Lost Rituals

It’s Saturday, and most of the snow has melted. The apple blossoms, however, are not coming back, so there will be no apples this year. It’s symbolic, I think, for all the rituals of American life which will be put on hold this year because of the coronavirus — graduation ceremonies, weddings, birthday parties. Burials go on, but funerals do not.

I worry about not having these rituals, especially the rituals of transition like college and high school graduations. Without these types of rituals, we feel rudderless, out of sorts. We need a recognition of what we’ve accomplished and where we’re going.

At the college, our students won’t go through graduation until fall, if we are even out of shelter-in-place by then. Our retiring faculty and staff will get no parties.

I suspect that our changed situation will be temporary, but that temporary could be as long as a year and a half. A cohort of people will not have their rituals to cling to, will feel rudderless, bereft. And although it is a small pain compared to the real possibilities of losing a family member, I will still mourn it with you.

A poem for COVID-19 and ten inches of snow

I don’t write poems as much as I used to, mostly because I’ve gotten to an impasse with poetry. I know from experience submitting poems that my poems don’t quite have what it means to be great, and I don’t seem to be able to figure out what they are missing. I also think they’re too short compared to modern poetry. But here’s a depressing poem for today:

A glimpse out the window
at blasted apple blossoms
and snowfall blotting out
the first green of spring
and the doors barred
to keep contagion out —
the world could end
with an ellipse
at the end of a message
as
all
traffic
ceases.

Collecting Kindness

Today, one of my favorite Internet Cats, Maya, is #collectingkindness. Toward this end, she is asking people (I love the imagery of this) for pictures, poems, essays, etc about what they consider kindness to be.

To me, kindness is giving without calculating a return, without regarding how the other compares to you relative to color, race, ability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or religion. Just giving, whether that be a smile, a favor, a conversation, recognition, love. No strings attached.

April Snowstorm

We’re under a winter storm warning. We’re supposed to get 4-10 inches of snow today. In April.

The timing is all wrong. This should have happened on April 1st.

I don’t know what to do but laugh, because the alternative is to scream. Isolation is starting to be a bit difficult for me, and a dump of snow when it’s supposed to be Spring is just making matters worse.

I have no choice, though, but to shelter in place during the pandemic. I have no choice but to accept that our spring is going to be bifurcated by ten inches of wet, cold fluff. I don’t get a say in matters beyond my control, so I sit behind my computer and field work emails and work on improving my writing.

But what to do with the mood — with the tiredness, with the frustration, with the crabbiness? I’m not sure. Maybe I need to sleep more, but I get 8-9 hours of sleep a day. Maybe I need to sleep deeper. Maybe I need to get out — oh, wait, we’re on shelter-in-place and a major snowstorm is coming.

All I can do is keep my sense of humor up and stay productive. And drink coffee, definitely drink coffee.

Humor in the time of COVID-19

It’s amazing how used I have gotten to social isolation during the pandemic. I think I’m a natural introvert, because the thing that bothers me the most is the boring scenery of my living room (my workplace). Sitting on my computer waiting for student questions while working on my work in progress (again) seems incredibly normal. It’s been over a month, though, and I need some novelty in my life.

I’m contemplating some things that sound suspiciously like a mid-life crisis (although I think I went through that a few years ago when I briefly wanted to be a cougar). Here are a few thoughts:

Now is the time to dye my hair blue, right?
This room needs rearranging. This house needs rearranging.
I want to retire and become a cat.
I am incapable of doing a quarantine cut on my hair. Should I just give in and shave it off? (After I turn it blue)
Five more fountain pens. I need five more fountain pens.
I could teach my cats to type.
I need five more cats!

I will not do most of these. I just asked my husband whether I should die my hair blue or buzz it, and he scowled at me. Sigh.

I have to find something constructive to get through this. Maybe I should write.

My Problem Child

My first novel has always been my problem child. I wrote Gaia’s Hands based on a dream/fantasy I had of a May-December relationship, only the female was the older one. Because I didn’t want to write a romance novel (plus I couldn’t see an audience for this one), I developed a quirky fantasy line involving the most high-powered version of a green thumb you can imagine. There’s always seemed to be something missing, or something awkward about it, and I’ve tried many ways (usually cutting things) to see if that helps. It didn’t. There was still something lacking.

The other day, a book coach with a romance background looked at it, and she said there were two faults — 1) not enough emotion; 2) It should actually be a romance. to be honest (and I apologize to the romance writers who read this) I have read a lot of romances I don’t identify with, with tropes that annoy my feminist sensibilities: the heroine who doesn’t think she’s attractive but she’s drop-dead gorgeous, the male who’s the strong silent type. I don’t want to write those tropes, and I’m afraid I’ll be an unreadable romance writer if I write the truth about Josh and Jeanne — she’s twenty years older and a Rubenesque professor; he’s built like a lightweight wrestler and the most macho thing he does is practice aikido (and has achieved the equivalent of first level black belt). He writes poetry and stories; she designs permaculture gardens. He is intense and hungry; she’s a bit preoccupied with his research. They both think what they want is impossible.

The trouble is, I have to believe in their romance to write it, and right now I’m like Jeanne, who thinks it’s a biological impossibility that a twenty-year-old guy would fall in love with a 45-year-old woman. I know the other way around is possible sort of — I have gotten crushes on 20-somethings with small builds. But, again, like Jeanne, I don’t know how that could be reciprocated. If I want this book, I have to find a way to believe in that.

A Time to Write

Me during the Pandemic

During the pandemic, I teach at home, and I have plenty of time when I have no emails to answer, to projects to grade, and no meetings to attend. And no distractions from the outside.

So I write.

I just got done doing another edit of Whose Hearts are Mountains, which had suffered in the querying process. I mainly edited for plotting, using the Save the Cat protocol. I now have that out to my friend Ken (Hi, Ken!) who will be as brutal on it as any developmental editor. Then I’ll tweak and go to my final 30 queries.

Now, I’m working on Gaia’s Hands again, the problem child of my lifetime. I’ve decided, through consult with a writing coach and reading over Save the Cat Writes a Novel, that I’ve been going about it all wrong. First of all, the story is an unusual romance in addition to being a fantasy, which makes me grit my teeth a bit because it’s never going to be marketable as a fantasy. Second, its timing is all off. What this basically means is that I am going to have to rewrite the whole thing. I know I could put it in a drawer and forget it, but it’s foundational to another series. And now that I’m beginning to understand the story, it is compelling.

When I mean “unusual romance”, I mean this: Josh Young has a thing for Dr. Jeanne Beaumont, even though he’s twenty-five years too young and she’s out of his league, what with that Ph.D. and that plant patent of hers. Jeanne Beaumont wishes she were younger and prettier, because she’s become intrigued by the graceful Josh Young.

There’s more to the story, because I have to juggle in the fantasy element. But you get the idea.

I like the fact that I’ve decided to try harder, even if I never get published. I think at this point that learning is more important than getting published.

I still have my fingers crossed for publication.

Lenten Meditation Day 46: Rejoice

Today is Easter, the day in which (in the Christian calendar Jesus Christ rose from the dead. This year, it’s also Passover, when in the Jewish calendar the Jews triumphed over the Pharaoh who subjugated them. If we go back into myriad European pagan beliefs, Eostre is when the year is released from the captivity of winter.

And we rejoice.

There seems to be a common theme here, that of being released from an adversity. I think that’s important. So many good stories begin with overcoming barriers, and there’s a reason. We don’t want to think that we’re going to be shackled forever, so we fight against the captors. In all three of these, divine assistance yielded the victory.

I personally think God works differently than in the stories. I don’t think God sends plagues to our enemies or picks winners in football games. That is not to say that God doesn’t intercede. I think God sustains us until we achieve our victory. I think God gives us the strength to persevere, comforts us in our difficult times, clears our minds so that we can find victory.

But in the end we find victory — not always the victory we wanted, but we find the victory anyhow.

I leave you a poem by ee cummings that I think captures the essence of Easter:

“i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any—lifted from the no

of all nothing—human merely being

doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)”

Day 45 Lenten Meditation: Anticipation

Sometimes when we anticipate, we wait for good things to happen. Sometimes it’s a matter of what we’ve earned through hard work, what we will be gifted with through tradition, or what we’ve been promised. We know something good is coming, although we may not know exactly what. This kind of anticipation feels like an invitation to a sumptuous feast.

Sometimes when we anticipate, we prepare for bad things to happen. We make emergency plans and emergency funds, we make contingency plans. We buy life insurance and make wills. By anticipating, we can protect ourselves and our families.

Anticipation requires us to look into the future, for good or bad.

Day 44 Lenten Reflection: Gratitude

I can’t help but run this topic — gratitude — through a COVID-19 filter, seeing as the pandemic is fresh in my mind.

I am grateful for essential workers. My day proceeds to be relatively normal because of my ability to shop for food online. I would be protected in the hospital because health care workers are still working. The mail gets to me every day because postal workers are considered essential.

I’m grateful there are not very many cases of COVID-19 here in Nodaway County, Missouri. We seem to take social distancing seriously, we are sheltering in place, and wearing masks when on necessary errands.

I am grateful my job allows me to work from home. I am the main breadwinner in my family, and a loss of my income would be tragic for us.

I am grateful I am an introvert. Other than occasional restlessness, I am pretty comfortable with my new routine. It gives me time to edit my novels.

I am grateful for the collective of ladies locally who are supplying as many citizens as they can with colorful cloth masks.

And finally, I am grateful that neither my husband nor I have gotten the virus, because we are at the age where it could become risky.

Sometimes, life goes bad and the only thing we have to be grateful for is being alive. I could be there at any moment; life can change in an instant. I will marshal my gratitude if that happens.