There’s a certain quality of winter here in the Pacific Northwest where refrigerator air plummets down the mountains into the warm coastal valley, raising a confusing mix of temperatures, lowering cloud layers, and bringing us skies that are such pure brilliant white that birds in flight appear as black animated ink smudges against them. I sat on the porch and watched all of this using work as avoidance, using anxiety as excuses, and all the while realizing how easily disconnected I can become.