At a Loss for Words

It's not that I haven't had anything to say.
Who knows where these gaps come from in the life of a writer. What I've learned in my 40 years as a writer (I won a poetry contest when I was 12, but I started writing when I was eight.) is that I always stop and I always come back. It used to scare me. Maybe it still does.
Some call if writer's block, but I could have written if I'd really wanted to. For me it is more like a momentary lapse in ambition, or maybe just pure laziness. Lately, I've preferred reading others' writing. I've been devouring books with a ferocious appetite: six in the past month.
Or maybe I have too much to say and I lose the ability to gather it up in my arms and work it into something I can handle. So I just let it all roll around until it's compacted enough to pick up again.
When I've thought about writing in the past month, this is what I've thought of: Daniel, who on April 4, will be two years dead; the temporary nature of feeling good; sex without estrogen; Daniel; the hike Dan and George and I took at Big Basin; Daniel; sleep and lack of it; living as if I have 20 years; and Daniel.
I'm not quite ready to write about Daniel. I still have a bunch more crying to do about that.
But I am ready to write again.