I walked. Out behind the barn where a wooded path winds down and then winds back up again.And my sneakers slapped the earth, and the wind whipped my hair around, and my mind churned with thoughts, flipping from worry to confusion to exhaustion like so many cable channels. Flipping. Churning. And the wind pushing me along the trail.When I finally noticed that. how my mind was flipping and churning, I began to feel into it.And what I found beneath the turbulence was sadness, a hot cauldron of tears, boiling, burning.And I started to cry - without asking, What's wrong? No more thinking. No churning. Only the path, and me, walking and feeling and letting the tears rise.And down at the bottom of the path, near the place where the U-shape turns upward and the rain has, over time, carved a crevice for sluicing down the hill, I found something.There, hidden in a corner of my own heart, I glimpsed joy - and with it, a strange partner, outrage.I saw, also, the image of the book that I've been setting aside as I build a business and a brand and keep myself otherwise occupied with being busy - and important and special.The book that I keep not writing.The book that sends the tiger to wake me and write with me.The book that waits, patiently, for me to find the time the courage the wordsAnd the tears flowed.And I asked myself: what do you want?And I did not know.And I asked it again, out loud - because back behind the barn the only ones listening are the only ones that matter - the wind, the trees and me.What do you want?  And instantly I knew and forgot the answer.And i cried some more because I'd touched it.And layers of exhaustion fell away - onionskin, last year's leaves - onto the path behind me.And I let the truth rise - and speak itself into the wind.I want...It was a prayer of joy and outrage.Joy that I'd said it.Outrage that it feels so out of reach.Joy that I am here and alive and walking, when the outrageous is also true: three of my friends have died: Three mothers. Three wives. Three friends. Vanished, in two months time.The outrage of that.But oh, the joy - that I knew them. That I had the privilege of talking with them, laughing with them - dancing with them. And the outrageous truth: I did not know or love them nearly well enough.Joy: of my own breath. My own children. My own heart beating.Outrage that I kinda, also, really don't know what to do.And may never...Joy that life feels closer.Outrage that I still feel,sometimes, so far from life.And the wind rose all around me and the trees shook and I asked for what I want and,as I awoke, a tiger cat was crossing the road. It scooted dangerously between oncoming cars: one racing north, the other south. And crossed into my yard and up onto the porch. It turned and looked me in the eye and then, it padded away - across the lawn and into the woods between one house and the other.