If I write a chapter, my knee will heal because I will have yielded to this thing I am supposed to do: write a fucking book. This book is not a fucking book, but the process looks like a fucking process from here. This is a book I have imagined for nearly two decades. I have ideas: a collection of short stories with overlapping characters or place, essays or stories for each country stamp in my passport, a multigenre meditation on faith and motherhood. Rarely have I wanted to write a novel, but I have two situations I might develop. One, a year at an international school in South America. Two, a month home. Each of those situations would read a little memoir-ish to anyone who knows me. Four or five years ago I decided to pursue publication. But my effort was lukewarm and now I am more apathetic than hopeful that I’ll publish anything substantial, though I continue to write and revise while wondering to what end.

So when my knee quit a couple of months ago, at the end of our first year in Korea, I thought of how tightly controlling I am with my body. Prone to anxiety and melancholy, I rely on running to unwind the tensions I carry. I crave the work of my body, the sweat and effort, the ease of falling into a cadence. A couple of months ago, this daily tack was gone and though I believe God works through ordinary suffering, I am selfish to admit I’d rather endure extraordinary suffering than lose my routine. I left Korea with a limp, apopros the transition year in southeast Asia, and spent a gorgeous summer in Wisconsin not waking early to run, and instead padding my ass and waist with beer and cheese. On a walk one morning I thought about this book. That morning I was in a better mood, thinking how this time away from running might be a blessing to my body and mind. Now, two months into an endorphin shortage, I think of either going on antidepressants or bashing my knee in to end all hope of recovery, because I think it’s the hope that kills me. The glimmer of something that might turn out okay, or even good. When I think of faith, hope and love, I understand the faith required, the love necessary to get through my time on earth, but I fall short on hope.

There are times when I think I need to let this book go or write it all at once, on fire. Now I have tied this book to my knee, which is probably superstitious and stupid, unless it isn’t and what I need to do to heal my body is commit to an idea that’s been residing in my bones for years. On better days I do not think of this project as a fucking book, but just the book or Chapter One. If I can get a first chapter drafted, the rest of the book will line up. Something about writing Chapter One feels insurmountable but I liken these first pages as a signatory commitment to the full book, finished within a year.

I wonder if my pores will clear when I finally write this fucking book too. It is this: long ago I decided to be a writer and the weight of a book just sits in my belly. Now, unable to run my feelings quiet, and sitting in the middle of the living room while my daughter hot glues a cracked plastic tub together so she and her brother can make a habitat for sea creatures, I wonder if the only way out of a book is to write it, even though I am afraid. I am in the middle of noise and helpless waiting so this is as good a year as any to write a book, with dread. But maybe also with hope. I have been starting Chapter One for years.