Dawn hasn’t quite begun yet, though the east is greying rapidly and an insomniac bluejay–probably Ed–gave a sleepy screech or two while Boxnoggin was out for his morning potty break. Heavy fog hangs between the trees, weighing down the dry dust of drought summer, and gasping earth is waiting for real water. There’s no petrichor, merely the smell of almost-damp leaves and wildfire smoke. Somewhere in the neighborhood sprinklers are running; Boxnoggin’s collar jingles as he patrols the house, making certain all is as it should be.
I have coffee. My eyes are dry and grainy; my entire body aches. There’s only a few more days to wait for rain. I’ve made endurance a centerpiece of my coping mechanisms, and this is the drawback; I’m not sure I’m gonna make it. I keep expecting a sudden shift in the wind, a tornado of fire sweeping up the street. I’ve been braced for the worst since mid-2015, and while the situation hasn’t met my very darkest imaginings (yet) it’s stayed at such a pitch of awfulness in so many ways. The fillips and refinements of agony in reality put paid to anything a poor benighted writer could come up with.
(Still mad I took the respiratory plague out of the first few drafts of Afterwar. That’ll teach me to trust my instincts.)
Now a pine flicker’s joined Ed the Gentleman Bluejay. I’m sure Stede is around somewhere–probably stuffing his face at the sunflower feeder, since that seems to be his overarching goal in life next to hanging out in the rhododendron under my office window and screaming at his boyfriend. The rest of the Bluejay Krewe seem to have gone elsewhere; ever since the smoke thickened we haven’t had an afternoon with seven-eight-plus jays in the yard. It’s a little quieter, though Ed and Stede try to make up for it by yelling their tiny dinosaur heads off with a passion.
I’m tired, though I just got out of bed. Going back in seems the best idea in the world, but there’s work to do–prepping for NaNoWriMo (funny, last year I was doing Klemp’s book for NaNo, and said book will be out on the 21st), getting Hell’s Acre situated, and various other things. My head is still ringing from the Cold North revision. Seems to be taking longer and longer to bounce back these days.
Fog. Smoke. Endurance. Such are the things today is made of, as summer’s last fingertip is pried from a throat. Shoes keep dropping, a mountain of them achieving tsunami height, and I keep waiting for more to thud down. The birds have quieted as the east continues to lighten, but there’s a rustling as squirrels begin the morning laps around the sea of branches.
After a while the pain becomes merely background noise. Boxnoggin still expects his walkies–though not quite yet, since the damp is mounting. The words still have to flow, the edits still have to be made, the proof pages still need to be eyeballed. The bills have to be paid and the children hugged. There’s so much more to give, though my barrel is scraped-dry empty.
Ah well. Only a few more days to wait for rain. I’ve made it through every other year, this one should prove no different. Onward, inward, upward, excelsior, and all that.
Welcome to Tuesday. Take a deep breath, finish the last gulp of coffee, and let’s endure another siege of sunlight. It’s painful, naturally…
…but the alternative is worse. We’re still here, still fighting. Grab a shoe, grab a bucket, any weapon will do. Let the noise rise and fall as it pleases, there’s music underneath.
Today, through the smoke and the noise, we dance.