COLD TURKEY

My God, has it really been six years since I added a blog post?  Just goes to show what a time/energy/thought/contemplation suck Facebook is.  (In truth, there was a draft I made a year ago, which I'll publish after I finish this.  Still, it's been a long time between drinks.)

Which is why I'm back at the Bulldozer today.  In light of the shocking and demoralizing recent presidential election results, the Universe has ordered me to knock off Facebook-checking, and reading of the New Yorker, and the New York Times.  (I cheated on that last today, but scrolled all the way down past the Politics headline before I started really reading.  Even at that, my stomach gave a tiny lurch when I'd glance at some of those headlines.  Holy shit.)  Anyway, I'm reading not-too-trashy thrillers, and am halfway through this year's reading of Aubrey/Maturin.  I've made up four ice-trays of fresh lemon juice with zest, made my bed, sent out a couple of emails, and, frankly, I'm bored.

I remember Mother saying, when I asked her how she was doing living alone after burying her second husband, "Well, I find I get a little tired of myself."  I'm thinking that had the blog been invented in those fallow times for her, she would have indulged in writing one, and found a lot of interesting things to tell herself.  That kind of creative surge might have warded off her death at a (relatively) early age, and opened up some new avenues of creativity that I KNOW she had but had never really explored.

Anyway, this is a good way for ME to tell myself some stories. I'm confident no one else reads this, and so I'm free to write whatever I want, follow any path that looks interesting, judge anyone I want (except myself -- that's a sin).  On the other hand, as in Levertov's poem "St. Peter and the Angel", there are the daunting "next terrors of freedom and joy."  That's the only other direct order I've been given by the Universe: to enjoy my life.  What a thing to say to a child of New England!  Joy?  Terrifying.  Freedom? Perhaps more so.

My niece has been shackled all her life by the madness and fears of her immediate family; the most crazy member, her mother, has died, as have her craziest, most haunted siblings.  Her children are grown and nicely on their way to life, her father will nestle comfortably for his few remaining years in the bosom of the male-dominated household of the surviving sister, and Blue, having formally retired from her career, can do whatever she wants now.  We talked about how scary that is, and we are agreed that it is exactly that.

So here I am.  I may come back to write more, shoving aside the fear block, and talk to myself in this safe room.  If I don't, I'm not a scaredy cat; if I do, I think it will be because the fear of boredom (idle hands the devil's workshop, e.g.) is greater than the fear of writing.  We'll see.