Category Archives: Uncategorized

January 25, 2025 · 4:25 pm

And Then Came 2025

At “The North Pole”

Sky Park at Santa’s Village

Skyforest, CA

I headed home from my holiday travels at the end of December, heart-filled with the love of family. I was tired, but happy in the distinct way grandmothers know well. I had just been given a multitude of irreplaceable moments with my best beloveds . . . Tiny hands holding mine, some still so small, and some growing too fast. Also bigger hands and hearty hugs. Teens and twenty-somethings updating me on their lives. Strong, beautiful, and grown. Smiles. Laughter. Storybooks shared. Snowman crafts. Game playing. Sleepy cuddles. All of it so cherished.

After tearful goodbyes, I checked in for my flight and went in search of a new journal at the airport gift shop, thinking I could begin it on January 1st. Last year, returning from my Christmas trip, I had purchased one there, and it had been a terrific addition to my writing life. Alas, this time nothing spoke to me, probably because I already had it in mind that I wanted a guided journal like the one I used in 2024 (The Breathe Journal 52 Week Guided Planner) and they didn’t have anything similar.

Once home, my usual routines resumed, but with more than the usual spark of wonder and worry that a new year brings. This was not going to be just any new year. Apprehensive, sad, and often angry, too, I knew that I was going to have to work hard to maintain my usual optimism and good will. Honestly, my optimism was at one of the lowest levels I have ever known. Somehow, I was still hanging on to my feeling of good will in all my daily encounters. My genuine love of the people I see during the course of a regular week’s activities lifts me up. But when I was at home reading the news, I was feeling helpless and exceptionally low.

Mr. P and I stuck to our walking schedule, which we know is a nonnegotiable necessity, and I was happy to return to my library job and to church on Sundays. These things always help. Still, I knew I needed to get more writing in, and was stuck—am stuck—as far as my historical fiction manuscript goes, so I searched online for a new journal. I found and ordered Journal Like a Stoic: A 90-Day Stoicism Program to Live with Greater Acceptance, Less Judgment, and Deeper Intentionality by Brittany Polat, PhD.

By the time the journal arrived, we were more than halfway through January, and I was physically unwell. I am only into my third day of using it, but I would say it is helping me in the way that almost any honest attempt at writing truthfully from my heart and mind can do. It focuses my mind with reading, questions me with depth, and sets a task before me. I like it.

From the book: “Stoicism is a philosophy of life in the fullest sense. As a framework for daily living, it can guide us in every decision we make, from our career choices to what’s for dinner tonight. What’s more, it helps ground us when we’re living through what feels like unprecedented times.”

The kitty is also interested in stoicism.

The three disciplines of stoicism are logic, ethics, and physics. The four virtues of stoicism are wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. All these things I can get behind, believe that I mostly already embrace them. I say mostly, because I am ignorant when it comes to physics, and historically slack when it comes to temperance. Still! I am in. I will faithfully read and respond to the prompts in the book. I will write honestly.

I plan to continue with the other things in my life that sustain me: my love of friends, family, community, church, library, nature, reading, art, music, cooking, and pets (to name a few). And I will write the occasional blog post! I love connecting with all of you!

Cheers

To us! To a year of introspection and growth, and to a lifetime of love-motivated action and purpose. God Speed.

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January 1, 2025 · 2:28 pm

All Those Years

Just before Christmas, Mr. P and I drove to the Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area, which is located a short drive from our home over the Austin Summit on Highway 50, “The Loneliest Road in America.” I love nature and history, as well as walking and exploring new (to me) places, and this little day trip exceeded my expectations. As soon as we arrived, I was surprised that I had not heard much about the place in the four-plus years we have lived in Austin. Only one person had ever mentioned the spot to me, and that was a traveler who stopped in to see our historic general-store-turned-library and told me he had camped there the night before. I imagine the locals have all been there, and they have been good at telling us about other wonderful places to explore in the area, so it mystifies me that no one thought to suggest this historically and scenically stunning spot to visit.

Therefore, I will do so. If you travel Highway 50, be sure to make this one of your stops!

Some history:

“The Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area provides public access to petroglyphs created by prehistoric people living near Hickison Summit at the north end of the Toquima Range and the south end of the Simpson Park Mountains in the U.S. state of Nevada. . . In the general vicinity of Hickison Summit are multiple prehistoric hunting and living sites dating to 10,000 B.C. as well as more recent sites such as mining camps and ranches.

Trails used by mid-19th century explorers John C. Fremont and James H. Simpson pass through the area as do the routes of the Pony Express and the Overland Stages. At the time of the earliest prehistoric sites, the Great Basin contained large lakes, including Lake Toiyabe and Lake Tonopah in the Big Smoky Valley west of the summit. As the climate became drier, the lakes evaporated, and the former lake dependent cultures were replaced by hunter-gatherers. When the first European-Americans arrived in about 1850, Western Shoshone people lived in the region” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickion_Petroglyph_Recereation_Area).

Wow, right? My dear friend, Cheryl, just informed me that when you see faces in things, it’s called pareidolia. I definitely see a face here, and a neck as graceful as Audrey Hepburn’s.

Here is the proposed text for the marker plate, State Historical Marker No. 137, from the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office:

The summit is named after rancher John Hickison because the road to his ranch passed over the summit. About one-mile northwest lies Hickison Summit, a natural pass between two low buttes. Passes and canyons were common Native American hunting locations for funneling and ambushing bighorn sheep and deer herds. Archaeological sites in the region reveal a dominance of bighorn bones and horn, reflecting the bighorn’s importance to Native Americans as food and raw material for tool production. The bighorn lacked resistance to diseases introduced by domestic sheep in the nineteenth century, and this resulted in catastrophic bighorn population declines through the West. Prehistoric native American petroglyphs, images and designs are carved into rock surfaces and are interpreted along a short hiking trail. Archaeologists hypothesize that the meanings for these designs include ceremonial, female puberty markers, ritual hunting magic symbols, and rock art or simply graffiti.

On the day we went, there were no interpretive booklets available, and other than a lone camper, no other people, so we didn’t learn as much as we would have liked. Still, it was stunning, and felt somehow sacred. The park was silent and isolated enough that all the years of this century easily fell away, and then echoes of past centuries offered themselves to our quieted minds. I was saddened, too, as I often am, thinking of how much is lost in the mists of history. What a stunning sight it must have been, all those herds of bighorn sheep and deer, and what a shame that diseases introduced by newcomers decimated the population even unto today.

Standing here, looking across the Great Smoky Valley to the Toiyabe Mountains, blue in the distance, I felt connected to all those who came before me. . . human, bird, mammal. . . all.

Such an amazing planet. Such an amazing gift to live here. Sending love and best wishes for a healthy, joyful, and adventurous 2025. Happy New Year!

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December 14, 2024 · 3:18 pm

Tracks in the Snow

This past week I read Tom Booth’s charming picture book, This is Christmas, at our December library story time. Of the seven young children in attendance, none of them thought they’d ever seen a chipmunk in our town/area. I have only lived here for four years and am no expert on the local wildlife, but I have spotted a few (very few) chipmunks. Never a squirrel though. This is the only squirrel-free zone I’ve ever lived in, and I can tell you it’s a bit unnerving. I can only surmise that the trees are too small (mostly pinion pine), the spaces in between them too distant, and the rain too infrequent to sustain squirrels. . . I’ve read that the forest in our mountain range, the Toiyabes, is referred to as a dwarf forest, because it’s in the shadow of the great Sierra Nevadas. That could be why I haven’t seen squirrels here, but I don’t really know. But I digress.

Anyway, here in Austin, Nevada, which is located in the center of the state and sits at 6,555 feet elevation, the mammals I’ve noticed include: some humans (not a lot!), many feral cats (a few of which now live inside my house, so they are not quite so feral these days), a plethora of mule deer, occasional groups of antelope and wild horses in the valley below, maybe two bunnies, and perhaps a dozen chipmunks.

So when I spotted these tracks in the snow on one of the trails outside town on today’s walk, I had to take a picture to show my library friends. Definitely, chipmunk prints, right?

Tiny and perfect little lightfooted creature prints compared to Mr. P’s boot.

So I came home and asked Mr. Googly what chipmunk prints look like and they look just like my picture, I think . . . but I guess they could be mouse prints, too, and come to think of it, I have seen a few mice over the past few years (sadly, they have usually been the victims of the aforementioned feral/not-so-feral cats).

Regardless! We had a lovely trail ride today, and the prints charmed us. I’ll definitely report my finding to my little library patrons and tell them to keep a sharp eye out for chipmunks.

It is after all, the little things.

Stay warm, and enjoy nature’s many gifts!

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December 4, 2024 · 9:52 pm

Escaping Limbo

I have thought a lot lately about the discomfort of being in a perpetual state of waiting for something to happen, of worrying about what the results will be when something finally does happen, and then, wondering if I will navigate any of it well. The word “limbo” is often in my thoughts.

Photo by Jimmy Chan on Pexels.com

2024 brought new health concerns for my husband, and with that a reconsideration of where we should live, since we are currently in a very remote location, three and a half hours by car from the nearest medical center with cardiac care. We responded decisively by putting our house on the market. That decisiveness did not break us out of Limbo, however, as we do not know when or if our home will sell, and we do not know what it will sell for if it does sell. We cannot make plans on where to move until we sell the house. Still, we’re thinking about returning to the Midwest where real estate prices are more reasonable than here in the West and where we can reasonably expect to afford to live in a town with a hospital. But, until we sell, we are in Limbo.

Also, in 2024, I was thrilled to receive an invitation from my dream literary agent to send her my full manuscript, A Fine Suddenness, a World War II historical fiction novel based in Lake Arrowhead, CA. I’ve no idea if she has read it yet. It has been out of my hands for six months now, this after having worked on it pretty consistently for years. Many years. I miss it terribly (it’s an odd thing, really, the attachment I’ve made), and I have no interest in beginning a new novel yet, though at least I am continuing to write. Even so, journaling or posting online, as important and healthy as they are, do not give me the same sense of mission as novel writing does. I wait to hear from the agent, and I do not move forward on a sequel to the book I sent her, nor on some new unrelated novel, because I desperately want her opinion on A Fine Suddenness first. More Limbo.

And 2024, oh my goodness, has been a year of intense worry and anticipation for our nation and the world. We are no longer in the first stage of that particular limbo state, but we are certainly still in a place of transition and uncertainty. So many possible scenarios there, and so little I have control over. More Limbo.

Earliest historical references to Limbo describe a place in-between—not heaven, not hell—a place for deceased unbaptized humans born before the birth of Christ, or who died as infants before baptism, to reside until the second coming of Christ by the Roman Catholic Church, and these begin in the 14th Century. From there, the word limbo (more and more with a lower case “l”) entered usage in less theological contexts: as a place or state of restraint, confinement, neglect, oblivion, uncertainty, or an intermediate or transitional place or state.

Etymology also traces limbo from the English of Trinidad and Barbados limbo “a dance that involves bending backwards under a pole,” related to Jamaican English limba “to bend,” from English limber “flexible” (merriam-webster.com).

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Which leads us to the dance, or funeral game, which dates back to the mid to late 1800s on the island of Tobago. In the beginning, the game started with the bar at the lowest possible height and the bar was gradually raised, signifying an emergence from death into life (Wikipedia.org). It is possible that the roots of this practice come from the slave experience of being transported across the seas in ships, where the slaves were separated and tried to squeeze through narrow spaces in order to see or touch one another. In some African beliefs, the game reflects the whole cycle of life . . . the players move under a pole that is gradually lowered from the chest level and they emerge on the other side as their heads clear the pole as in the triumph of life over death (Stanley-Niaah, Sonjah “Mapping of Black Atlantic Performance Geographies: From Slave Ship to Ghetto.” Quoted on Wikipedia.org).

The secularization of the dance began in the 1940s where “it became a popular entertainment in Trinidad and was adopted as a physical fitness exercise by American troops,” . . . and is now “considered the unofficial national game of Trinidad and Tobago” (Wikipedia.org). It has become a fun and happy pastime.

Historically, Limbo to limbo, has moved on. Broken free, so to speak. I wonder if my own limbo could progress that way, too. As for human history, perhaps also for me? If I am stuck in the place between heaven and hell right now, will it be possible for me to become limber enough to squeeze myself through the narrow places that block me from reaching the open, even joyful places that still may exist beyond my current ability to see them or experience them?

In order to do that, I would need to understand the constructs of the narrow places. What are they exactly? What are they made of? Are they hard and impervious, like granite? Splintered like rough wood? Flexible and sometimes deadly like serpents? Or are they only real because I make them real in my own paralyzed mind? Maybe I could wish them away, disintegrate them, with new knowledge or some kind of personal epiphany.

Perhaps there is a way. Perhaps not. But I must strive, at least, to remember Helen Keller’s words, these taken from her open letter in response to Nazi book burnings in Germany on May 9, 1933: “History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them. . .You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.”

If Helen Keller believed that ideas and hopes have always “seeped through a million channels,” who am I to deny it? Might not a few of those ideas and hopes, and more likely a multitude, have made their way to us now at the dawning of the year 2025? Might not they sustain us, quicken our minds, and help us find a way out of our narrow places and into the light?

“Helen Adams Keller“/ CC0 1.0 from Openverse.

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Filed under Advice, Books, Depression, Identity, Lake Arrowhead, Literary Agents, New Year's, Uncategorized, World War II, Writing

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November 9, 2024 · 4:13 pm

Mind of a Writer

The American Writers Museum is located in Chicago, Illinois. My Photo.

Saturday afternoon. Wondering what to write. Obviously, lots to comment on if I were to verge into current events, but I don’t want to do that. I want to find one good thing to write about—something good for writers, since this will be a post on my writer website.

Perhaps something about writing into your pain, both as a way to expunge it, and as a way to find a path through it. A way that perhaps can teach you something about what you really think, or want, or can make possible, and if you can do this, then so can anyone else. It can be healing.

So, let’s see what comes up in a five-minute timed writing. Just a furious spilling of whatever comes up. It must be nonstop and unedited. Ready?

If I ask you to do it, I must do it, too. . . (sad writer nervously sets timer). . .

My Clock

Begin!

The first thing I want to say is that I am sad and I wish that things were different. I wish I had gotten busier being successful so that I would have more options now. Now that I want to change things and move and find a yoga class and travel more and eat wonderful vegetarian food in beautiful restaurants and have a home big enough to have a guest room with an extra bathroom and I want to have a place right near my daughter and grandchildren but I cannot afford to live there and it’s because I never figured out a way to make enough money when I was young and never knew how to save money or grow money and money is the only thing that seems to make freedom work in America.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I have always been a dreamer. I have always been a worker, too, and I thought I could be a dreamer and just keep working and that things would consistently get better over time. By get better, I think I meant that I would be able to afford health care and all those things I mentioned above. I also expected that people would want to love each other, help each other, and understand each other. Teachers and librarians and ministers and social workers would always be revered. A college education would be attainable and who wouldn’t want to go to college?

Photo by Thayná Barsan on Pexels.com

And it would be a great equalizer, because a lifetime of learning and studying history and art and literature, science and geography and math … all of this could illuminate anyone who wished it … and why wouldn’t everyone wish it?

But I was wrong. And I am filled with regret about so many of the choices I made that probably made things worse, but my mind is vague about what those things were and why they were so wrong when obviously I was doing the best I could at the time. But it was never enough. I’ve never been enough.

And I miss my kids. And I want to live in a little house near water where I can walk every day and admire the ducks and the geese, I miss Canada geese, and where I can stop in a little coffee shop and write on my laptop. Which I do not have. But I have a desk computer, and I have a lot of journals and paper is still affordable and I can write longhand, which is better in some ways for me anyway, So why can’t those things happen?

My Photo. The Drawing of Our House is by Derek Zacharias.

I know that the outrageous cost of housing in this country is not my fault. I don’t know who is at fault for that, but there’s a part of me that blames the people who made better choices than I did or who were born into “better” families… And it does me no good to think that way.

Photo by Lena Khrupina on Pexels.com

Bitterness is knowingly biting into the peel of a grapefruit, chewing it slowly, perversely enjoying it, even though as a child your mother cut the sections loose for you, sprinkled the pink fruit with sugar, and centered your portion with a cherry. That’s the way I like my grapefruit still, that, or in a grapefruit martini with a sparkly sugared rim.

 I don’t want to be bitter. I want to find a way back to optimism. It’s just so hard. I miss my kids. The holidays I so love to celebrate are nearly upon us, and I don’t have a way to enjoy them with my family all together. I come and go always somewhere where I am half happy or half as happy as I fantasize, I would be if everyone I love would be there together at the same time. But the drive to Arrowhead from here is much harder than I thought it would be, and since we now know that it’s more expensive here because we regularly leave and stay far away in the city when we have a healthcare need, such as my husband’s recent helicopter trip to Reno and subsequent stay in the hospital there. The hotel bills for me to stay near him during his procedure. All the money spent on gas and restaurants.

Lake Itaska, Minnesota. My own photo.

Moving to Minnesota seems the only semi-practical solution. At least there will be doctors nearby. We still won’t have a lot of money to pay doctor bills, but at least we won’t have to spend extra money just to get to the place where the medical facilities are located. And the houses in Minnesota that are outside the Twin Cities range in price of course but some of them are much more affordable than anything in the West. We can’t afford anything here near healthcare.

I will still have to fly to see my kids of course. The flights may cost slightly more from St. Paul, Minnesota to California than they do from Reno, Nevada, but that’s the only way I can go. I don’t know how I will afford it, but perhaps I can get a part-time job again like I have here (never as lovely as this job here, I don’t think… I’ve been so lucky in that way). My library position is the reason I’m able to buy plane tickets, and it is a complete joy. But I believe whatever happens, moving again offers the only glimmer of hope.

Time.

And there you are. Or there I am. Do I feel better? Maybe a bit, and I’ll take it! Next a walk. A walk after a writing session helps all the thoughts flow better and meet one another and mix and calculate. Also, writers need to take care of the body that carries them around and allows them to experience many of the things that feed them as creatives.

I believe I’ll go for a walk now.

Wishing you lots of “free to worry” (and resolve) writing time—and all the healing you need and all the hope.

Jiminy Cricket from Pexels Free Photos, Disney.

P.S. I came back from my walk and edited my freewrite just a tad. It’s what we writers do!

Happy Writing, With Love.

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September 30, 2024 · 3:38 pm

Embrace Autumn: October’s Beauty in Nature

Hello, October!

Suddenly the leaves turn red, yellow, and orange; the night temperatures dip into the thirties, and I enjoy sitting in my front yard both in the morning and the early evening. Ahhh . . . those morning coffees and evening wines . . .

The steeple front, right, is on the old Methodist church, now our community center. The steeple across the canyon (you may have to zoom in if the image is too small) is on St. George’s Episcopal church, where I attend. Sunday services have never stopped at St. George’s since the church opened in 1878.

Just a month ago it was much too hot to sit here for any length of time. It is an unusual yard, not yet shaded, one that we created by tearing down an old carport that covered the entire front of our old parsonage for sixty years. This reclaimed space has an incredible view of two one-hundred-plus-year-old church steeples and an impressive hillside on this, the northern end of our section of the Toiyabe Mountains, but no large trees yet. We have planted an oak, a cottonwood, and a blue spruce there, but they are small still.

That evening wine.

Our little town of Austin, Nevada is located in central Nevada’s sparsely-populated, history-rich Lander County in  “. . .the Toiyabe Range, a mountain range in Lander and Nye counties, Nevada, United States. The range is included within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. The highest point in the range is Arc Dome (11,788 feet, 3592 m), an area protected as the Arc Dome Wilderness. The Toiyabe Crest Trail runs along the Toiyabe Range for over 70 miles, and is one of the most challenging and secluded trails in the United States.”  U.S. Forest Service, www.fs.us.gov.

In October, we venture out on the mountain trails, we get supplies ready for the long winter to come, and we sit in quiet reverie, grateful for nature’s hush. Enjoying the splendor. Soon, it will be too cold to sit out here without a coat. Soon, there will be more time inside, tending the fire, cooking large pots of soups and stews, reading, and writing.

This gradual gathering of the special autumn light, the relish we feel as we take it in, and our own eventual inner-directed shift is a very great gift as the seasons change, I believe.

Mostly Marigolds! Some of my favorites.

Here is a poem of great beauty by John Keats on the season:

 “To Autumn”

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

    For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

  Steady thy laden head across a brook;

  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

  Among the river sallows, borne aloft

    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Written September 19, 1819; first published in 1820. This poem is in the public domain.

Hello, October! And Welcome!

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September 21, 2024 · 2:18 pm

Unearthing the Character Behind A Fine Suddenness

Three Months ago, at the beginning of summer, I received an agent request for the full manuscript of my historical fiction novel, A Fine Suddenness. I am told that 3 months is about the time I might begin to expect to hear back from the agent, and so today I am checking my email even more regularly than usual, and I am thinking about the origins of the manuscript.

My Journal

It began in May of 2011 with the glimmer of a character suggested by a signature of ownership in an old red leather-bound book a friend gifted me: The Conqueror, by Gertrude Atherton. My friend Lynn is a librarian, a teacher of history, a seller of used books, and a maker of reclaimed book journals. You can check out her business at brownbagbooks.biz. This book was one of her rescued book journals. The cover was intact, rebound into a smallish wire bound blank journal.

The original inscription inside was simple: Mary Miller 1903. Who was this lady, I wondered? She must have loved her books, I thought, to have signed her name and the year of acquisition on the inside cover, a habit I also have. I usually add the place I acquired the book also, but Mary Miller did not do so. A quick search told me that Gertrude Atherton was a San Francisco author, and The Conqueror had been published in 1902, was about Alexander Hamilton, and was widely acclaimed.

I immediately began writing in Mary’s book-turned-journal, taking on an imagined persona of the unknown lady. It began: “May 8, 1903. Lake Arrowhead, California. I am proposing to tell you a story which I am quite sure you will doubt . . .” Rather quickly it took on the overtones of a ghost story, and I named Mary’s father, described his field of study and stated that her mother had died of influenza when she was a child. All of that came to me very spontaneously. Also, Mary’s husband was dead, but she had a vision of him. So, A Fine Suddenness began as a ghost story. And in some ways perhaps that is what it still is, but not in the way it began.

Eventually, the real Mary Miller, whoever that lady was, disappeared from my mind and became instead a woman who lived in Lake Arrowhead, California during the 1940s—70 years before I read her inscription rather than the actual 108 years. Once I placed Mary in a new time and most certainly a different place than the real Mary had lived, I began to conjure what life was like during World War II on the mountain we shared, not in time, but in place.

All of that pondering gradually grew into a scene of Mary in her yard among her roses, the trees towering in the background. And so, she became real to me, and I wrote her story. She is completely fictional, other than the sense I got from seeing her name, and from the beautiful red and gold embossed cover of a book.

She, I hope, would make her namesake, the real Mary Miller, proud.

Photo generated using AI (which I never expected to use…a story for another day)

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August 7, 2024 · 6:35 pm

Dog Days, But With Cats

August in Austin, Nevada… Waiting on Queries, Minding the Library, and Marveling at Nature.

Much of the country (and the entire Northern Hemisphere) is hot. It’s August, a time we refer to as “the dog days of summer.” -Days so hot that even the friskiest of canines refuse to venture out in the blazing sun, barely raising themselves for any reason. A slamming screen door, tri-tips on the grill, Junior home from summer camp . . . all excruciatingly exciting otherwise, barely elicit a thump of the tail during the grip of a heat wave.

We miss you, Atticus!

Dog Days have always been about dogs, right?

I guess not! I was surprised when I looked up the origin of the phrase. According to Dictionary.com,
“The dog days, in the most technical sense, refer to the one- to two-month interval in which a particularly bright star rises and sets with the sun, shining during the daylight hours and staying hidden at night. This star is known by three names: Sirius, the Dog Star, and Alpha Canis Majoris. Apart from being the most prominent star in the constellation Canis Major (Latin for “Greater Dog”), this heavenly body is responsible for the origin of the expression dog days, a phrase that has endured through millennia.”

Now I need to find that star!

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Dog Star or not, August is hot. We head higher up in the hills to cool off. I wrap ice cubes up in my scarf and wrap it around my neck. We play with the hose…

When I’m in the library, I keep the air conditioner set at 65 beautiful bone-chilling degrees Fahrenheit. I check my email compulsively, waiting on agent query replies for my manuscript, and one in particular. I had a fantastic literary agent contact me and request a full reading of said manuscript back at the end of June. I am so honored she asked! In the meantime, I’m getting more reading done (loved I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger), and have had some great getaway weekends. Soon I will be back in Lake Arrowhead for a few days. So much to be grateful for!

And then there are the cats. Somehow, perhaps because we no longer have a dog, all manner of cats, along with their little kittens, and a small number of mule deer, have made our yard, our driveway, and our carport, if not their full time home, at least part of their daily rounds. A few of the kittens now come in through the cat door to look around the house, lounge on the sofa, or eat out of the resident cats’ (Jack, London, and Annabelle Lee) bowls. The mule deer, thankfully, cannot fit through the kitty door, but they do come into the carport at times, which unnerves the visiting cats, their kittens, and our own cats. We even had a near catastrophe last week when a deer wandered in, not noticing Mr. P was in there– and then spooked when he saw him and bolted, running over poor London, our sweet gray long-haired cat. London took a solid hit and was knocked senseless for a time. It was horrifying! Thankfully, he suffered no permanent damage and was back to himself the next day.

London

Two of the four baby kittens who showed up early in the summer got sick. Mom eventually left them with us, and we’ve done our best to nurse them back to health. Happily, they are doing much better, but of course, now we are thoroughly hooked.

Gremlin, the tiniest and most ill of the babies, now thankfully, on the mend.

Where will it all end?

The dog days of summer have gone to the cats!

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June 10, 2024 · 2:32 pm

Identity

“We grow, regress, get stuck, fragment, hide, and find ourselves over and over again.” – Audrey Stephenson, Psychotherapist.

Learn!

Dear Ones,

Today’s readings and my own writing are themselves fragments struggling to find growth. I began by looking at my query status on Query Tracker. Added another rejection to the list. Okay. Next I wrote a short chapter in a new manuscript, one that I do not love in the way that I love the finished one I haven’t found an agent for. It’s hard to fall in love with a new manuscript sometimes. For me, anyway. I am sentimental, perhaps.

To escape, I ventured outside to the laundry room, which is separated from the main house by only a few feet, thinking I would do some productive laundry readying for my work week which begins tomorrow, Tuesday, which is quite wonderful right?–not on Monday, dreaded Monday–but on Tuesday, which I have to be grateful for. And I am. So, a little laundry, and then back to writing, I thought. Until I spotted the giant bug on the laundry room door. Yes, the Mormon crickets are still upon us here. Clearly a sign not to do the laundry.

Then I wrote in long hand–natural left-handed cursive usually brings me back to myself. Maybe even always when I spend enough time there. Today’s topic in my guided journal was Soul Searching: The quest to unlock one’s true self is an ongoing process, because we’re changing all the time (Breathe Journal, c2023. Guild of Master craftsman Publiscations Ltd. http://www.breathemagazine.co.uk. 72-3). Here are two of the prompts given in the journal and my responses:

  1. *Observe every aspect of your surroundings–from the bed you sleep in, to the transport you use. Things around you can shine a light on how you interact with your environment and indicate what you believe about yourself. What do you notice?

Sue’s pillow

Me: My bed must be clean and bright, soft and matchy-matchy- and made! Looking around me: Polished wood. Sunlight. Windows. Plants. Crystal. Books. Lois’s quilt. Photos. Art. Candles. Sue’s pillow. Baskets. Listening to music…

Lois’s quilt

(After I finished, I noticed I didn’t observe “the transport” I use. I could take a picture of my feet, which is what I try to use the most, but we don’t have a mani-pedi salon in Austin. Then I thought of my dear Jeep, Joni Blue. She’s not new, but she’s paid for, and she’s taken us to many beautiful places. She’s currently outside with the crickets, so I will not be going outside to take her picture.)

2. *Breathe. You will be astonished by how often you hold your breath. Just notice. Drop your shoulders, stretch your neck, allow your abdomen to soften. Breathe. Notice what comes up as you come back to yourself and jot down any thoughts.

Me: This is one of the best gifts I learned way back in Lamaze childbirth class and years later in yoga–the magic loosening and lightening of the body and mind through the breath. Surpisingly, I still forget to practice it, often until I am panicked. I need reminders.

Time to breathe

For today, perhaps this enough. Two hours of dedicated writing, reading, journaling, and blogging. If it doesn’t feel good enough, perhaps it’s because “we grow, regress, get stuck, fragment, hide, and find ourselves over and over again,” and that’s all part of the progress.

Wishing you growth and rest, a room of your own, and the company of good souls. I’d love to hear what you’re working on, or not working on, or dreaming about. Thank you for reading, following, and commenting on my blog. Fondly, Lori

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May 31, 2024 · 4:09 pm

100th Post, a New Library, and Mormon Crickets

Austin, Nevada last week.

Hello readers and writers! It’s a bright and shiny day here in Austin, Nevada. We’re experiencing our first really warm days and our summer activities have begun. I’m told that two high school seniors  graduated yesterday in our tiny school district in a lovely ceremony with all the pomp and circumstance of a much larger school. Congratulations to them and their families! In addition, our new library opens to the public Tuesday, and our summer friends are arriving—they of the full-time RV life—bringing their fresh faces and musical entertainment to our quiet town.

How are you? Is the season bringing you joy? What are you up to in your community and life? What changes does the summer season bring?

I opened the main page on my WordPress blog today and noticed I’d written 99 blogs so far. The number 99 is so close to 100 that I felt it best to get down to it and send out another. I don’t post regularly, so 100 posts isn’t really too impressive considering I started this blog in 2013. I spend much more time working on my manuscript and querying prospective agents than I spend blogging.

Still, it almost always feels good to write a blog post (once I’ve committed to sitting down and I’m at least a few paragraphs in-not so much at the beginning when I’m staring at the blank page, obviously) – it’s a way to reach out to family, and friends, old and new, and also is a sort of diary where I can record images and thoughts on times and places—and of course, there’s the curative element of a diary or journaling.

Recent and current books I’ve been reading: A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles; The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo; A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny; and Hang the Moon, Jeanette Walls. They are all wonderful!

A lovely book, and a fun journal I bought in January while traveling.

I was excited to learn that A Gentleman in Moscow has been adapted to the screen in a series (thank you, Denice from Washington who stopped into the library last week!), so I will watch that as soon as I finish the novel.

The Night Tiger is enthralling- we’re listening to it when we travel to the grocery store (112 miles away), and any other time we’re in the car for more than 10 minutes (which is anytime we leave town since we are so remote…). Here’s an example of the wonderful writing just from memory. Choo describes a doctor’s writing as “a conga line of ants.” Brilliant!

As for Louise Penny… she got me with the first Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery years ago, and I am never disappointed as the series progresses. Wonderful characters, heart, and settings.

Books! Wonderful books!

I am a big fan of Jeanette Walls and have read and reread The Glass Castle several times. Hang the Moon is another big thumbs up!

Meanwhile, the crickets are back. Just last week I was remarking that there weren’t any in our yard this year and maybe the gigantic hordes that usually march through town would miss us this year. Uh, no. I’m sure that no matter where you live you have some kind of unusual local wildlife… There are other parts of this state, for example, that experience large migrations of tarantulas, and I know the cicadas are a huge presence in other parts of the country. I’ve heard that Miller moths are everywhere in parts of Nebraska… It’s all a bit eek, but I always think of the line from one of the Jurassic Park films, “Life finds a way.”

I am one of trillions… I just want to travel south (I don’t know why!), but your house in the way! Please move your house!

This, too, shall pass!

Have a wonderful weekend and please do  check in and share what’s going on in your little corner of the world!

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