Thank you for all the kind comments and emails after my last confession.  I am feeling better.

If you've ever suffered from anxiety, you know it can appear out of nowhere and can also quickly turn your world upside.  Sometimes I can just pressure through it.  Sometimes I just try to disappear, retreat into my home, my life, my garden.

I guess this would be a good time to tell you that my soon-to-be published book, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, explores some of the anxiety I was feeling between 2004 to 2009.  It explores trying to calmness in a chaotic world.  In a certain way, I feel a vulnerability publishing this book, but I also feel that it's important to feel that, otherwise, I'd be leaving something out.

What's odd about the anxiety I write about in the book is that I can tell you the exact date this anxiety came on, July 3rd, 2004.  I was just about to take a bite of something and it occurred to me, that I was not hungry, in fact not only was I not hungry, but my stomach was in such a knot that it felt uncomfortable to eat.

Three weeks later, my step-father died of a massive stroke, two weeks after that I began my MFA program.

Strangely, I do not remember much of that time except having a bad haircut and sleeping at Harborview hospital.  I remember my daughter was just about to turn 4 and I remember my step-father being in a coma, but mouthing the words to me, "I love you."

I wasn't sure if I should start an MFA program so quickly after his death, but I knew he would want me to.

I tell myself that normally I don't experience anxiety in the summer, but maybe, I do. (Um, obviously I do.)

I think it's interesting that I have certain beliefs about where my anxiety comes from, but I really do not think I know what I am talking about.

That said, thank you again for your good thoughts, kind wishes and emails.  I'm not perfect, but better, feeling better and moving forward.

with much thanks,
~ Kells

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