I was walking east toward Broadway—a light wind, a rising sun, just minding both my own business and the occasional garden hose washing the beer off the sidewalks—when I turned the corner and had this uplifting moment of clarity. It was about writing, and not. About life, and more. A perfect moment, really, in which I knew exactly what mattered and what didn’t. And then a bug flew in my eye.

Isn’t that how it is? You’re finally content and then a bug flies in your eye.

Truth is, I’m having a hard time letting go of my recent rejection; it feels somehow symbolic. My insecurities over what people think I am and what I want to be are flaring up, like how I used to get hives. I’m anxious about that summer workshop—why did I want to go again? My roots are showing. I shouldn’t read Poets & Writers magazine—it depresses me. Where we live, what we do, what we owe… bugs, all.

So I’ll just make some summer plans. And by that I mean goals to hit, deadlines of my own. Don’t plans sometimes make it feel all better? In those watery moments when you think it really is possible to finish all those short stories by this date and send them out on submission and finish your collection and also the novel that’s due and, hey, let’s throw in a cleaned-out closet or two, you’re unstoppable. Bug in your eye? Not this time! You know, this may be why people wear sunglasses.