So, I’ve been away. Well, not actually away, but definitely down a deep, Covid rabbit hole. Perhaps you’ve been in one too. I find it’s a hard place to be, especially when you’re perfectly fine and have no real reason for being there. As ever, I am deeply grateful for my health and family, for my beautiful town that is filled with the colors of fall. Yet there are still reasons to grieve. My beloved Curves closed in March and I miss my coworkers and members like a leg. Never in my life had I been with so many amazing women and I mourn the loss of their company. For safety reasons, I also haven’t been able to visit with my son and daughter in law and their wonderful children. They are twenty minutes away but it feels like an ocean separates us. So I mourn the loss of their company too. Hence the hole.
A wonderful friend of mine loaned me a book recently called Intimations by Zadie Smith. It is a collection of essays that do the best job I’ve seen so far of describing the odd world we now find ourselves in. My favorite one is called “Something to Do”. She talks about how all of us who are not essential workers have found ourselves struggling to find something to do. She’s so right! Do I sit upstairs? Do I sit downstairs? Do I go for a walk now or later? Do I make chicken or pasta or scroll through dozens of on-line recipes? How much time have I filled? And here’s my favorite line: “There is no great difference between novels and banana bread. They are both just something to do.”
I may not fully leave my hole until after this election has finished, but one bright star that is drawing me out is the news that Sunbury Press has agreed to publish my book Seeing in the Quiet. I don’t know how long it will take or what the process will involve, but I can’t wait to get started! As we head into what is likely to be a very dark and difficult winter, I hope that you will find your own bright stars to lead you up and forward and away from the holes.
By the way, any tips on getting rid of what Oliver Sacks called earworms? I am currently on day four of Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War and although it is a lovely song, it is NOT four days worth of lovely. Suggestions are welcome!
