I can readily identity my problem. I feel incredibly fractured right now. With my family still in the Upstate, my heart is between Nashville and Spartanburg. This too shall pass but it all feels strange and, honestly, quite lonely. I feel like I'm watching my present, unfamiliar life from a distance sometimes. I feel like waves of energy that are bouncing back and forth between two timezones. Thus most of what I have sat down to write feels hollow, robotic.

But it is what it is. Bemoaning is not going to change a thing. The move to Nashville has been good. It is where we need to be. December will come and bring my family with it. But in the meantime, I am faced with this armful of questions. How do I make the most of right now? How do I avoid just looking toward the future and thus burn a month and a half of time? How does that creative spark begin to once again glow? How can I not feel disembodied?

"It's just words, folks. It's just words."

Growing up, I always heard that childhood standby: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." I understand why we're told that. You don't want your kid to haul off and sock a seven year old because they're called a doo-doo head. But that saying is a lie. Words wound. In some ways, a word is worse than a stick or a stone because you can't see the damage done.

Words are powerful. Take away language and our civilization would be in a huge mess. Words convey what is most important to each of us. We express love, needs, and hatred with words.

We speed down a runway at 180 miles per hour and escape earth's gravitational pull. We ascend above the clouds and soar at 10,000 feet; achieving something that humanity could scarce dream of for generations. We hurtle through the sky at something like 540 miles per hour before descending back down to earth at a somehow controlled plummet to land. It's a marvel to me. Even wedged in a space too small for my six foot one frame between two total strangers, I still think flying is amazing.