I wrote this piece in an Abre Tu Boca writing circle with one of my own prompts, almost a full month before I had any idea what was happening with my mom back in North Carolina. When I read it now, it’s as if it was telling me my future.

Listen here for my explanation of all this. I read the writing to you and then analyze the mechanisms inside it as I myself begin to unlock its meaning. Beyond the writing, it’s a journey into the mysteries of the creative process itself.

A prompted write from an Abre Tu Boca Writing Circle, January 4, 2026

She was turned toward the window, so that when I followed the line of her face with my eye, her contour was illuminated as if the sun shone through her, her edges paper-thin.

Something about her was paper-thin. Something in her had been moved over again and again, until it was worn flat, not just thread-bare, but thread-barren.

The window brought her solace. She didn’t know what she looked for, only that it focused her mind away from what was inside.

The dishes still lay scattered, dirty.

The note was still on the table. She found it under the water glass. In her mind, she refolded it, placed it back, like rewinding time, to let the light through water dissolve its words, while she slid sage and salt under the skin of the chicken, as the screen door snapped shut.

As the screen door snapped shut, the light shone through her edges, illuminating the contours of her mind — a light thrown on so that I might read her.

I set my bag down and handed her a glass of water.

If you’d like to write with my style of prompt, my annual Writing Camp is coming up soon.

During September, I’ll send you a daily writing prompt—the beginning of a sentence that knocks on the door of your subconscious and immediately activates the writing. You write it at the top of your page and keep going for 10 minutes.

Then, each weekend, you’ll get an editing deep dive—a way of zooming out from the page to observe what emerged and start working more deeply with it.

It’s your way of accessing what I do here.

If you’d like to go back and read all of my North Carolina journals, start here: The Verb that Doesn’t Exist. If you begin there, it will take you all the way through.

Written in circle in Todos Santos, it moved me backward across place and time, from Baja to North Carolina, where one memory opened into another. I’m sharing it here as it arrived.

Each Wednesday, we begin from the same prompt and listen for what the collective voice reveals.

If you feel drawn to write with us, you’re welcome to join here: Abre Tu Boca on Substack.

When does change happen?I look up and am different.

The eyes I look through —they see differently than they once did.

The streets of Madrid look familiar — normal — even though I've only been here once, for about five weeks, and nine years ago. Why is this?

Is it because of all the other places — the ones that were not Madrid? From the act of removing myself from what was familiar and moving myself around in places that weren't? So now the unfamiliar is familiar.

Was there a gradual change that I didn't sense happening?

I sit here with a media barrita and a café negro, which is actually an espresso — dark, toasty, Spanish — at the edge of the avenue, which is actually at the edge of Madrid, in Usera, about to go figure out the metro. And as my body, here alone, feels at ease in this city, country, continent, I realize this: I am different.

If you want to catch up, start here.

¿Cuándo ocurre el cambio? Levanto la vista y soy distinta.Una nota sobre volver a Madrid nueve años después

Primer día completo en Madrid — Usera, al sur de la ciudad

¿Cuándo ocurre el cambio?Levanto la vista y soy distinta.

Los ojos con los que miro —ven de otra manera a como veían antes.

Las calles de Madrid me resultan familiares — normales — aunque solo he estado aquí una vez, unas cinco semanas, y hace nueve años. ¿Por qué es así?

¿Será por todos los otros lugares — los que no eran Madrid? ¿Por el acto de apartarme de lo que me era familiar y moverme por sitios que no lo eran? Así que ahora lo desconocido se ha vuelto familiar.

¿Hubo un cambio gradual que no llegué a percibir?

Si quieres ponerte al día, empieza aquí.

traducción / translation…

Estoy saltandoa través de la piel del miedo.A través detodoslos viejos yo.

Recuerdo cuando,al dar un salto parecidohace nueve años,dije:El plan es no tener un plan.Y ese plan cambió

todo —el paisaje entero de mi vidase reordenó al volver.Excepto que eso quiso decirque no habíaregreso.

No sé quédesarraigará mi saltoesta vez.Y ahora de esotengo miedo.¿Qué arrancarésin querer?¿Estoy siendouna nuevaclase de imprudente?¿O solo valiente?

Solo.

Cuando metola mano en lo desconocido,¿Qué percibo?

La oscuridad se sientesorprendentementeamable, suave, no amenazante.El terciopelo del pelajede un perro,que duermea mis pies.

Para que yo lo sientaasí, séque hay algoque he hechodentro de mí.Que es mi propiaoscuridad la que se sienteamable, suave, no amenazante —mi propio submundo aterciopelado.Se haconvertido en un lugaral que puedo asomarmey acurrucarme dentro.Y no está tan mal,esa oscuridad. Es sololo que esperaser visto por milinterna de mirar.¿No es eso todolo que alguna vezes?

Y así esta vez, quizásno salto,sino que entro caminando,

llamada por la negrura.

Click here to read the next post in the series.Haz clic aquí para leer la siguiente entrega de la serie.

Photo from Milan

There are times I feel I am spilling out all over the place. Like there is nothing solid to hold me. I am skinless, boneless. Organs, blood and bile walking down the street, which feels like a miracle.

I think it is a miracle.

Something is shaping me into new form. Life is doing its thing to me.

There are things I don’t speak of here. Things beyond tightly packed bags and watching people over coffee and itineraries for travel. There are things happening that undo me further.

Traveling is a lonely act. And it isn’t.

Living is a lonely act. And it isn’t.

I always meet someone.

And then I leave them.

Or they leave me.

Something somewhere moves on.And the self is left.

Or is it?Something there unsticks itself too.

What is solid? Something remains.Some me is writing this thing.

I rediscovered this little video on my camera roll recently, which I wrote and recorded in the park one Saturday morning, watching both light and children play, back in February of 2024.

This awareness is central to my creative practice as both artist and human: just as children enact during play, I make something and then atomize it back into its original parts, ready for making again. Except each time I put back into parts, the nature of those parts are slightly different because of what they have absorbed and taken on. My materials now have more meaning and are more alive. This is the miracle of the creative act — of being so deeply involved with it, awake to it.

Re-reading my writing in the above video, I had to think a bit about what I meant by that last phrase: that is the repetition of not doing. And it is about this: sometimes the way we “put back into parts” is not by breaking or actively deconstructing something, but by simply resisting the habitual recreation of the thing. By not selecting the habit and by choosing a new path, the parts shift, fall out and then fall into a new configuration.

Try it:

When you shower today, wash from feet to face. Wouldn’t that be wild?

Or that thing you always do? Just don’t do it. Just stop. Something else will come. The gap always gets filled.