Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
on writing
a friend of mine asked me this weekend how nanowrimo was going for me – to which i had to confess that after about 8000 words, i quit – mostly because my main character bored me to no end and also because i have too many other things going on at the moment to focus on something so dedicated as a novel draft. i would like to make an attempt at the 30-day novel again in the not-to-far future, but really i need to be more realistic about setting aside time in my life and not heaping on other things at the same time (like learning how to quilt).
but as far as it goes, i have been writing a tremendous amount anyways – work stuff, letters, bits and pieces of thoughts. at the moment, i have two different personal essays that are lurking in note-form – one of which i might actually be able to publish if i can get it down into some coherent and mildly amusing sketch. i also found some writing exercises online today that have reinspired me to try my hand at poetry again.
unfortunately, this much inspiration generally turns into a fidget rather than anything constructive. i choke, worried i won’t get through it – or i start hating it somewhere in the editing process. which is one of the reasons i prefer blogging: not having to produce anything really finished – my metaphors may remain mixed, my theories half-formed…. which is a lot the way i live my life really.
anyhow – i am supposed to be working from home today but i think i will take my notebook and go for a walk into town. i’m a bit stir-crazy at the moment, and i’d rather be hammering out this workplan i’ve got due in a cafe somewhere rather than my house.
sunday pictures
today i:
hiked to the top of soames hill which is just around the corner from my place (a 5 minute drive to the park entrance). a short but lung-busting hike – lots of stairs carved into the side of the hill – and an amazing view at the top. i need to come back here and take better pictures when it’s not raining.
and
finished piecing the main part of the quilt top i am making which turned out to be a bit wonky (now i see why cutting and sewing with precision is so essential). i still have to put the border on and then quilt and bind the damned thing. it’s my first quilt so i’m cutting myself some slack on the imperfections.
gee, thanks
hey-o
over the past couple of weeks, i have received several emails from people complimenting this blog in some fashion or other – many from friends, and a few from people i have never met in real time. i just wanted to say (cause i’ve been bad about responding to email lately) – that it really means a lot to me that people read and enjoy my writing and photos here – and thanks for saying such lovely things about my blog-writing. i really really do appreciate it greatly when people respond to my writing either via email or blog-comments.
so thanks – tons – i mean it 🙂
a death, a sadness
i was going to write a witty message about my car-mechanic experiences of the past few days, but i just received an email from my mother informing me that my cousin sarah hung herself last night. everything just seems very small and narrow at the moment, as though a film has come down over the morning: like someone walking on my own grave to have a cousin the same age take her life – it feels too close.
i have not seen sarah in years, her living in oregon and not having a close relationship to the canadian side of the family. when we were children we played together in the summers – and though i suspect we were very similar as rebellious adolescents, we did not live close enough to commiserate with one another. mostly what i know of her is through my aunt josephine, her grandmother – who has now lost both her oldest child and oldest grandchild to suicide.
i wonder if she was programmed somehow to self-destruct, her psychology grown up in the shadow of her father’s suicide by hanging in his early thirties.
i wish i could say i do not understand why a woman my age would take her life, but depressive episodes in the past two years have allowed me a glimpse into that mindset of hopelessness. i am thankful i am no longer in that place, and i wish i had been close enough to her to tell Sarah that those feelings really do pass if given enough time and nurturing by others.
sadness.
Red Cedar 