new location, in a house I’m still getting to know.

I watch my family reach for the familiar in this home that has none of our grooves yet inlaid. We seek simple routines, like which drawer houses the forks. We embrace new discoveries, like finding a vast collection of organic herbs and spices left behind.

The story goes that this house was built as a bird lover’s dream. There is literally a stained glass window at the front door from which a parrot shines. But after the birder left for a new island, the house hosted a lineage of others that used it more as an interim while their ‘real’ home was being built. After several couples had their temporary stays and left for more permanent dwellings, the house became a landing pad for island visitors, mostly a small cast of characters who visited regularly but stayed only a short time.

As we clear cupboards and closets, we wipe down the layers of about 30 years of history. I did discover two boxes of macaroni and cheese, the labels faded in color and looking to have been purchased sometime in the mid-eighties. Though one never knows the future, we’d like to settle here for a good long while. And it feels satisfying to wipe the slate clean before hunkering down.

Like every dream come true, there’s a full spectrum of reality. This morning, it’s a glitching internet signal that’s just not reaching our rural locale. Yesterday, it was a strange greenish-brown silt that had backlogged around the drain of the shower. Hmmm…

But the other end of that gamut gifted us with a cornucopia of citrus: grapefruits, tangerines, Tahitian limes, and oranges. Yesterday morning the Bohemian even sighted a whale breaching as he sat taking in the ocean view from the couch in our living room.

It’s all here. Like everywhere. The connect and disconnect. The light and the dark. The moldy shelf and the freshly cleaned windows. As an artist, I’m forever trying to encapsulate the scope and share it. The truth is, right now, I’m all out of my routine and scattered, unable to streamline anything.

This host is still resolving.

And with that, the roosters in the dark outside my window are crowing in the trees. It’s time to wake up Jeb and make our way to the bus stop. We’ll open a few drawers before we actually find the spatula. Start the day in new ways. Feel around for our groove. Remember gratitude in the chaos.