V.R. Christensen's Blog, page 3

Fear (and Hate) in a time of Covid

Tempers are fraying. Patience is wearing thin. Weeks of the world being on lock-down, while the world changes around us, has produced a phenomenon of collective depression, anxiety, and…you guessed it, fear.

So what exactly is happening?

Besides the fact that our nation’s leaders have failed us miserably, putting their egos and their reelection strategies before the well-being of the public, there is the fact that this world-wide time-out has provided people more time than they are used to with their own company.

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As humans, we are accustomed to seeking comfort over pain. We actively pursue distractions from the things that hurt. We go to work, consume ourselves with careers and sports and fitness routines. We socialize, we drink, we eat, we watch t.v.. We have sex. We are masters at escapism, at numbing the pain within by consuming our spare time with outside distractions.

But when we are confined indoors with, the distractions are limited. There is still television. Not every stock is falling, after all. Netflix has never had it so good. But the options for distraction, particularly for extroverts–those who energize themselves in the company of others–are significantly reduced. We are confined to limited spaces and a limited number of resources to fill the empty holes within that are now staring us down.

At the same time, the world is changing. The world we knew is gone, and a new one is forming around us. Uncertainty always brings fear. Fear of the unknown is real. And there’s so much we don’t know…however much we like to pretend we have it all figured out.

When things happen that are outside of our control, we naturally feel afraid of what we cannot comprehend. The future, after all, is nebulous idea until it forms and becomes reality. Even with the best of intentions and the most meticulously detailed plans, the future rarely materializes as we would have liked. The real problem here is this need we have to believe we are in control of our lives. We aren’t, and the sooner we can accept that and lean into an attitude of receptive awareness, the more likely things are to turn out well for us. Expectation is a nasty taskmaster. She convinces us that our hopes and desires for ourselves are the only things that can make us happy, that what we need most in life is for things to go according to plan. Our plan. If we can open ourselves up to living beyond attachment to outcomes, what we do is step into the realm of possibility. Instead of staking our happiness on a narrowly defined parameter of acceptable results, we can trust that the universe knows what is best for us. If we are truly open to accepting that life might not be about how much money we earn or what kind of car we drive, and instead embracing each experience as an opportunity to learn and to grow, then we find that life is a series of unexpected joys.

Buddhist teacher Michael Stone has this beautiful video on the yogic principle of non-attachment that I return to often.

Life hurts. It’s a fact. We all have suffered from injury in our lifetimes, often at the hands of others. Statistically speaking 70% of adults have experienced some form of trauma in their lives. 2/3 of women will suffer a sexually related traumatic event before they reach adulthood. Our parents, who are supposed to love us unconditionally, are rarely equipped to do so. At some point in our lives, their disapproval (or that of some other caregiver) registered within our developing minds as rejection and a piece of us got locked away in some inner room. Bullying can have a similar effect. The rest of our lives will be spent trying to operate through life with a piece of ourselves, or perhaps a large portion of ourselves, locked way somewhere in the backs of our psyches. Trying to function fully and competently without our full selves is like trying to run a marathon without legs. It can be done, yes, but we would never resort to prosthetics if we actually have legs to use–and, metaphorically speaking, we still do, we’ve only hidden them so the world cant see them. That locked away piece doesn’t ever actually go away. Where would it go? Instead it screams to be reunited with the rest of the self, to recover the true self. And this is the source of inner pain and anguish. Identifying original pain is the major work of most our lives, whether we realize it or not. Because, until we do, we are not fully functional adults and the pain and the anguish and the anger will sit with in us until we have healed the division.

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Struggling with an emotion is not the way to deal with it, however. Instead, we must learn to get very quiet, very still, and welcome those emotions home, where we can learn what their messages are and what they are saying to us. Because, like it or not, all emotions have a purpose. They tell us something about what is going on within ourselves. Fear tells us we are in danger, either imminently or psychologically. It may be mistaken. The fear may not be real, but that is the message. Anger informs us that a boundary has been crossed, that our needs have been violated in some way.

What about when fear manifests as anger?

If you are like me, bouts of extreme anger have popped up for me during the shelter-at-home orders. I’ve been so busy over the last year. Having started a community outreach mobile yoga studio, I’ve been busier, and more outgoing (I’m not an extrovert) than I’ve ever been in my life. And it has not come without it’s costs. My energies have been sapped by a neglect of self-care and by friends and acquaintances that continually bulldoze across my boundaries.

I’ve needed rest.

I’ve needed time to reconsider my own needs.

Apart from my own personal experiences, however, I think there is a lot to be angry about.

[image error][image error]Philo T. Farnsworth (American) and John Logie Baird (Scottish) demonstrate their inventions.

I believe we are all susceptible to the collective conscious. It’s why two different people, living in vastly different parts of the world, will come up with a similar idea (consider the invention of the television), why music and art and fashion will display similar trends, why certain foods or colors suddenly become more popular than others. What one person puts out there in the way of thoughts and energies can be read by others who are sensitive and perceptive. But when a multitude of people are putting out a feeling or an energy, such as frustration for the inequalities that this virus has laid bare–it becomes palpable by the masses.

The anger is real.

But the anger, for many of us, is just another manifestation of fear.

Some are afraid of going back to a normal that still allows for the injustices that we have suffered with for far too long. Some are afraid of leaders who do more harm than good in their egoistic rhetoric and self-serving agendas. But, too often, another kind of fear raises it’s head.

The fear of the ego.

Ego is a dangerous thing. Ego is the need to protect oneself from the shame of being wrong or being weak or being less than. Worse than that, it’s the fear of being perceived as such. Because like it or not, we all are, at one point or another in our lives, one or all of those things. That’s called being human. It’s called being alive. It’s called being vulnerable, and one cannot be invulnerable to pain and open to joy. It doesn’t work like that.

When difficult times lay bare the facts that we are not as wise as we thought, we are not as prepared as we thought, we are not as financially stable as we thought, we are not as healthy as we thought, we are not as emotionally stable as we thought, we are not as safe as we thought, we are not as RIGHT as we thought…the ego will inflate itself, unable to sit with fear and accept our frailties and foibles, it will rear its ugly head and shake its fists and breathe anger and hatred…because that feels more powerful than fear. It certainly looks more powerful than fear.

But anger (another complicated emotion) is usually based in fear.

Anger is fear being pushy, throwing its weight around, grasping for power it doesn’t have or that it’s afraid to share because it mistakenly thinks that what it allows for another it looses for itself.

So whatever you are feeling during this time, whether it’s fear or anger, or pain, or actual righteous indignation, just get honest with the idea of what you can and what you cannot control. Get honest with the notion that our country has done bad things in the past and it has perpetuated those wrongs for generations. Trauma begets trauma and hurt people hurt people. Healing is group effort, it’s not something people can be shoved off into a corner to take care of on their own because their pain somehow reflects your culpability. But the fact that hurt has been caused does not necessarily mean that there are guilty parties that need to be hunted down and brought to justice. So many of these injuries happened so long ago that the quest for justice can only be found in changing the status-quo, not in meting out punishment. Power is not a limited resource, it can be shared without being lost.

So, in actuality, there is little risk in owning our story if we are not defined by something outside of ourselves. Which we can’t be. A moment’s pause to self-reflect can only benefit both parties if we have the courage to do it honestly. Think about it…

If you’ve caused hurt in your life, what is it costing you to own it?

If you haven’t caused hurt, at least knowingly or directly, what does it cost you to be empathetic and compassionate with someone who has been injured? Or even to open yourself up to the idea that by perhaps acting in a different way, you could help someone to heal?

The answer is nothing.

The lie is always harder to maintain than the truth. We are all culpable of something. We are all guilty in our way, and often without our knowing. The opposite of pain is not blame but compassion. Power is in taking ownership of our stories, in taking responsibility for the course of our own lives.

This world doesn’t need saviors, it needs healing. It needs love. It needs a voice for the voiceless. It needs compassion for the suffering and downtrodden–for the disempowered.

But it also needs action.

Fear isn’t always unhealthy. Take for instance the fear that comes from being in actual danger. When our autonomic nervous system is activated and we become hyper alert for the sake of survival, we enable courage and unleash the resourcefulness required to find ways to survive that we might not have thought of before.

We are not in that danger now, most of us. That doesn’t mean we don’t feel the threat of it lurking. For those of us who have survived trauma, it’s what we are on the watch for every day of our lives. Consider for a moment what a frightening situation feels like when we are in the midst of it, and how different it feels to anticipate it ahead of time or to look back on it in retrospect. It’s a different kind of fear entirely. In the moment of real and present danger, we are not cowering for our lives, we are not avoiding what we feel, but we are embracing every sensation and every sensory signal in order to absorb all the information we can so that we can assemble the resources required for our survival. In most cases, a frightening situation turns out to resolve itself without serious injury. We take what we learned from the incident and prepare for a better future. That’s what we can do now. That’s what many of us are doing now.

Having said that, I don’t want to disregard real trauma and the harm being caused by others, whether it’s ego-driven law enforcement or incensed protestors–or any number of actual dangers the world truly poses, whoever we may be and whatever circumstances we may find ourselves in. Trauma is real, and it is precisely what I believe is at the heart of our racial issues. Generations of compound, complex, multi-generational, systemic trauma, committed upon a population of people within a society that has utterly failed to provide for its resolution and healing. Trauma in the United States is endemic and largely ignored. And trauma can be inherited. The pain suffered by your ancestors can and does exist in you, and will until it is resolved. Bizarre as it may seem, it’s a true and legitimate phenomenon.

The masses ask for silence, when silence provides nothing but further trauma. It was Freud who found that giving voice to one’s stories releases much of the embodied anxiety (hysteria) that is consequential of trauma. The world has never done well with the responsibility of carrying each other’s burdens. It never needed to rise to that responsibility more so than now.

I would invite you to take a moment and listen to this video, where complex trauma and its socio-economic effects are explained by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. Compound, complex trauma creates all kinds of problems, mental as well as physical, legal, social, educational, financial, and criminal. It is the number one cause of nearly every ill our nation (and the world) faces today. Unresolved trauma has resulted in a public health crisis in America.

In the United States, we don’t know how to treat trauma. Our mental health care system has failed us in this respect. And so we have communities of unhealed, unwhole people trying to cope the best they can, their minds consumed by the horrors they’ve experienced and trying to forget them. Often, rather than living in fear, they turn to anger and violence, they struggle to live in and with bodies that have betrayed them. They turn to drugs and alcohol, or other addictions that take them out of the painful now.

It’s ok to feel afraid during these bizarre times. It’s ok to feel angry. It’s ok to feel anxious and depressed and uncertain. It’s ok to sit and just be with whatever it is you are feeling. We can take this time to slow down, figure out how to love ourselves more, to give ourselves more of what we need, to figure out how to be more real and honest and authentic, knowing we deserve to have our needs met and to set the boundaries necessary that will ensure we do not give away more than we can afford to expend on others who don’t love us like they should, while at the same time finding opportunities to be vulnerable enough to accept the love we do deserve. All this…so that we have the capacity to hold space for the pain of others. I think isolation has taught us, at the very least, that we need eachother.

This time we live in, as scary as it is, offers us the opportunity to change our lives and the world around us. It is frightening, but let’s embrace the fear of uncertainty, trusting that the universe knows what it is doing, and let’s have the courage to work towards a world we all want to live in together.

Fear can lead to love. And love is the answer.

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Always!

Why Write?

It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, after all.

As an avid reader I love language. I love that a sentence can be formed in a number of ways, each word adding something to the composition of the message one is trying to convey. The written word is miraculous to me. These little symbols are associated with unique sounds and, when grouped together, the symbols form words, and the sounds…pictures. Every word is loaded with connotation, with images that are unique to every individual. Despite the rules (oh, so many of them!) language is not precise. It’s actually a pretty clumsy way of getting one’s message across. And yet, when one does find the perfect grouping of symbols and words and sounds–and images–to paint an adequate picture of the story one is trying to tell… It’s magic!

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I used to have trouble sleeping. I would lay awake at night and daydream about the books I was reading (mostly classics at the time) and imagine myself as one of the characters. I’m an unapologetic idealist and a hopeless romantic (textbook INFJ, me), and I would daydream about the dramas and romantic intrigues these characters would find themselves embroiled in. Other plot elements, particularly those that portrayed the disenfranchisement of women, would get my blood boiling! In such cases I would imagine all the little rebellions I would stage, if not to win my freedom, then at least to make my point. Hours later I might finally doze off, only to wake again in the early morning hours. Or perhaps I wouldn’t sleep at all.

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One night I dreamt of a young woman entering a ballroom, dressed to the nine’s and looking the part but feeling completely out of place and alone, despite a room filled with people. The idea intrigued me, and I wondered what circumstances might induce someone to view their apparent good fortune with suspicion. Books are filled with avaricious schemers and hangers on. Surely not everyone felt quite worthy or deserving of the fortune that befell them–particularly if it arrived to them by surprise.

I began, instead of lying awake thinking about the books that I had already read, but dreaming up this new story. I would daydream of the various plot elements, the backstory, the characters that would add to this narrative in a compelling way. In the morning I would make a bulleted list of the events and plot points I had thought up. At first it was just something to do while I lay awake unable to sleep, but soon I found myself dozing off before I had had my fill of these new and exciting storylines.

But still I did not write. I didn’t think I was quite up to writing a book. I decided I would create an outline first, and only if I could come up with enough of a story line, with the appropriate story arch to carry it successfully from beginning to end, then I would begin to write.

Of course I had no idea what I was doing then, but in time I had an outline filled with plot twists and turns, lovers’ intrigues, stories of injustice and wrongs made right, manipulative men and misunderstandings between would-be heroes and heroines. And so I began to write. My first endeavor was a 300K word manuscript that was far too long and meandering, and displayed a lack of understanding of how to construct a novel that worked (I still struggle with plotting, to be honest). I shopped it around anyway, submitting it to agents, and had several who were interested, but they wanted larger revisions than I knew how to make at the time.

I wrote and rewrote, enlisting the help of friends to beta read and offer edits and suggestions. In time, Kentridge Hall became Cry of the Peacock, a story about an inheritance offered to the daughter of an estate overseer as a means of making up for a past wrong committed by the family of the landlord upon her own family. It was also about an arranged marriage. Having come to the end of that story (it would still require months of editing and revising before it was quite ready for publication) another idea came to mind. A similar theme, but sort of the other side of the coin. Another inheritance, another reluctant heiress, another arranged marriage–but with a far different outcome.

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Where Cry of the Peacock was a pastiche of plot elements from my favorite books, an attempt to write the book I would most wish to read, Of Moths and Butterflies was a sojourn into my own history–albeit disguised behind a backdrop of late-Victorian culture and early feminist reform. I was writing again, I was exploring myself and my original pain, trying to come to terms with it. Most importantly, I was sleeping. Like…really sleeping.

I had just finished the rough draft about the time that Harper Collins opened up its peer review platform Authonomy.com. I enlisted another editor, a close friend of mine, to help me prepare it for posting on the website. I felt that Moths had a stronger beginning than Peacock, so it became my focus (and was ultimately the first to be published).

Of the many comments I received on the website regarding this MS was one by a user in England who felt that I wasn’t diving deeply enough into my protagonist’s backstory. They felt, in fact, that I was basically skimming over the top of my own experiences without really getting in touch with what that history felt like in my own psyche. It was at that point that Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way came into my life. It had been suggested to me previously, but this time I really felt I was ready to do the work. It was clear, at any rate, that I could not write the type of book I really wanted to without it.

What began was a decade’s journey into my own soul and psyche, a journey which has caused tremendous upheaval and indescribable peace and healing. Yet, it’s a journey far from over.

As an author, it’s our responsibility to share as much of our journey and our wisdom as we can through our websites. It’s taken me a long time to find my voice. Formerly I wrote about my expertise in the topics I write about. The website became an invaluable resource even to myself, but when I lost that website due to a virus, I decided to take some time out and figure out what it was I really wanted to write about. At last, I’ve figured it out, and, as usual, it was right in front of me all along. My books were always meant to offer hope and healing. But I’ve been waiting to be 100% healed in order to feel qualified to do it. I’ve recently come to accept that that will probably not happen in this lifetime.

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As many have discovered already, the act of creating is in itself an act of healing and of self-discovery as much as it is self-expression. Writing, especially, is a profoundly powerful way to reunite with the self. Finding union with the self is the very heart of the esoteric journey to God, or source, or truth or… whatever you may wish to call it. That is, after all, what the word YOGA means, “to yoke, or to unite”. In Freudian psychology, the act of assigning language to experience and then of allowing the experience to reconnect with its appropriate narrative and associated emotions is precisely the sort of recipe found most conducive to healing trauma (this was in the days when Freud recognized trauma as the source of hysteria–I’ll write about that later). Thus “the talking cure” was born, but it’s equally as powerful in written form, particularly if we learn to truly listen to the wisdom within. My new dedication to this blog is in part due to Janet Conner’s book, Writing Down Your Soul, in which the author makes a convincing case for writing as an act of self-care and even attaining and tuning into the inner wisdom inherent in each of us. We all have everything we need, after all. Healing is just a means of regaining access to our wholeness–of remembering it and reuniting with it.

So answering the question, why I write, an exercise many if not most people would do anything to avoid, the answer is simple. I can’t not write. I’m not happy when I’m not writing. Writing has allowed me to heal. Writing offers me the opportunity to speak my truth, whether its veiled behind the set dressing of late-Victorian corsetry or neo-Victorian gaslampery. Or…when it’s the bald truth spoken in plain language, which I’ve committed to write more of.

My writing is about healing. My healing. But perhaps you’ll find something here that resonates with you as well. I hope so. That’s why, in future posts, I’ll be offering information on the resources and modalities that have been most instrumental to myself, I’ll be talking personality type and esoterica, yoga and meditation, the work and play of writing (if not the semantics), expanding my collection of short stories and essays (working toward the completion of Scatter Creek) and much, much more.

Until then, Namaste, and stay well, my friends.

Scatter Creek: Chapter 2

Early Morning Phone Calls Never Bring Good News

 

Alone again, and this time truly alone, I looked at the body lying in the bed. My father was not there. And now, I had no right to be. When the nurse came in again, I asked him if I needed to leave. He kindly told me I had a few hours yet to make whatever calls I needed to make, whatever arrangements, before his body must be removed to the morgue. He gave me a folder that contained all the information I needed to make final arrangements.

“If there’s someone you should call…” It was a reminder he should not have had to give. I had been on the receiving end of those early morning phone calls too many times. I had always felt pity and sorrow for the person who had been obligated to make them. This time that person was me.

“Yes,” I said. “I suppose I should call my sister and my stepmom.”

I called my sister first. She lived an hour away and it was with her I would be staying. She’d have to come get me. I remember worrying how to convey the message simply and clearly, even while she struggled for lucidity, pretending to be more awake and coherent than she was. But she had known the call was coming. Perhaps she had not expected it to come so shortly after my arrival, so shortly on the heels of her own departure. Four hours. I had only been there four hours. He might have died while I was in the air, or on the train. But he hadn’t. He had hung on, just long enough. He might have hung on for days more, as my sister expected he might. But he didn’t. I had come to offer him some peaceful space in which to depart this life, and he had done it. I knew he was no longer fearful. I knew he was reunited with the family he had been separated from for most of his life, the parents who had left him an orphan at the age of three, those whom he had spent his life resenting for their abandonment of him, however involuntary it had been. And with countless others, most of whom I could not begin to imagine. The parents who had raised him, perhaps. The grandfather who had emigrated from Switzerland at the turn of the century and the grandmother whose name and identity have been lost to us, possibly. My brother—his son, who had died eight years prior—most certainly.

Death is part of life. My mind knows this with certainty. My heart, even now, when my religious beliefs have been replaced with those more spiritual than dogmatic, struggles to understand the letting go process. But it delights in the thought of reunion. I no longer believe those loved ones are as far away as Heaven or Hell. I don’t believe either of those places exist, not really.

Scatter Creek: Chapter 1

A Meeting with Death

 

“I’m not afraid to die,” my father said to me when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer.

But he was. Perhaps he was not afraid when he said it, but as he lay in the hospital bed, the monitors silenced and morphine slowly dripping through the I.V. lines, he was afraid. I could feel it.

Perhaps I ought to have said something. I think of that now. They say that, after the passing of a loved one, we all reflect on what we more we could have done or said so that they knew we loved them. I could have spoken. I could have said it was ok, and that he could go, and that he wasn’t alone and there was no need to be afraid.

But I didn’t. He didn’t want me there. After the realization that he would not be leaving the hospital this time, he called me, he said his goodbyes over the phone, and he asked me not to come, not to trouble myself. My sister was there, and my step mother. “Don’t come,” he’d said. “I don’t want a fuss.” He never did. But here I was.

My father was just a few weeks shy of 82 when he died. Despite all his body had been through, four bouts of cancer, a heart condition that was at last regulated with a pacemaker, a hip replacement and three knee replacements, he did not look his age. But as I slipped into the hospital room that late October evening and saw him, his gray-white hair, his waxy skin, his sunken eyes unshaded by the glasses he usually wore, and a toothless mouth that hung a little open, he looked his age and more. My intention was to enter silently. I didn’t want him to be angry I’d come. He had asked me not to make the trip from Virginia to Washington State. He didn’t want the fuss. He wanted to die in peace.

When my father called me to tell me the news, and to say goodbye, he had not been expected to survive the next twenty-four hours. But here he was, nearly a week later, holding on with everything in him. He hadn’t wanted a fuss. But the dying should never die alone, and the living want as long as time will allow. My stepmother had sat beside the bed. She had always been kind and loving to me, but she and my sister had a tenuous relationship based on jealousy and a strange sort of territorialism for my dad’s affection and attention. My stepmother escapes pain by worrying over the insignificant. My sister escaped it by drinking. They had spent the last several days at each other’s throats, until at last, lacking sleep and proper nutrition, my stepmom had to return home, 90 miles away, and my sister had taken as much time off of work as her employers would allow. On the last day of my father’s life, he was alone. And that was why I came. No one should have to die alone.

Only it was possible he wanted it that way. He liked his time alone, and resented it when it was disturbed. As quietly as I could, I set up what I needed for the night. I knew I would not sleep, but I could make myself as comfortable as possible and prepare for a long night of meditation. There is rest in meditation, and sometimes it is more valuable than sleep. I hoped it would benefit him as well. I intended that it should.

At last, dressed comfortably after my long journey from one coast to another, I put on my most comfortable clothes, brushed my teeth, and settled myself onto the chair that unfolded into something not quite like a bed. And then I began to pray. I did. I asked God to grant my father peace. I asked that he would be aware of those around him who had gathered and were gathering to guide him home. Now, looking back on it, I think I perhaps ought to have offered the prayer aloud, but my religion was never something I was encouraged to discuss within the family circle. It was my own thing. I had strayed, in a way. It had benefitted me, but I was not welcome to share it. And so I prayed silently.

Shortly after I had said my “amen”, the nurse entered, an older gentleman, who was clearly surprised to see me there. I found that an explanation as to what had brought me and why I’d chosen to come, might be offered to the nurse and to my father in tandem. My father was not lucid, he was barely conscious, but I could sense that there was some awareness in him yet. And so I told him. My stepmother, who struggled with diabetes, was unwell and had to go home. My sister has taken all the time off her employers will allow her. I flew in from Virginia to be with him. I looked to my father as I finished. Would he be angry or relieved. “I’m here to take care of everything,” I finished. I’d said more than the nurse needed to hear. No doubt he was aware already of the reasons why he had been left alone. My stepmom and my sister had sat as long as they were able. They said their goodbyes. There was nothing more to be done. But in truth, I had wanted this time with him. Our relationship had not always been comfortable or easy. In the last few years, as he had struggled with this cancer, we had been given the opportunity to mend things. And I felt we had. There really wasn’t anything more to say, but I wanted to be with him. I wanted to be able to offer a peaceful and calm, and perhaps less fearful space for his passing.

When the nurse left again, I began my meditation. I alternated observing my own breath and listening for his. It was light and shallow and sometimes took a great deal of focus to perceive at all. I fell in and out of awareness. I suppose I must have drifted off to sleep. I woke up each time the nurse came in, and then I’d resume meditating, resume listening, when he’d leave again. I hated all the interruptions. I’ve never understood how people get any rest at all in a hospital with all the constant comings and goings of nurses and other staff.

With the room quiet again, I dropped back in. I suppose I must have fallen asleep, but I woke up again with the sensation that the room was no longer empty. In fact it felt quite full. I knew we were alone, but, at the same time, we were not. I didn’t open my eyes to look; I was afraid to. Whatever was happening was happening for my father, not for me and I feared if I looked, it would dispel it. There was a sensation of love that was so all-encompassing, so expansive and penetrating that I felt in that moment, that if this love had been available to him—or perhaps if he had been able to access it—he would never have had cancer, that it was enough even then to heal him. I felt him healed and whole. And then…little by little, the sensation went away. I did not want to know. I heard no breathing. I heard and felt nothing. And when the nurse came in again, I did not sit up to greet him. I just lay there, pretending I was asleep, wishing I was asleep.

“I think he’s gone,” he said.

Slowly I sat up. Was it wrong to be asleep as he passed? I hadn’t been, but something like it. Was it wrong not to be aware and vigilant? To wait for someone unrelated to make the announcement?

A second was called in and at 2:10 am, they called it. But he had gone ten minutes before. I knew it. I had been there to witness it.

Available May 26, 2019!

We are just four days away from publication of my first novel in five years, and the first of a dystopian-steampunk series, and I’m SO excited!

 

[image error]Available on Amazon and from these online retailers!

And be sure to watch the trailer!

Welcome to New Londinium, a city that developed from an enclave of stragglers who survived the culminating blast of the last world war. From beneath the lee of a mountain formed as a result of the devastation, a colony gathered and grew. After several hundred years, this post-apocalyptic city is filled to bursting, and everyone—well, nearly everyone—is struggling for a place amidst the city’s Chosen, the elite ruling faction.

Robert Mayhew, by all appearances, is a man destined to be numbered amongst these Chosen. But Mayhew is both more than and less than he appears. His unauthorized conception, and a hideous deformity that was the result of his failed termination, have left him with a bloodthirsty lust to exact vengeance on the system that conspired to kill him even before he’d drawn his first breath, and who would surely finish the task should his secret be discovered.

In his position as chief curator of the Absinthe Moon—the city’s center of love and leisure—and supported by the Resistance, Mayhew is in just the right position to infiltrate the Icarus Project—the executive body of the city’s shadow government—and bring the whole system toppling down. So long as no one gets in his way.

Enter Emeline Newell. Utterly devoid of any evidence of the city’s taint, she is a valuable asset to the Absinthe Moon, and to Mayhew in his aims to achieve elite status. As his consort, she might give him just the advantage he needs.

Only Emeline has some ideas of her own, and perhaps a few things to teach him about love, loyalty, and the power he wishes to wield.

 

 

It’s a New Year! Time for New Things!

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I know that any goal I set for myself is going to be met first with resistance and a dedication that actualizes itself only in fits and starts before, eventually, becoming habit. It’s the habits, the “being” not the doing that I’m aiming for, and so I make resolutions, yes, but I give myself the whole year to master them, even to revise them, because that list I make in January is always a little too ambitious.

This last year was a doozy. I’d rather not repeat it. Ever.

Have you ever been in a relationship that you just allowed to happen? There was no real reason not to give it a shot, but you knew at the beginning it just wasn’t going to work? It entered your life, and you just said, “What the hell!” and allowed it, and yet you knew…you just knew that it wouldn’t work out, that it wasn’t a good fit for you, could never make you happy. And then…at the end, when you put no work into it, you never committed yourself truly, you just stood by and allowed it to be what it would…and it all fell apart…then you blame yourself for the failure? That was this last year for me. 2016 was a failed relationship that I just allowed to happen. To be honest, I’ve known what was coming for a long time. But even a failure you allow to happen is far messier than one you plan.

I like plans. I like lists and goals and organization. 2017 will not be a repeat of last year, and I mean to make sure of that.

So I’ve made some plans! Call them resolutions if you like:

Goal no. 1) Absinthe Moon will be published. The poor, dear thing just sits on my “desktop” waiting for the final edits, begging to be carried into a second volume, and praying this will be the year I introduce it to readers.

The problem is… I’ve not truly written in a long time. I just haven’t been able to. Personal insecurities and demons, weaknesses entertained, the breakup of my marriage…my father’s battles (yes, that’s plural) with cancer, some personal dramas and disappointments, have all completely paralyzed me from any kind of literary productivity. By the end of 2016 I realized that I either need to regain control of my writing career or give it up entirely. I’m done giving things up, compromising. I am a writer, and good one, and I need to continue on this path. I need to fight for it. So fight for it I will.

I spent seven months away from home last year, in a small town near a place called “Scatter Creek”, caring for my dad while he went through chemo, and after he had 85% of his stomach removed. I’m grateful for the opportunity to care for him, and to spend time with him, but it meant being away from my kids, away from the people I love, and Virginia is home to me now. During that time I did The Artist’s Way for the second time (an experience I will blog about in the near future) but one of the things Julia Cameron says is that we cannot be creatively productive while we are hanging onto fear and anger. I am one part hope at present, and nine parts fear and anger. And so…

Goal no. 2) I will move through fear into self-actualization, healing and happiness. Carl Jung teaches that only by moving through fear do we overcome neuroses and find healing.

Goal no 3) I will forgive and let go.

And by way of doing that…

Goal no 4) I will write something new.

While I was taking care of my father, I absorbed a lot of information, using my free time (since I couldn’t effectively write or edit) to read everything I could, to learn everything I could about relationships and overcoming neuroses (we all have at least one, and thank God we do!), about dealing with emotions and finding peace. I felt like the Universe was simply dumping information into my lap–all I needed and could possibly require–and it all related. It all seemed to be saying to me, that these experiences were for my ultimate benefit and would lead me full circle back to myself. Only I haven’t really had an opportunity to synthesize and absorb and put into use all that I learned, and so I think what I need to do is write about it. I’ll tell my story, the circumstances, the daily failures and personal shortcomings that came together to bring down a twenty year marriage and bring me to my knees as a human being, searching for some kind of meaning in it all and hoping for a chance to start again. I may not publish it. In fact I probably won’t. It won’t be an expose’. It won’t be a work of vindictiveness. The man I married was and is a wonderful man. It just didn’t work. We both ensured, in our naivete, ever seeking to preserve our own emotional safety first, that it wouldn’t and couldn’t be what it should have been. It was an agreement we both silently, tacitly made each other from the early years of the relationship. It was I who broke that agreement. It was I who changed the terms. I made other mistakes, many of them. And I hope…I pray…that my efforts to honestly examine where I went wrong will allow me to let go, to move on, to forgive…myself and others, and to move forward knowing better and determined to give my all to living a full and meaningful life in the future. Maybe I’ll meet someone new. Maybe I already have. Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life alone. And that’s ok.

Goal no 5) I’m going to travel more. I’m going to do something new and fun every  month. I already have plans for Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and possibly Pennsylvania. I’m going to go see Bastille live. I’m going to visit the apple orchards, once in spring, again in autumn. I’m going to the beach and to the mountains, and…I’d really love to see England and France again. But we’ll see where the year takes me.

Goal no 6) I’m going to finish my house, so I will be free to find a new one. The living room and dining room have recently been finished. I’ll post before and after pictures soon, so stay tuned.

Goal no 7) I’m going to create one beautiful thing a month. I’m going to try, at any rate. If I could have my wish, I’d live off of my writing and supplement it by creating beautiful things and consult others on how to make their own spaces beautiful. I’d be good at that, and I would find it fulfilling. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? To live a life that is fulfilling. What would be the point otherwise?

And in the spirit of moving that goal forward…

Goal no 8) I will write every day. And I may (or may not) share it with you.

In the meantime I wish you a joyful and prosperous 2017!

 

And you thought Halloween was over…

But we’re still wrapping up the Coffin Hop!

[Reposted from B.Lloyd's Bustling Along Bookshelves]

Like buses – nothing for ages, then three at once …

To help round off the Coffin Hop with a grand finale, we’ve gotten together with a couple of publishers to hold a (nearly)week long giveaway (Monday to Sunday), with the chance to win 3 titles together: Cass McMain’s Watch (vampirism) and two ghost tales: Summers’ End by V.R. Christensen with a rather sinister  pair of spectacles and B.Lloyd’s charming ghost tale, Ungentle Sleep which is a tongue-in-cheek take on haunted houses, with attics and, well, things going bump in them ….

Owing to WordPress’s layout, the giveaway page is again reduced to a link, however, it will be posted elsewhere and tweeted not infrequently. And there is the tale of the Red Footprints in A Night  at the Theatre meanwhile…

Simply click on the link here below, or top right  (on the main page), and choose how you want to participate (via tweeting, FB-ing, visiting the Coffin Hop!); there will be 5 prizes and around 10 runners-up…

About the Coffin Hop: this is the annual Halloween blog hop with over 60 authors & artists participating, each with something to offer, whether giveaways or contests as well as some fun tales of terror.

The Coffin Hop Bumper Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Carefully, Myra attempted to raise herself once more. Resting upon her knees, she at last dared to look at the macabre pit into which she had half-fallen. But without her glasses, she could make out very little but the gaping hole before her. She began to move herself away from it, but she stopped again. The moon’s beaming reflected and glinted off of something lying there in the broken earth. Were those her spectacles lying there? Dared she retrieve them, or ought she to leave them be?

There was not much to consider in the matter. There was no continuing on, not even a possibility of turning back, without them. She stretched forth her fingers, grasped a hold of them, and rose from the spot as quickly as she could. She replaced them on her face as she ran.

Thank heaven above, she could see again! And she did not stop to rest until she was away from the graveyard and safely on the well-worn and moonlit path of the road. There she rested a moment, only a moment. She knew she must press on, but she did not know which way to go. Which road would take her to safety? Which would make her circle back to Ravenswood complete?

The snapping of a twig startled her. She looked around to find the source of the noise. There was no one there. The night was perfectly still. Still, but for the faint sound of footsteps in the distance. They were coming nearer. She searched in the darkness, her heart beating wildly, but there was nothing there. The steps grew nearer still, until she thought they were just before her. Something brushed against her, like the sleeve of a heavy woolen jacket. And still there was nothing at all to be seen! She removed her spectacles and, squinting into the darkness, thought for a moment that she saw the faint outline of a man. She put her spectacles back on again and saw nothing at all. Even the footsteps had vanished. She stood there a moment longer, unable still to choose a direction. She did not wish to follow the footsteps, but neither did she wish to start upon the path from which they had come. She must make a decision, however.

She took off the spectacles and looked again into the night, but predictably she saw nothing but blurry and hazy darkness. Upon putting them back on and looking once more in the direction the footsteps had gone, a light appeared.

–Summers’ End

The Quest to find Paint Colors

Painting.

It’s been on my mind for a while, and clearly it needs to be done. Finding the right colors requires serious consideration and, at least for me, a great deal of time. This is a commitment, after all. 20-30 years. Perhaps as many thousands of dollars to accomplish the task.

But what colors should my house be?

Our house is described on the tax records as being white with black trim. If you get close enough however you’ll see that it’s actually green. The Days took occupancy ninety-nine years ago, and they really made the house theirs, stripping all the wallpaper and putting up Colonial Revival papers, adding the stained glass window and painting the house in typical Edwardian colors. But is that really what is right for the house?

I did a little research, and I managed to find some samples of wallpaper from the year the house was built—1897. I see lovely mossy greens, some browns, ochres and gold. Great colors! But how to apply them? My house has some interesting detail, too. Besides the bowed gable, the columns on the porch are highly detailed. In order to punch all these details out, I could be looking at anywhere from six to ten colors. My background is Interior Design, and my strength is in choosing colors and materials. I should be able to do this. But the very fact that it’s outside somehow makes me feel a little baffled by it all.

While the Old West End preservation guidelines do not presently require that I have my paint colors approved, I still want my house to contribute to the overall integrity of the neighborhood. I want it to fit in well beside my neighbors, while, at the same time, allowing for the inherent individuality of my house. As my house was one of the first built after the Sutherlin estate began to be divided up, I feel it needs, not only to be an acceptable example of the neighborhood’s architecture, but a remarkable one as well. Of the ten houses on my side of the street, I know that P.F. Conway built at least five of them. But he lived in mine! Certainly he thought it was special. Certainly he would have thought it deserved the utmost consideration when it came to painting it. If only I could know what colors he chose for it. If I had the money and the time I could send in a piece of the crumbling paint for a paint analysis and they might be able to tell me what the original color was. I don’t have either at the moment.

We’ve gone back and forth about whether or not to take out a loan on the property to do the necessary work. We paid cash for it as a foreclosure, but some of the money was privately borrowed, so in order to pay it back, we thought we’d borrow just enough to repay those private loans. We’re pretty much do-it-yourselfers anyway. I don’t like the idea of paying someone to do what I can do myself. But painting, that’s a big job. So we’ve gone back and forth about whether or not to do it now, whether to finance it, or just take a few years and do a bit at a time. Well…something happened to push us toward making a decision.

That got the ball rolling. Honestly, I don’t blame them for putting the pressure on. This poor, sorry, run down, magnificent old house deserves better, and I firmly believe in the efforts presently being exerted to “smarten up” the city’s historic treasures. Hopefully our funding will come through and we’ll soon be on our way.

In the meantime, I’ve got to decide on colors! This is where I am presently. I thought you might like to see my ideation process.

[WARNING: THESE COLORS SCANNED BLUER THAN THEY TRULY ARE. THE COLORS ARE GREENS, BEIGES AND BROWNS, NOT BLUE AND PINK AS IT MAY APPEAR ON SOME MONITORS]

.99 this Weekend!

and don’t forget about the blog tour going on now!
Comment and enter to win
a signed paperback copy of…

My Writing Process

Many thanks to the lovely and uber-talented Libi Astaire for inviting me to join her on this blog tour. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, please visit her website and take a peek at her wonderful Regency Era mysteries. They are utterly delightful!

My assignment for this blog tour is to answer the four questions below, and then to choose two or three other authors with whom I am proud to be acquainted. There’s a reward for your participation, too! All you have to do is comment on my blog post and one other of the authors I’ve selected and your name will be entered to win a signed copy of my short story collection, Sixteen Seasons. Ready?

 

Look for it autumn 2014!

1) What am I working on now?

My third full length novel is entitled Gods and Monsters. The culture and social atmosphere of bygone eras often inspires me to examine our own. I’m constantly amazed by how little—despite technology and ever evolving fashions—things have changed. And yet there are some things which have changed entirely. Thank heaven!

Take the disparagement in practical education between the sexes in the Victorian era. A woman was raised to be naive and innocent, knowing little if anything about the seedier sides of life, while men were encouraged to display their virility and masculine power. Thus they often had experiences which far outdid those of their fairer counterparts. Such was all well and good as long he was discreet and no inconvenient consequences resulted.

But what of those consequences? Certainly there would be consequences of one type or another. What might happen were a “gentleman” of considerable worldly experience to find that his past has inextricably entangled him with a woman he might love—who might inspire him to a better and greater purpose—had he not a past to answer to that must prevent her from trusting or even respecting him? And how does he explain such a past to satisfaction? If he means to do it honestly, such might prove his destruction. But sometimes our destruction is also our salvation.

2) How do es my work differ from others of its genre?

My chiefest complaint with modern Historical Fiction is that it isn’t historical enough. Things seem to be getting better as readers demand more attention to research and historical detail, but for a long time historical novels—even bestselling ones—were really modern stories set against a backdrop of lavish costume and stilted manners (and sometimes dialog). My aim is  not only to paint a story that is painstakingly accurate in historical detail, but to give it life and atmosphere and flavor as well. I want my readers’ experience to be that of walking into history, rich with the sites and sounds and smells of it all.

I’ve also found that there is a lot of misunderstanding about how these people really lived. We have our hackneyed and cliched ideas of what etiquette did and did not allow for. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been surprised to find that their lives were not quite as tightly laced as one might think. Naughty parlor games, cyphered want adds for marriage and dating and help when one has found themselves in the family way, herbal and natural remedies, and the bearing of various body parts without the threat of impending matrimony are all addressed in Gods and Monsters with what some might find dubious accuracy. But it’s all true, I assure you! *snickers wickedly*

 

3) Why do I write what I do?

To be honest I don’t like to answer this question. I guess I fear people are less likely to read my work if they know I have an agenda. But then, for each of my books the answer is slightly different.

In my first novel, Of Moths and Butterflies, I felt a need to explore some of my own past experiences, and to come to terms with them if I could. My hope was that my journey would help others. But I also wanted to show what the long-lasting effects of abuse are, and how, despite our desire to overcome, or our impatience with loved ones whom we feel ought to just “get over it” sometimes healing takes a very, very long time. It will and can happen, however. And in Moths, I wished to show what happiness can come by leaving the past behind and having the courage to love and trust again.

In Cry of the Peacock—which was actually the first book I wrote—my purpose was somewhat different. I really only wanted to see if I could actually write a book. I wanted to attempt to recreate a classic, if I could. I’m not sure I quite accomplished that, and while it does deal with honesty and secrets and lies and pride…it is not meant to have a strong didactic theme to it.

Gods is different. As I’ve found some considerable success in my writing, I’ve felt compelled to use my talent to try, if I could, to better the world. I want to use Gods not only to show how much things have changed—for both good and bad—but also to point out the chaos we create in society and in our relationships when we do not treat those relationships—sexual relationships in particular—with the sanctity they deserve. It is meant to show the consequences of unwise actions. But it’s also meant to show that wrongs can be righted, that hearts can be changed, that forgiveness can be found and honor recovered. My purpose is never to lecture, only to inspire and uplift—and to give hope, as those writing and performing with similar purpose have done for me.

4) How does my writing process work?

I try to write every day, but it doesn’t always happen. We’re remodeling a Victorian house at the moment, and it’s lately been taking all the spare time I have. Ordinarily I devote four hours a day to my writing. I typically start a work with a theme I want to address and a few key characters, then I outline. Then I research. And then I write. I may not outline the entire thing before I begin, but I’ll have a general idea of where I need to start and end, and what it’s going to take to fill in the dots to get me there. Each day I read what I wrote the day before, and so long as everything continues to gel, then that usually primes me to write on from there. If, however, things aren’t working, if I can’t come up with the words, then I know I have to go back and figure out what I’ve done wrong. And that can sometimes take weeks! Which I really hate. I do have an amazing editor who helps me through it all. From beginning to end she ‘s there to support me and help me and guide me. I think she’s really more of a personal writing trainer than just an editor. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t hire the kind of service and support she provides for me.

And that’s me explained in a nutshell! Or my writing life, at least. Now it’s time to pass the baton over to three wonderful and amazing authors whose work I would love for you to become more familiar with. Remember, comment on my post and on one of the other two, and I’ll enter you to win a copy of my recently published short story collection, Sixteen Seasons! It’s a perfect sampling of what I do and where my writing might yet take me. (hint, hint, and wink) Don’t like short stories? Well, then. Think of them as sixteen tiny novels. (They really are very good.)

Please meet:

Jenny Baxter was born and raised in a small town in western Washington, where she now resides with her husband and four kids. She is a substitute teacher at her local high school, and somehow manages to write around all the work, children, and laundry. She is the author of the Chronicles of Nequam series and a wonderful blog on the art and craft of writing.

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Gev Sweeney lives with her guinea pig, Auden Baby-Boar, in a tiny cottage in an old Methodist Camp Meeting town at the Jersey Shore. She holds an M.A. in communication from Monmouth University and an M.A. in the history and theory of music from Rutgers University. Once upon a time, she traded her master’s thesis about the Berlioz opera les Troyens for tickets to a sold-out performance of Candide at New York City Opera. Her first book, a historical (The Scattered Proud), was followed by a contemporary (Mount Can’t) followed by a Regency (Acquaintance) followed by a paranormal (Salutaris). Not one to stick to any particular genre, Gev writes about schemers and denialists, the loved lost and the detested found–characters shaped by fear, freed by obsession, and carved by the quest to understand people and worlds that defy analysis. She also maintains a blog, where she highlights her work as well as the work of other authors.

Suzanne Adair