My husband is more than halfway back to our house in Utah, where he’ll stay for at least a month before returning to Tucson. Since he left this morning, I’ve made social plans for next week, cleaned and organized the house, written a prose poem, worked a small puzzle depicting Zion National Park, and made nectar so I can feed the local hummingbirds.

It’s important for writers to have time alone. It’s important for everyone to have time alone, but writers need it to produce work, which is what we’re compelled to do during our time on Earth. Have you ever been around a writer who’s not writing? Probably not for long. We’re intolerable.

My husband and I love each other and also need time away from each other. That’s been impossible since the pandemic, which is when his company went remote and there was no workplace for him to go to anymore. I was largely doing freelance and remote volunteer work, so I was also home most of the time.

From late 2019 onward, we’ve been one thing, a single entity. I have the antique typesetting letters to prove it. They sit on our kitchen shelf declaring that we are either Dajonna or Jodanna, not Dana and Jon or Jon and Dana.

For the next month, we will be Jon and Dana. I may eventually become one-half of the entity known as Dalexina, since Lexi is staying here with me. That’s fine. Lexi sleeps most of the day and doesn’t interfere with my thoughts and feelings, both of which need to be unfettered when I write. I might even get in on some of those naps. Dalexina has been busy lately. She’s accomplished a lot. She has big plans. She may be a tad bit overextended. Dalexina needs to curl up in her favorite bed with her favorite blanket and get some rest with her better half.

Did I just call my dog my better half? So be it.