maximalist

We were asked to describe our superpower, and the only thing I could think to say, when it came to me, was that I am able to find the most complicated and most time-consuming path to accomplishing a task. Later, another woman called back to it, and said that she too, was a maximalist. I hadn't heard that term used like that before, but now of course, I am hearing it everywhere. I like its "go big or go home" kinship, the sense of expansiveness. A fatal flaw, but make it extra.

I suppose I tend to think of myself this way, I like this about myself, and yet, I know it is not wholly truthful. There is much held back, shrunk small. I am not saying anything new.

—

Snow came in big, gusty drifts all day. The highway silent and still, making days that already seem blurred and dreamlike, ever stranger. I move of, but not in them, it seems. In many ways sheltered from, protected. In others, inert, unresponsive, unmoved. I am restless. There is much to be done, but I long for the carelessness, the unthinking spontaneity of past years, even while knowing how this cautiousness, this gravity and complexity bring their own gifts. At times I envy the certainty and ambition of my students. To spend most of one's time among the young elite is not without its perils.

—

I read, I write. I cook. I drink. I move my stacks of books from my desk to the floor and then back. I ambush my teenage son with hugs. Mostly, he lets me. The hours are the days are the years are the life. I take it all in.