The week.

(So, back in 1988, I made this sampler on commission. I had totally forgot about it until I found the Polaroid.)

Last week was less stressful than it might have been. I’m currently unwilling to say anything about teaching publicly, which means these weekly updates are necessarily going to be vague. Since I won’t be talking about details, I am sure there will be times when my emotional state or the decisions I am making won’t make much sense. Please trust me that I am making the decisions I need to for valid reasons, and please hang in there with me!

In related news, I have been retreating into a LOT of reading and a lot of watching shows. Kerry Greenwood; a 1920s lost-world story by E. C. Vivian; some Arthur Ransome. The bineging of shows is getting this scarf finished, because I really want to get started on a new, much prettier project.

In the Vivian, I found a quote that is resonating with me:

“‘It is a terrible thing,’ said Marshall.

“‘It had to end someday,’ Whauple concluded, ‘and it happened to end in ours.'”

There are so many things right now that I am hoping are not ending. But dying or retreating or retrenching, these are hard times. And a lot of these “terrible things” didn’t have to be this way, and yet here we are.

But this is not what I normally talk about here, and not what I want to talk about here. I think I am struggling because the big picture, the world story, is dark, and so is my day-job story. I know from experience that when I feel like this, I need to pay more attention to my inner life, and the things I love: telling stories; love and affection; the immediate tiny pleasures that are present even in dark times. I’ll be focusing on all that in the next week.

I am still — still — waiting to hear from my editor about American Tour. There will be rewriting, and I am reluctant to start anything new before then. I did. however, come up with a great new project for these fellowships I want to apply for in October. I’ll talk about it later, I am sure.