Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 19

Murderbot: A Review via Text Messages

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I started to transcribe this conversation and then thought I was unfairly misrepresenting myself, because I was automatically correcting my punctuation and capitalization, and of course I don’t properly punctuate texts. Does anyone? But the misplaced apostrophe in her name does pain me. It’s Martha Wells, not Martha Well.

Anyway, I’ve decided I like reviews by text: succinct, to the point, not very organized, but covering the most relevant details. Which, in the case of Murderbot, includes the fact that I would rather be rereading them than doing much of anything else, so I think I’ll go do that.

An Arcata Saturday

On Saturday, I went to the farmer’s market for the first time in months. I’ve been avoiding it because of the pandemic, but the organizers have really mastered the socially-distanced market: the booths are outside the sidewalk, and on the other side, lines extend into the square with spaces marked on the grass with tape. One person at a time is allowed to approach a booth, while foot traffic flows one way around the square, masks required.

There were still crowds of people, which I found… stressful. Eons ago, I was reading the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as one does, (at least when one is in graduate school for mental health counseling), and was surprised to discover that I met the clinical criteria for agoraphobia. Anyone who’s only been reading my blog since I’ve been traveling is probably equally surprised, but not all agoraphobes are trapped in their houses.

And a pandemic is either agoraphobe heaven or hell, depending on how you look at it. My complete dislike of crowds is now totally justified. Instead of unreasonable anxiety limiting my life choices, it’s a reasonable response to a threatening world! It’s still uncomfortable, however, and I was really unhappy to be around so many people.

Fortunately, right around the time when I was thinking, “I can’t do this,” I walked past a booth that had two magical attributes: no line, and a sign reading, “Harvest Box, $20.” I immediately purchased my harvest box of greens, cabbage, sugar snap peas, green onions, leeks, five kinds of peppers, and a squash, then stopped at the next booth over, added some tomatoes, and headed home. Success!

[image error]Vegetables, yay!

I didn’t stay home for long, though. About an hour later, I hopped in Suzanne’s car and headed to the docks, where I bought 3lbs of black cod, straight from the boat.

[image error]Fresh fish source

That afternoon, I made Brazilian seafood stew. I’d link to a recipe, but I actually didn’t follow any of the recipes I found, and I didn’t write down my own. But basically, sauté a ton of vegetables including some spicy peppers, a little salt, a little pepper, and as much hot or smoky paprika as feels delicious (a couple teaspoons for me), add coconut milk, simmer, add chunks of white fish, simmer some more. When the fish is cooked, serve over rice.

[image error]Sautéed veggies. I used onion, carrot, celery, leek, a long red pepper, and a jalapeño. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of the actual stew, but I guess I was too busy eating it to remember that I might want a photo.

We ate our stew on the porch and afterward, when we were cleaning up the kitchen, Suzanne asked if I wanted to walk the dogs. Z’s energy level was good and it was a gorgeous day, so I suggested we take them to the beach. We went to Moonstone Beach, where the tide was as low as I’d ever seen it, which meant we got to visit the tide pools and admire the anemones and starfish.

[image error]Moonstone Beach at a very low tide.

That night, I decided to do a selection exercise in Affinity Photo. I found a stock photo with a complicated background, and did my best to cleanly select an element from it. Once I’d made my selection, I copied it a few times, then started playing with it. I used layer blend modes, the transform tools, masking, the liquify persona, a clipping layer, the mesh warp tool, a paint brush with low opacity, flow, and hardness settings… I’m looking at the image now and thinking I need to fix a shadow and a highlight, but I’m not going to, because the point isn’t to create perfect images, it’s to learn.

[image error]My dragon. I’m honestly so pleased with it.

It was really just an ordinary Saturday, nothing special about it. It was also, simultaneously, an amazing day, one I’m grateful to have had.

Beverly Beach State Park & Bullards Beach State Park

It was about a four hour drive up 101 to our next campground, Beverly Beach State Park, so we took a break at the midpoint, Clausen Oysters. We were in separate vehicles, of course — me driving Serenity, Suzanne with her car and trailer — which makes for a much less fun road trip. It was probably my least favorite day of the trip, too, because while driving alone I thought far too much about He Who Shall Not Be Thought About, and it made me so sad. On our trip to Key West a few years back, oysters were his pick for a treat and… yeah. I think I might be off oysters for a while.

But not because the oysters at Clausen weren’t great — they were. Suzanne also got the oyster tacos and an oyster po’boy, which she assures me were terrible. (That’s what you say to your gluten-intolerant friend when you’re closing your eyes in ecstasy over the deliciousness of your non-gluten free meal.)

[image error]Clausen Oysters, highly recommended. Outside tables, and a very pandemic-responsible attitude.

Our campsite at Beverly was also fantastic. We had spot G-24 and yes, I’m actually noting a campsite for future reference because it was such a great spot. Tucked away, a nice size, and with a dirt path at the back that led onto the nature trail and a creek. So pretty! I have so many photos from this campsite — of light falling through the pines, of the dogs being cozy, of the path and the creek…

[image error]The creek. Not image-edited in any way so the reality was even prettier if you can imagine that.

We even built a campfire that night and I toasted a ton of marshmallows.

The next day, we were moving to a new campsite within the same campground, so we packed up in the morning, parked Serenity and Huggie (Suzanne’s trailer) in the parking lot, and then went off adventuring. Beaches, beaches, and more beaches. But we also picked up take-out lunch at the Nye Beach Cafe, including gluten-free clam chowder — so exciting! The first time I’ve had clam chowder in many years and it was always one of my favorites. And it was delicious! Their website also promised the best gluten-free bread I’ve ever tasted, which was almost true. It wasn’t better than the gluten-free bread from Arise Bakery in Arcata, but it was definitely the best GF bread I’d ever had in Oregon.

[image error]Newport, Oregon

Our spot that night was not nearly as nice as our first spot had been. Partly that was because it was Thursday, essentially the beginning of the holiday weekend, and the crowds were picking up. Lots of inadvertent eavesdropping on groups of people all around us, which is not my favorite kind of camping even pre-pandemic, but it felt particularly weird knowing the pandemic is still raging.

On Friday, we headed south. We stopped at Clausen again so Suzanne could repeat her oyster tacos, but I didn’t want more oysters. Instead, I found a place in Banton, Tony’s Crab Shack, with gluten-free fish tacos on their menu. No guessing, the menu item literally says “Fresh Fish Tacos (Gluten-Free)”! We took the dogs there, got take-out, and had a nice waterfront walk. Suzanne visited the small farmer’s market and got some carrot cake for dessert, and then we stopped at a kitchen store that had a Going Out of Business sign. Unfortunately, it was essentially already gone. But they had a table of last minute giveaways and we each took a dishtowel, which we’d both needed earlier in the week. It felt serenditpitous.

Our reservation that night was for the only campsite they’d had left at Bullard’s Beach State Park. I am not going to offer any judgements of the campground, because a) we’d gotten the last spot available and b) it was a holiday weekend and c) all the amenities, ie showers, etc, were closed because of the pandemic. Our site wasn’t terrible and I’d stay there again, but otherwise the campground was just over-crowded and unmemorable.

The beach, though, was delightful. I don’t know where all the campers were — maybe still racing their bicycles in loops around the campground? — but the beach was huge with lots of interesting rocks. We had a fun wander there in the afternoon and then another fun wander there the next morning.

[image error]The rocky Bullard’s Beach.

On Saturday morning, we faced a decision point. Our original plan — the mountains — was not on. The weather was too hot & too dry. Our second plan, developed earlier in the week, was to drive east along the Rogue River near Gold Beach where there are some campgrounds that don’t take reservations. We might have found a nice place to stay for a few nights. But Suzanne was nervous, not about the chances of finding a campsite, but about potential fires shutting down the roads home. So instead we drove back to Arcata. We took our time, stopping at Fred Meyer in Brookings and picking up take-out sushi for a picnic in a park overlooking the water, but by dinner we were home.

In plenty of time for this scene on Wednesday morning:

[image error]The smoke-filled sky

We aren’t in danger here. Disasters can happen anywhere, of course, but in this exact spot, the disaster is much more likely to be an earthquake or the tsunami from an earthquake than a wildfire. (If there’s an earthquake, my job is to grab the dogs and the one cat who I might be able to carry and get to higher ground immediately.) But there is a fire in Humboldt County and as of Thursday, most of the roads in and out of the area were closed due to fires and evacuations. On the bright side, I’m so glad we had our vacation a week earlier. If it had been this past week, we’d have had to cancel. Still, that week of peaceful pleasant beach time and nature already feels so far away and so long ago. It was lovely while it lasted, though.

Humbug Mountain State Park, Oregon

Last week, Suzanne and I went camping in Oregon. Not just camping — it was an authentic vacation, which for me, means no computer. It was incredibly nice to be away from the internet and its endless onslaught of depressing news. But I called my dad this morning and was reminded that I did want to write about our trip, even if belatedly.

So our first campground was at Humbug Mountain State Park. We had two sites next to each other, which worked out okay. Next time, though, we’ll bring four chairs so we can have chairs at both sites instead of needing to shuffle them every time we wanted to switch sites. (I was cooking in Serenity, but Suzanne had the nicer site for sitting and relaxing.) The campground wasn’t perfect — it had too much traffic noise from the nearby highway for that — but it was pretty close. The best part was the easy walk to a gorgeous isolated expanse of beach.

[image error]Humbug Mountain’s beach

We got to Humbug on Sunday afternoon & enjoyed the beach. On Monday, we left Serenity behind and took Suzanne’s car down to Brookings, visited the Humane Society thrift store, did some quick grocery shopping at Fred Meyer, and then had a picnic at Harris Beach State Park.

[image error]Harris Beach State Park

After lunch, we took a slow drive back to Humbug, stopping along the way to admire the views. We tried to go to one more beach, but it was a little bit of a hike over steep terrain — really gorgeous steep terrain — and I didn’t think Zelda could make the last twenty foot drop to the beach. Nor that I would be able to make the climb back up carrying her. It was beautiful, though.

[image error]Random forest path



[image error]The view before the drop

On Tuesday, we again left the van and the trailer behind and went off exploring in Suzanne’s car. This time we went north and east, aiming for Coquille Myrtle Grove, a state natural site with a swimming hole.

At the site, a short road led to a rocky beach and a shallow river. We set up Suzanne’s cabana tent to give us some shade, ate lunch, did some wading and rock hunting, and appreciated summer. After a couple hours, more people started to arrive, including some big family groups, so we packed up and headed back to Humbug.

[image error]Zelda, appreciating the cabana and the sunshine

I believe that it was at this moment when our vacation first started to go… well, not awry, but in a different direction. Because it was hot at Coquille Myrtle Grove. Not necessarily Florida or Arizona-style hot, but definitely warmer than we’d expected it to be. Our plans, when we started, were to spend a few days on the coast and then head inland on Thursday, stopping in Bend Thursday night and then going south to the desert to hunt for sunstones, and then into the mountains, staying at a BLM campground on the weekend.

We were driving back to Humbug when I said, “I wonder how hot it’s going to be in Bend.” When we reached a town where we had cell service, we checked. Answer: too hot, at least for people traveling with dogs and without air-conditioning. We started scrambling for new campsites on the coast right away. Pro tip: the last week of August and Labor Day weekend are not times when you want to leave your reservations to chance and/or to the last minute. We found single campsites for Thursday and Friday nights, but nothing for the weekend.

We had another sorta unpleasant discovery when we got back to the campground. The entrance was blocked by emergency vehicles. Apparently, there was a wildfire over the hill, four miles away. You, oh, reader, have the benefit of two weeks of foreknowledge, so you know exactly how bad that news might have been. We, fortunately for the rest of our trip, had no such foresight. They let us into the campground and we packed up so that we could get out quickly if they started evacuating, including making plans for where we’d meet up again if we did have to run for it. But despite a restless night, the campground was still there in the morning.

Wednesday morning, we took one last walk on the foggy beach, and then headed north to our next campground.

[image error]That’s the highway that caused the traffic noise. The campground is on the other side of it and you walk under it to get to the beach.

Tank

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At some point this summer, Tank was sitting in my lap, purring ferociously, as was his wont, and I promised him that someday he’d get to be an inside cat.

I was wrong.

A lump on his head turned out to be a tumor growing into his eye socket and after surgery, pills, and some experimental chemotherapy, yesterday we said goodbye. It was simultaneously the right thing to do — his breathing had gotten raspy, he’d lost so much weight, and his fur was no longer silky smooth, but rough and getting spiky — and the painful uncertainty of, “Today? Really, today?”

As we drove home from the vet, the car feeling that much emptier, we talked about his next life. I said maybe he’d like to come back as a dog, because he had the friendliness of a dog. He loved laps, he loved to be petted. In better days, if you sat down anywhere outside, it would only take a few minutes before he would come strolling through the garden or yard to leap up onto your lap.

This, of course, was challenging for me, since I’m allergic, but he was impossible to resist. Partly that was because he was so very lovely — his purr rumbled through his whole body, and his fur was a glossy, silky softness — but it was also his pure predatory energy. He conveyed, wordlessly, his ownership of the yard and all laps within it, and his willingness to defend that ownership with his extremely sharp claws and fangs. That, of course, was why the inside cats hated him and refused to let him share their home, but it probably got him more lap time than he might otherwise have gotten. For a feral cat, he was awfully fond of human beings.

In the car, though, Suzanne said Tank would consider coming back as a dog to be a downgrade, and we agreed he didn’t deserve that. If anything, he deserves an upgrade, so I hope that somewhere today, a kitten is being born into a loving home with people who will adore him and let him spend every single night of his life in a comfortable, warm, inside bed. And every day of his life in a garden.

Good-bye, Tank. You were a very good cat.

Tomatoes

[image error]Salmon and salad. With tomatoes.

There’s a sign on the front porch, Eggs $4, that Suzanne flips to reveal or hide, depending on how the chickens have been laying or how many neighbors have been by recently. Or even how many eggs I’ve been eating.

[image error]Caprese salad

The other day, a stranger stopped Suzanne and asked, and yes, there were eggs available, so she and Suzanne had a pleasant exchange at the gate. I was cooking dinner at the time and could overhear them. When S came into the kitchen to grab the eggs, I said, “Tell her she can only have the eggs if she’s willing to take some tomatoes, too.”

[image error]A seafood gumbo type thing, with tomatoes.

I have been using tomatoes at almost every meal, cooking them in everything. We’ve had seafood soup with tomatoes (extremely delicious); tomatoes topped with pesto and goat cheese and broiled (also delicious); caprese salad (of course, delicious); tomatoes in salad; pasta with tomatoes; pizza with tomatoes (gluten-free, of course)… I’ve done all the things I can think of to do with tomatoes, and yet the tomatoes keep coming.

[image error]Chicken with tomatoes

This is not the worst problem to have, of course. It did just occur to me, though — for the first time — to wonder what Suzanne would be doing with her tomatoes if I weren’t in her kitchen, using them up as fast as I can. I’m pretty sure a lot more of them would be becoming chicken food. I wonder if that makes the chickens sad?

Learn in 2020

At the beginning of 2020, I decided that instead of having resolutions, I would have focus words, specifically: learn, create, and appreciate. If I could have predicted 2020, I might have chosen words more like survive, tolerate, and “resist the urge to go on a murderous rampage that ends with a lot of dead anti-maskers and you spending the rest of your life in prison.” But I did not, and believe it or not, despite everything, I have continued trying to focus on my focus words.

They’ve meant different things to me over the course of the year. I think I acknowledged my appreciation of clean water a lot more often in March than I do today, and I know my first month after moving into Serendipity included appreciation of my comfortable bed every single evening. Now I mostly take it for granted. Comfortable bed, yay!

Initially, I think I defined “learn” as, “read a chapter of a non-fiction, educational book, designed to help me become better at my self-publishing career.” That’s evolved over the course of the past eight months, to include reading a blog post that teaches me something, doing a video lesson on Udemy, or practicing a new skill. In the same way, “create” started out by meaning “write some fiction words,” and it’s evolved into “do something that feels creative,” whether that’s writing, drawing, graphic design, or even cooking. One day last week, for example, “learn” was reading about bread pudding, and “create” was inventing my own bread pudding recipe, for a savory bread pudding that used sourdough bread, manchego cheese, chicken broth, and sausage with mushroom and smoked gouda. (It was delicious; I probably should have written it down at the time, because I doubt I could ever create it the same way again.)

Most often in the past few months, though, “learn” has meant learning to use graphics software. It’s a task that’s incredibly easy to get overwhelmed by. There’s so much to learn, so much one can do. I have to remind myself sometimes that my ultimate goal isn’t to become a great artist, but to be able to make covers for my own stories. And in that respect, I’m really quite pleased with yesterday’s labors:

[image error]Image credits to therendershop.com and Sebastian Unrau via unsplash.com

I did another cover last week, which I then used for a short story in my Scribbles section (found at Sunset,) but this one is for the story I’ve been working on for the last couple months. It’s nowhere close to finished and that might not be its real title, but I’m very pleased with its pretty cover. And also with all the learning that went into that cover — it uses masking and blend modes and glyphs and overlays, and lots and lots of layers.

So many times over the past six months, I’ve felt ready to give up. The frustration, the feeling like I’m spinning my wheels, the “why bother?” has all gotten to me. But today I appreciate my persistence.

Groundhog Days

Last night, I was washing the dishes and for some reason, I started thinking about the movie Groundhog Day. I’d just finished eating a delicious dinner of spicy rice and chicken with avocado, tomato, and green onions, topped with melted mozzarella cheese. I’d shared it with Suzanne, of course, and we’d eaten on the patio, in our rocking chairs, with the sun still shining on us. I think maybe I felt the fog start to come in — that first hint of cool evening air — but something had inspired me to get up and start cleaning. 

I was enjoying the process, though. Warm running water still delights me, even though I’m beginning  to take it for granted. Showering without strategizing is starting to feel normal. (Strategizing: Do I have enough water? Have I heated the water? If I’m showing in a campground, will it be clean? Do I have everything I need? Did I remember flip-flops for the shower floor?) 

But back to yesterday, I’m washing the dishes and thinking about Groundhog Day, and it occurs that me that if I had to be living in Groundhog Day, the day that I was currently experiencing would have been exactly the right day. 

[image error]Last week, Suzanne’s next door neighbor took us to one of the local farms that has a flower CSA. My dahlias are still lovely, still making me smile.

It wasn’t a perfect day. I read too much of the news for that, and I played a little too much solitaire, and I thought about He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Thought-About several times. But my day included writing that entertained me (including hitting my 1000 word per day goal, yay!); some texting with friends; a drawing lesson about perspective, and some time spent drawing; a walk with the dogs, some yoga including an actual video lesson; a trip to the cupcake store (masked and socially distanced) to pick up the gluten-free cupcakes I’d ordered last week; two nice meals with Suzanne on the patio; beautiful flowers to admire, some laughter and sunshine, and plenty of gratitude. 

If every day was just like that, I wouldn’t complain. I even flossed my teeth. 

Runaway

[image error]Zelda at the beach

Yesterday was a completely fantastic and glorious day at the beach, except that at the end my beloved old dog tried to kill herself, which was… yeah. She totally freaked me out.

I’ve always liked that specific beach (Clam Beach) because I thought she could go off leash safely there. The canine dementia means she no longer responds to voice commands — not at all. She simply doesn’t understand language anymore. She still understands her hand signals, though, so mostly it’s not a big deal. I have to get her attention before I can tell her to do something, but she’s still very responsive.

Anyway, Clam Beach is huge with plenty of room to roam and good lines of sight. Also, she’s an old dog. When she’s off leash, she wanders around and maybe does a little bit of running now and then, but she moseys, she doesn’t run. I generally put her back on leash when we start to head for the parking lot, which is down a long sandy path.

Yesterday when we started back, she ran ahead of me. And then she just kept running. All the way down the path, into the parking lot, through the parking lot… and still she kept going. I didn’t start running after her until she was maybe twenty feet away from the parking lot, but then I was chasing her as fast as I could, screaming her name, as she ran out the parking lot, across the road, and then — thank God — hit the fence between the road and the highway and started running the wrong way down the fence. Or the right way, rather, because instead of turning right where she could have run straight up the exit and onto the highway, she turned left and ran down the road. She was at least ten car lengths ahead of me when she finally slowed down and started to look around with a, “huh, what am I doing here?” posture.

I squatted down in the middle of the road and waited. She finally looked back and saw me. She cocked her head to one side in that Jack Russell terrier way and I signaled her to come. She immediately started loping back to me. When she got to me, I snapped her leash on and informed her that she was now grounded for life. Then I realized that I actually probably could ground her for life, given that I’ve been expecting us to run out of time for years now. Literal years. She hasn’t run like that since the pit bull attack in the summer of 2018. I guess that means she’s recovered from that nightmare.

Every day, I start my morning with gratitudes and end my evening with appreciations. I don’t like them to be negative. Happiness comes from focusing on the good, not on the “well, it could be worse, I guess.” But last night I had to appreciate that my dog hadn’t died horribly, and this morning I was grateful for the very same thing. Also for her current state of health, which is completely mystifying, obviously poses unforeseen risks, but really quite lovely. If you had told me even yesterday morning that Zelda would run so far and so fast that I couldn’t keep up with her, I would have smiled and maybe given a half-hearted chuckle. As if! But life is strange and we are so, so lucky.

While we were at the beach, I was singing to myself, in the way one does on a glorious, isolated beach, and I started singing a half-remembered song from the musical Alice in Wonderland, in which I played Alice when I was in 4th or 5th grade. The specific lines that came back to me were, “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.” It made me think about my eight-year-old self and wonder what advice she would give me if she could meet the me of now. A lot of people seem to feel like they are the same person that they were as children, but I don’t feel that way at all. Eight-year-old Me had a blithe confidence that Now Me lacks. (This is not me being mean to Now Me, incidentally: I’m not wallowing in regrets about my life or anything.)

Later in the day, I was reading Banish Your Inner Critic, which finally made it to the top of my TBR pile, and reached an exercise about creating an imaginary Creative Coach. A person — real, historical, fictional, whatever — visualized with all the senses, to replace the Inner Critic that shuts us down. Someone who will be warmly encouraging. My Inner Critic is not actually mean to me very often — she doesn’t say “you’re a lousy person” or that kind of thing — but she very often says things like, “that line is terrible, you’re making no sense, no one will understand that, totally clunky,” and so on. She’s a harsh critic, not of my person, but of my writing. Anyway, I considered a few options for my Creative Coach, but it didn’t take long before I remembered my 8-year-old self. I think if my 8-year-old self could give me advice, it would be exactly the kind of creative coaching advice I need. The very least of what she would give me is gushing approval of the story I’m writing now, which rational me keeps thinking is never going to sell and is probably pointless to keep writing. But my 8-year-old self likes it a lot and I think, today at least, I am going to listen to her.

Zelda at the beachYesterday was a completely fantasti...

[image error]Zelda at the beach

Yesterday was a completely fantastic and glorious day at the beach, except that at the end my beloved old dog tried to kill herself, which was… yeah. She totally freaked me out.

I’ve always liked that specific beach (Clam Beach) because I thought she could go off leash safely there. The canine dementia means she no longer responds to voice commands — not at all. She simply doesn’t understand language anymore. She still understands her hand signals, though, so mostly it’s not a big deal. I have to get her attention before I can tell her to do something, but she’s still very responsive.

Anyway, Clam Beach is huge with plenty of room to roam and good lines of sight. Also, she’s an old dog. When she’s off leash, she wanders around and maybe does a little bit of running now and then, but she moseys, she doesn’t run. I generally put her back on leash when we start to head for the parking lot, which is down a long sandy path.

Yesterday when we started back, she ran ahead of me. And then she just kept running. All the way down the path, into the parking lot, through the parking lot… and still she kept going. I didn’t start running after her until she was maybe twenty feet away from the parking lot, but then I was chasing her as fast as I could, screaming her name, as she ran out the parking lot, across the road, and then — thank God — hit the fence between the road and the highway and started running the wrong way down the fence. Or the right way, rather, because instead of turning right where she could have run straight up the exit and onto the highway, she turned left and ran down the road. She was at least ten car lengths ahead of me when she finally slowed down and started to look around with a, “huh, what am I doing here?” posture.

I squatted down in the middle of the road and waited. She finally looked back and saw me. She cocked her head to one side in that Jack Russell terrier way and I signaled her to come. She immediately started loping back to me. When she got to me, I snapped her leash on and informed her that she was now grounded for life. Then I realized that I actually probably could ground her for life, given that I’ve been expecting us to run out of time for years now. Literal years. She hasn’t run like that since the pit bull attack in the summer of 2018. I guess that means she’s recovered from that nightmare.

Every day, I start my morning with gratitudes and end my evening with appreciations. I don’t like them to be negative. Happiness comes from focusing on the good, not on the “well, it could be worse, I guess.” But last night I had to appreciate that my dog hadn’t died horribly, and this morning I was grateful for the very same thing. Also for her current state of health, which is completely mystifying, obviously poses unforeseen risks, but really quite lovely. If you had told me even yesterday morning that Zelda would run so far and so fast that I couldn’t keep up with her, I would have smiled and maybe given a half-hearted chuckle. As if! But life is strange and we are so, so lucky.

While we were at the beach, I was singing to myself, in the way one does on a glorious, isolated beach, and I started singing a half-remembered song from the musical Alice in Wonderland, in which I played Alice when I was in 4th or 5th grade. The specific lines that came back to me were, “I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.” It made me think about my eight-year-old self and wonder what advice she would give me if she could meet the me of now. A lot of people seem to feel like they are the same person that they were as children, but I don’t feel that way at all. Eight-year-old Me had a blithe confidence that Now Me lacks. (This is not me being mean to Now Me, incidentally: I’m not wallowing in regrets about my life or anything.)

Later in the day, I was reading Banish Your Inner Critic, which finally made it to the top of my TBR pile, and reached an exercise about creating an imaginary Creative Coach. A person — real, historical, fictional, whatever — visualized with all the senses, to replace the Inner Critic that shuts us down. Someone who will be warmly encouraging. My Inner Critic is not actually mean to me very often — she doesn’t say “you’re a lousy person” or that kind of thing — but she very often says things like, “that line is terrible, you’re making no sense, no one will understand that, totally clunky,” and so on. She’s a harsh critic, not of my person, but of my writing. Anyway, I considered a few options for my Creative Coach, but it didn’t take long before I remembered my 8-year-old self. I think if my 8-year-old self could give me advice, it would be exactly the kind of creative coaching advice I need. The very least of what she would give me is gushing approval of the story I’m writing now, which rational me keeps thinking is never going to sell and is probably pointless to keep writing. But my 8-year-old self likes it a lot and I think, today at least, I am going to listen to her.