August, Third Week :: 2021

My youngest moved out on Monday, off to the Midwest for nursing school. I’ve been getting myself ready for this the last couple of years so of course I’m a wreck right now. There’s really no way to adequately prepare for these big transitions, is there? I’ve been self-medicating with junk food and naps, but clearly this can’t go on much longer. ;) On top of that, the hard drive on my computer died without warning, taking with it three years of stories and about three months of work on the novel (and no, none of it was backed up.) I have been swinging through horror, grief, guilt, and despair pretty much every day since then. I had a day or two where I took it as a divine sign that I’m not supposed to write at all (what can I say? I write fiction, I’m dramatic) but within a couple of days stories began to whisper themselves in my dreams and potential words were dancing in my head like sparks over a camp fire and I realized this is just one of life’s ordinary obstacles, not the end of any roads at all.

So, once the tide of emotions and change passes, I will pull up the novel where I saved it to an external hard drive last May and begin again. Again. This time with better back up plans.

In the meantime, I’m exercising what little grace I have for myself and doing the things I know to do to get through. No strict regimens, extra sleep, lots of fiction and time outdoors, no brand-new projects to imagine myself being perfect at, no news, no reading about issues or world-problems, just a lot of comfort and distraction - whatever that looks like day by day.

I hope your August is going more smoothly than mine, but wherever you are, however it’s going, will you please go back up your computer for me right now? Thanks. :)

Lots of love. More writing to come. That novel is GOING TO GET FINISHED, I promise.

xoxo

tonia (accompanied by vegan cheese crackers and about 20 chocolate bars)

Comfort duck.

Gathered:

~ For those of us who can’t (or don’t want to) enroll in an MFA program, Anna has created a really lovely self-directed option. I had her create a one-quarter fiction syllabus for me which I’m going to work at slowly over the winter and it is wonderful. Challenging, creative, deep, and exciting. Find out more about it here.

~ Louise Erdrich’s agonizing (for a perfectionist) poem and advice, which I am listening to repeatedly. (HT: Kyce Bello, whose poetry book, btw, is a safe space for those wrestling with climate despair.)

~ This from Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent:

“We watch, hopefully. We keep watching. We fill our days with care, watching our words and minding our vision, and our evolution continues. We branch, we rise.”