Quarantine 2020

Notes from the quarantine we are in for Novel Coronovirus/Covid-19 worldwide Pandemic.

The first week
Even normal things aren't normal.  Everything feels like I am part of a movie script, one where something unpleasant is about to happen to the characters.  Every glance, every movement, looking for clues as to where the trouble is.  Even routine things like taking out the trash feel heightened, to have some deeper meaning, but I don't know what that meaning is.  I'm waiting.  Is my throat sore? I'm sure I caught it traveling.

The first month
The first month for me was mid-March to mid-April 2020.  A kind of haze seemed to surround things.  I spent a lot of time obsessing over news channels on my phone, reading scientific articles, trying to become as educated as possible.  Uncertainty is the flavor of the month and it doesn't taste great.  I heard about the COVID-19 malaise and I thought, even without contracting this virus, I have the malaise.  Lethargy set in.  I binge-watched The Good Doctor, New Amsterdam, 9-1-1, Doc Martin, and many others that now escape my memory.  I appreciate laughter so much.  Being stuck in one small space together is not easy.  But each time I hear the laughter this month, I think 'Is this the last time?'  It feels like the world is going to reach our front porch any moment.

Some silver linings to this time in-between
I notice the flowers in my yard, innocently blooming, unaware the world has taken a 180 degree turn.

My morning cup of coffee means a lot to me.  Another day with no one sick in the house.  A marker in the days that flow together. Will tomorrow bring illness?

The girls dusted off and set up the Wii and we dug out old CDs of Just Dance.  It has been a blessing.  We've played card games, the four of us in my circle of germ-sharing. Dutch Blitz, Ticket to Ride, Just One.  Four 1000 piece puzzles in that first month while the cold and rain and wind and snow continued.

For my birthday in January I got a sewing machine from the kids, and I got it out for its inaugural run to sew face masks for my family.  We tried out phone apps like 'Houseparty' and had better luck with 'Marco Polo'. We talked about teaching ourselves to play the piano (hasn't happened yet, but hey).  I study the 1918 flu pandemic and learn the word vaccine didn't exist for the average person.

The second month
I feel like I took a deep breath and noticed my surroundings.  We are all here.  We have a grandchild coming.  We did not have a traditional Easter but it is ok, not to have everyone together. So much better than ok.  I start feeling like so many novels I've read about WWII.  The victory gardens, the rationing, the black-out curtains, the obedience for a higher good than my own self-fulfillment.  My perspective turns, I realize this is a truly historical period, that will be referred to just as often as September 11th or other moments that humanity shares.  Everyone in my family is united in treating this 'stay at home' order with solemnity.  And in getting through it together. 

People talk about this being a time of mourning and it is.  It is so many things.  I try not to mourn superficial things like my gray hair that has grown out without my hairdresser.  But I do mourn that spring break trip Anna had to cancel and the baby shower we can't perceive of holding any time this year and feeling good about it.

So it turns out for me, quarantine is about having so many feelings, all in the same 24 hours.  I get depressed, I get annoyed, I get angry, I get sad, I get excited, I get a nap (yay), I get anxious, exhausted from overtime at work, tired of my pajamas, started watching the evening news again.  I'm not a worrier at heart, but so far this quarantine has felt a LOT like a movie script and I want to be one step ahead of the scriptwriter.  I want to be prepared.  That involves a lot of pseudo-worrying.

Here are some pictures of this time period that I want to save here.  What Quarantine 2020 was like for me, in pictures.

Remember how the whole world put hearts in their windows?  To recognize the nurses and doctors, the EMTs and police and fire.  The postmen and UPS delivery women, and everyone else who kept working, so we could #staysafeathome ?

Remember that year all salons were closed, and your gray hair grew out.  But there was no one at home who minded?  These pictures were both taken the same day.  My gray isn't visible at my hair line :)  Who knew. 

Nature doesn't know it is a strange year, 2020.  Nature just goes right along. 

Easter morning worshiping through YouTube.  Anna's first attempt at homemade croissant.

Visiting the grandparents from six feet away. 

Farm n Fleet parking lot for our safe-distance visit with Chris and Jenny.  She is 33 weeks along here.

We celebrated two birthdays 'in lockdown' as they say,  so far.  Julia's 21st and Anna's 25th.

A social distancing approved virtual baby shower for Baby Evans.  He is due June 2.  

Future self, these are all things that have really happened in March and April of 2020.  Restaurants (drive-thru only), bars, malls, non-essential stores have all closed.  Everyone is wearing a face mask in public and staying at least six feet from all other humans.  School has been closed since March 16.  A ten week-long 'snow day'.  After fighting so hard for years to get one 'work from home day' a week we now have 100% work from home at my employer.  Not everyone is finding it to their liking.  Zoom book club.  Toilet paper shortages.  Hand sanitizer at a premium. Lots of good memes. Porch drop and runs. Cruise ships.  Air Pollution disappeared.  Millions have been laid off or unemployed.  I can't go to the eye doctor or the dentist. I've had poison ivy for two weeks, driving me insane. No yoga, no hair salons are open.  There is an election in six months and no election campaign commercials. I wonder if a year from now, or ten years from now, any of us will believe this all really happened?

At the root of this it is all about the dying.  We've passed the 3 million mark for Covid-19 cases in the world and  the 60,000 mark for U.S. deaths at the time I'm posting this.  Everyone is talking about how it is more deaths than the entire Vietnam war. Lord, hear my prayer, that your will for us is to be past the worst of this crisis and able to move on to whatever is next. Give us patience.

I've been witnessing the worst and the best in human nature.  It is like a magnifying glass has been placed over our characters, and all those quotes I'm so fond of, they are all revealing their truths.  How you act when you don't have to is just as important as how you act when you do have to. Character is revealed under pressure.   The bad news is out there and I'm a better person for having read it. Even if less naive and sadder.   The good news is also out there and I'm a better person for finding it and reading it all.  Such a feeling of a common purpose, the world, trying to save themselves but also trying to save their fellow-human-beings.  Worthy.  We are worthy.

Ready to come home

Vacation is over. Over 2000 miles under our belts in 10 days.  We hiked a mountain and biked a beach and ate so much food, I should be in eating time-out.  Am I glad I went? Without a doubt.  Did I learn anything? Life-long learner-- that is me.

I learned that sunsets are different every night.  Even from the same spot plopped in the wet sand just where the tide can reach me.  Some sunsets turn fiery orange and some remain a spotlight on a stage. They all make the trees on the horizon feel like I'm on the Lion King set. 

I learned everyone sees things differently.  Where I see a charming arch of shady live oaks, others might see a claustrophobic endless tunnel.  Where they see delicious salt-water taffy, I see dental bills.

Luckily, I am easily entertained anywhere I go.  I like watching the fudge-makers on the strip in Gatlinburg and I like watching the body surfers try and try again on the edge of the Atlantic through my half-closed-to-the-sun eyes. The glinting ocean water mesmerizes me and finding pink daylilies is worthy of a photograph even if they are at a rest area on the interstate.  I'm curious with my eyes.

I learned that Charleston is full of streets named for their function.  The church is on Church Street and the bay is on Water street.  Early townsfolk had twenty pounds of petticoats in one hundred degree temps leading to a need for privacy before entering their homes -- to undress.

I learned that I am capable of forgetting.  Forgetting about the crises and tribulations of my workplace.  In fact, within hours of getting out of Dodge my mind had moved on to mile markers and the comparative quality of bathrooms at various gas stations. 

I learned that while it is good to go somewhere I've never been, it feeds my soul, it is also good to get to know a new land enough that it becomes the new familiar. When I pass the Angel Oak Road or the roundabout I am almost to my temporary home. 

And like every trip, whether it be overnight in Chicago or two weeks in China, or like this one, a mammoth road trip with four people traveling east, I learned it is ok for vacation to end.  Coming home has its reward, and one of those is gratitude.  Gratitude that I was able to learn all that.  Gratitude that I fulfilled my wanderlust, and am ready, yes I am, to sleep in my own bed and make coffee with my own pot.  Even if I'm not ready to go back to work tomorrow, since we did not win the lottery in any of the five states we played it in, I will go back.

But also like every trip I've taken, I spent the last 500 miles thinking about where we might go next.  What adventure should we try?  What part of the country is calling my name?  Oh I'm not going to make reservations yet, but planning the trip is where I zen out.  It will likely be more than a year until we can afford another vacation, but it will come and I will be ready.  To leave and to come home.

Partnering with the Creator

I tried a new yoga class last weekend.  It was not yoga for exercise, which I did for several years in the past,  but instead about two hours of relaxation, breathing, stretching, breathing, with 'ohms' and the full ceremony.  I enjoyed it very much.  The last five minutes or so was just focusing on stillness and consciously listening. 

I left this very nurturing atmosphere with this message "I want to live life intentionally, and stop letting life happen to me."

I was impressed with this message.  I bonded with it and felt it was exactly what I needed.  I thanked God for giving me this thought.  And then, of course, I tried to put it into practice.  Since last Saturday:

1. We all got sick
2. The dog turned out to have a terrible case of fleas (even though on Sentinel all year round)
3. Our rug shampooer broke three times while my living room was half wet and half dry.
4. I cracked a major molar within 24 hours of getting a clean bill of health at the dentist.
5. I was stuck with an emergency crown procedure. $$
6. I got sicker
7. I was too sick to go to the concert I had been looking forward to for weeks.
8. I was too sick to go on the shopping/bus trip I had been looking forward to for weeks.

Talk about not letting life 'happen' to you.  Geez.  How is this helpful?  Is God trying to tell me that I don't get to make decisions like this?  That He is in control?   

I'm trying to decide--was my goal the wrong goal?  Were the obstacles placed in my path to see how tough I am? Here is my conclusion:  I had a great goal and then I got sick and broke a tooth.  I am not going to question my intention. I am not going to question God.  I'm going to say, whether I'm living intentionally or not, life continues to happen.  It doesn't stop, just because I want to call the shots.  I'm going to have to be in both.  I will try every day to do some things that mean something to me, whether it is organize the bills, sweep the front walk, or write a short story.  It doesn't matter, how big or insignificant to others, as long as it is something with meaning to me.

However my message needs a slight change in wording.  I realize, like it or not, it has to be "I need to live intentionally while life happens to me."

And so, surprise, surprise, I learn once again that I am not in control of everything, and never will be.  I need to make peace with that, and be in control five minutes a day.  Or five times a day.  Or even just right here, when I decide which word to place next in this sentence.  Here I am, creating my reality. 

Toni

Sanity escapes me

Today I love the title of my blog. 

A lot has happened in the last 9 days since I last posted.

I sort of realized I wasn't so much depressed as just that life kind of sucks right now.  Good to know. 

I reached a level of stress that went beyond my reserves, beyond, those backup storage reserves, and entered damaging to my health territory.  None of my usual techniques has fixed it.

I fell and cracked my head hard on the cement walk in front of my house.  I could have died.  Like my neighbor Ray did.  Like other people do.  Walking to the car. Dead.  So that happened.  So far? Still alive.

We sold our flip house, which until the burden leaves you, you don't realize how it has been there waiting, while you soldier on, refusing to give in to worry and stress.  It is a huge relief, but now all the worry I had bottled up is released.

A low level anxiety exists for a writing day I'm going to in December, with my idol author, and it is just giving me mild yet continuous waves of insecurity and ever stronger feelings that my stupid idea of being a fiction writer is so so ridunkulous.  Labeling what I'm  not good at is so easy.

I don't want to waste time here on my work stress.  Let's just sum it up this way: my team went from 14 to 8 in the last  2 months time.  We are still attempting to carry on work as usual down 40% of our FTEs. One of those losses was to unexpected, young death.  Two left for career reasons, and three were 'downsized' out of the blue. 

It is surely more than the sum of these few items that has my typical solid and ready attitude to battle any crisis in the toilet.  Instead I feel like I'm made of tissue paper.

But wait, there is good news.

So last night I curled up in bed with my ear buds and my super-sized box of Nutty bars and watched the most depressing movie, and it left me feeling so much better.  It is 'Cake' and was (unlike its title) about a woman with chronic, severe pain. Twenty-four-seven.  I don't know how I ended up with it, as I was looking for a 'feel good, stress-relieving' kind of movie.  After this I watched a really bad tv Christmas romance. 

But it made me realize for the 147th time that people have it worse than me.  That most of those things I listed above are actually GOOD, like really good things, I'm just in a fragile state.

I also used technology to my advantage, found a cool meditation app (more another day), read my bible, called in to work today which in and of itself is a luxury that I'm sure 98% of the world's population can't afford to do.  But while in the shower just now, a light shown from above and hit my palms. (I was trying to be in the moment)  Through the soft-focus of the water hitting my palms I had a major realization:  "The palms of my hands don't look any older than they did in high school."

Wow.  Life-changing that?  Yes.  I don't even worry about aging much, wrinkles, spots, sags.  But something in me said, 'There is a silver lining moment.  You should share.'  So I'm sharing.  And I'm taking it a step further.  I'm going to try to find as many silver-lining moments as I can every day between now and Thanksgiving which happens to be a month from today.  I promise it won't be every day, I'm too ditzy to remember. 

Learn by teaching?  Feel better by making others feel better?  Laugh at yourself?  I'm sure those are all on posters somewhere.

p.s. friends who got this far, feel free to share one of your silver lining moments as all writing is basically stealing being inspired by others.

This year things will be different: Plan B

Last year I left  this wonderful writer’s conference (Midwest Writer's Workshop in Muncie, IN)  with my weakling spirit crushed by doubts.  Suddenly nothing I wrote seemed authentic, original, creative, compelling, you name it.  I blogged about it here.  And except for blogging and a few flash fiction contests, I took a breather from writing the last twelve months.  Another way to say that might be I lost my nerve, which has happened half a dozen times now over 20 years plus.

Well last week I attended the conference again. Even though my embattled ego said don’t do it, something inside me said try again.  I came up with plan B.  Instead of signing up to pitch the to oh-so-exciting NYC literary agents, or have an expert review my query letter, or even have a perfectly nice person/author critique my first 500 words, I changed my tactics. I attended Thursday only, which is a full day with one author, on craft. Writing.  It was what I needed, motivational, and I enjoyed learning from Martha Brockenbrough very much. (Future post on FORTITUDE)

Then I departed Muncie and Plan B  evolved as I spent the next 72 hours in Middle-Of-Nowhere Indiana, with only coffee, wine, and a thousand and one fireflies to talk to:

 

Just me, alone in a cabin in the boondocks, writing, revising, tearing apart and stitching back together.  There is only so much writing you can do in 72 hours, but it was….so enriching. 

Silence.   An old Beatles LP on the turntable. Porch swing over looking this:

Books to savor, interspersed with writing, accented by chocolate, naps, wine and walking in nature. Alone.  A-happyme-lone.   To think without anyone interrupting any single thought.  No cell service, no internet.  No television.  No jet ski or shopping mall or even gas station within 20 minutes. (that I know of)  I took over 100 photos and plan to show more here in coming weeks.  But here is my

"Still Life for Girl Weekend" :

As you can see I brought only survival foods, as I did not leave the property for a full 48 hours, and so I came prepared. 

I had some highly productive work sessions, where I took my first draft of current work in process, and started playing with the scenes and revising:

But nature was the star of my weekend. The sun.  The bees.  The air.  I breathe.  The queen Anne's lace, the endless wildflower meadows.  Much serenity.  Space, room.  No hurrying, clocks, no schedules, appointments, no meetings, no target dates.  Just me and my sharpy and  a stack of index cards.  It was damn near heavenly. 

 

 

Just the right word

This is it.  My chance to make this the shortest writing slump I've ever experienced.  I feel like I haven't posted here in three years, but I see it was just mid-August.  That was only three months ago.
I am never sure what to call it, this dark feeling that entering my writing room is akin to fraternizing with the enemy.  I feel I have never experienced 'writer's block' and thus can not sympathize or understand it.  But today I clicked on a Writer Unboxed article about writing 'slumps' and I felt that spark of recognition.  A slump.  I get into these low valleys and it feels like my writing self is up at least at the camp halfway up the hill and I have no desire to do anything except stay down here. Immobile.  Where no harm can come to my writing ego.  Anonymous and happily so. It is safe in the valley of the writing slump.

But safe isn't forward movement. Safe is useful when needed.  But it isn't living really.  Living does mean taking chances.  And pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.

For me, writing means believing in myself and when my writing gets criticized I simply stop believing in myself.  I tell myself I'm just a reader and to stop pretending otherwise. It happens every time.  And before you start lecturing me I already know.  Any artistic endeavor requires a thick skin. It requires being able to learn from criticism and improve your craft.  I have been reading that mantra since I cracked open my first 'How to Write a Novel'.  But it isn't in me.  It isn't.  And during these slumps I start judging myself, because these same 47 books I've read say a real writer can't NOT write.  And I can.  I can not write.  For months and sometimes years at a time.

But when I start getting the urge to leave the valley, I see that I have been writing.  I've been creative.  I've been posting.  I've been letter-writing.  I've been researching and learning. Words are still an important part of my daily existence and the more of them I consume, the better my day has gone.

And the word 'slump' did it for me today.  I like having a label for it.  I like knowing the task ahead, to get out of this slump.  And my first urge to blog in three months comes with that recognition.  Recognition that even though I'm currently 51 and awfully old to be a beginning writer, I am going to have more of these slumps.  I just am.  And if I'm ever going to get a book finished, I'm going to have to be patient.  Now next Saturday I might write that I never expect to allow myself back down there again, but as of 11/22/14 I recognize this is a part of me that I need to accept.  And if I am feeling like I might be coming out of the slump, I probably am.  And so I need to reinstate my writing discipline and get back to work.

My goal this week will be to find the word for when you have just stepped above the cusp of the slump and have tentative aspirations again.  I love finding just the right word.

Writer, Know Thyself.

I love to write.  I do not love much else about being a writer.  This is what I learned at the Midwest Writers Conference last weekend in Muncie, IN.  It was a well-organized conference with great resources, entertaining speakers, friendly but serious attendees, a lovely facility we based ourselves in, good vibes, good food.  Everything you can ask for in a conference.  So I highly recommend this conference to anyone who feels attending a conference will boost their writing life and road to publication. A fantastic writer's conference.

However, as the three days passed, I became more and more despondent.  I was morose by end of Friday.  I had learned that I don't like networking (hate is an ugly word), that I don't care about Twitter, that my platform is basically a few grade-school teachers who haven't died yet, that my work in progress has the wrong-age protagonist, is too short for the genre I was going for, that my main character who I love needs to be cut out in favor of a sub-character coming to the front, that there are lots of amazing writers out there, who read out loud works they had created in the last few moments and they were awesome to hear.  My query letter was so confusing and nonsensical that the critiquer was speechless.  One of my comments in my pitch closely resembled a 'Don't' in a later speaker round-table.  Now, is it good to learn about everything you are doing wrong?  I am sure that is why I paid the money.  But I learned that I don't want to know all this.  I really, really don't want to know it.  I wish I could un-know it.  These are my feelings. But don't give up on me, see title of post.

I want to write in my room for myself.  I love writing.  I love the creative process that comes from no-where-ville and appears at the end of my fingertips.  I apparently am allergic to anything related to becoming published because all it did was make me feel unworthy, clumsy, and cynical. 

I felt my desire to write dwindling, and  I realize now why I went to a conference in 2003 at Iowa Summer Writing festival and haven't been back to one since.  I went back to my journals and see that after attending that conference, I packed away my muse for 15 months.  How can a person forget that ? (rhetorical question, I forget a lot, different blog post)

On the bright side, I also had a mountain-top moment during the Saturday evening session with Elizabeth Berg.  I want to savor it and keep it to myself for now, but I'll write about it eventually.  It made the trip so worthwhile.  And to learn something about yourself is always a great thing. I learned that getting out of your comfort zone is really uncomfortable and many writers have these same issues.   I learned my time would have been more enjoyable spent in my hotel room writing non-stop for three lovely, long, solitary days, but that is because I am a flawed and imperfect human-writer.  But perhaps more enjoyable isn't always best?  I'm learning more about myself each year.  Good to know, good to know.

Ted Talks

I was home sick yesterday and discovered Ted.com, a site with enlightening speakers, people who make a difference, speaking for less than 20 minutes on a subject.  I had heard of Ted talks before, but never seem to have 'free time' to listen to self-improvement or mind-stretching things like this.  Too many groceries to buy and socks to wash.  I concentrated yesterday on writers.  The one by Amy Tan was amazing.  She was hilarious.  Every minute was some deep concept or tongue in cheek statement that made you think.  I listened to J.K.Rowling, Ray Bradbury, and a few other writers.  Next time I go there I'm going to search on 'humor' because there is nothing better than a good hard laugh.  Out loud.  It cures most things that you might be ailing of and wandering over to Ted.com to find a cure is not a bad idea at all.  Not at all.  Try it next time you are feeling less than whole:
http://www.ted.com/

Target: Muncie

This week I registered for the Midwest Writer's Workshop in July, which includes a manuscript critique, a pitch session with an agent, and a query letter review.  Each of these is about 3 minutes long, so I don't expect to stress about it.  I am feeling excited because I don't actually have a manuscript, query letter or pitch as of this moment.  I have a manuscript begun, a query letter from my last novel, and a plan to Google what a pitch session is.  But, I need this like I need water and chocolate: external, structured, kick-in-the-butt.  I have paid for the conference, I made hotel reservations, I took the days off work.  So now, assuming I get to my writing room three weekends out of four, I have a total of about 36 hours to achieve these goals.  Not much.  Do I start polishing the five chapters I have completed?  Do I work on a synopsis (part of the ms review) and try to plan out my story?  Do I go back and review the dreaded query letter that gained me 132 or so rejections last time around?  Do I practice my pitch to my dog Molly? 

What I need to do is first things first.  And first things, at least the next 5 or 6 weekends, is going to be going full-steam on my story.  I have no  hope of creating a synopsis or a pitch until I get the story arc figured out.  Then I can try for a synopsis, and then start polishing, the first five pages, which is actually the limit to what they will critique.

In any case, my blood pressure is up even though I'm sitting on a comfy bed with a velour throw and my laptop actually in my lap.  I'm primed for writing.  Now, to keep that excitement flowing.  Note to self: Blog about this next weekend....How to keep the fire burning.  And the following week...Elizabeth Berg.

Story

I’ve read a lot lately about having an outline rather than going by the seat of your pants when you are writing.  The idea of an outline scares me because I don't have a good idea where my story is going when I start.  So today I think I’ll brainstorm story ideas.  I’m starting a new folder titled ‘story’ and I’ll just let it flow.   My setting is gelling up nicely, my characters are revealing themselves in an exciting way, but what is the story I'm trying to tell?   I don't have a lot of burning stories in my gut waiting to be released like you hear some authors do.  And truth is, these are the kind of books I like best. Quiet stories, where the characters are experiencing everyday life and making discoveries about themselves.  The feeling on one hand is that there isn't a market for that.  The feeling on the other hand is that if I like them, someone else must also.  So I have these people in this town, and I'm not sure what they should do next.  I read that this is a universal writer's problem.  But when I sit down to write an outline, meh.  It is like a faucet shuts down.  I feel more like free writing and just seeing what comes out.  I know it may not be the wisest course of action, but it feels right.  And after all, this isn't for publication, it is for my own expression of creativity.  I need to quit thinking what will thrill an agent and just go to town.

 

Glorious Blue

Staples has forever earned me as a loyal customer, since that first commercial with the father dancing down the school supplies aisle to the theme music, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” I said, now there is a marketing rep who knows their customer base.

When my four children return to school, it is quite a momentous occasion for me. Anticipating it lifts my mood further with each passing week of August. Like most things in life, the anticipation can be better than the reality. I felt slightly blue yesterday morning when I realized dd#3’s toothless grin would not be popping into my peripheral vision at any point for the next six hours.

After 16.5 years of full-time motherhood, last August I felt the peace and pleasure of time to myself, when my last child entered the school doors for a full-day of book learning. I was giddy with excitement, didn’t know what or where to celebrate first. It was the color of blue so pale it looks white until you hold it up to the true white. Just a hint of blue, as I realized I’d never return to the preschooler days. Mostly, it was glorious.

This year, after a full-year of sanity-saving solitude, mental health-inducing quietude, and mind-centering hours of privacy each week, I feel slightly more blue.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still feeling the glories. The glories of a cup of tea with only the dog to watch me sip and nibble and contemplate. The glories of straightening a room and it staying that way for SIX full hours, an unbelievable feat of domesticity during prior years. The glories of writing for days at a time, taking up my dream I’ve had on hold for so many years of writing a novel, learning and growing in this occupation I’m trying to adopt. Many more glories than not.

But this August I feel a slightly darker blue. Maybe the blue of a pale sheer curtain, blowing against a sunny window. An almost imperceptible increase in the saturation level of the blue. Because the more time you spend away from your children, the better you can appreciate them. I feel like repeating that one. I look at my daughter and think wouldn’t it be great if she was my only child. If I could have all four children, but raise them each one at a time. Because individually they are gifted, loving, creative, funny, wise and my baby.

So this time, the celebration was a little shorter, and I had a visioin of future Augusts, as each year, my glorious feelings ever-so-slightly dim, and my blue feelings gradually deepen to sky, then royal, then somewhere down the line, a cobalt blue. Having time alone maybe won’t be the glorious high it is today.

But for today, I’m still celebrating. And I’m writing again. My office is cleaned up, my desk reorganized, my files all filed. I am ready to start on another nine-month odyssey as I delve further into my second novel. Nine months that is, until summer, and the four children, return to the center of my universe.