New Friends

This past week was rough, wasn’t it? But I (and the Princess) got to fill out our ballots recently (they were accepted and counted, I checked) and there were lunchtime doughnuts that day. The doughnuts came with spoopy little decorations that also double as rings, and I have been wearing them off and on.

They are the bestest of friends and my new office coworkers, and they wish you a very happy weekend. We hope you get to take some time off, or at least get to do at least a few things you enjoy.

Life is a terrible slog if there isn’t at least one thing you like each day. It doesn’t have to be a big something, but it does have to be something you actually like–not that you think you should like, or that someone else likes.

Anyway, I’m having a very nice cup of coffee, which is something I like very much, so that’s sorted for the day. I wish you something equally nice or better, my beloveds.

Climbing, Secret Fire

It’s the first chilly morning of autumn. Those who live outside our tiny temperate zone might scoff, but an overnight low of 39F is indeed chilly for us, just like anything over 75F makes us complain of sweating to death.

We are pale, caffeine-swilling mushrooms here in the forest, and we like it that way.

I woke up under flannel sheets with the dogs atop the covers but plastered to me nonetheless, and there was a thin scrim of condensation along the bottom of my bedroom window. With all three of us breathing and shedding heat, and the bedroom door firmly closed because I like my privacy and the cat likes roaming upstairs at night, winter means there’s a bit of moisture there. One more sign that my favorite season is approaching.

I love winter. I love the rains, I love the quietness of sleeping earth gathering its strength. I love the resting, and I especially like that the rains mean not too many people are out on the sidewalks while I run. It’s perhaps selfish, and I don’t wish any ill on the summertime walkers. I just get annoyed, which is indubitably more about my arrogance than about the people just going about their business.

One of the things about hitting my forties is just letting my feelings be in some cases, without trying to wrench them into a more acceptable shape. There’s a great deal of power in simply accepting what one is feeling, as long as one doesn’t use it as any excuse to act badly. After half a lifetime of being trained to negate, suppress, or flat-out ignore my feelings, it’s luxurious to think I actually have a right to them. It also frees up a lot of energy to examine my behavior and hopefully make it as nontoxic as possible.

I mean, I’m going to fuck up. Despite my best efforts, I’m human. Still, I have the absolute right to feel whatever I want, while being responsible for what I do with said feelings.

Processing said feelings through fiction or running isn’t a bad strategy.

Anyway, I feel like I’m climbing out of a pit. Hand over hand, fingers slipping on a rough rope, blood greasing my palms–but still, I’m climbing. I’ve had this particular feeling most of my life, so it’s no surprise. I am trying to make my peace with the fact that I will probably never reach the top, never step out into the clear light of day. If my life is the climb, so be it.

Plenty of my stories are about endurance. At least in fiction, an ending brings some sort of closure, of balance. A situation achieves re-equilibrium, in some way, and that’s where the end naturally occurs.1 In life, however, I am beginning to suspect there is nothing but the climb, and afterwards is either grateful blackness (which could be considered an ending in its own right, of course) or another, steeper, bloodier, more exhausting climb.

Do souls get tired? On my bleaker days, I know they do.

I don’t know what the rope is attached to. I hope there’s something up there holding the line, somehow. For right now, it’s enough that the rope exists, and if my hands are bleeding and the rest of me is weary, at least I have hands–and at least I am aware of the rest of me, if that makes sense. Maybe the climb is enough, but sometimes, oh, sometimes it hurts.

Miss B is sprawled under my desk, across my feet, and Boxnoggin is a-sploot near the door, waiting patiently for walkies. I got to hug both of my children this morning, my social circles are full of cool people, the garden is abed for the winter, I got the outside faucets covered before the first really chilly night. I will run today, and I can work. (Yes, even recovery is work. Or so I’m telling myself.)

And so, hand over hand, we climb. What’s keeping you on the rope today, my friends? What secret fire, what hidden kindness is fueling you? If it will strengthen, do feel free to share.

Smoke Angel

This cherub hangs out in a local park; I took this shot the day before the smoke really rolled in. That evening there was only a faint tinge of burning and the wind was warm and nasty, tossing tree branches and kicking discarded paper along paved walks.

For some reason, this little wingéd one caught my eye particularly, mostly because the light was so strange. It wasn’t the directionless, somehow wrong glow of the days that followed, but an odd saturated yellow ambiance. And you can see how dry the grass was; there was a tightening at my nape every time the tinge of smoke intensified.

The animal in me knew something awful was coming, and wanted to run.

This morning, of course, it’s chilly and crisp, and preliminary rains have removed all burning. I should go back and visit the cherub; winter will probably bring moss in its crevices.

But for the moment it remains frozen in this photo for me, an eerie snapshot. I think I’m instinctively avoiding that patch of park for a while, until the too-tight strings inside me relax a fraction. Sometimes one doesn’t need to go back and poke at the scar, even when it’s healed.

Have a lovely weekend, my dears. Be gentle with yourselves.

Chalk Punkin

This cheerful fellow showed up on my run yesterday. It means it’s finally my favorite time of year again.

I woke up this morning, looked at the news, gasped, and now I have stress hives. It’s probably only going to get worse from here, but at least I have a D&D session tonight and maybe, if I sink myself in work all weekend instead of resting, I’ll have a finished zero to show for it.

I can’t decide. Maybe I’ll wait for the coffee to soak in before making any plans. The prickling painful itch from the hives can’t be treated with antihistamine until after I run, but maybe said run will purge a little of the stress.

At least I can hope, and at least there will be pumpkins and skeletons everywhere. It’s the one time a year my aesthetics are reflected in the larger world, and for that I am grateful. Heaven knows we need something in this benighted year.

Be kind to yourselves this weekend, my beloveds. Turn off the news if you must, take deep breaths, hydrate and rest all you can.

What’s that? I should take my own advice? Oh, you know I’m not good at that… but for you, I’ll try.

Like I keep saying, survival is a victory. May we be victorious as fuck.

Driven Me To

Yes, my darlings, this is what lockdown and fascist coup have driven me to: sobbing into Keep Calm and Carry On tissues while drinking my emergency can of wine. (This was last Friday, if I’m being strictly honest.)

This week, we do have a D&D game. I have a murder himbo to hire, a date between our ranger and a dwarf named Gracie to cheer on, and a party to attend. My cleric has a new dress, the rogue’s gnoll toddler has a babysitter, our half-orc barbarian has a new zoot suit, and our paladin has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.

So instead of sobbing I’ll be laughing maniacally, chewing on a burrito, and maybe downing an edible or two while being the in-game equivalent of a chaos generator. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you have a nice Friday evening planned too, my beloveds. But first I’ve got to get through the work day. Dogs need walking, there’s a run in the pouring rain to get done, and if I work myself to the bone today I will feel absolutely no guilt about knocking off early to play with my friends.

Take what joy you can. We’ve survived another week. I think we all deserve a pat on the back and something fun.

Magnolia, Centre

The Pacific Northwest is a bit strange. Magnolias do very well here. (So do rose bushes and figs, but that’s a different story.) I was be-bopping along, walking the dogs in the heavy, apocalyptic smoke (the world is burning, natch, ah well, had to happen sometime) when we were forced to pause under a big magnolia for something that apparently smelled AMAZING to two canines.

It struck me, looking at the branch hanging over my head, that the tree doesn’t give a good goddamn about anything. It just… grows. And for a moment my own burden of anxiety lightened, looking at the new buds.

Take where you can get it in this year of our disaster 2020, my friends. There are new leaves on at least one magnolia in the world.

The dogs finally had huffed all they wanted, and we moved on. But that moment of calm was a treasure, and I keep thinking about it. We’ve all been knocked ass over teakettle, but even in the spinning there are moments to be found at the centre.

May you have at least one, if not many, today.

Alien, Victorious Us

I was at the supermarket the other day, saw this fellow, and burst out laughing because I’m writing an alien romance (in all my copious spare time, naturally). I would have picked him up if he’d been on clearance, but I’m going to have to wait.

If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.

It’s Friday! We survived another week. I’m very nervous–the skies here are apocalyptic, and stepping outside means trying to breathe through a LOT of smoke. We need rain, badly. I’m going to have to run on the treadmill, which isn’t really a hardship, but still… the anxiety is living in my chest, making itself comfortable in a trembling tight-curled ball.

At least it’s D&D night, which means I can let my id out to play. I think we’re planning an owlbear rescue operation. Our group is about two things: animal rights and seducing, with a healthy dose of killing the rude and/or the evil.

If you’re thinking “that sounds hella therapeutic” you are 100% correct.

Have a good weekend, my beloveds. Be gentle with yourselves. This is all awful, and like I keep saying, survival is a victory.

A toast, then. Here’s to victorious us.