My plan, bit by bit, is to make a garden inspired by the lyrics of Waking the Witch by Kate Bush. I started with the pinks and posies because they’re less expensive garden plants, and several years back now, I received the red, red roses as a birthday gift that would keep blooming in my garden.
This year they decided to bloom pink.
For reference, this is the same rose bush as the pink roses above.
The same rose bush in 2021
Maybe it’s the unseasonably hot weather we’ve had this spring that has confused them. Maybe they’ll go back to blooming red. Maybe they’ll never be quite the same again.
I’m not going to complain about roses. They’re still beautiful, just not exactly what was planned.
If I were a member of the Addams Family, I’d be Inertia Addams. *sigh*
Me, Facebook, 6/1/2022 (since deleted)
Burn, candle. Burn.
I’d like to be able to say that I lost my creative identity during the pandemic, but it’s not as simple as that. As a person with multiple ongoing health issues, keeping the energy up to continue as a high performer at my day job, which is both necessary and important, and at the same time dry and dull, often takes priority over priming the pump and other self-care.
For a long time, I’ve been able to keep up things up by shoveling tomorrow’s energy into today. But there’s been a cost. It’s been this way for a long enough time that I’ve whittled away whatever energy reserves I may have once had, and my creativity, put on hold for everything else, feels like it’s circling a black hole.
There are all these stories inside me. I can feel them dying. I just haven’t been able to find enough energy to overcome my creative inertia.
Self-care and priming the pump cannot be my last priority any longer.
Giving myself time to exercise, time to do physical therapy, time to get out into nature, to bike, to knit and crochet, to read things that are purely for enjoyment? These things are not just fuel for my writing: they’re the fuel for everything.
So, this month, I’m burning down Inertia Addams and rebuilding myself from the ashes, one little blog post at a time.
What I’d like to say: Sock knitting. Van modding. Writing.
What’s actually been happening: very little.
So today starts a quest. Okay, understanding of a need for a quest started about two weeks ago, but I set the official kickoff to June so I could have some time to plan and prime the pump, so to speak.
Grow, baby inspiration. Grow.
I could whine about the pandemic. About losing friends. About regrets. About menopause. About a culture where it’s all but assumed that I’m Gen X and over.
But I’m not here for that. I’m here for action out of the mire I’ve let my life become since 2020.
I’m not sure about the details of the plan, but my goal is to write something here every day for the month of June. It can be about anything. Maybe I’ll write about my crafting or the van we’re turning into a camper.
Maybe I’ll post my responses to exercises from my writing prompts book.
It came up in Book Club that it would be nice to have notes about what people enjoyed or didn’t enjoy on our book club reads. So here’s the nutshell information about what we read and how we felt about it.
Overall impression: Liked by people who finished, but it was a small meeting.
Warnings: Colonialism, Long, unfamiliar words (assuming you’re a typical Midwesterner.)
My personal take: I was ill on book club day. That said, I can’t say enough good things about this story. I bought the sequel. Don’t be put off by the long words. The story is worth it.
It came up in Book Club that it would be nice to have notes about what people enjoyed or didn’t enjoy on our book club reads. So here’s the nutshell information about what we read and how we felt about it.
Overall impression: Split. One of the themes of the book is how tied into antisemitism the monster myths of the Western world are, and some found it an uncomfortable read. Some people liked the story.
Warnings: Antisemitism. First-person narration. Multiplicities of first-person narrators. My notes say 6 different first-person narrators.
My personal take: I skipped this month. I have a bias against first-person narration, especially when there are more than three first-person narrators in a book. Who is speaking again?
It came up in Book Club that it would be nice to have notes about what people enjoyed or didn’t enjoy on our book club reads. So here’s the nutshell information about what we read and how we felt about it.
What is missing from the world is a Quenton Tarintino movie adaptation of the book Trilby, by George du Maurier. It would be one dark film and it would cater to all the things Tarintino is good at: dark themes, a controlling manager (the trope namer for The Svengali) trying to own Trilby’s mind and soul, and Trilby’s a foot model – so it’s got plenty of reasons to film the feet of the actor who plays Trilby.
I mean, seriously. This book was practically written with Tarintino in mind, despite being a Victorian-era novel.
We lingered in the 50s throughout April cold, damp April showers, never once creeping into the 60s, and precious few sunny days. We’ve started seeing the promised May flowers and temperatures in the upper 80s.
Violets in time for Mother’s Day bouquets
Plants are starting to go into the garden spaces. We set up new planter beds up on the deck for herbs, finally replacing the smaller pots we lost in the 2020 August Derecho.
My tennis elbow persists, and it’s time to start the drastic measures. I went for a cortisone shot last week.
My doctor put me on light stretching and no repetitive activity. That takes out both knitting and crocheting, which I find inconvenient. Yarncrafting soothes the artist in my soul.
I need to schedule physical therapy again to continue working on this.
Or, if you’re patient, perhaps your preference is dandelions for wine.
Instead of picking up yarn and my hooks or needles, I’m using this gift of time to focus on building up my writing portfolio.
I’m also enjoying the perennials as they begin to bloom in my front garden. The early daffodils are almost gone, but the late spring daffies have taken their place. They’re blooming in abundance.
I think this is the most I’ve seen my white daffodils blooming.
Given it’s supposed to be in the 90s on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I need to enjoy them before the heat gets them.
