Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 45

No tornadoes

[image error]

Looking down, down, down…

So, anyone read about the tornadoes in northwest Georgia? Probably not, because the whole country seems to have been having exciting weather. Turns out there was a reason the ranger was instructing me on safe locations. Fortunately, although I am just about as far north and west as one can get in Georgia, the actual tornadoes hit to the south and east of me. I was never even really worried.

But the weather has mostly not been nice and also not what it was predicted to be. When I decided to come this far north, it was because my weather app was promising 70 degrees and sunshine. That would have been nice. Instead, it was 28 outside this morning! The app actually said 28 degrees, at the same time as it promised that the coldest temp of the day would be 34. Grr…

The good news is that long days holed up inside the van because it’s too cold or too wet to be outside are very good for writing. I’m at one of those points in Grace where I text my friends little snippets of dialogue because I am so very, very amused at my characters. Unfortunately — or fortunately? — they’re now headed in a totally different direction than anything I’ve ever expected them to go in, or that they’ve ever gone before, so I’m once again looking at those 30K words that are already written, that I really thought I was going to be able to re-use, and sighing. Not re-usable.

On the other hand, the characters are having fun and fun is good. If I ever finish this book, it will be a very weird book. But I am going to let go of it and let it be a weird book. Re-reading my Eureka fanfiction reminded me of how much I enjoy weird and how surprised I have been to discover how many other people have enjoyed my brand of weird. Variety of weird? Type of weird? “Brand” feels like marketing-speak, the kind that makes me cringe.

There was something else I was going to write about, but I don’t remember what it was, ha. So I’m going to go back to writing Grace, because my characters have been hanging out in a kayak for weeks now and today is the day where they might finally paddle to shore. That’s totally not a metaphor, at all.

But every time I get grumpy about the weather, I’m going to remind myself that it’s not tornadoes. Or blizzards. Or mudslides. Perspective is everything!

PS I remembered! I was going to write about that waterfall up there. Alas, our explorations have not been as fun as I hoped, because a) weather and b) a lot of the trails have these steep staircases, made of metal stairs with holes in them. Z’s paws are the perfect size to fit right in those holes, so she doesn’t like them. One time — in Texas maybe? — she actually slipped partway through and I was really worried that she’d break her leg trying to escape before I could help her. So we don’t walk on that kind of stairs. If we did, though, we’d be visiting waterfalls! But the weather was clear enough today to see them from above. Not quite as fun as seeing it up-close, but given how cold it is, I probably wouldn’t want to get all that close anyway.

Cloudland Canyon State Park

I picked my current campground based on its pretty name: when I read it, I envisioned a land of fluffy white clouds, pristine blue sky, some sort of magical hopping from cloud to cloud over deep ravines, probably birds in pretty colors. You know, a sort of fantasy “Cloudland Canyon.” The anime version.

Duh.

[image error]

I should have been picturing fog. Dense, heavy, impressive fog. Yep, that’s a scenic overlook and probably there’s sometimes something nice to look at out there. But today it was just clouds. A Land of Clouds.

Worst fog I’ve ever driven through, too. I spent a solid ten minutes in almost total white-out* debating whether it would be worse to be rear-ended because I was driving too slowly or rear-end someone because I was driving too fast. I was going at least twenty miles under the speed limit at the time, so I guess that sort of indicates which I chose. But I did think I might still be driving too fast.

I think white-out refers to blizzards, actually. Grey-out? What’s the word for when visibility is almost nil in fog?

I’m also not terribly enthusiastic about the ranger making sure to tell me where the safe places to take refuge from the weather are. I mean I guess it’s better to know that than not? Well, yeah, of course it is. I just hope it’s knowledge that I don’t need to have.

All that said, I am definitely looking forward to doing more exploring. Zelda and I took a quick walk after we got here, down to the main scenic overlook, and even though we couldn’t see a darn thing except for clouds, the walk was terrific.

[image error]

Even though I know those stone steps are probably a sign that this was a Conservation Corps park, they make me think of fairy tales and monsters and shimmering borders between worlds. Magic!

Being angry

I expressed my anger today. I was surprised at myself — I am someone who rarely admits to being angry, even when I am. I try to talk myself out of it, I tell myself it’s not justified, I look for the other person’s point-of-view… but this time, I was just too pissed off to not say something. I suppose that might be because it was on my son’s behalf, not my own, but still, it was unusual for me.

A few years ago, I did some intense therapy workshops where we did “anger exercises.” I was not good at them. Like, seriously, terrible. I mostly just cried. Completely incapable of defending myself with anger, even when it was justified. And even with this — I’m so angry that my hands are shaking, but I also feel like, oh, I shouldn’t have said anything, I should be more understanding, blah-blah-blah. But I think the therapist at my anger workshop would probably be patting me on the back and saying “good job.” Since she’s not here, I will do it myself. Good job, me!

The details: his paternal grandmother died this week. They were close; he’d spent a lot of time visiting her one-on-one. I would say that she was the grandparent that he knew best and certainly the one that he spent the most time with. His father and uncles scheduled her memorial service for two months away — on the weekend of his college graduation! This is a kid who was diagnosed as profoundly learning disabled at 8, who was maybe never going to learn to read because his disability was so severe. His college graduation is an achievement, a triumph. And they care so little about it, about him, that they plan her memorial service for the same time. Yeah, I’m angry.

When I started to write this post, I was actually going to write about how the nature noises of my campground — many nature noises! — have changed to neighbor noises with the weekend. Loads of people on spring breaks, I think. Lots and lots of little kids. I liked the nature noises, but I like watching all the kids on their bikes, too. This morning, when I took Zelda out for her walk, it was also the time when moms of toddlers take the toddlers out so everyone else can get some sleep. Toddlers can have southern accents. That should have been obvious, but wow, a toddler with a southern accent is adorable.

I’d intended to go for a good walk. I brought the camera and even the water bottle for the dog, so that we could hike for miles. But Zelda refused. It was both funny and charming. She sat down, head cocked, ears up, indicating quite clearly that she was not walking the way I was headed. I think the boardwalk probably has fewer interesting smells for her, since it’s above the wetlands and less used, but she was determined that what we were doing instead was wandering around the campground and letting her smell every interesting post. There are many posts. It was a slow walk. Not at all what I’d had in mind, but the toddlers made up for it.

Reed Bingham State Park

[image error]

“… early spring, when the first leaves are at the bottom of the trees and they seem to float in space in a wonderful way…” – David Hockney, on wanting to paint spring

Zelda and I went on a three mile hike today, through pine scrub forests and wetlands, along a boardwalk and a bumpy, tree-root-filled dirt path. And some paved road, too. It was glorious. It was not, however, our usual first thing in the morning walk, because a) it was COLD at 7AM, here in Georgia, and b) it was also crazily dark.

Sunrise was at 7:44 AM, which I know because I asked Alexa. That’s actually a solid 32 minutes later than sunrise wherever Alexa thinks I live, which I know because while I was staring out my window at the barely lightening sky, we had this conversation.

Me: Alexa, what time is it?

Alexa: It’s 7:08 AM.

Me: Alexa, what time is sunrise?

Alexa: Sunrise is at 7:12 AM.

Me: So why is it so dark outside?

Alexa: …

Me: Alexa, why is it so dark outside?

Alexa: Sorry, I’m not sure.

Me: Alexa, what time is sunrise in Adel, Georgia?

Alexa: Sunrise is at 7:44 AM.

Me: Wow, that’s weird.

Alexa: …

She is not always the best conversationalist. Still, it’s pretty cool that from the comfort of being buried under my covers — two blankets last night for the first time in months! — I can find out what’s happening with the sky.

Anyway, Z and I wound up taking a quick walk, then coming back to Serenity for breakfast and miscellaneous chores. Well, I did miscellaneous chores. Zelda had a nap. But around lunch time we went for our walk and it was spectacular. Probably about fifty-five degrees, with spring popping up around every corner: those pink flowers, and yellow flowers, but also just the early green leaves starting on bare branches. It made me very happy to be in a spring that felt so spring-like.

And I’m happy to be on the road again, too. I really had a lovely last couple of weeks in Florida: I got to spend time with lots of friends, and finished it off with a couple fun days with family. Movies and interesting food and writing with friends, some great conversations and coffee dates — what more could anyone want? But apparently I also want nature and bird song and for the van to be connected to a safe water supply.

And long walks through interesting terrain, the smell of my neighbors’ campfires, and starry, starry night skies.

Magical Eureka

I saw manatees this week.

At least, I think they were manatees. They were big gray lumps, breaking through the surface of the water and then disappearing again. Too big to be otters, which was my first thought. Too inland to be dolphins or whales, which would have been my second, if I’d been at the ocean.

I wasn’t at the ocean. I was actually at a lake whose name I don’t know, but which is right down the street (more or less, a few minutes drive away) from a driveway that has been a very regular campsite over the past four months.

It made me think about magic. And adventure. And the difference between them. But also, more importantly, about needing to remember that there is magic right around the corner, all the time, if we just remember to look for it.

On Wednesday, I’m finally starting my travels again — heading north, with plans to explore Georgia and Arkansas and the states between the two. (That vagueness is because I could hop up to Tennessee and drive across Tennessee to get to Arkansas, or I could stay farther south and drive through the northern ends of Alabama and Mississippi. I think which I do might depend on the weather, might depend on what sounds interesting along the way.)

My Arkansas destination is Eureka Springs. Why Eureka Springs? Well, why not? But that’s not the entire answer. This weekend I got an email from fanfiction.net, a review on one of my last Eureka stories. It was really good timing, because it reminded me of what happened in 2010. I had given up on writing fiction, almost a decade earlier, because… drum roll? … nothing I wrote ever satisfied me. Much like I’ve done for the past three years, I wrote in circles, I over-wrote, I edited to death, it was never good enough. Writing was an exercise in frustration, not a satisfaction or a joy. And so I quit writing.

Then I fell in love with a television show, Eureka, and more specifically a relationship on the show and wanted desperately to know what happened next. I discovered fanfiction. But none of the stories were quite the one that I wanted to read, so I wrote my own. And then I wrote more, and then I wrote more, until I had written hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction, with stories that ranged from a few thousand words to full-length novellas of 35,000+. But I had a strict rule, which was that I didn’t edit. I wrote and I let go.

Literally, I would write during my free time and then before I went to sleep, I would post what I’d written. I never went back and questioned myself, I never edited, I never agonized over plots — it was all spur-of-the-moment, top-of-my-head, as fast as I could write, writing. I wrote in 1000-word blocks and then I shared them. Are the stories perfect? Nowhere close. Are they fun, fast, readable, entertaining, creative, amusing… yes, all of the above.

I need to get back to that kind of writing. I don’t know whether I can entirely, because one of the joys of writing fanfiction was the community, the instant-feedback from supportive readers. I don’t know how many times my author notes on those stories say things like, “I wouldn’t have written this if it weren’t for reviews from x, y, z,” but it’s often. Really often. Those reviews motivated me.

But I also look at the stories and I didn’t worry about grammar, about perfection. I’ve got sentence fragments and run-ons, dialogue-style construction in narrative, adjectives used with blithe abandon, and jumps in point-of-view whenever I felt like I needed to be in a different point-of-view, sometimes with breaks but sometimes just done. And all those things work just fine. I just wrote and let go. So that’s my new resolution for working on Grace, to write and let go.

And I’m going to Eureka Springs, because I saw the name on a map yesterday and thought, Yes! I want to go back to Eureka. It won’t be the same, but as long as I’m on my way there, I’ll be reminding myself every day of what it meant to me to be living in Eureka.

Reading binge

At 8:42 AM, it was 53 degrees inside Serenity. I’m very pleased about this, but I sort of wish I had fingerless gloves, because my hands were so cold that I was finding typing un-fun. Still are, in fact, even though it’s almost two hours later and probably ten degrees warmer.

In the first week of March, I read twenty books. I’m not sure I’ve had a more extreme reading binge since childhood, when I basically did nothing but read all summer long. But the library had the first sixteen books by Ngaio Marsh, and then I moved onto their supply of Lisa Gardner, with minor diversions along the way for the new Patricia Briggs, an old Nora Roberts, a rather boring Elizabeth Moon, and a single Tamora Pierce. It is probably a good thing that the library doesn’t have the second 16 books by Ngaio Marsh or I would still be reading. Also probably a good thing that I have to wait my turn for the rest of the Lisa Gardner books: I think she’s got 30 books available, some of which I had previously read, some of which I have on hold now, and the rest of which I read this past week.

Yesterday I finally remembered that I’m supposed to be writing, not reading, and opened up my file for Grace. Well, it had actually been open all week, but every time I looked at it, I winced and turned back to the Libby app instead.

But I think my reading binge was good for me. When I was re-reading Grace in order to get back into writing Grace, I was unexpectedly willing to forgive myself for a lot of my perceived writerly sins, because all of the books that I was reading contained plenty of writerly sins themselves. There’s no such thing as perfect. It isn’t even about being “good enough,” whatever that is. All that really matters is how the reader answers one question: “do you want to keep reading?” And I’m pretty sure that even if Grace never quite makes sense, never has a typical plot, never makes anyone’s heart race, at least a few readers are still going to answer “yes”, because the world is a good place to be and the characters are fun to hang out with.

And now I am going to go hang out with them.

PS All those links are Amazon affiliate links, so if you start your Amazon shopping there, I’ll receive a small percentage of the purchase price of the first item you buy. It won’t make me rich, but come tax time, it will help me justify the contents of my blog as a business expense.

The first day…

I’ve been joking with two different friends about every day being New Year’s Day. It’s not just that all my resolutions have gone nowhere — did I even make any resolutions? — it’s that 2018 is slipping away while I feel increasingly stuck, grinding my gears deeper and deeper into the mud.

The mud is obviously metaphoric, but I’m not even sure what it is. Depression? Maybe. Grief, sure. Lack of productivity leading to self-loathing leading to inertia leading to the dirty dishes piling up in the sink and a blue hair tie sitting in the middle of the floor day after day after day. Why don’t I just pick up the damn blue hair tie? I don’t know. It seems like too much work? It’s an interesting dash of color in the gray? It reminds me that I should brush my hair? Not that I do, I just think, “hmm, maybe I should brush my hair” and then I start browsing the internet again.

Today I picked up the blue hair tie. And I washed the dishes and put them away. And it’s a Monday and I’m going back to blogging on Monday and Thursday, regardless if I think I have anything to say, because it was good for me to have that structure in my life.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life, cliche as that statement is, and if it was the last day… well, I would want to know that I’d used it wisely. Which means not browsing the internet for hours, not reading books that I don’t care about, not playing mindless internet games, but yes, taking good walks with Zelda, yes, eating healthy food, and yes, writing some of my own words. And yes, making sure that my tiny house is comfortable and cozy and clean.

Time to get started.

[image error]

Sunrise through the trees, from March of 2017. It’s a metaphor, I suppose.

Best of February 2018

[image error]

My friend A asked me last week whether I’d had a dry day yet. I looked at her, a little puzzled, and she said, “Tears?” Ah. The answer was “No.” Losing a dog is unlike any loss I’ve ever had. I think I do fine when I’m with other people — I have no trouble making conversation, going places, interacting — but when I’m alone in the van… it’s just very quiet without Bartleby.

Which makes writing a “best of” post a little problematic. I want to remember all the good things during the month: conversations with friends, nice driveways, a fantastic summer roll dinner with C & co., writing with J & A, visiting R in Sarasota and eating dinner outside with Z sleeping under the table, lovely Valentine’s Day yellow roses that made me smile…

But the honest truth is that I spent a lot of February 2018 feeling overwhelmed with sad. The best part about it is that it’s over.

Making plans

I was feeling gloriously happy this morning — the medical escalator came to a screeching halt yesterday, and I was ever so ready to get off and get moving! — and then I got an email from my doctor’s office with a new appointment for March 13th. Three weeks away! sigh But I am not going to fuss about it. It is what it is. I did consider calling and canceling — I’m not sure why that appointment needs to be in person, except for the general medical need to follow-up face-to-face when firm cautions are involved — but I’m not going to worry about it.

I’ve realized a couple things about my next couple of months, anyway. The first is that without B, I don’t have such an imperative need to get out of Florida. He was miserable when it was too hot. Even without the congestive heart failure, he was a pudgy little guy with a thick coat of black fur, and the heat was hard on him. Even in 70 degree weather, he’d be panting. Zelda — white dog, thinner coat, skinny and energetic — doesn’t mind the heat nearly as much. And one of the big issues about the heat was that I needed to be able to leave B in the van while I walked Zelda, so I always needed to be able to have the AC running. That’s no longer a problem. I wish it was. I’d much rather be worrying about B and trying to make him comfortable than living without him. But again, it is what it is.

The second thing isn’t a realization as much as it is a hard look at my timeline: I need to be back in Florida in the middle of May for R’s graduation. That gives me two months. And I don’t want to spend them driving. Long driving days are exhausting and time-consuming. There are places I wanted to go — I’d rather be spending spring in the northeast than the south — but I don’t want to be rushing around, spending hours on the road and worrying about getting to my destinations on a schedule that doesn’t give me enough time to enjoy them (and to write a book along the way!)

So my current plan, such as it is, is to relax and enjoy the south. I’ll have a few more weeks in Florida and then I’ll do some exploring in Georgia and maybe South Carolina, maybe even back to Arkansas, and then I’ll swing back into Florida for the first part of May. And then May 20th or so, I will head north, taking my time about it.

And after a stressful couple of weeks, I am relaxing and enjoying my day today. I’m in Lake Griffin State Park, which is a place I’ve stayed before, but I like it more every time I’m here, I think. It’s a small park, close enough to a busy road that you never stop hearing road noise, but I don’t mind that. This morning I took Zelda on a walk down a path that we’ve never gone on before, because of warnings about mud. I could hear the traffic, but being surrounded by nature, breathing fresh air, seeing greenery and giant palmettos and pretty yellow flowers scattered across dead brown leaves on the ground felt magical. Like I’d discovered a primeval swamp in the backyard of a strip mall. And then we reached a place on the trail where the mud was thick and black and goopy and Zelda decided she wanted no part of it. She dragged me back the way we came. Now I’m sitting in the van, windows open, listening to traffic but also birds and breezes in the leaves and a far distant barking dog, and watching a yellow butterfly. It’s a beautiful day for writing many words. Here’s hoping lots of them are on Grace!

[image error]

Last night’s sliver of moon

I would rather not

About eighteen or nineteen years ago, the director of Rory’s preschool caught me on the day they distributed school pictures, and as I opened the envelope, said, sort of apologetically, a little anxiously, “I hope you don’t mind his picture, it’s sort of… well, it’s not really… we usually try… but…”

And I interrupted her with my mouth dropping open, clutching the photos to my chest, and saying, “Oh, it’s so him! I love it!” He looked both disheveled and mildly exasperated, with his hand against his head, like he was just about to roll his eyes and tell the photographer what he thought about the whole business.

Oh, I bet I have the picture on my computer. Yep, it was this one:

[image error]

It was so him. And the director knew it, too, so she gave me a big smile and we admired it together and discussed what a fantastic photo it was and also probably a little of what a fantastic kid he was, because that was one of our favorite topics of discussion. Well, one of my favorite topics of discussion, and she was usually willing to join in.

I was reminded of this story today, because I picked up B’s ashes, and… well, some background first.

When B showed up in my backyard, I called him Mystery Dog. For a while, it looked like that would become his name but it never felt quite right. My nephew suggested Bartlebee, after a character in a book he was reading, which in turn reminded me of a Melville short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener.”

I didn’t remember the story all that well, but I knew the character came and stayed. And that he had a line, his response to all requests, which I thought was, “I would rather not.” (It’s actually “I would prefer not to” but I’ve had it wrong all along.) Mystery Dog promptly became Bartleby. It fit so well. When B was dying, the vet asked about his name and I told her that story. And, of course, she also heard everything else I said to him as he was going. So I hope she knew how much I would love this:

[image error]

“I would rather not”

When I saw it, I burst into tears. But they weren’t bad tears, and I will treasure it. Not the ashes, which I will scatter somewhere appropriate, because carrying ashes around indefinitely feels unhealthily obsessive to me, but definitely the box and always the reminder.

Life without B… well, I’m getting used to it. Slowly. It’s strange to discover how much he dictated our schedule and routine. More than once, I’ve forgotten to feed Z her dinner until quite late, because she doesn’t remind me. B usually spent the half hour from 5 to 5:30 staring at me intently, trying to psychically convey how nice it would be if I got up and got him his dinner right away. He was a very precise timekeeper in general. At 11, it was time to be outside. At 3:30, time for a chicken strip. And he needed to be lifted on and off the bed, so was often my motivation for getting up and moving. Without him… well, my life is easier, I suppose, but so much emptier. He was a very big presence for such a little dog.

In other news, I’m still hanging out in Florida. I’m caught in what a friend described as a medical escalator, where one thing leads to another thing leads to another thing. At this point, I am very much hoping that the last step on the escalator will be a doctor’s appointment in early March. Google actually managed to reassure me today, when I finally gave in to the impulse to do some research, so that was nice. Doesn’t usually work that way!

And I am definitely counting my blessings. Yesterday I sat in a waiting room with my dad for an almost absurdly long time — I think he probably wound up in there for about four hours. And the television was playing infomercials! Hell. Except a young couple in the waiting room had time pressures. And also, they were young, which, in context, probably meant they were not there for routine care. And, of course, when a doctor is running hours behind schedule for a minor procedure, it’s probably because someone else’s minor procedure has turned major. All in all, it reminded me of how very lucky I am, to be reasonably healthy, to have such a flexible life, to have people who love me taking care of me.