I published a new essay today in Re-Imagining magazine. It’s a response to our collective longing to be able to live our social lives again, though I provoke some questions readers of Liquid Ink will find interesting.

I’m wondering if anyone else is noticing the perception of accelerated time. For me, the days don’t seem to drag, despite me spending almost all of my time in my condo. I sense them barreling forward; it’s almost evening before I’m finished with my late morning chores. Given this, it seems I had inhabited a completely different consciousness when I first submitted that essay to an editor.

How to describe it? When I wrote the essay, I was feeling inquisitive, and I hoped for hope. As the days barrel forward, I’m noticing myself becoming more belligerent. I don’t mean that I argue with people, or that I sense some enemy or assault—I go outside to exercise alone or ride bikes with my children, and I’m hardly active on social media. I also don’t mean that I’ve formed an idea I want to push.

Instead, I feel an alarm going off, and my belligerence is the panic of a man reaching around in a dark room to try to silence it.

But it doesn’t quiet down. It seems to strengthen as my arm reaches and swings more desperately to find it in the dark. Strangely, I’ve longed for this alarm. Sometimes I even feel that I’ve heard it before.

I hope you’ll read my new essay.