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October Afternoon

It occurred to me today that I’m almost halfway done with October. I’m not entirely sure how that happened. Somehow I moved from “all the days are three days long” to “Many days still feel very long, but somehow weeks slip away from me.” I made this realization while wearing long sleeves and a sweater, laying in my hammock and wishing it were in the direct sunlight instead of the shade. Shade was just a hair too chilly, but sunshine had just the right amount of radiant warmth. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d have to retreat indoors because it was took hot even in the shade. I lay there and tried to savor the near perfect weather and the smell of leaves which were just starting to accumulate on the ground. Catch it now because moments like this will be subsumed by cold and I’ll soon need to stow the hammock for the winter.

My thoughts meander today.

I think about the visit I had with two friends earlier in the day. I set out chairs on my patio, carefully spaced. In the middle I set a small table that had a bin of water bottles and pre-packaged snack foods. This is what gracious entertaining looks like in pandemic times. I was grateful to have the lovely weather and the patio I worked all summer to create. I was grateful to have friends willing to come and sit with me for two hours. I was pleased to have thought of loading a bin with snacks. I figure I’ll be able to entertain this way for another month before it gets too cold even when I light a fire in the fire pit. Or perhaps Utah will have a mild winter. That has happened before and would be great for keeping the pandemic manageable. Of course it would be terrible for the extreme drought conditions. We need a winter full of snow.

I had a book with me in the hammock as I watched a few leaves drift from the tree to where my friends and I sat only a few hours before. But I wasn’t reading the book. Instead I watched a lone quail bobbing his way across my patio to pick at fallen walnuts. I wondered where his companion was. Quail almost always travel in pairs. There were doves, finches, sparrows, and blue jays to keep him company. All of them flittered to and from the feeders I’ve stocked at the edge of the patio. I thought about going to fetch a notebook so that I could work on the presentations I need to give next week at an online conference. I’m excited to try out some of the ideas I have for using zoom backgrounds as part of my presentation. The green screen arrived today and I just have to go and see if the frames I have at my warehouse are the right sized for hanging behind me on camera. I’ve given the presentations before, but I always like to refresh my thoughts and presenting in an online format is new to me. However if I can make it work, that opens possibilities for me to teach classes on my own schedule without being attached to a conference. I like that idea quite a lot. I don’t actually go get the notebook though. I don’t want to scare off the birds.

On the side of the patio near the house there are potted plants sitting in the dirt. They’re waiting for me to put them into the ground. I meant to do it on Saturday, but emotional distress from one of my people prevented them from assisting me with it. I thought about doing it today, but I was focused on setting up for my visitors and then on birds and hammocks and presentation thoughts. The fact that I’m short on sleep does not make the planting more likely. I want to tap one of my in-house assistants to help me, but I’m not sure if they’re in a good emotional space to do assisting. This is one of the disadvantages of being the primary emotional support for my assistant. I have a hard time asking them to step up and do the work that I need done. I always have to provide the motivating force to get a project moving instead of being able to join someone else’s project momentum. Over all hiring my kids as my assistants is being beneficial to everyone, but it is both more complicated and much simpler than hiring someone I’m not related to.

I close my eyes for a moment and just feel the sway of the hammock. In the distance in my mind, out beyond the peace of the moment, I can feel the presence of all the tasks I should be doing. They are the things I must do in order to financially support my ability to have this moment in the hammock under my trees with birds near my patio. If I want hammock moments, I also need to have focused business moments. Fortunately I can enjoy those moments too, just in a very different way. I sometimes forget that I enjoy the business tasks, which is why I need moments of peace to help me regain perspective.

Eventually I do get up from my hammock and wander myself back inside. Dinner hour is close and I should make some decisions about food. As I enter I see my new pantry wall. It is the promise of the kitchen I’m going to get to have. There are a few more clean up and preparation steps for me to take before I can launch into the next project phase. I’m not rushing to get through them. I’ve had a period of pushing on house projects. They can lay idle for a week or two while I focus on business and career tasks. November is soon enough to tackle the house again, but I have at least two weeks of October remaining before I get there.

Preparing for Winter

Our lives are governed by seasons. Even in modern living where we have grocery stores stocked with every item almost all year round, there is still a seasonality to our lives. Marketers capitalize on this natural inclination using seasonal shift to send demand toward different items. Though there is a simple life logic to purchasing certain items in the spring (swimsuits, sandals, patio furniture) and other items in the fall (fuzzy blankets, flower bulbs, pumpkin everything.) Even during the years when my life was so internally focused that the seasons changed unnoticed around me, I was still affected by things such as holidays and the onset or cessation of school. We don’t have any household members in school anymore, so it would make sense for me to be less aware of seasonal change. Instead the opposite is true.

This year there is a hum in the back of my head spurring me to prepare for the winter. It is going to get cold, some tasks are harder in the cold, so get them done now. Fix that cracked window. Spray wash the garbage can. Deep clean the kitty litter. Cut back that over grown vine. Preserve food and acquire food so that it can be available out of season. I’ve done far more canning this year than I have in quite a while. I know that some of this food prep is driven by the pandemic and economic uncertainty. I have this urge to acquire resources now against potential coming hardship. I’ve been streamlining and organizing food stores, not just accumulating, but starting to understand exactly how many sticks of butter we go through in a week so that I can calculate what is a reasonable amount to store. If I store too much food, it will go bad before we can eat it, which is a waste. If I don’t store enough, then if my family is hit with a mandated quarantine period or some other financial hardship, we could run out.

Several months ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, my neighbor and I were talking about the empty grocery store shelves. She pointed out that the food-hoarding behaviors were often driven by food insecurity. Anyone who has experienced food insecurity is more likely to grab extra food just in case. At around the same time I read some posts from an online friend who grew up in the Caribbean. At the beginning of the pandemic he suddenly found himself selling off an extra car, buying an extra freezer, re configuring his house for working and schooling at home. He was ahead of the curve on all of those things because he was raised in hurricane territory and some deep-instinctual part of himself was thrumming with “there is a storm coming.”

I’ve never lived in hurricane country and I’ve never been food insecure, however I grew up in a culture that valued emergency preparedness, we spent two years with massive financial insecurity, followed by nearly two decades of highly variable income which continued to feel financially insecure. Like my online friend, I feel a storm is coming and I’m storing up the things I might need to get through it. It is one small lever of control when so much is far larger than me.

Listening to General Conference

This weekend I’m listening to General Conference, which is my church’s twice-per-year opportunity to hear the Apostles of our church speak to the entire membership. They speak at other times during the year, but usually to smaller audiences. There will be five sessions of two hours each, so a total of ten hours of listening. I usually turn on the stream and let it play while I work on cleaning or gardening. Sometimes I just sit with a notebook or a craft. It is a lot of information all at once, but everything is recorded and I can re-listen whenever I want, so I don’t try to catch and remember every detail. I let it flow past me and trust that the things I most need to hear will jump out at me as inspiration grabs my attention and tells me what is most relevant to me.

I’ll admit that I approach conference with more caution than I used to, because I believe there are ways my church needs to change and hasn’t yet. Culture and tradition are powerful and often slow to shift. This time I was pleased to notice that several speakers in the first session addressed the political polarization in society and issues of racism. It was interesting to me how the words that were spoken could be either comforting or upsetting depending on what the audience brought with them to the words. One speaker said that the gray area was going away, that we would all have to choose whether to be on the Lord’s side or not. One interpretation of the statement could lead to additional polarization where people are convinced of their rightness and double down on things they see as sinful behavior. Another interpretation is that people at church need to stop being comfortable that they are right simply because they are going to church. A different speaker mentioned that in seeking to be part of the gospel of Christ, we might have to give up aspects of the culture we come from. That statement could be exceedingly worrisome to people who have experienced a history of white christian churches systematically erasing portions of their people’s identity and history. However I think the statement is very true, just not aimed the way that worry fears. I think that white suburban people need to give up the part of their culture that makes them oppose having low income housing or other outreach programs in their neighborhood. They need to learn how to love their neighbors when they don’t get to carefully filter who qualifies to be their neighbor. And when I say “they” I mean me. Because I need to be better, and I’m listening as part of figuring out how.

These talks are like scripture in that the messages they give are so much more than the words. I combine those words with my life and experiences, the lens through which I see church and the world. There is also inspiration from God that comes to me as I listen, because sometimes the words spark a thought in my mind that wasn’t previously in my head and wasn’t in the words either. So I am listening. I am taking notes both for my benefit, and because I may be able to use these words to help broaden the perspectives of my fellow church members. In the wise words of a man who was not in my church: Be the change you want to see. I’m trying, and it starts by listening. Listening to these talks. Listening to resources on racism. Listening to resources on protecting the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled, the marginalized. Listening and thinking and praying. Slowly learning how to be better and how to help others to do the same.

Contemplation and Gardening

I remember learning about Thoreau’s On Walden Pond. It was a survey class, so we didn’t pause long enough to fully read and examine the text, but I remember hearing how Thoreau retreated into a simple life connected to nature. Even when I learned that Thoreau considered “without support of any kind” to include his mother providing him with food and doing his laundry, I was still drawn to the idea of a space where I let go of my regular pursuits and focused instead on a life of contemplation. I always pictured traveling somewhere to achieve this. Yet when I did go to writing retreats, I often discovered myself beset with anxiety. Social anxiety around living with other people, and anxiety for the tasks and people I’d left behind. Anxiety and contemplation don’t co-exist very well.

One of the surprises of having all my travel canceled has been an increased connection to my house and my gardens. Neither is particularly large, nor particularly natural. Yet my house is surrounded by green things. Most of them are green things that I planted years ago that have thrived through benign neglect.

This evening I went to look at my grape vines. I was looking to see if there were any seedless grapes left. I thought there might be in the overgrown corner where the grape vines had swamped both a lilac bush and a rose of sharon bush. The under layers of the bushes had died for lack of sunlight leaving a twiggy impenetrable tangle where ripe grapes might be hiding. I’d only intended to seek grapes, instead I found myself slowly clipping away dead twigs and branches. I accumulated quite a pile that would make excellent starter material for a fire in our fire pit. In the process I created and arched hideaway where I could stand out of sight of most everything. Greenery overhead and on all sides. It was the kind of secret garden space I always longed for as a child. It was calming and contemplative to slowly transform the space clip after clip, twig after twig.

Last night I had a friend over for a visit. I placed our fire pit on the new patio flanked with chairs on opposite sides, a good six feet apart. We sat and talked for hours my friend and I as flames consumed branches that we cut from our trees years ago and stacked. Those stacks gathered spiders and bugs and dust. Now they are finally getting used. I want to burn all the old pest ridden sticks. It will make space for a new accumulation of dead wood from various corners of my garden. The contemplative act of tending my plants provides material for contemplating next to a fire. Strange how profoundly peaceful it can be to sit by a fire surrounded by darkness, even when the darkness is only my yard, and is ringed on most sides by street lamps and lights from signs or cars.

For so many years I had abandoned gardening as something I did not have time for. Life was too hectic. I lost something in choosing to let go of that piece. I also failed to comprehend that “gardening” isn’t just growing a vegetable garden or flower beds. Gardening is tending my outdoor spaces. It can be trimming trees or digging a patio. It can be trimming back twigs and marking vines according to which flavor of grape they grew, so that next spring I can make cuttings to give to friends. Gardening is tending. And it happens right here at home in between all my other things. I didn’t need to find time to run away from all my things so that I could be contemplative. I had to rearrange and re-prioritize so that mundane, time-consuming tasks forced me to slow down in contemplative ways.

There are things we all want back when the pandemic is over. However there are also changes I don’t want to lose.

Looking at the Covid-19 Numbers and Pressures in Utah

I’ve been watching the Covid-19 numbers in my state pretty closely. At times it has felt like I was watching much more closely than my state leaders. They were being so very pleased about how the statewide numbers were going down while I was watching Utah County numbers hit new highs week after week. Until suddenly the Utah County numbers were high enough to drive up the statewide numbers. Which is how we land in this week. The governor moved Provo and Orem back to Orange alert level, and the Utah County Commissioners issued a mask mandate. Both steps toward quelling the increase in cases. But we still have to watch the spike play out for another two weeks before we can determine if enough has been done. For today, we hit another record high.

I would like for Orange status and more mask wearing to be sufficient. However I have concerns that this won’t be the case because I watch the news articles as well as the numbers. In just the past two weeks there have been two news articles about high school events which attempted to circumvent restrictions. Provo high attempted to move their football game one town south so they could have spectators in the stands (not allowed under the new Orange restrictions) The move was blocked, but the fact that it was attempted shows a mis-comprehension or denial of the need for restrictions.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50020686/provo-opted-to-move-football-game-to-spanish-fork-due-to-covid-19-restrictions-but-nebo-school-district-pushed-back

Then a cheerleading fundraiser was run in opposition to guidelines one day after the school was shut down for two weeks because of a case spike. The spike was in part because of exposures in the cheerleading squad.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50021519/alta-high-school-event-skirts-social-distancing-draws-concern-outrage

These two events are certainly not the only ones. The hard part is that I don’t think any of the people involved meant to do harm. Yet when a planned event collides with a pandemic restriction, it can be hugely difficult for the people involved in that event to change to meet the restriction. Any time an organizer changes an event, even when they are legally obligated to, they will have people angry at them. Also people become coaches or teachers because they want to provide opportunities for kids. It is very hard to ask them to disappoint those kids, hence the desire to somehow still deliver something, often a something that skirts the restrictions. The (admirable) desire to provide opportunities for kids is going to drive infection rates up as long as extra-curricular activities are allowed to meet in person.

Let’s go back to that “people will get mad” piece, because we have actual lawsuits where college students are suing their schools because of sub-par educational offerings. I saw a similar article a month ago featuring a different student and school.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50021261/dixie-state-student-claims-online-classes-are-sub-par-in-lawsuit-against-utah-system-of-higher-education

I’m not sure what the student hopes to achieve. A refund maybe? Because I know that the school and teachers have delivered the best they possibly could under bad circumstances. I think the best response from the school would be a full tuition refund accompanied by revoking the credits the student earned during the semester. Unfortunately I don’t think that is a solution that universities can afford to apply often. In fact the economics of universities already mean that they lose money when students aren’t on campus. Having lawsuits just increases the financial pressure to bring students back to campus, and college students are a proven driver of infection.

So are prisons, and Utah has a problem there too.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50020821/utah-state-prison-in-lockdown-after-possible-covid-19-transmission

Public health officials are trying to get the message out.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50021207/salt-lake-county-mayor-clarifies-mask-mandate-as-new-case-counts-rise

After all, when SLC issued a mask mandate in July, cases started declining. This leads officials to be hopeful that people wearing masks is all that is needed. Perhaps it was when kids weren’t in school, but now they are. And every day little Betsy sees her friend in class and begs for a play date. There are only so many times that Mom will say no before beginning to rationalize that they’re together at school anyway…

The thing is, Utah cases started to decline exactly when cases started declining nationwide. But right now cases are on the rise nationwide.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50021421/us-records-over-7-million-covid-19-cases-as-midwest-outbreak-surges

And the CDC thinks that 90% of the US population is still susceptible.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50020876/covid-19-cdc-chief-says-more-than-90-of-americans-remain-susceptible

And locally, people are wrestling with whether to open things back up or shut them down. We’ve got some school districts returning to in person while others are going hybrid or going fully online.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50020641/davis-district-to-hold-more-in-person-classes-other-schools-reduce-face-to-face-days

There is no cohesive strategy for the state. And that is a problem because infection does not pay attention to county lines or district boundaries. A spike in cases leaks outward in unpredictable ways. Also as much as I believe it is important to prioritize lives over money, my state leaders tend to lean toward making sure the economy is healthy. They respond to economic decline by loosening restrictions, and now the jobs reports are saying that Utah unemployment is headed up.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50021062/new-jobless-claims-up-over-6-in-utah-report-says

I’m not surprised about that news either, because I notice my own behavior. As case counts rise, I begin mentally and emotionally hunkering down. I go fewer places and I spend less money. If others respond as I do, then high case counts will drive up unemployment even without government restrictions. This conclusion is supported in an analysis done by Chicago Booth Review. Though I argue that framing it as fear instead of public health awareness is a bit biased.

There are so many pressures on so many people from so many angles. I will be surprised if all we need is Orange status and a mask mandate. I think those can slow the spike, but not turn it around. We really need to turn it around before Halloween tempts people to trick or treat and Thanksgiving tempts families to gather for dinner.

9/27/2020 Edited to add: Saw an article about outbreaks at homeless shelters. Today’s numbers were steady with Saturday numbers when Sunday usually has a drop. If Monday stays steady too, we’re aimed for yet another new high. And I’m afraid that any gain made by the mask mandate and Orange restrictions will be offset by the fact that local LDS congregations are moving back to meeting weekly in a single session instead of once per month in two sessions. Meetings will be streamed for those who stay at home, but that still puts a group of people together every week on a schedule perfectly timed for transmission. Nope, mask mandate isn’t going to be enough.

Preserving Food

Years ago we planted fruit trees and grape vines. The person who planted those things was one who did lots of home canning both for personal enjoyment and as part of a frugal lifestyle. Then I became a person who did not have time for canning. I was too busy with piles of other things to can more than occasionally. One of the unexpected things that 2020 has brought is the return of food preservation. It isn’t surprising really since I’ve spent significantly more time managing food resources since the beginning of quarantimes. We’ve been rotating our food stocks and making sure things are replaced as they are used. Noticing that the grapes are ripe and making plans to store them for later falls right into that food management process. So far we’ve put up two batches of grape juice, one batch of home made raisins, and one batch of pear butter. I’ve got some cooking pumpkins waiting to be turned into puree for making pies and pumpkin bread. The grape vines are still covered, so I’ve looked up a recipe for a savory compote. It is a cherry compote, but I’m going to see if it works with grapes.

I am not the only one with a renewed interest in home canning. The shelves were bare when I went looking for more mason jars. I was fortunate enough to grab some quart jars, which I’m going to need because the grape vines are still loaded. The reason I have time to delve back into home canning is that much of the actual labor of it has been off-loaded onto my in-house assistants. Two young adults with a vested interest in getting a paycheck are much better at getting the work done than they were as younger children whose Mom just asked them to work. Is all this home canning economical? Am I saving money? Probably not. In my very frugal years I did the math and home canning saved money only if I already had the jars and equipment and if the fruit was free. Also, you have to squint hard at the fruit being “free” because owning grape vines or fruit trees means vine/tree related chores. There are hours spend pruning and tending. Time-spent is a cost, even if it isn’t measured in dollars. However it does deliver flavors and foods that simply aren’t available in commercially produced products.

Mostly I know that there is something deeply soothing in preserving food for later use. It speaks to the panicky portions of my brain that want to be assured that no matter what happens we’ll be able to eat. It may not make sense financially, but I’ll take small reassurances and happiness where I can find them.

A Study in Contrasts

The world is a strange contrast to my house these days. Today Utah was declared to be in a severe drought. The Covid-19 case rates in my state and county hit new highs. Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died thus launching a massive political fight over her replacement. The election hangs over us like Damocles sword and no matter what the outcome a portion of the American public will be distraught and panicked. Wildfires are still burning all over the west and we’re having an incredibly active hurricane season; both signs of climate change. Racial injustice persists. The economy is in recession and, with all of the pandemic job loss and supply chain disruption, may be headed for a depression. Arguments flare over all of the above with people speaking as if everyone who disagrees with them is awful, evil, deluded, or stupid. All of these things swirl in a cloud of stress that shrieks of potential disaster.

Yet in my house things are finally reaching completion. I laid the last bricks for my pandemic patio. All that remains is to sweep polymeric sand into all the cracks and seal it. I may hang the last of the cabinets on the pantry wall tomorrow so we can call that portion of the kitchen project complete. We finally got someone to cut all the dead branches off of our trees so they won’t hit the house in wind. My kids helped me harvest grapes and turn them into bottled juice. I’ve hired my youngest two as assistants in my business and set them up with accounts so that they can get paychecks to learn about budgeting, saving, and paying bills. My son is enjoying learning how to drive and has his first of four GED tests scheduled for Monday. I managed to figure out how to update my websites so they’re presentable again. I figured out some back end tech things for our mailing lists. I’ve managed to catch up with friends I haven’t seen since before the pandemic. Howard only has to draft two more page spreads for the Big Dumb Objects bonus story. All of these things were causing me stress while they were incomplete, but are now either on the edge of completion or done.

Today the things of my house are filling me up more than the things out in the world. This is good. It is important to recognize the good things and the important connections we have especially when so many larger things are completely outside my control. Build joy where you can and don’t let it be stolen away.

The Pace Speeds Up

September seems to be skittering away from me. I’m not exactly sure how. Somehow my lists and thoughts have returned to pre-pandemic levels of activity. I don’t know yet whether this is an enduring shift or if I’m simply seeing a natural spike of activity around the onset of school season. I do know that I’m not being pulled up several times per day to process the experience of living through a pandemic. All of that just folds into my life right along with grocery shopping and making sure that my kid has a ride to their appointment. I’m having trouble figuring out what caused the slowdown in events and what has caused things to speed up again. Why did life feel paused for five months and why has that feeling of pause gone away?

We’re still limiting our social interactions. My daughter and her husband are the only visitors at our house. We’ve had workmen in wearing masks on a couple of occasions. We’re still doing our church worship at home with just the residents of our house. Groceries happen once per week, though I do confess that trips to home improvement stores happened more often this past month. I ship packages twice per week. We’ve gone to the doctor for necessary appointments. All the rest is still canceled. No conferences, no movies, no eating out, no social gatherings. So the physical movements of our lives are only a little bit different from the first shutdowns in March.

I think the difference is in the deadlines. I’ve got a list of gardening and house tasks I need to accomplish before the weather gets cold. I can feel the weight of our overdue Kickstarter that Howard is working to complete. I can see the edge of our financial resources and the work we need to do in order to make sure that funds continue to arrive before bills. I’ve a list of tasks for me to do in order to set up my consulting business. (Consultant for creator-owned small businesses, with an emphasis on writers and artists.) For several months all the deadlines were paused, everyone understood when things were late and that we were all adapting to a new situation. Now it feels like we’re all expected to just get on with things and find ways to hit the deadlines, because businesses have opened back up and life can’t be paused forever.

Or maybe the difference is just in me. But I’m back to feeling like I need to slow life down. At least I managed to hit one deadline only a little bit late. I sent out my monthly newsletter today. Tomorrow I have to start work on the Hypernode media (Schlock Mercenary) newsletter.

Fires and Embers

I grew up in the California Bay area. My parents still live there. I’ve seen photos from today and I know the sky is not supposed to be red like Mars. Fires have filled the sky with ash. My parent’s home is safe because they live in the middle of a town. It isn’t likely to burn, though there was a period where they were on alert to be evacuated for air quality issues. But as I was reading about fires and locations, I recognized another set of landmarks. I looked at the fire maps and my Grandma’s house is inside the “affected area.” Grandma is five years gone, and we sold the house more than a year ago. We have no legal tie to that property anymore. In fact it’s likely that the house no longer exists as the buyer probably intended to demolish it. Yet my heart twinges that a fire might have gone through there. I quick search doesn’t clarify if “affected area” means smoke, evacuation, or flames. It could be any or all. I am glad that we never had to help Grandma evacuate from her home. I am glad that my loved ones can feel sad twinges from places of safety. Yet I am reminded of how much I love that house and how I continue to be sad that it (needfully) passed from our hands and is gone. Fire burning through the area reminds me of the loss and adds a new layer to it because the trees, stores, and neighborhood may also be gone now.

Utah is also smokey today. We have our own fires that are burning, as we do every summer. None of them are particularly bad right now, but they could be. All it takes is a dry wind to whip up the embers and send a fire racing again. We had hurricane-force winds just two days ago which knocked over trees and semi trucks. About 90,000 people are still without power a full two days later. Fortunately the winds don’t seem to have sent any currently burning fires further out of control.

I think about fires and embers as I do my daily check in on the pandemic numbers in my area. The graphs for my state seem fairly steady, but the county-level numbers are telling me a different story. Utah County used to account for about 1/4 of the daily increase in cases. Now it is hovering just below 1/2. My county has two universities which started in person classes in the past two weeks. All of the elementary, junior high, and high schools began in-person classes three weeks ago. Utah county does not have a mask mandate. I’ve been watching carefully, and I think we’re about to see a spike in cases. How high a spike I don’t know. I also don’t know how quickly local officials will take steps to curb the spread or how effectively they’ll do it. (My guesses are not quickly and not effectively.) Suppressing a fire early is the difference between a burned field and a named forest fire. I do not want to have to grieve for people lost and lives permanently altered by out-of-control pandemic.

I can’t stop the forest fires. I can’t stop the embers of pandemic. All I can do is stay in my house and try to distract myself with projects. Yet underneath the satisfaction of working to make my house nicer, is a thread of thought about the impermanence of all things and how anything I create could be taken or destroyed in a way that I’m powerless to prevent. When those thoughts get loud, I remind myself that even if my physical creation is destroyed, the memory of making it will stay with me forever. Making is worthwhile even if the result is impermanent.

Or so I try to remember, when I step out doors and breathe the smell of forest fires in the air.

Instead of Words

Sometimes the words escape me. I sit down feeling that I want to write, knowing I have thoughts to sort into words, yet the words themselves are just outside my reach. I am left with an empty white space on my screen, too tired to chase after the words. So I close my computer and let them go. I’m trying to be better about resting when I am tired rather than pushing to get things done. However I notice the accumulation of days with unwritten words. It is a symptom and the point of symptoms is to provide information about the status of the system. I’ve been a little bit broken this past week. The world felt heavy and I felt a little under the weather. Though, ironically, our weather has been nothing but sunny. We haven’t had a solid rain since mid-July and I find myself longing for one, water to clear the air and my head.

Instead of words, I place bricks in a pattern on top of sand that I smoothed on top of gravel that I poured in a hole that I dug. The pattern is nearly complete, patio finished. The work has been slow because I was making sure I rested when tired. The next pieces for my outdoor space will require funds instead of labor, so they’ll have to wait a while.

Instead of words I watch the inhabitants of my house, holding their moods and needs in my head. They are adults and custodians of their own thoughts, but the habit of tending flows strongly through me. I’m not sure how much of it I should attempt to unlearn. Some definitely, but not all. To stop care-taking would be to stop being myself and the world needs more care-taking not less. Despite that, I still worry that I do too much.

Instead of words I scroll through news feeds and posts. I scroll past the point of being informed, past catching up with people I love who are separated from me. I end my scroll and step away yet an hour, two hours, three hours later I am scrolling again. The day has not changed. There hasn’t been time for news to accumulate, but I check again anyway because somehow I feel like it has been enough time and something new will be there. I formulate plans for stopping the doomscroll, but when I am tired I forget them.

Instead of words I ship packages, fold laundry, answer email, wash dishes, write lists, buy groceries. My mind fills with the administrivia of keeping a household running.

Words are not my whole life, but they are how I make sense of the life that I have. I need to rearrange so that sometimes I am writing words and all those other things land in the “instead of” column.