Time to unload again. I've been feeling disconnected, disassociated, dithering, feeling oppressed. I see ads about Valentine's day and then it occurs to me that it's February. There are times I feel the urge to cry, and I'm not certain why.
It's often said that if you can articulate a question well enough, the answer will be there. The question is: what's bothering me?
It's many things, on many levels. As I have done this time of year for the last four years, I am living with one foot in the present, and one in 2020. I can't help but remember what Bob was going through. I've made it through this four times, and I'll make it through this time, but I really just want to curl up and hide until it's over. That's not an option - yet. I will, once again, give myself permission to just stop everything and lean into the grief on March 29 and 30; until then, I press on.
The weather is confusing, It's been warm, sunny, and in the mid/high 70's. The spring peepers are making a racket, the lizards are flashing their throat patches, the robins have returned, and I've slapped a couple of mosquitoes. How could I have been using a flame thrower to try to melt ice off of my bridge a week ago? It make me think that I must have misplaced a few weeks somehow.
I mentioned a couple of posts ago that the ice kept me from going to my first library book club meeting. I was disappointed; I had enjoyed the book ("Less" by Andrew Sean Greer). It was an amusing read on the surface, with with a lot of subtext, and I had it peppered with Post It notes and was looking forward to the discussion (face-to-face, not on FaceBook or zoom). But instead I got let down twice. Once, because I couldn't make it, and again when I took the book back and the woman who runs the club told me that I didn't miss anything because nobody liked it (I can't help but wonder if it was because most of the people in it were gay). So much for thinking I could find "my tribe." (I'll try again this month)
In another area, I find I'm oddly disturbed by the allegations against Neil Gaimen. I've been reading his books for 40 years (since he co-wrote "Good Omens" with Terry Pratchett. I admired him as a person (I'm not alone in in that - he was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people in 2023). I liked his sense of humor, such as his "stealth" book signings - if he had a layover at an airport, he'd wander into a bookstore, pull his books off the shelf and autograph them.
I thought he was one of the good guys. But one woman spoke up about a sexual assault, and then suddenly a dozen more have spoken up, and things are looking pretty nasty at the moment (note to 2026 self - how has this turned out). At the moment they're still just allegations - but the fallout has been tremendous. We're living in an era of cancel culture - and anyone associated with him (publishers, producers, agents) are backing off; anything associated with him is being cancelled. So not only thousands (millions?) of fans being stunned, but hundreds of jobs have been lost, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this. And about his work. Can one really separate the art from the artist, especially when the artist is still alive?
And all this is against the background of our country going to hell in a hand basket in a big way, fast.
And I got a letter from my insurance company saying that I need to have my roof replaced.
That's rather a lot in less than a couple of weeks. No wonder I'm feeling off balance. I'm not alone in that.
So what to do? One - although I do have my FaceBook addiction as my main social life - keep away from the doom scrolling and opinions. Read enough news to know what's going on, and then step away from it.
Center myself. Read. Go outside. Love on the cats.
I've found myself remembering 9/11. The shock, the unreality. After it happened, all the schools and state offices were closed and people told to go home. Bob had dropped me off that morning, so I walked to his office. There were thousands of people all trying to get on the road at once. Bob was pacing when I got to his office, waiting for me, waiting to get on the road and get out of there. I looked at the traffic, knew that it would likely take us a couple of hours to get home, and said "I need to feed the squirrels."
What's that line from "A Christmas Story?" "He looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears." Here we are - we don't know what other attacks will happen, we don't know if it's the apocalypse or World War III, we need to get the hell home - and I'm talking about squirrels?
I had a litter of baby squirrels - tiny, with their eyes still closed. And they were getting hungry. So, with Bob fuming and pacing, I mixed up the formula and, to save time, he helped me. We both took a syringe and the little ones grabbed them and eagerly drank their milk, then with full warm tummies snuggled together to sleep. Bob let out a deep breath. "That helped."
It had. We didn't know what the hell was going to happen, or if we could do anything about it, but we could feed those tiny innocent creatures.
I often reach up to touch the small pentagram that I wear. The five points on the star represent what will always be there for me: Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Spirit. It reminds me to breathe to observe. The soft warmth of RedBug, sleeping snuggled up to me (he snores) The taste of the fresh egg from my own chickens that I had for dinner. The wind in the trees. The pleasure of taking a blanket and a book to go sit by my newly rediscovered stream. There is so much good in the world, and we mustn't lose sight of that.
So I will close this ramble with a video of my woods, not so much for the visual as for the joyous sound of the spring peepers.
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