The month of May always, always makes me think of possibility. It is, I suppose, merely a function of the lengthening of days. The sunset continues to inch further and further north, and closer and closer to 8 pm, while the earliest rays of dawn encroach upon my dreams earlier and earlier.

This time of year, my heart stirs, and I feel like I’m waiting for something. Something unpredictable, something unfathomable. There is a little dread that creeps in a this point. As tiny and circumscribed the footprint of my life has become, there are lots of things that could overthrow this fitful peace I’ve managed to attain.

It’s not anything like what I had wanted, but that’s what happens when you fail to make adequate plans.

Still (even though my soul does not wish to be still), the sunlight makes regret doubly woeful. This is not the time to be looking back. The light is for looking forward. As the rhythms of my days, my weeks, my months settle, it’s hard to see across the endless sameness. It’s like staring across the open sea, I suppose, over the infinite plains of waves. Water, water, and not a drop to drink. And not a cloud in the sky either.

But I’ve been pondering this particular truism: A writer writes because he must. And let me tell you, the fields of inspiration have been pretty fallow these days. There was a time when I was bursting with words and ideas that demanded to be let out, never mind that in their mad rush tumbling from my mind to my fingers and then either to the screen or to paper, they never managed to be coherent or euphonic. The words would come out in torrential spurts, like blood from the femoral artery, and just as vital, I suppose. But all bleeding stops eventually, and the days, the weeks, the months have been hard and dry.

If I do not write, then must I not be a writer?

(And why does this mad dream assert itself now, when the crossroads have all been crossed, when I couldn’t unravel the braided twistings and turnings of decision and indecision, even if I could spin time backwards?)

And still, as direct as I want to be, I still feel like I’m dancing around my meaning. Is it my will that is straight, and is it the words that bend my meaning and lead it astray? Or is it because, from the start, my desire has always been twisted, and the words are only flowing like rivulets of water down their accustomed courses?

I just wanted to write something, for no reason at all. And all I have is a map. A map can tell you how to get from here to there, but it can’t choose your paths for you. It can’t tell you why you need leave here, arrive there. A map can only tell you what is. It cannot tell you what will be.