Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 24
February 11, 2020
Things I have learned this week
Things I have learned this week:
#1: It does no good to wear headphones at the dentist if he’s drilling inside your mouth, because the drill is basically inside your ear, closer than the headphones are. The dentist already knows this, which may be why he recommends listening to whale sounds, the idea being that the whale sounds and the drill sounds will mix together.
#2: Graphics apps for the Mac are expensive. But you can do cool things on your phone for literal pennies. The long version of that story is — well, actually, too long and too boring. But the short version is that I’d like to be able to make simple covers for short stories so have been experimenting with apps. In my imagination, I take a photo, use a graphic filter to turn it into something that looks like art, add text and make it a book cover. In reality… yeah, I probably need to pay for covers. But I’ve had fun with some phone apps, including one called Popsicolor. For 99 cents, it turns photographs into pop art.
[image error]The Giz. He’d be a cute book cover, I bet.
#3: Self-help books that say you can manifest your success by believing in it (with the implication that if you’re not successful, it’s because you don’t believe in yourself enough) make me grumpy. Also, I believe that I choose my emotional responses and so I know I am choosing to be grumpy about such books, not being “made” grumpy, and that words are important. However, that said, I still feel grumpy.
#4: It’s a good idea to pay estimated taxes. Sigh. I was really sure that the combination of lousy book sales in 2019, plus various expenditures on advertising, marketing, covers, and production, was going to make taxes a moot point for 2019. I’m trying to convince myself that the good news is that I actually did earn a little money in 2019. That’s good news, right? Right. I wish I’d paid my taxes as they were due, though.
February 4, 2020
Seriously, Iowa?
I woke up at 5:30 this morning, intending to meditate before I did anything else. It’s good to meditate first thing in the morning. It helps me start my day feeling healthy and responsible, like I’m taking care of myself and trying to become a more balanced and spiritually centered human being. I just had to check the caucus results first, though, and thus ended all hope of ever getting into a place of quiet calm. Seriously, Iowa, WTF?
I’ve had lots of election conversations recently. All the people that I’m close to are reasonably invested in watching the Democratic primaries, although every conversation basically ends with “anyone but Trump.” I’ve done my best not to get invested in any one candidate, because that way lies… well, not heartbreak, but maybe apathy? I realize that I myself am not the single person who sways elections, but I am the long-term Democratic woman voter who donates & volunteers, but only some of the time.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch the election results in 2016 because for the first time in years, I had done nothing for a candidate: no money, no phone calls, no walking door-to-door. I felt like if Hillary lost Florida and then the nation, it was going to be all on my shoulders, my own apathy dictating the outcome. Actually, it was the apathy of hundreds of thousands of people just like me. None of whom are feeling apathetic this year, I hope, but I’ve been trying very hard not to pick a primary candidate, because I don’t want to wind up disappointed and having to vote for someone I don’t care about. Worse, dislike. All that said, I do have a “Nevertheless, she persisted,” t-shirt and I might have to wear it today, to console myself. Nevertheless, she persisted. It is what we do.
Meanwhile, I am persisting in writing. I’ve had to give up on Cici for the time being. I don’t know why the story disappeared on me and the words weren’t there, but it did and they weren’t. Much to my relief, however, once I stopped trying to force Cici, my imagination decided to wake up again. Currently, it’s telling me the story of Laurel, who is running away from home, and — probably — finding a new home in Tassamara. At the moment, though, she’s on her way to Disney World. A snippet? Sure, let’s have a snippet…
“Siri, where the hell are we?” Laurel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, a white-knuckled grip of pure frustration.
Her phone didn’t answer her.
Laurel resisted the urge to yell at it. What good would it do? But she glanced at the screen again — the map app still showing nothing but a white expanse with light grid lines — and then quickly back to the road before her.
It was not what she’d expected. Florida was supposed to be palm trees, white sand, and sunshine. This forest that she’d found herself driving through was all wrong. It was pine trees, tall and skinny, with rough bark and tangled undergrowth.
To add insult to injury, it was raining.
What was the point of running away to Florida if she was running straight into lousy weather?
Maybe, just maybe, she should have checked the weather report before stuffing the summer clothes she hadn’t worn in months into a suitcase and heading south. Unfortunately, it hadn’t even occurred to her.
Maybe she should have gotten her car a tune-up before deciding to go for a drive of a thousand miles or so, too. Somewhere around the Florida-Georgia border, after the last time she’d gotten gas, a mysterious orange icon had appeared on the dash. She didn’t know what it meant, so she was trying to pretend she didn’t see it. But the longer it sat there, the more it felt like it was glaring at her.
She took a hand off the steering wheel and patted the car’s dashboard. “Hang in there, Sadie. We’ll get there. Somewhere. Someday.”
An hour ago, getting off the highway seemed like a sensible decision. Florida drivers obviously didn’t give a damn about the then torrential downpour — they’d been zipping by at 75 or 80 miles per hour. Breaking down would have been terrifying.
On the other hand, there were worse places to break down. Like right here for example.
She was in the middle of nowhere.
She knew it was the middle of nowhere, because there was no cell service. Not a single bar. She might as well be on the moon.
No cell service meant no calling a tow truck if her car died. Also no using her GPS to figure out how her little local street detour had turned into this expedition into the wilderness. Worst of all, no cell service meant no more music.
She’d been streaming road trip playlists since leaving Kentucky, everything from the classics — Johnny Cash singing “Wide Open Road”, Springsteen with “Born to Run”, the Eagles, Steve Miller, America — to cheerful modern pop and country — the Lumineers, Sam Hunt, Katy Perry. But only fun, lively, happy music. The kind of music she needed to distract her.
Without it, the silence left much too much room for her own thoughts to cycle through the same dreary material. She should be happy. She should be ecstatic. But her brain kept getting in the way.
All the usual caveats apply, of course. First draft, not edited, might not even make it to the final story. But yesterday was a 2K word day, the first in weeks, and I’m hoping today will be equally productive. And it will be, as long as I can stop refreshing the news results to find out what the hell is happening in Iowa.
Iowa. Seriously, Iowa? *shakes head*
January 31, 2020
Best of January 2020
I’m jumping the gun slightly — I’m writing this post first thing in the morning on January 31st, so it’s possible that today might turn out to be the best day of the month. But, you know, somehow I don’t think so. I woke up this morning after a night that didn’t include nearly enough sleep on a stomach that hadn’t had nearly enough food and it’s just not the kind of start to the day that makes you think your day will prove inspiring. Plus, today’s plans include returning a rental car to Enterprise and retrieving Serenity from the dealer where she spent the night because they couldn’t finish everything that needed to be done in one day, so… yeah. Not looking like the best day of the month.
Also not the best day of the month: my dentist visit on Wednesday. I was pleased to be told how great my gums looked, much less pleased to find out that one of my old fillings appears to be developing a cavity underneath it.
Also not the best day of the month: the dermatologist visit back at the beginning of the month, which resulted in far more literal pain than I would ever have anticipated from a dermatologist visit. My face is finally starting to look better, but it still hurts. Fortunately, they haven’t called so I’m assuming my biopsy results are normal. I never really like waiting for biopsy results, though. It’s just annoying to have medical uncertainty looming.
Many other days were also not the best day of the month. I’m ruling out all of the days where I had to force Zelda to take antibiotics on general principles, because she hates them, doesn’t understand why I’m forcing things down her throat, and it’s a moment or two or ten of torture for both of us.
And all of this makes it sound like it was a bad month. It really wasn’t. It included two driveways, plenty of games, plenty of good food, time with many of my favorite relatives and friends, and lots of learning and appreciating, even if not enough creating. I appreciated sunshine and dog snuggles, the best gluten-free pizza I have ever tasted and really good sushi, lots of new music and some excellent walks with R and Z.
My learning included at least half a dozen worthwhile books, including The Four Disciplines of Execution; Well Designed Life: 10 Lessons in Brain Science & Design Thinking for a Mindful, Healthy, & Purposeful Life; The INFJ Writer: Cracking the Creative Genius of the World’s Rarest Type; Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere); Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future; and The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick). (Also, I should really start adding dates to my book list because it was remarkably difficult to figure out what I’d read when. My favorite of these books, though, is definitely Well-Designed Life, which I’m actually still reading.)
Yesterday morning I decided that it was time to set some business goals: all this learning is well and good, but the whole point is to use it to build my business, so I can stop worrying about needing to find a job. Then I realized that my business goals have to support my life goals — they come first. And my life goal is to have a life where I get to have breakfast and conversation with my dad on a regular basis; go out to lunch with my son now and then; play games with my friends; take great walks with my dog… my life goal is, in fact, to have the life I’m living. Even when it includes unpleasant vet, dermatologist, dentist and van service results.
Back to the best of the month: the day that stands out was Tuesday, when R & I visited Gainesville. I suspect that’s partly just because it’s so close in time, but that’s okay, it was a really good day, and I’m glad I got to have it.
January 28, 2020
Inspiration
I took a business trip today. Well, the kind of business trip that you get to take when you’re a writer. I drove up into the Ocala National Forest with two terrific companions (Zelda and R) and took a nice hike along a wilderness trail that is located at just about exactly my imagined site for the town of Tassamara. It was a search for inspiration.
Sadly, I cannot say that I was inspired. But I did have a really nice time.
Afterward, we drove up to Gainesville and met Maguire at Depot Park. I used Trip Advisor to find a nearby restaurant with gluten-free options & we called and ordered to go, then walked a little more than half a mile up the road, through downtown Gainesville, and picked it up, then walked back to Depot Park where we ate at a picnic table in the sunshine. Well, technically in the shade, but figuratively in the sunshine, because it was a typical sunny Florida 70-degree, beautiful blue sky day. Gotta love Florida in January.
Gainesville was terrific, too. It’s not a city where I’ve spent any time and if you’d asked me what I thought it would be like, based on what little I knew about it, I would not have expected brick-lined streets, cute restaurants, a fantastic playground, and plenty of small children and random dogs.
My own personal dog did a fantastic job on our walks — we paused often, and did discuss whether carrying her was an option, but she persevered. (The discussion was between R and me, not Z and me — Z’s opinion of being carried is always pretty low.) At the restaurant, I asked for a bowl of water for her and the waitress very enthusiastically brought her some water in a take-out container. But I was still inside paying, and Z declined to drink until I came out. Then she was happy to have it. On Z’s scale of priorities, though, my presence ranks above water, even when she’s thirsty. It makes me think of that t-shirt, the one that says, “Be the person your dog thinks you are.” I’m not sure I’m capable of being the center of the universe for anyone other than her, though (which is probably a really good thing, actually.)
Yesterday R and I went out to lunch at what used to be our favorite sushi restaurant in Winter Park. It was fantastic. I think I’d almost forgotten how good really good sushi can be. On the way home, we drove by our old house, just to look at it. The new owner (not really new anymore) has painted it a much more sedate color — a gray blue, with a red door — and changed some of the landscaping. I was glad because the pang of loss was a lot less intense than the last time I saw it. I didn’t love it anymore. As we drove away, I realized that even though I’ve missed my house many times in the past years, I wouldn’t go back, even if I could. It was a good house for what I needed at the time, but it’s not what I need anymore, or even what I want. I’m always going to remember my back porch and my kitchen with nostalgic pleasure, though.
I feel like I started this blog post with a lot more to say, but it was a long day with a lot of driving, and I’m feeling very ready to read a book instead. Maybe I’ll remember everything else I wanted to write about tomorrow!
January 24, 2020
Liver Treats for Very Beloved Dogs
Puree the liver in a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Spread onto parchment paper on pan and bake at 350 for 1/2 hour. Cut into small squares and put back in oven at 275 until crisp.
Recipe credit to Deb Holmes.
******
The very beloved dog turned 15 this week. She got liver treats for her birthday and ate them eagerly. I’m always happy when she eats eagerly — it doesn’t happen very often. The vet thinks that’s caused by anaplasmosis, a tick-borne disease that she tests positive for, but a month of antibiotics hasn’t made any difference to her appetite and I am not going to continue to torture her with them.
So she probably has permanent anaplasmosis to go along with the permanent erhlichiosis and the canine dementia. If she showed any signs of being in pain, I would be facing hard decisions, but in fact, she seems perfectly happy. Well, as long as I’m in the room she seems perfectly happy. She complains piteously if I leave her, which can be hard on whoever I’ve left her with. Hard on her, too, of course — she’s the one who’s crying! Anyway, I try not to leave her much.
We still go for walks, we still snuggle, she still plays with her toys. She doesn’t respond to voice commands anymore — or only very rarely. That’s the canine dementia in action. But she knows her hand signals and follows them without hesitation. She doesn’t need to be on a leash either, although we still use one when we go for walks. The leash used to be mostly about squirrels — she’d never run away, but she was definitely going to chase a squirrel wherever it took her. The squirrels are safe now.
Her eyes are still bright, she is still curious. She snores now, though, which she didn’t use to, and I rather love it. It’s not a big snore, just a sweet snore. Sometimes I lie awake and listen to her breathe, and dread the day that the van falls silent. That silence is going to hurt. But it’s not silent yet and it reminds me to appreciate every day I get with her. I’ve had a lot more of them than I expected to have in May 2018 or July 2019, so I’m counting my blessings. I am very lucky. And she is very beloved.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Sarah Wynde (@wyndesarah) on Jan 18, 2020 at 9:11am PST
January 21, 2020
Daily Meditation
This morning I listened to a podcast titled, “What is your intuition telling you?” I picked it out deliberately: it wasn’t one where was simply listening to a speaker and the title was irrelevant, I actually thought, “Hmm, I want to know what my intuition is trying to tell me,” and selected it with intention. But I was, as usual, not a very good meditator.
It turned out that it was a visualization. The speaker — henceforth to be referred to as Our Guide — started by telling us to visualize ourselves in a grove of trees. Okay, I can do that. But then she mentioned the grassy ground under the trees and I was stymied. What? Grassy ground in a grove of trees? How? Trees usually block the light, making it hard for grass to grow underneath them. My grove of trees was scrub pines — the most common type of trees in clusters in central Florida — and the ground underneath would be dirt, scattered with pine needles.
But okay, maybe this is a grove of trees in a park or something, a place where someone takes care of the grounds. Different trees than those I’d imagined… more sedate trees. But I can imagine that, of course. So I have changed my imagined trees to go along with the grassy ground, when Our Guide tells me that one tree is special, and I should walk toward it.
I’m trying to imagine this special tree and I picture a redwood, despite the problem of the grassy ground. Specifically, it’s the redwood that Suzanne and I camped under in a state park in Northern California. But now Our Guide is saying that I can climb the tree. Okay, there’s no way to climb a redwood, that’s impossible. Maybe if I had those things loggers use, that dig into the tree, but come on, I’m not going to hurt my special tree, that’s just wrong. Also, it would be so uncomfortable. Redwoods have rough bark and they’re sticky. Aren’t I going to get sap all over myself if I try to climb this tree?
I am not enthusiastic about tree-climbing, so I decide I have a special ability, like Spiderman, and I can just walk up the side of the tree. I really don’t like heights, though. I’m imagining myself walking up the side of the tree, carefully not looking down, and eventually Our Guide says we are way above the world, we can look down and see it below us, colorful and beautiful. I’m not looking down. What if I got dizzy? What if I fell?
Now she tells us we are standing on a small platform looking down at the world. I am just so reluctant to do this. How big is this platform? Does it have a railing? I would like my platform to have a safety rail, possibly harnesses, and also, now that we’re at it, couldn’t it have an elevator? That would have been much more efficient than climbing a tree.
Seriously, has Our Guide ever climbed a tree? It’s not so easy. You have to pull yourself up using your upper body strength. If you climb high enough to get above the world, you’re going to be exhausted and sore, probably shaking with the effort. Realistically, when I got to the top I would have collapsed on the ground, panting with exertion. No admiring the scenery for me.
But as I’m still fretting about the climbing, Our Guide has moved on. We have walked down a path and we are at a gate. A gatekeeper stands beside it and we have to ask permission to enter. It turns out we are entering our own personal sacred safe space.
What the heck? Who is this gatekeeper, then? Why are they keeping me out of my own personal sacred safe space? If it’s a guard that I’ve put on my space, shouldn’t he or she or it recognize me? How did they wind up with the job of standing in the way of me entering my own space and what if they refuse to let me in? Do I fight them? Is it a challenge kind of thing? Should I have a password?
But while I’m busy resenting the gatekeeper, I’ve fallen behind again. Our Guide has moved on to first visualize and then sit by a fountain. We’re asking the fountain — our intuition — a question. Not a yes/no question, but something meaningful to us. I abandon my gatekeeper annoyance and fumble around for my question for a bit — what exactly do I want my intuition to tell me? Should I be a writer? That’s a yes/no question and besides, I am a writer even if I never write another word. Maybe what I want to know is what I should be doing with my life. Yeah, that’s a good question. What should I be doing with my life? So I breathe and I try not to think, to just let the question be there.
Eventually, Our Guide tells us to take something out of the fountain. And for the first time in this meditation, I have a moment where it feels like maybe it’s not simply my conscious mind trying to visualize all this stuff, because out of the fountain, I pull… a rock.
Yes, my intuition just gave me a rock.
It is big, the size of a baseball, roundish but rough, dark gray and mottled. I know, without being able to see inside, that the rock is a geode, and probably contains crystals, but I don’t know how to get it open and I don’t even know that I want to. Maybe I like the possibility of the magic inside better than the process of breaking the rock open?
Meanwhile the meditation has moved on. Our Guide is climbing back down the tree, but I am not doing that — who can climb a tree while carrying a rock? So I take the elevator down, still holding my rock, still wondering. I’m pretty sure my intuition is not telling me to become a geologist, but I honestly don’t know what it is trying to say. So it goes. Tomorrow will bring another meditation, another chance to listen to my intuition and be confused.
But now it is time to begin the day. My day is going to include walking the dog, dumping the tanks, eating healthy food, learning something interesting, appreciating something nice, and probably playing at least one game of Ticket to Ride. I don’t expect it to be exciting, but I do think it’ll be pretty nice, as days go. I’m grateful that I get to live it.
[image error]
January 17, 2020
Imagination or the Universe?
In the standard set of questions that authors supposedly* get asked, one of the big ones is, “Where do you get your ideas?” According to Neil Gaiman, the standard flippant response is, “There’s a P.O. box in Schenectady.” (I say supposedly because I think I’ve only been asked that question once. Most people just ask me, “Oh, what do you write?”)
But for a lot of authors, that question is mystifying because the answer is, “Everywhere. Anywhere. My brain never ever stops feeding me snippets of stories.” Or at least that would have been my answer. But my imagination seems to have shut off. It’s just not working right now. The stories are gone.
It’s a really strange and honestly quite unpleasant feeling. Maybe it’s a little like losing your vision, and I say this as someone whose need for glasses has been growing steadily over the years. I used to have perfect sight, 20/20. Now a black blur in the distance sets off all my “beware of dog” triggers until it gets closer and closer and closer and my eyes finally give me enough information to say, “Oh, Macie! That’s Macie! I love Macie!” and I can relax.
But now that I’ve written that, I can say that it’s nothing like losing my imagination. Losing my imagination is much more like losing a tooth. I keep poking at the hole and there’s nothing there. And it is not settling in to a new normal, where the hole becomes as familiar as the tooth once was, and it stops being weird. It keeps being weird. Where are the stories? Why doesn’t a song trigger them? Why doesn’t a dream keep going when I wake up? Why don’t I know what Cici does next?
Some authors believe the universe is giving us our stories. Elizabeth Gilbert, in Big Magic, or Lauren Sapala in The INFJ Writer, would probably suggest listening, waiting for the universe to murmur to me. I’ve been listening. The universe is feeling very, very quiet.
In my morning words the other day, I wrote this:
I’m running away from the existential pain of feeling like there’s no story in my soul that wants to come pouring out, or even being yanked out into existence. This is what it must feel like for people who ask, “but how do you think of those things?” The answer is, it comes to me. Until the day when it doesn’t come to me, not at all. There’s no story in my head. Maybe it’s because I was ignoring the stories that wanted to be written, the one about the former rock star, the one about the lottery winner, the one about the girl who went through portals with her sister, the one about the bazkide. Maybe I needed to not be ignoring those stories. But it felt like I had too many things to write and now it feels like I have nothing to write.
I miss the characters talking to me, I miss the puzzles popping into my head. Maybe it’s because I didn’t respect APM enough, because I didn’t go crazy for making it perfect… ohh, so desperate to play solitaire right now. Maybe it’s because I’m depressed at the lack of enthusiasm for APM. Maybe it’s because I liked it but only four people have bothered to leave a review and no one seems even interested in reading it. Maybe it’s because no one is laughing at my jokes, a big fat thud out into the universe, not even people interested enough to hate it. And you put yourself out there — not you, me — I put myself out there and it was ignored, and so I’m feeling burned. Metaphorically burned. But too hurt to want to create. Too sore to have that part of my brain eager to perform for other people. Yep, I’m a performer and no one has come to my show and so I’m ready to stop putting on my show.
It’s a good realization, now I think I need to sit with it for a while. Not that I want to sit with it, I want to make my coffee and find my book and maybe play a lot of solitaire. But at the same time, I think I can let my heart feel this pain and that it’s okay to just feel the pain and not drive myself to create when the creativity muscle is hurting. On the other hand, work through pain, always a way to develop a muscle, right? Not always. Yeah, I don’t know.
I wound up deciding to let the universe give me a sign. I was thinking — well, a job offer, that’s what I was thinking. My friend in Arcata telling me she knew someone who desperately needed a nanny; a headhunter related to my previous career reaching out on LinkedIn; a Help Wanted sign in the local bookstore.
The universe obligingly provided a sign yesterday, when my friend Lynda shared with me that her friend told her I was one of her favorite authors. Her friend writes fiction, teaches writing, has written books on writing, and has been publishing books since I was in high school, so… well, I cried, actually.
Then the universe gave me another sign when BookBub promptly rejected A Lonely Magic for a featured deal, for the fifth time. I wish I’d saved all the rejection emails, because I’m fairly sure they come in gradations: the previous one said, “you can apply again in 30 days and you can improve your application by making your book free or available on more retailers.” ALM is now free and available on all retailers, and this rejection said, “you can apply again in a few months.” Eh. I think I am done with BookBub. ALM has a beautiful cover, over 80 nice reviews on Amazon, and is free: if it’s not good enough for BookBub to think it worth sharing with its readers, so be it. Thanks, universe, I get the message.
This morning, the universe gave me another message in the form of a review on Cici: Five stars from a tough grader! It ends with: I can’t wait to read the next one. (Please, Sarah Wynde, hurry!) I cried again, to be honest. Thank you, Deb, the tough grader. I’m so grateful for the encouragement!
But I think the universe is delivering some very mixed messages. I guess right now, though, I will just keep listening.
January 14, 2020
Tuesdays
Somewhere in the WordPress interface, there exists (existed?) a little calendar that shows you the days of the week on which you’ve posted. I can’t find it anymore, but I think I’ve been posting mainly on Mondays and Thursday for about five years. In 2020, I’m switching to Tuesdays. So radical!
Also a little ridiculous. There is no real distinction in my life between Sundays and Mondays — it’s not like I’m racing to get out of the house for my long commute to an office where I’ll punch a time clock. But Mondays still feel like Mondays and I want to focus my Monday writing energy on fiction. I’m imagining myself being so productive, so inspired.
And maybe I will be. I’m sure I could find a podcast that would enthusiastically tell me that anything I imagine hard enough will come true. Affirmations! Visualizations! Create the world you want! Yeah, I’m listening to (and reading) far too much self-help right now. I really do want to get into a steady meditation practice, because I know from past experience that meditation brings a stability and joy into my life that I very much appreciate. But I really am bad at it. So far I haven’t found THE meditation podcast that’s going to change my life, but the nice thing about meditation is that just showing up is half the battle.
This is maybe true for appreciation, too. For my 2020 reboot, I changed five of my six tasks in the Streaks app. The new ones are Meditate, Appreciate, Exercise, Learn, and Create. My sixth task stayed the same: Floss. It’s not quite so aspirational, but I really do a better job of flossing when my phone reminds me that I haven’t checked it off. Anyway, it’s easy to know whether I’ve successfully flossed — I suppose I could judge my level of flossing, but mostly it’s a yes/no question — but it’s not so easy to decide whether I have successfully appreciated. Is a two-second gratitude prayer sufficient? Do I need to prove to myself that I have felt appreciative? I’ve been tagging the occasional picture on Instagram with #appreciate2020 as a reminder, but mostly it’s just a mental moment.
Today’s appreciation, however, is the Giz, aka Gizmo, aka my current house guest. Van guest? I’m dog-sitting for my dad for a few days, so we have company in the van. Long-time readers might remember Giz, but he’s a golden peke-a-poo, a mix of poodle and Pekingese, sweet and charming, with a very fluffy tail. Hmm, I wonder if my experience with Giz is what makes me find fluffy tails so charming? Perhaps, because he wags his tail all the time and it is quite, quite adorable.
Giz does not quite understand the van life, however. He is mystified by why we are not in a house. He’s relaxing a little, but I swear he spent all yesterday waiting for us to go somewhere. “We are in the vehicle, why are we not moving?” he seemed to be saying. When I take him into the house, mostly intending it as a pass through to the fenced backyard, he promptly finds himself a corner near the couch and flops down to relax. And he has absolutely no interest in the backyard. He hovers by the concrete patio and avoids the grass. But he is sweet and snuggly and I’m enjoying his company.
[image error]The Giz
My brother was here last week for his annual visit and Florida did its best to shine for him. Perfect weather — in the 70s, sunny but not overwhelming. This week the temps are all in the 80s and it’s more overcast. This morning, I walked the dogs, wearing shorts, in a quickly burning off fog. The trees are all draped with Spanish moss here, and the light was beautiful, the dogs were energetic, and the air felt like summer. It was a lovely morning, easy to appreciate on many levels.
January 6, 2020
Rebooting 2020
I started out my new year with optimism, enthusiasm, and lots of plans… and then promptly got sick. Not my usual food reaction illness, either, but a real cold, by which I mean that four days in, I’m still coughing, still congested, still out of energy, and still wish I could just stay in bed. Blargh.
Van life is not particularly convenient when you’re sick. Like it or not, I’m going to drag myself out of bed today to find a dump station, because my black tank is overflowing. Not, fortunately, literally — there is no sewage on my floors. Basically, it’s just like having a clogged toilet in a house only instead of tackling it with a plunger, I pack up the van and go for a drive. It’s just an inconvenience, really, but not much fun when you’re sick. Well, never much fun, actually, but even less fun when sick.
My kitchen sink is also overflowing, but with dirty dishes. I haven’t been too sick to use my dishes — still eating, thanks to my awesome Dad delivering soup and OJ for me on Saturday (thank you, Dad!) — but I’ve lacked the energy to deal with the dirty ones. That’s never good, but especially not when you live in a van, because there’s no unlimited supply of hot water to soak or scrub the caked-on food off. So, yeah, today’s goal is also going to include washing dishes. Such an exciting start to the new year.
Whining over, I do have plans for 2020. Nothing as specific as a resolution, but I was listening to a meditation podcast which suggested picking three focus words. I would share a link to the podcast, but I don’t know which one it was — I’ve been listening to lots of them, because meditating more would be one of my resolutions, if I was having resolutions. 
January 1, 2020
Best of December 2019
I have about five posts I’d like to write today. The photo retrospective, one picture from each month, that I’ve done for the past couple years. A year in review post, given that 2019 was packed with travel and adventure and friendship. A post with thoughts about the new year — maybe not quite resolutions, but plans, anyway. Even a decade in review post, given that the 2010s were… well, a busy decade. An intense decade, even. I might regret not writing that one, come 2030 when memories of today are blurry and faded, but if I’ve somehow managed to forget how very, very challenging some of the teens were, I suppose that’s all to the good. I will certainly not forget how incredible some of the teens were, but those years are already beautifully documented. May 2017 for the win, IMO.
Meanwhile, today is New Year’s Day which means it’s time for a best of the month post. December didn’t include much travel: three driveways, spread across central Florida. It did include much food, much music, a lot of games, and wonderful times with people I love. I could pick a dozen moments to be highlights, but I’m going to stick with one.
The morning of the 27th, R came out to the van to see when I was leaving. I offered him a cup of coffee, and we turned the passenger seat around, and he sat in the passenger seat, I sat on my bed, and we chatted while we drank our coffees. Then we walked Zelda all the way around the block, past “the wall of chihuahuas” — four or maybe five chihuahuas, all barking their heads off at Zelda, who was entirely oblivious. We played one more game of Ticket to Ride on the porch, and then I headed off.
What made it such a perfect morning? I think partially it was because we’d already had three days together — the longest amount of time I’ve had with him since the summer of 2018. We’d gotten past the “how are you doing?” and “what are you doing?” conversations and into the zone where you talk about walls of chihuahuas. It felt cozy and easy and.. yeah, just nice. In a month of much good, it’s a moment I want to remember.
[image error]
