Today I had a root canal re-drilled and packed by my dentist. I did admin, made phone calls, cooked dinner. Adult mode, functioning mode, clear mind, to do list, one thing and then the next, daylight.

This evening I’m picking up the teen staying with us from their work because they finish too late for safe travel on public transport. It’s dark and raining a little and I didn’t want to get out of my comfy chair and do more things.

But now I’m here… I remember how much I love the night. The rain calls to me and I feel the day slip away from me like a dream. It’s beautiful here, the world shines and smells of wet earth. I think about a talk I’m going to give to some doctors about psychosis soon and how, if I can, I will try and hold the space and evoke a little of the night in it, bring them here. I think of how we talk about feelings and altered states in white rooms under white lights, dressed in suits. And I think about the strange people like me on the edges of the known world, feeling things in the night. I think of my friend who died alone with her face cupped in her hand. I think of Amanda Palmer touching my face as I told her about my friend who killed herself. Belonging is about feeling. It’s about the night. I’m whole here in a way I can never be in the day. I think about waking two nights ago to the terrifyingly familiar thought “Nothing makes any sense”, a lingering echo of my recent plunge into the void. I think of waking this morning from dreams of ecological disaster and wondering what world my child will walk and how long it will last. I think of myself birthing in the dark, face painted like I’m in a psychosis, sailed far into my own deeps, beyond shared understanding or common language. Naked and bearing down on the world, bringing whole galaxies of neurons into existence within a tiny new body for my lover to press to her face and gift with a name.