January

I know what the novel needs next, which is for me to go back to my old Scrivener file and untangle all the pieces, but it won’t happen until January.

We are nearing the end of our apartment renovation, and 4 months of living in temporary apartments with most of our things in storage. Tomorrow, we are moving from one temporary apartment to another. This has entailed a lot of logistics, an energy diminisher for sure. I spent the weekend not reading or writing but packing and planning.

I am only just now able to say this out loud (if writing it here could be considered out loud) because it’s almost over, but these months have been challenging. I have felt a little unmoored.

It’s going to get slightly more chaotic before it gets better, but then we will be home! I’m going to take break from this letter for the last two weeks of December so that I can focus on some pressing tasks at hand.

When I return — to the novel, to this place, to my apartment — in January, it will be with some writing goals for the new year. In the meantime, here are some more fun things we uncovered during the renovation, in addition to the original 1930s wallpaper.

So many paint drips! So many colors. There is one really pretty mauve that I liked.

Original black and yellow bathroom tile. We also discovered that the original color of the tub, underneath its current white enamel, was yellow!

I don’t want a yellow bathroom, but I love this tile.

Wood floor that was hiding under the kitchen tile! It’s a knotty pine that doesn’t match the rest of the oak in the apartment, but we like it, so we’re keeping it. This was before it was sanded and refinished.

That’s all for now — see you on the other side.