For the most part the clean up is unemotional. I sort, trash, donate, and box. But then I’m throwing away decades old glue and tape when I discover this in the bottom of a drawer.

The broken lid of an “It’s a Small World” music box.  Clearly trash.

Except the moment I turned it over I was five again. At Disneyland and believing that “It’s a Small World” was the most magical ride. I remember the feel of the crank in my hand and the sound of the plinking music box. It was a treasure that lived in my treasure drawer inside the pink dresser in the room I shared with two sisters. That dresser doesn’t exist anymore. The box and music are long gone. All I have is this lid, which somehow ended up stored with tools. I think when the box began to break, I asked Grandpa to fix it. And he meant to, but the repair wasn’t an easy one. So he set it aside and forgot about it. The box part was discarded, but this lid had a mirror and mirrors had uses, so he kept that.

I’m holding a broken music box lid that is a connection to a life long gone, a treasure long gone, my grandpa long gone, and I remember how much that little box mattered when I was five.

So. No, it isn’t trash. Not yet. Once I’m gone it will be, because no one else can remember these things. Until I’m gone, I can sometimes pick it up and be connected to what was.  I can’t keep the house, but I can keep this.

A house is the box you keep home in. I thought about that as I rode the plane making my last trip home to California. I’m likely to be in California again multiple times in my life, but after this trip I can’t drive up to the door of the house I grew up in and expect to be let inside. My sister says the house doesn’t matter, what matters is bringing my parents to where we can help care for them. She is right. And she is wrong. I’ve been here for days already and expect to spend a week more. I’m packing and sorting and discarding. As the rooms become empty of objects, they become an easier canvas for me to remember what used to be. I stand in a room and see the shape of it. I remember what it looked like when I was thirty bringing children, when I was fifteen, when I was five. All the changes of paint and flooring and furniture. Standing in the space the memories are close enough to touch, to close my eyes and see.

We’re going to sell the house to people who don’t know the stories, who don’t remember what was. The house, the box of walls, will get new people and a new existence. I will have to try to remember without being surrounded by the walls that held the memory.

This house burned when I was 18. While I was navigating the fall of my freshman year of college, my parents had to live in a rental house while this one was stripped down to studs and rebuilt. When I came home to it shiny and fresh with all new fittings, I felt like I’d lost my childhood home. I mourned for it then. Only to discover that we re-inhabited and old memory made itself cozy again. Thirty more years of family in this space and that fire, which was so devastating at the time, now feels like a blip in the existence of my childhood home.

I contemplate that as I stand in the rooms with memories flicking through my mind like slideshows of bygone eras.  Because the memory isn’t stored in the walls here. I carry it with me. I’ll just have to work harder to access it when I can’t stand in the place where it happened.

I want to draw your attention to some changes in the menu of this blog, most notably the addition of the “About this Blog” tab. I’m going to go grab the text I put there and paste it here to introduce the adjustments I’m making here at Onecobble.com.

The biggest adjustment I’m giving myself is permission. This is the space where I can write a moody piece about feeling melancholy even when I’m needing all my marketing text to be project focused and hopeful. This is where I can put travelogue posts months after I’ve returned from the trip. This is where I can be chatty and rambly. On this onecobble site, not much changes. You can still click the menu to go find the Sandra Tayler website. But from that site there isn’t an easy one-click to get here. This is because sandratayler.com is my digital business card and having that connect to a spot where I’m talking about clover lawns is … an odd fit. So I’m giving both sites a little more space to breathe. And I’m hoping that means I’ll write more things here now that I don’t have to think about how they look when clicked to from over there.

“That’s an odd spot for wool gathering”

He says

as I stand in front of the mini fridge we use for drinks

I’ve been standing there

for some uncounted measure of minutes.

Wishing not to be grieving.

I’m tired of sadness

and minefields of emotion

and the careful ways we all move to take care of each other.

I miss when motion and loving was simple.

I want to go back

We all do

and we can’t.

I’m stopped because forward is through grief.

If I pause long enough

gather enough wool

maybe I’ll find myself able

to open the fridge.

Three years ago I traveled to Alaska on a cruise ship. This year I got to return. This time I got a picture of a whale (statue, but still pretty cool.)

Returning to a place after a gap of three years is an invitation to reflect. I stand on the pier in Juneau and remember who I was in comparison with who I am now. I can see how far we have come with our disability journeys, with Howard’s stamina, with my food challenges. I can clearly see the doubling of price on the alpaca sweaters I bought when I was last here. Things I was wrangling with now run smoothly. Howard and I now have language and strategies which I did not have previously. When I think back on that earlier trip, I remember the stress of it and how I found joy anyway. So far this trip has only had minor stresses and an abundance of joy. This is not because my life is stress free. One only has to read my Feelings Box post to see the abundance of reasons I might feel stressed. I do think the strain in my lower back that I’m currently managing is a direct result of that stress, but negotiating movement with my back muscles is not altering my happiness.

I am so happy to have arrived here. There were so many ways that life could have forced me to cancel these plans, instead I am here, sitting on a ship and looking at the shores of Alaska.

This is the Grand Finale cruise for Writing Excuses. Our team is taking a break from hosting conferences on cruise ships. (We’ve got plans for a land-based conference next year). I have no idea if I’ll ever get to board a cruise ship again. I may never set foot in Alaska again. Travel for leisure is not likely to be something we can afford in the near future and possibly not ever. I’m looking ahead to publishing the last Schlock Mercenary book next year and not being sure where our money will come from after that. Finances are not the only reason that my future feels uncertain. So I intend to claim every joy I can find during this trip. I’m going to snatch time to write blog posts and fiction. I’m going to do my best to ignore admin tasks and spend time staring at water. I’m going to see a glacier. Maybe I’ll get to spot a whale. I’ve already seen eagles and crows and seagulls. And I’ve danced with friends.

If something happens to interrupt any of those plans, that’s okay too. I’m here to have experiences. If some of them are unexpected that won’t change my joy in them, just the stories I get to tell later.

The adventure continues

I’m going to be at WorldCon in Anaheim California Thursday August 27 – Sunday August 30! If you are also it this event I’d love to say hello. I don’t have any programming this year and there are LOTS of people I’d love to see, so I’m making a schedule of declared “Come Find me!” times where people can hang out. (I wish I had the logistical energy to reach out and make meet up appointments with all the people I’d love to see, but I have been endlessly logistical since January, so “Please come find me” is what I can manage for this event this year.)

Thursday

• 9:00 AM – 11:30 AM Coworking and Visiting – Exact location TBD (somewhere in the Hilton Anaheim. Watch Sandra’s Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/sandratayler.bsky.social)  for exact location
• Stop by M. Todd Gallowglas’ booth in the Dealer’s room to find my books and see if there is a note about when I’ll next be coming by to sign books.
• 7:00 PM – Writing Excuses Suite Party! Sign up here to get a reminder email the day of with our hotel room number!

Friday

• 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM Coworking and Visiting – Exact location TBD (somewhere in the Hilton Anaheim. Watch Sandra’s Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/sandratayler.bsky.social)  for exact location
• Stop by M. Todd Gallowglas’ booth in the Dealer’s room to find my books and see if there is a note about when I’ll next be coming by to sign books.

Saturday

• 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM either Coworking and Visiting  OR Signing in the Dealer’s Hall  – Exact location TBD I’ll be in a public place where you can come find me and say hello! Watch Sandra’s Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/sandratayler.bsky.social)  for exact location
• Stop by M. Todd Gallowglas’ booth in the Dealer’s room to find my books and see if there is a note about when I’ll next be coming by to sign books.

Sunday

• I’m keeping my schedule undefined, but watch my Bluesky on the day for places where you can come find me.

This post is going to ramble.

If you’ve talked to me since the middle of May, there are strong odds that I’ve mentioned “The Feelings Box” where I’ve been shoving many emotional experiences to get them out of the way so that I could keep to important “get stuff done” schedules. I try to pause and feel my feelings when they show up, but this summer there are So. Many. Feelings. And they’re all entangled. And my schedule has had very little space in it.

So I have this box full of unprocessed experiences, and this ramble is me beginning the process of sorting them.

When I return home from Gen Con there is urgency in getting the van unloaded so that I can return it to the rental place. Everything gets dumped into the front room in a jumble. Over the next week or two I sort things bit-by-bit making decisions about where things get returned to, what items should be discarded, and I find homes for new acquisitions. The process is somewhat complicated by the fact that we will travel again in just two weeks, so some of the things need to be put into the “To Pack” pile instead of being put away. “Just put things away” seems so easy, but each item requires evaluation and decisions. And my brain is exhausted from a summer full of evaluation and decision.

The feelings box is every bit as jumbled and complicated as the physical mess in my front room. More so, because when I pull out a recent acquisition I discover that it has become entangled with something old and deep so that I can’t just pull out the new stuff. Rather like the electrical cord at the top of a bin that disappears into the depths and pulling it loose upturns all the contents.

So, then, a list in somewhat chronological order:

My uncle died and I attended his funeral where I saw relatives who were key parts of my childhood, but I haven’t spoken with in decades. (No big feuds, just unintended life drift)

I pulled together a crowdfunding project from idea to live because we needed to fill a financial gap.

My friend Piper died and I’m working with some people on a memorial project.

My parents had some health scares that have prompted them to start clearing out their house to sell so they can move closer to me and my siblings.

I traveled to Writing Excuses Recording camp where I got to hang out with friends in a beautiful location while trying to picture how the parental stuff reconfigured the rest of my summer. I also got to plan and record a module for Writing Excuses that will air next year. Wonderful opportunity, but also anxious and full of focused thought.

My house had a major electrical fault that required expensive emergency repair. This happened when I was not at home to handle any of it.

My son decided to get his driver’s license which meant me picking up a part time job as a driving instructor for three months. He passed his test right before I left for Gen Con, which was a joy. Having his license has been incredibly helpful since. Some of the feelings in the box are bright / beautiful ones. They’re jumbled in unprocessed with the hard ones.

I’ve been helping clients with crowdfunding.

I’ve been anxious about finances.

We received our shipment of books for Function of Firepower, which should flip the whole house into shipping season, but I was also prepping for Gen Con which is a huge road-trip massive effort. It also means a big financial expenditure for postage. Even when expenditures are budgeted for, they raise my anxiety levels.

My sister-in-law has cancer (chemotherapy and then surgery ongoing since April)

My daughter’s father-in-law has cancer. (surgery and then chemotherapy ongoing since May)

A member of my Gen Con family had surgery for possible cancer.

A dear friend had surprise gallbladder surgery.

My daughter called me while I was at Gen Con to tell me that she’d had her baby three weeks early, so I got to bounce between selling at booth, giving presentations, and receiving medical updates about NICU, blood tests, and photos of everyone.

A long time neighbor and friend died and his funeral happened while I was at Gen Con. I was so sad to miss it. His wife (my dear and wonderful friend) died just after I got back, so I was able to attend her viewing and service.

One of my kids’ computers keeps crashing and they need help figuring out why, and I haven’t had time.

My kids stepped up and kept business and house running while I was gone. All of the sketch editions got stamped. All of the packages got shipped.

Schlock readers have really shown up for the Not-a-fire sale we’ve been running since the middle of last month. This is the reason I’ve not been hyperventilating in financial panic.

I took 120 copies of Structuring Life to Support Creativity to Gen Con. I brought home twelve. This is an experience I want to unpack and process. There is joy and awe and hope in it. Also humility and gratitude. I love the moment when someone spots the book on the table, stops, then says “I need this.”

Ahead of me I have Worldcon where I don’t have any programming, but Howard does. We’re also partnering with a friend so books will be available in the vendor hall.

Then Howard and I go on a three day road trip where the only agenda is “See redwood trees while traveling from LA to Seattle.” Because there was a moment in the long Covid aftermaths where Howard was big sad at all the things he couldn’t do anymore and somehow that got attached to the fact that Howard has never seen a redwood in person. So we’re fixing that. (This is definitely going to bring up big feelings from the depths of the box)

Then the Writing Excuses Cruise that will be the last cruise for some time. It is the end of an era, definitely a feelings box moment.

Then I’m home for a week.

Then I take a cargo van and go help my parents clean out my childhood home so that we can sell it. This is going to have a lot of feelings.

Oh, and I have ongoing food and health coping. Food coping for me. Health coping for Howard. We’re in better places than last year I think? Honestly hard to tell.

So.

There is all of that. And I’m trying to not just keep shoving feelings in the box “to deal with later” because that way leads to feelings explosions when I least expect them. This ramble of a post is an attempt to look inside the box and see what I’ve got in here.

My timer just went off. My work day has to begin now. So I’m putting the lid back on this mess.  This is actually good behavior with a jumbled feelings box. Walk away when things feel over whelming, come back and poke at it when I have capacity. Eventually it gets emptied out and things get sorted into their settled places. My front room is less jumbled than yesterday. Bit by bit the same will happen to the feelings box, as long as I keep coming back to it.

I’m feeling my way forward with a mind that wants to race ahead and solve all the problems of the next three months. As if that were the only way to feel calm, to already know all the answers. Impossible task given the variables and unknown factors. So I sit with anxiety this morning, trying to soothe it into settling. It settles like a cat who naps in my lap only to leap into action at the slightest provocation. Readiness to respond cloaked in the appearance of rest.

I breathe and remember that it is only today’s problems that I need to manage. All else can wait. I breathe and remember that none of these problems are mine alone, I live in collaboration. It is not my task to always fix while others rest. I breathe and remember the green space outside my back door where I should go and listen to trees. I breathe and remember to type thoughts, and to not scroll, and to let go.

Remembering is work, a task to track. One of many many many. Switch the laundry. Cancel that appointment. Make a grocery list. Drive an errand. And remember today is for breathing. Remember why tasks matter. Remember to share the contents of my worry basket. Remember I don’t have to carry the worry basket with me everywhere I go. I’m allowed to put it down. (If I can figure out how. It seems to be attached?)

So I pin the worries into words that are poetry adjacent. Perhaps when I close this file, the worries will stay put and I can move on without their company.

This week I have been in the mountains of Colorado with five other members of the Writing Excuses podcast team. We’re all staying in a house together and recording podcast episodes. It is lovely, but also exhausting because of all the focused performance and thinking. I am incredibly grateful to have this group of friends and business partners who are so kind and gracious with each other even when we’re all tired.

Night before last my stress level sky rocketed because I got messages from my young adults who are holding down the fort at home. They were having a partial power outage. When they looked at the breaker box nothing was flipped. They scrambled to run an extension cord to the fridge from one of the working outlets, then I got to try to manage scheduling electrical service from 500 miles away. The electrician identified our 35 year old main panel as the source of the issue.

Charred is never something you want to see as part of your electrical system.

The electrician made a temporary fix, the permanent fix would require cooperation and permits from both the power company and the city. I was hoping to be able to wait until after I came home in two more days to address things further. But the temporary fix only held for about three hours. This switched everything over into urgent mode and I had a shiny new power box installed by 8pm the same day. As a bonus, we upgraded the amperage for our whole house. This was clearly work that needed to be done, it was just the timing which I wouldn’t have picked.

Today I’m feeling much more relaxed than I was yesterday (when I was an anxious mess.) I’ll get to record some more episodes soon, because for the season we’re recording the hosts asked me to talk about some topics related to Structuring Life for Creativity. Tomorrow we travel home and I’ll get to sort out all the finances and household things that need to be adjusted because of this adventure. I also intend to have words with my house. This is the third time it has saved a major issue for when I am gone instead of when I am home. Obviously it doesn’t happen every trip, but there is a clear pattern. Also obviously I need to be paying better attention to the small signs of problems. We’d noticed flickering lights over the past few weeks which was almost certainly related.

For today I get to record and enjoy mountain views. Tomorrow I drive home.

It is two months since I last posted. In that time I made and planted garden beds.

I still have work to do. The pavers need to be evened up and I need to sweep sand into the cracks to set them. On the back side of the garden I want to build a path to the back door of my garage. Yet… here is the result of doing some work bit by bit. I now have a garden instead of a weedy mess.

I also have more words written, a crowdfunded project that is funded, another project that I’m getting ready to make live in July, and a short story finished. Lots of little progress toward the activities I was wanting to do more. It is a start.

This summer is going to be full of travel and projects. My garden beds are now in a state where I can just tend the plants in them. Larger garden projects can wait until fall. Instead I’ll sneak in time to work on writing the stories I’m not sure how to sell.

This is a small update, less thorough that I would have liked, but it is written in the spirit of stealing small bits of time to do things I want and that make me whole. I would like to be blogging more, so here is a small shovel in the ground, the beginning of blogging more often as I can claim time.