Feeling young today

Sometimes, I feel really, really old.

Today, I feel younger than my 56 years of age.

I don’t know why — it’s not that I feel young. I just don’t feel like someone inching toward “senior citizen”.

I wonder if there’s something more energetic to listen to than classical music (Mahler) on this Sunday morning. Have I been missing something by not listening to Lana Del Rey? Lady Gaga? (I don’t feel like I’ve been missing anything with Ed Sheeran.)

I wonder if there’s a new hobby I could take up, as if writing isn’t enough. Or someplace to go (during COVID, this is a tall order.)

I suppose if I want to feel every minute of my age, I could just take a walk in this 100+ degree heat index. That would make me feel about 120, I suspect.

So maybe I’m not that young. But I refuse to think I’m old.

The joys of rediscovering free writing

I think I may have found a way to get over writers’ block — free writing exercises.

I have been drafting into Scrivener — which is very efficient, but not a lot of fun. I didn’t realize how its utilitarian background and the very edit-forward feel was keeping me from writing first drafts. The process — staring at the screen every few words, looking for the perfect word …

I attended a writing workshop/guided exercise over Zoom, led by Debbi Voisey, and it was a set of guided free-writing exercises, the type where you put pen to paper and then write. We worked through exercises on scenes, senses, and descriptions, and then we free-wrote.

It felt marvelous! It helped me put together a scene I was struggling with for the past two weeks. Moreover, writing felt fun again!

I believe the reason this works is because our internal editors get in the way of our creativity. There’s time to edit, and that’s after getting words on pages. I found that the words I was putting on the pages needed editing, but not while I was writing them.

I think I will use this free-writing. The way I can use it with Scrivener and with the “Save the Cat” framework is to take each chapter’s prompt (the tag on the chapter that says what goes there) and write that in my notebook, then start free-writing in earnest. Then I can enter it in Scrivener and edit.

I hope I’m onto something, because I have been working quite fruitlessly these last several weeks. (Not that I’ve been doing nothing; I reorganized my classes, recorded several lectures, taken a grad level class, revised my query letters for two books, set up my pitches for SFFpit … I just haven’t been writing.)

Ok, deep breath. I think I could get to liking writing again.

A Little Bit About a Little Kitten

After yesterday’s intense post, I’ve decided I need to write something fluffy. And purry. And zoomy.

So I’ll take a brief moment to talk about my new kitten, Chloe.

We got Chloe a week ago, as in impulse cat adoption after Stinkerbelle died. She’s a two-month-old kitten, at the time when their eyes aren’t quite the color they’ll be and they have little bellies still.

Chloe is a combination of sweetness and orneriness, like raspberry-jalapeno salsa (which I highly recommend). She will spend nights alternating between curling up against me and tearing up the bedroom she’s held in quarantine in. Sometimes she thinks my hand is something to gently pat with her little paws and sometimes she thinks it’s prey.

I love this little kitten. Biologists suggest that we love cats because they remind us of babies. I would introduce them to Chloe because she’s more like a toddler right now, one who draws with crayons on the wall and then asks for a hug with big brown eyes.

Chloe makes my dread about going back into the classroom a bit easier to take. There is life, and there is love.

I just made my will today

I just made my will today.

The faculty and staff at my university got the email yesterday from Human Resources referring us to a resource available to university employees. It’s a holographic will done with software our human resources area has access to. It doesn’t even cost us anything, because our university has been so kind as to provide this service to us for free.

I am furious.

Not because I made a will, because I should have done that years ago. I knew better, but let it lapse anyhow because, you know, time passes and nobody likes to think about death.

I am furious because this is the response of the university to the faculty and staff’s concerns about Coronavirus in the fall semester. We’ve already watched our cases double in the past week and a half in the county. Nobody has died — yet. What is going to happen when all five thousand-some students come back?

We faculty wanted online classes. We got assistance with wills.

To be fair, we’re trying some alternative classroom arrangements to allow for social distancing. I will have only eight students per class session; I will in effect be teaching only one class session a week six times (two sections x three cohorts of 8). But these students will be in residence halls, where social distancing cannot happen. They will be in the food court. They will get COVID and, hopefully, most of them will survive, except I guess those with comorbidities like diabetes and immune suppression.

We will wear masks — hopefully. I’ve not been told what to do with students who will not wear masks, other than “put them in the corner”.

The death rate from COVID in the US, according to Johns Hopkins, is 3.6%. Most of that is concentrated in minorities, older age groups and people with preexisting conditions that predispose us to complications. I am 56 and obese, and at risk. My husband is 51 with a condition that makes him high-risk.

I am told to prepare to go fully online at any time. When will campus call this? If students return to campus, some of which are already infected from group activities, the dam will already be broken. I am bracing for ugliness. I am bracing for illness.

I am writing my will.

Music and my past

Music brings my mind back to the past.

The ’80s Singer-Songwriter playlist plays on the stereo, and I realize that it was almost 40 years ago that I was starting college, and Springsteen playing “Hungry Heart” makes me remember that I was curious once, walking into local stores in Campustown and browsing for things I had no money for.

I was hungry for experience. By myself, usually, because I didn’t understand why I needed other people to go explore. I was an introvert even then, but I didn’t understand it. I didn’t seek out music, but it found me in the shops, in the computer lab, in pirated tapes from my friends. I followed my boyfriends to concerts — I remember listening to the Ramones in the most acoustically unsound building on the U of I campus, and Jethro Tull — where did I see Jethro Tull?

Later, when I gave up on boyfriends and made friends, we listened to local Irish and bluegrass music. A local music “pusher” turned me on to Gaelic pop and Handel’s Water Music. The radio still played on through, and I soaked it up like osmosis.

In a way, I hate reminiscing, because I want my focus to be on the present. I’m not done exploring yet, just because COVID keeps me cooped up. I do intense searches on the Internet for my writing, and for my latest hobby, sourdough bread baking, and for all the little fact-grabbing. I have not studied anyone’s psyche (the intense focus of a crush) lately, and I’m not sure I want another one of those at my age.

I hate the fact that I just used the phrase “at my age” — I want to be young again, but with the knowledge and the calm with which I meet life now. This is impossible and a waste of time to wish for. So I will let the music tear my heart out, and I will build a heart of calm in its place.

Fighting a little downer

I have time to write now. The class edits I had to make to get my class ready for the semester are done. I’ve finished my summer class.

I think, however, I’m getting depressed.

It is a depressing time. No getting out and doing a writing retreat or going to a concert. Worrying about going back to school in the fall. Constant worry, with a lot of subconscious attempts to reassure. Most people don’t die, I tell myself.

What are my options?

1) I need to take time to quit thinking about school. It’s three weeks till classes start.

2) I need to write. Even if it’s taking a short story prompt and working through it.

3) I need to get outside, even if it’s just sitting on the porch swing.

4) I need to play with my little gremlin — er, kitten. She’s playing parkour off every surface in my room — including me.

5) More Poirot in the evenings — we’re only on season 4.

6) Coffee. Coffee reduces depression.

But I need to write.

A Perfect Moment

I think I have experienced a perfect moment.

My husband and I have just had coffee and breakfast, and we are both sprawled on the bed (fully clothed). I am typing this entry on my computer while Chloe the kitten tries to climb up my lap desk, and Richard the husband surfs on his phone. Outside, the dark sky and occasional thunder sets a cozy mood.

I have had very few perfect moments these past months. It’s like the COVID virus has been a constant unwelcome guest. Even in our relatively sheltered county (until the students come back), cases have doubled in the past two weeks. In a month, I go back to teach with reduced class sizes; maybe that will save me from the virus. I fret about students who refuse to wear masks, because I feel pretty powerless to enforce the rule. I worry about the sheer numbers of partying students who won’t practice social distancing.

I have been sleeping more lately, and that’s the sign of depression looming. I monitor my thoughts and contradict thoughts that might send me spiraling.

So perfect moments are few and far between, but maybe that makes them all the sweeter.

Sorry for the absence — the kitten has been monopolizing my time.

I’m sorry I haven’t been here the past couple of days. I’ve been absolutely smitten with Chloe the kitten. It’s been about 9 years since we’ve had a kitten in the house, and the other three cats are middle-aged to senior citizens (ages 9-13).

Chloe is a bundle of fearless zoom-zoom energy, with baby claws and teeth and a tendency to play with all of them out. She’s a little purrbucket. She is an angelic con artist. In other words, she is a kitten.

As you can see, she is a kitten.

I’ve had to do a lot of babysitting with Chloe. She’s been living in my room, as have I, keeping herself busy and in trouble while I’ve been keeping her out of trouble. She’s met the other cats and they already hiss at each other, and I have to keep her out of fights where she’s sorely mismatched.

I’m also getting class stuff done, because my classes are going to be seriously flipped. Each class will be split into three parts, and only 1/3 will be going to class at any given time. So more work is online, and the in-class sessions will be hands on.

I need to start writing again! I think it’s been a week and a half since I’ve written. I’m rethinking my relationship to writing after writing my manifesto, and so far I have not been making time for it. I think it’s time to write a short story rather then rewriting the novel until further notice.

Have a nice relaxing Sunday!

Our New Kitten!

This is Chloe, the new member of our household, adopted from our local Humane Society. She’s an 8-week-old tortoiseshell who has revealed a quirky personality thus far. She makes a variety of noises including squeaks and purr-chirps. She’s in oral fixation mode, which means she chews on fingers and toes (and her teeth are SHARP!)

She is currently living in my room because I want to introduce her to the other cats slowly and keep the other cats from eating her kitten food. The other cats have been a little hissy at her, but they’re hissy at each other, so no surprise there.

Her belly is one big orange striped patch, unusual for a tortoiseshell. She doesn’t mind having her belly rubbed, but she hates being picked up.

I’m looking forward to watching her grow up. I’m also looking forward to her not biting my fingers.

A Writing Manifesto

I will write for myself regardless of how and where my resulting work will be shared.
I will not doubt my imagination.
I will not judge the quality of my work by where it’s published, how many copies it’s sold, or how much I’ve earned.
I will hone my craft for the sake of improvement.
I will write from joy rather than from duty.