Here We Come To A Turning of The Season (Summer into Fall, 2022)

 Sometime around the last third of July, I decided that August was going to be the beginning of fall. 

Admittedly, this was probably 'round about the time that I was starting to get delirious from acute Summer Reading Program Sickness (There are only so many times you can utter "Yaaaaarrrr! You get ALL YOUR PRIZES! Dig into the treasure chest, enter the raffle, choose your book, and don't forget about loving books!"within a one hour period without this occurring), so I wasn't necessarily using all of my brain. But the bit of my addled brain that was working...kind of...came up with this reasoning:

1. Because Summer Reading Program Ends July 31st, due to children going back to school around August 1st...

2. And thus, reasonably, When children go back to school, it's called "The Fall Semester"

3. Therefore, August 1st is the Fall Semester...

4. In conclusion, August 1st is the beginning of Fall

Does it make sense to any person other than a perimenopausal children's library-manager-bureaucrat whose brain has been absolutely fried by SRP shenanigans, and whose body is absolutely drained by the heat, dear god the heat? Probably not, but whatever. It made sense to me!

And what do you know? August 1st rolled around and...things got better. The first half of July seemed to be filled with a lot of sunny, humid, 90+ degree days; the second half of July was maybe a little better, especially with the SRP finish-line in sight. And August...It wasn't immediately or consistently cooler those first few days, but after that....August has been absolutely charming. Dog Days? No such thing! For the last ten days or so, we've been enjoying days that aren't too humid, and that don't get past the low 80s, and plenty of rain here and there to get rid of the flash-drought-stricken grass. (And also, let's not discount a  more sustainable workload in my professional life.) I've been sleeping with my windows open at night; I've been contemplating going outside for recreational purposes. I've been trying to rebuild my social life and Get Out There, more. And in the mornings, it has almost felt cool. In the evenings, it feels...golden. Gentle. Those are the words that come to mind: golden, gentle evenings, filled with the feeble chirps and creaks and sing-songs of crickets and cicadas, making their racket in defiance of the encroaching empty barrenness of the winter and the dying that inevitably comes with it.

(Okay, I know it's not so anything poetic as summer insects screaming against the coming death; it's got something more to do with them trumpeting their final attempts at mate-reproduce-marry-fuck-kill.)

But here is the thing: each late summer, as I listen to the cicadas and crickets begin to protest their impending doom...I hear an echo of my own encroaching end. I can't be the only one, can I? I can't be the only one realizing that the death of summer is a somehow significant milestone in another year slowly marching its way to its end. The death of summer is the approach towards the fallow months, where I, at least, am prone to taking stock, remembering, honouring my labours, thinking of the people I've met, loved, talked to, yearned for, laughed with, held close, advised, supported, dismissed, scorned, reviled. (Yes, there are even a couple of those.)

These late summer days, as well as the coming autumn, are beautiful gifts, really--and sad gifts--an annual reminder of our own coming harvests and decays and ends, and an annual recollection of the fruitful, endless numbered days that will one day run out. But until they do run out, I'm just gonna sit here drinking my Pumpkin Spice Latte coffee that I found at Wal-Mart last week. 

And if you are judging me for shopping at Wal-Mart, whatevs. Clearly you're not a basic bitch with a poetic soul fighting a losing battle against inflation. 

All That Wilts Shall Bloom Again

An Artist's Rendering of Me on July 31. 
Source: An Amazon vendor that has absolutely no business selling or marketing these stickers to non-adults. 

Summer Reading Program. 

If you know, you know. 

I thought I knew. I have, after all, worked in libraries now for 16 summers; more summers than not, I was a front-line worker. For four of those summers, I managed people who were completely immersed in it. And of course, I had my good friend and veteran Children's Librarian, Abby Johnson, to blog and share firsthand accounts of the programs, the intensity, the added desk shifts, the madness. The fucking madness of it all. I thought I knew. 

Comrades, I knew nothing. Not until this (distressingly hot) summer, my first in a 100%-immersed-in- Youth-Services-management gig, did I truly learn what it means to live through Summer Reading Program at a public library. And when I say "live through", what I really mean is "endure". Slog through? Melt and droop and ooze through? Whatever. A post I made on Facebook, relatively early on during Summer Reading Program, sums it up pretty well:  

And of course, what have I to complain about? It was the librarians and assistants in my department who I feel did the lion's share of the work: they are the ones who planned and staffed the programs that drew in hordes of children and families and caretakers. I just provided all the desk staffing and moral support I could and tried to keep the schedule in order and helped with program cleanup when I could and tried not nag folks too much about their timecards. But whatever, we all played our role in what, I'm told, was a pretty successful Summer Reading Program. However, by early July, I was dragging myself home every day, fairly wilting from the heat and my ears still ringing from the incessant hollering and screams (I promise, it's a Children's Department, not a torture chamber) and not able to do much except hunker down in my chilly, darkened living room, pulling faces at the cats and trying to remember a time before or after Summer Reading Program. 

It was fun. Fun and funny and frenetic and frickin challenging in all the good ways, but I am not going to pretend even in the slightest that I'm sorry that it's over for another 10 months or so. Because, while my wall calendar and desk calendar are still open to June 1, Summer Reading Program officially ended on July 31. RIP, Oceans of Possibilities. We'll catch you on the flipside, in your resurrected form sometime next May. 

It's actually kind of fitting that the first day of Life After Summer Reading Program starts today, on August 1. Some of my witchywoowoo friends celebrate Lughnasadh on August 1; it is the first of the harvest festivals, one in which we harvest the fruit we had sown in the spring. We celebrate our harvests knowing that the dark winter is coming, reminding ourselves that all that falls shall rise again. Including us. And including Summer Reading Program. But for now, a fallow time. A time of rest. 

So, okay, it's a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea. Summer Reading Program has passed for another year, and hopefully the year marches on to a cooler, gentler time, and those of us who wilted under the heat and work of summer can rise and thrive, at least briefly, once again. 

Except maybe the flowers I tried to grow on my patio this summer. They're fucked. 

March in Review

Well, let's first address the elephant in the room: My whole "blog every day in March" turned out to be a flop. Not sure why, exactly...I think it was a combination of "jesus christ, what the fuck am I supposed to blog about today," "oh god it's 10pm and I haven't started and I'm so exhausted," and, finally, "fuck this."

On the bright side, it did get me in the mode of trying to brainstorm content and be proactive and strategic about planning content. I think, part of it too, is always trying to remember why I blog. God knows, blogs seem to be "so 2010", and one need look no further than someone like the Pioneer Woman to see how far they have evolved (and not in a good way, as far as I can tell.) Also, I was never in this for getting views or whatever. My main purpose in blogging has always been to quietly remind myself that while I don't matter on a grand universal scale, my life matters to me, and I enjoy documenting my struggles and joys and reflections and explorations and little accomplishments, and sometimes even my acquisitions. So that's what I need to remember when writing and planning and brainstorming. 

So! other than my blogging failure, what else did March bring?

• MY FIRST VACCINE! On Friday the 26th, I took a rather circuitous route out to Spencer, where I got my first Moderna jab. The vaccine site was at the First Nazarene Church, and while I confess myself a little surprised that the Nazarenes would have anything to do with letting something so sciencey take place in their church, I was a little reassured: if the Nazarenes are letting us use their church as a vaccination site, the vaccine can't be the Mark of the Beast, right?  From beginning to end, the experience was smooth, and the road trip out to Spencer was, in and of itself, a pleasant reminder of Indiana explorations to come. Which brings me to...

• The concept of "The After Times." Very early on, I began referring to the time before the pandemic as "The Before Times." And then, of course, the pandemic itself, I've been calling The End of the World, or the Apocalypse. I was so engrossed with simply surviving that it has only been in this last month that I began to register what my friend Jain is calling "The After Times." Yes, the pandemic is not over. Yes, we still need to be not utter dickholes and mask up and be considerate. But many of us are well on our way to being vaccinated, and that means it's time to think about hope, and making plans, and rebuilding. I'm already plotting my first big vacation!

• Beautiful weather: Normally, I have a love-hate relationship with spring. I hate the fact that it's a harbinger of summer, my least favorite season, but this winter was so bleak and dark, both literally and metaphorically, that I couldn't help but to rejoice in the fact that March seemed to be unusually warm. This warm spring, coupled with the rapidly-expanding availability of the vaccine, seems like a true rebirth in every sense of the word. 

• This also led to my annual "cleaning of my deck space"

Before (resembling a post-apocalyptic wasteland)

After (And ready for After Times Entertaining!)

• March 22--my 5 year Indianaversary! How the hell have I been home 5 years already?

• Word of the month: "Vaccined" (tipsy shorthand for "vaccinated")

• Quote of the month: "I consider myself 'man-agnostic.' I'm have neither faith nor disbelief that decent men exist. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I'm open to the possibility, but I'm not motivated enough to go out and find evidence." -Me, of course

What did March bring into your life?

Raise Your Glass to the Turning of The Seasons

Happy Vernal Equinox! 

I spent the day doing a bit of cleaning, and then spending time wandering by a pretty creek with a friend, and then came home to a quiet evening of reflection and conversations with distant friends. It was a good way for me to commence this new season.

Growing up in Florida as I did, I never really experienced seasons. Or, if I did, they were of the "hot-hotter-hell-hurricane season" variety. So I didn't ever experience the hopeful green of spring, the lively but not killing warmth of summer, the colourful magic of fall, or the holy hush of a winter snow. None of those natural rhythms and routines and rituals were within my realm of experience--and even at a very young age, I felt like this was unnatural and wrong.

It wasn't until after I had moved to Indiana and endured the grim, grey, unrelenting chill of Midwestern winter that I was truly able to appreciate the hope and joy of a burgeoning Midwestern spring. And oddly, I feel like the two need each other--that we cannot really appreciate the joy of spring without having undergone the dark winter. Hello, metaphors, could you be more obvious?

(Now, imagine living in a time where food and warmth were genuinely scarce during the winter, and then I think we can perhaps really appreciate how extreme the joy of spring must have once been.)

Still, it has been rather a long and dark and lonely winter, moreso than usual, so I must admit that I greeted this first day of spring with more than a little...well, not joy, I don't have that much energy...but with extreme and pronounced pleasure. This beautiful first day of spring in 2021 here in Southern Indiana was one of the most fittingly lovely I've yet to encounter. The earth and trees are still bare and brown and grey, of course,  but the sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue; the air was crisp, the world touched with plenty of sunlight...and my spirits were raised by the news that on Monday, my age group will become eligible for the COVID vaccine here in Indiana.

It was perfectly fitting news to have on today, of all days. I certainly could have done without the grim isolation of this Coronavirus Winter, but I will admit, the spring is all the more joyful for knowing that it seems like we are coming to this cruel, blighted winter's end. 

Mid-March Meanderings

There it is.

Every year, sometime in March or April, I have a moment when I feel it--the return of spring. I felt it the day before yesterday, walking back to the library during lunch. It was almost sunny, almost not chilly, and a slight breeze was blowing through the not-yet-budding trees.

We just sprung forward, this last Sunday, so the sun (when we see it) lingers into the evening later. Daffodil shoots are thrusting from the cold, brown ground. Birds are starting to pep up and sing more. And of course, with the slightly-warmer weather, come the tornie warnies; we spent a fair bit of yesterday afternoon at the library taking shelter as a strong storm and possible tornado moved through the county. So, winter has almost relinquished its hold. And as much as I dread the upcoming summer--hey, at least it's not summer in California. I actually had a dream the other night that I lived in California; that the summer was coming; that months and months of brutal sunshine and unrelenting heat were approaching. I was so sad. Suffocated. Trapped.

That time in my life, thank god, is done. I'm coming up on my third year Back Home Again; the exciting novelty of the first year has of course worn away--much like it happens in a relationship after the honeymoon period. But what remains is ideally what happens when the honeymoon is over; the love I have for my home has deepened, hopefully matured. I think I know my home's beauties and flaws, but just like in a relationship, I hope that I will continue discovering more. And like what should happen in a relationship, I shouldn't take my home for granted. Shouldn't ignore it.

(Funny that I seem to know how a good, long-term relationship should work, yet I've managed to sustain...well, none of them. 😂😂😂)

Whatever. The spring is almost upon us, and now it's time to shake off the winter doldrums, put away the heavy sweaters, and plan a few adventures and road trips and maybe just some jaunts around time. Here are a few of the places I'd like to venture forth to in the next couple of months:

Jordan Greenhouse, on campus (although, to be fair, it probably would have been a great place to visit during the worst of the winter months).

Southeast Park: For three years, I've been driving past this little park. From the road, it's a pretty space, with a little stream burbling through. Why haven't I made the time to go there? This spring, I'm going to make sure this happens.

Le Petit Cafe: In my defense, this place is not the easiest place to visit. The hours are funky. But there's a lunch buffet sometimes (a buffet of French food? Um, yes.) And the restaurant scene in Bloomington is a bit of a tricky scene--places come and go--so I need to move fast on this.)

Spring and summer are great times to venture forth and see new places and do new things. Anything you're planning on for the coming warm months?

Fuck Off, February!

The subject says it all, yes? Fuck off, February!

Maybe it was the winter doldrums, finally getting to me and depleting my energy, motivation, and productivity. Maybe it was the health scare (my doctor found a lump, I had to get my first mammogram, I imagined I was going to die, and thankfully it turned out to be nothing). Maybe it was the work stress, occurring simultaneously. Who knows? What is a certainty is that February was a nasty little month. The best part about this last month (other than the fact that I am not likely to die in the immediate future) was that, hey, at least it was a short month.

Now, on to March. It goes in like a lion and out like a lamb, or something; this just means that the meteorologists have an excuse to fall back on whether there is a blizzard, tornado, or heat wave. We will spring forward, which I absolutely hate, and spring starts, which I kind of want to happen, at least for a minute or two. We're already a day into March, and at least for me, it hasn't been as shitty as February. It's still cloudy and cold, and there's snow in the forecast for tomorrow, but the daffodil bulbs are starting to thrust out of the never-dead earth. I'm hoping for a renewal of my normal energetic, bustling, cheerful self, and I am ready for a new month. What about you? Was yours a good February, or was it rather thorough in its shittiness? And what do you have planned for the month ahead?

And Now, December

Now, December. It's a morning with a lowering grey sky, a morning with just enough chill to allow my breath to linger in a little puff. As a child in Florida, walking with my sisters to our school bus stop, I would huff away continuously, delighted by that rare (for Florida) reminder of cold weather. I'd be lying if I said I didn't prounce and puff about in these chilly mornings, even now, as I push into middle age. I've still not acclimated to the delight and gratitude that surge through me whenever I realize that I'm here, home, and able to experience the progression of life, happening in cycle with the season.

Fourteen years ago, around this time I hopped on the bus and rode it into campus for my last classes of my first semester of grad school. Then, I was 24--so young, although silly me, I didn't feel like it at the time. So certain about so much. That certainty is one of the things that dies with youth, I think--thank goodness. I knew I was loved and that I had a life partner who would stick by my side through thick and thin; I knew I was surrounded by fun, young, smart people, each of us enduring a similar grad school experience. I knew that there was so much still ahead of me, if only I could survive grad school.

And then this morning, I hopped on the bus and rode it into campus for my last class of the semester. Perhaps because it's cold and early, perhaps because we have become a population absorbed with our phones, the crowd on the bus was silent, each rider wrapped up in their own thoughts and world. Normally I'd be happy to immerse myself into social media, but this morning, I gazed out the window at the bare trees, the students and faculty hustling about, the grey limestone of the university buildings, the endless rhythms of academia expanding and contracting. I'm no longer 24 or even particularly young; the partner and friends I had have all moved on, although we are all, more or less, in touch. Graduations, jobs and careers, cross-country moves, marriages, divorces, even death have been our lot. Climate change, hope and change, recession and recovery, making America great again which made it worse again. It's like a Billy Joel song, without the music.

I'm older but not wiser, sadder, yet strangely, happier. Certainly more content. Hopefully able to keep things in perspective, to know when to fight, when to give something up as a bad show, when to stop when I'm ahead. Hopefully able to appreciate this fleeting life and its countless privileges, and hopefully able to embrace opportunities and adventures.

Today is the last class of the semester. Somehow, I survived (I mean, really, there was no somehow about it; it's not like I was actually going to not make it through)--at the expense of my social life, perhaps, but I'm enough of a natural hermit to put that shit on hold for a while. But three jobs simply require too much of my mental resources; it's difficult to devote all of my mental energy to one particular job at a time, to say nothing of the other facets of my life. It's not fair to anyone, so at the end of this semester, I'm indefinitely giving up teaching. I'm no longer in the first flush of youth, but I ain't old, either, and it doesn't make sense to me to keep plugging away, working so much, when there are places to go, people to meet, things to create, lessons to learn, winters to wallow in.

Now, December, for a moment.  But not forever.

Remember September

September has drawn to a close. It was a bright, blessed kind of month, which honestly, surprises me a little. I honestly didn't expect to have the time to enjoy myself much. But somehow, I contrived to wrest a little delight from my crowded days and nights.

This was my first full month of teaching my class over at the university. Once more, I am co-teaching with another instructor, which is a life-saver. I don't think I'd be able to do it on my own. It's still a lot of work, but now that I am not totally new to instructing any more, I find I am more comfortable, and slightly less intimidated, which means I can learn stuff, now, too. And weirdly, I rather enjoy my quiet evenings in my office, my head bent over the articles and readings.

My primary work continues to be challenging, but in the best way possible. Right now I am responsible for a unit of 40 people, without immediate supervision. Of course that means far more work than I can do in the 37.5 hours per week that I can do the work in, but even that is an opportunity to hone my prioritizing skills and my willingness to delegate. And that's the important lesson that I learned this month: sometimes it's essential to ask for help, because if you don't, you won't be able to provide the best support to the people who depend on you. All along, folks have been offering to assist me during this transitory time, and at first, I didn't want to accept. I felt like if I accepted help, or delegated, I was shirking my own work; that I was admitting that I couldn't do it all and that I was weak. Finally, however, I accepted, and whether it was that a psychological burden fell off my shoulders as soon as I asked for help, or that the help was substantial (I suspect both), I almost immediately noticed an improvement in my ability to catch up, then keep up. Ask for help, folks: we will all be the better for it. And guess what? Most people want to help others, myself included.

I've had a little bit of an opportunity to enjoy myself, in one of the most simple yet lovely ways possible. We had a lot of ridiculously warm, sunny days in September, but also, some fall teaser days. And on September 22, the first day of fall...it actually behaved like fall. And since then, we've had some bright, beautiful, almost-warm days; some breezy evenings; some misty mornings.

It's the easiest thing in the world for me to pause in the middle of whatever I'm doing--rushing out the apartment to work in the morning, trundling along Kirkwood at lunch time, laying in bed late at night--and just remember: even though I don't currently have time to do all the things I want to, I am still living my dream.

I even managed to spend some time with friends this month. On one memorable Sunday evening, my friend Jessica came down from Indy and we gorged ourselves on an obscene amount of sushi, and then spent the rest of the evening lolling about on couches, agreeing that we had no regrets. (Still don't. In fact, sashimi sounds really good right now.)

And on a perfect fall Saturday, my colleague Erica and I headed out to Musgrave Orchards, and then Oliver Winery, for apples, and cider, and a picnic of cheese and more cheese.

It was a golden September, in a golden year. Let's hope October is similarly splendid.

The Year Is Slowing Down...But I'm Not!

It’s a warm, hazy day, one that straddles the cusp going into late August. Outside, the air is humid; the trees sway gently in an almost too-lazy-to bother breeze. The leaves on these trees are, for the most part, still lush and green and abundant. But like a weirdo playing Where’s Waldo, I keep my eyes peeled for the rarity: a yellowing leaf here, a rusty one there. Every now and then, one falls to the ground.

"The Poplars 1914" -T.C. Steele

We’ve still got another month before summer officially ends, but in my brain, which has been craving fall since our blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spring, summer officially came to an end yesterday.

Today the fall semester of college classes at IU begins, and once more, I am a college instructor.

Currently, I am sitting in the university library, listening to the ping and chime of the elevator and the chatter of students already hard at work (I’m impressed; it’s literally the first day of class); I’m killing time before I meet up with my fantastically British co-instructor. We’re going to grab a quick coffee and rev each other up (which will probably mean I work myself into an anxious tizzy while she gives me some side-eye and humors me with very calm advice) before our fall class starts.

I enjoy teaching, even though it’s a hell of a lot of work, and students can sometimes be harsh and unkind. And good lord, I am still very new to this. But my grandparents, along with from too many hours spent reading the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder, kind of instilled in me the need to do better, do more, improve, don’t quit. So here I am, once more. And now that I am in the library, surrounded by young people studying, immersing themselves in information and knowledge, I am glad I’m here.

The days are long, but the years are short. My Mondays in particular will be brutal this fall; I’ve got a lot keeping me busy. And while the minutes and hours of the next few months may drag, but the days and months themselves will fly by, and very soon I will find myself sitting at this very desk, and instead of looking out at some lush, verdant trees, I’ll be seeing bare branches, gray skies, perhaps even snow falling. The days are long, but the years are short. I’ll be exhausted, no doubt, and grateful for a slowing-down in pace, but probably reluctant, too, to relinquish this part of my life.

___________________________________________________________________________

It’s later; our first class is over. There are nine, plus myself and my co-instructor; we are a small group, enough to cluster around the long conference table. It feels more intimate and democratic than last semester, and I find myself looking forward to the months ahead, despite the hard work that lies in store for me. “I like keeping busy,” I tell people. “That way I don't have the time to make poor life choices."

The rain that was threatening earlier is still dithering, still trying to decide if it wants to do more than spit itself down at random intervals. I’m grateful for the clouds; it helps keep the heat at bay, and I can pretend, just a little, that fall is on it’s way.

When does fall start for you? Of course, there’s the autumnal equinox, at which point fall technically begins. But there’s that moment when fall appears for each of us individually, in our own heads and imaginations. For one of my friends, fall begins with the first football game of the season. For another friend, it’s when the air finally turns chilly. For retail establishments, I suppose it’s whenever they haul out their seasonally-appropriate merch. For myself, it’s when school starts, when the kids trot back to school. Perhaps it’s because I dislike summer so much, I will mentally end it as soon as I can, seize upon whatever will terminate that wretched season.

There’s another way that I can tell that fall is here, or at least fast approaching--something that I noticed, even during my season-starved childhood in Florida and exile in California. In early September, the light changes. The sunlight may still be warm, but something about its quality changes. It’s more gentle, and the slant of it is different, particularly in the afternoon and evening. It becomes benevolent, even a bit calming, and seems to say, “The year is slowing down. So should you.”

Not sure that that’s an option for me, but doesn’t mean that I won’t lift my face up and soak up that lovely autumnal glow, once it starts. In the meantime, I reckon I can go to a local retail establishment and pretend it’s fall there. (Spoiler alert: I may have already done so.)

Being Green

Today at work, when I was buried ass to eyeballs in files and notes and paperwork (with nary a book in sight), a random realization came to me: fourteen years ago today, I came to Bloomington, Indiana for the first time as an adult.

That's a rather silly sort of anniversary, isn't it? 14 years. Not that it's a decade or 25 years or anything like that; not it's not that I moved to Bloomington just then; not even that it was my first time in Bloomington. But for whatever reason, this happy little anniversary stands out to me.

It was a whirlwind trip, that trip--I flew in early on a Friday morning, giddy from a lack of sleep, and was back in Florida by Sunday night. But oh, I packed so much into those few days--I explored, I secured housing for myself, I wished graduating students well as they posed with their parents for pictures in front of the Sample Gates, I met a fellow that I would soon fall madly in love with; I listened to Irish music at a co-op cafe, I got re-acquainted with my uncle and his girlfriend; I met up with some Internet acquaintances for an early-evening picnic in an enchanting park, and together we tortured a Peep and a Peter Pan doll.

And I saw spring. A real, proper spring, with green everywhere. Sure, I knew green--the dusky, darker green of the palms and pines and scrubby brush of Florida. But this was a green that I had never encountered...a vivid, lush, almost painfully bright green. It was a green that seemed to flaunt itself, like it knew that it was in the rudest of health, and it was boasting of it. Oh, it was green.

But nothing was as green as I was.

Fourteen years later...My uncle's girlfriend is now my aunt. Those students that I wished well are now 14 years older, and while I never learned their names or even the first thing about them, other than they had proud parents, I still think of them and hope their parents are still proud, and that they remember their university years with joy. The fellow that I met and fell madly in love with...well, ours is a goofy sort of story, but we are still characters in each other's tale. The little co-op cafe is no more, and most of the folks I met for the picnic have moved on to different places, different partners. That enchanting park is still there, is a place I drive past all the time, is a place I still love to go.
And me? What of me?

I wanted different things then-- my vision was a bit more limited, I think. I wanted to do well in grad school, make good grades; marriage and family and career and everything Beyond Grad School were just abstracts. Research papers and projects and stultifying reading assignments loomed large, and I don't think I saw much past that. If the me of fourteen years ago met the me of now, I think we would--at best--cordially dislike each other. The battles that mattered to me at 24, I quite often can't be bothered to give a damn about at 37. Weirdly, I want more from life and expect more from myself now than I did fourteen years ago, but I'm a happier person, all the same.

Who's to say that happiness will last? Green springs swell with life and hope...and give way to fruit and death and fallow times, and god knows I've seen plenty of those in the fourteen years that have lapsed. There will be more fruitless and fallow times ahead in my life--hell, I just exited one--and perhaps in another fourteen years, I will look back on this green-and-gold spring evening and shake my head over who I am now.

"Get out of your own head," Older Indy Grrl might say, "Get off your ass and sit outside in this gentle twilight you're writing about and see the spring beauty while you can."

And yet here I am, still typing.

Maybe I'm not so different than I was, after all.

But I'm kind of curious about what happened to that Peter Pan doll.

Season Snapshot: March 2018

I've survived another winter here in the Heartland! Yesterday was the first day of spring--although, Indiana being Indiana, you wouldn't have known it. By the time I headed home from work yesterday, the snow was falling in earnest, and the traffic was creeping along. Half an hour later, when I got home, I paused to drool over this gorgeous moment:

Spring, schming.

It'll happen soon enough. In the meantime, the only thing for it was to do my chores, hunker down, light a candle, drink some wine, and relish the hygge moment. (Yup, I'm one of those people. I loves me some hygge.)

Finally, a cozy home of my own. God help the poor fool who ever tries to talk me out of this lovely life I've been given. 

Chasing my Happy: The Winter Weirdness Edition

My happy isn't your happy, and that's okay. There's enough to go around.

In the early morning hours, I reluctantly slipped out from underneath my covers--disturbing the furry feline fuckers in the process--and padded over to my window. Was I seeing snow? It was hard to say for certain; darkness still enveloped everything, and my bleary eyes weren't aided by glasses. And really, what did it matter? If it was, in fact, snowing, well, chances were I'd have plenty more opportunities to see it. So I padded back to my toasty bed and burrowed back underneath the covers, and the furry feline fuckers quickly forgave me.

When I woke up for good, a couple of hours later, I quickly realized something pretty darned cool (heh, literally):

It's November 1, and here in the hoosiery hills of Southern Indiana, we've had our first snowfall of the season.

It didn't last, of course. But what did last was the wet, gloomy, cold weather that brought us the snow to begin with. All day, the temperature has hovered in the low forties, and there's been absolutely no sun. If I'm being honest, I'll admit that I've been vaguely cold, all day. And it doesn't bug me, not in the slightest. In fact, I am relishing that warm feeling that I'll finally chase down to earth later this evening, when I am in bed once again, and the furry feline fuckers are trying to get as close to me as possible. I've learned that when you achieve a penetrating warmth after a prolonged chill, it's a beautiful, almost sensual thing, an incredible feeling.

I might not always feel like this. Maybe some day, I will resent this place and dread the winters as I once resented California and dreaded...well, all the seasons. But right now, I am just happy to be happy with these cold, grey mornings and evenings, these bare trees, these empty, hollow nights. Even looking up at the picture above, at that grey sky over the rooftops, makes me happy. And not in a "gloom and death and badness and everyone is miserable!" sort of way, but in a "I love the sight of that grey sky and all the cozy homes and people tucked safe away" sort of way. 

Not any one thing is going to make everyone happy. And my way of happiness seems to be distinctly different from most other folks. Folks don't need to get why this cold, empty, gloomy weather makes me happy (which is good, since I don't get why, myself); it's enough that I knew enough to chase that happiness, and that it brought me here. And that I didn't get any frostbite in the process.

...Ready for it

Today, I've been a bit confused.

The calendar says it's Halloween. So too do the dishes of candy and chocolates, scattered about work, and all of the wee buggers, trotting about in their various costumes. But when I step outside, what I think is, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

As much as I love this place, I can't deny the fact that most of my life has been spent in warm climates. 19 years in Florida, most Halloweens being gross and humid. 9 years in California, most Halloweens being toasty and "oh it's a dry heat" and still feeling like hell. So when I step outside on Halloween morn, and see that my windshield is coated in a layer of ice, and realize that my long wool coat might not be enough to withstand the morning's chill...I'm a little con-fuddled. My body, my personal history, they tell me it's Christmas, even though my life now tells me, "Happy Halloweenie!"

(It's also worth mentioning that we are forecasted to get a wintry mix of precipitation late tonight. YAAAAAAAAAS.)

What I've noticed is that October tends to be a pretty busy time for me--even without the job and two side-hustles I've got going on right now. I'd love to say that I read a dozen books and cooked some amazing meals and crafted some lovely creations and so on, but that's just not the case. I do my work--buying media (we are at the end of the spending cycle), teaching my class, doing a bit of caregiving for my former boss. I socialize with my aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Indiana and their son, and a few other friends. I pursue some fall adventures, like watching scary movies and frolicking in a picked-over orchard. I scold the cats and watch "The West Wing" and think about simpler presidencies, and I try to enjoy the fall as it creeps in.

I attend an utterly magical play with my D'uncle, and remember the line, "It's supposed to hurt...that's how you know it meant something."

I laugh with my friends, and try to focus on the day at hand, and not look back too much on past Octobers, or worry too much about Octobers ahead. I love the thought of homes, cozy and welcoming in the darkening nights; I turn my collar up and face the cold. Some folks believe that Halloween is the witch's New Year, and while I haven't been witchy-poo enough in a long time to adhere to that, a very big part of me hopes that this Halloween is a new year, and that the various shit--physical sickness, political insanity, personal betrayals and disappointments--that have sprung up since last October are now drawing to their close. We will see.

But I gotta admit...I'm ready for it.

Now that the holidays have passed, now that the hope and excitement of the new year have slipped away and we've all returned to work and school and our humdrum duties, how is 2017 progressing for us all?

Here's what I know: when you don't make a lot of goals and promises and resolutions to yourself, you don't really end up being too disappointed. So that's a thing. I've not been more disappointed in myself than I usually am. And in fact, I've so far kept to two of the promises I made to myself--I'm holding firm to "Dryuary", wherein I eliminate alcohol from my diet to see if it makes a difference to my health (it hasn't), and I'm faithfully using my Estee Lauder Anti-Aging Kit to see if it reverses the effects of aging. (It doesn't). It DOES, however, give me pimples.

This is the dark of winter, that long, lonely stretch of time that lapses between the joyful excesses of Yuletide and the hopeful, almost obscene fecundity of spring. This is when we retreat indoors and hide from the cold that stings and bites at our digits and extremities; when we look up, hopefully, at the sky, only to see more lowering clouds. I don't mind this time year, myself. I rather like the painful cold that drives us indoors, where all can be cozy. And all is cozy, really, at the moment. I don't have the company of a partner to assure me that I am safe, and cared for, and loved. But I do have a roof over my head, and a blanket draped over my lap, and a cat nearby (and another one lurking), and a pile of books, and music I can listen to, and candles I can burn.

What better thing to do during the dark of winter, than to shut ourselves away into our homes? With that as my guiding thought, I am happy to comply with this expectation. I'm restless, and starting to think about my future, and the expectations that I want to create for myself, but for this dark time, I hide. I think. I imagine. I ponder. I wait for freedom, for an idea of what comes next. And I await the spring, and perhaps a rebirth, while loving this cold winter, and my period of rest.

October Road Trip #1

It's been a busy autumn, so far. Not as chilly or gloomy as I would like, but hey, at least it's not ball-drippingly hot outside. A vast improvement from That Place.

The other day, I talked a couple of friends into doing a road trip. This is one of my favorite things to do now that I am back home--drive out to maybe one place that I want to see, and take my time getting to and from there, and just being open to seeing whatever beauty and quirky thing I might happen upon in the meantime.

Brian and Ryder were my partners in crime for this particular jaunt. They are good fellas, capable of intelligent conversation and not being total douche-kebabs, and they are willing to humor me when I wax enthusiastic about the unparalleled beauty of Hoosierland. Brian in particular is a helpful sort of person, as he travels through the countryside for his job, and can direct us to interesting little hidden places like this gem:

We eventually got to where we were planning to go...

There are a lot of places throughout Indiana that offer various fall-themed shenanigans. Since this was a rather hastily-planned outing, we settled on Chandler's Farm. First, we hopped aboard a rather muddy tractor, which hauled us out to a rather more muddy field, and we selected our punkins. (I should disclose: I've yet to do anything with this punkin. I fully expect it to sit on my front porch for the next month, in its original punkin state, until the neighbors complain.) Then on to the corn maze!

I've never been in a corn maze, so this was of course high on my Indiana bucket list. It was about as hokey as I expected it to be, yet still fun. That's what I've been learning about, in most of my junkets and jaunts around the state: it's all about the company you keep. 

(Angel, one of the dogs at the orchard, was not too impressed with the company he kept.)

After spending far too much time and money in the general store, we continued on our meandering road trip. And we really did meander. The early clouds and mist cleared up and gave way to a golden afternoon, and we detoured through Morgan Monroe State Forest for a bit. 

I have no idea how old these trees are. I'm sure they have not been here since when my own ancestors came through these parts, but I do like to think of them seeing these same kinds of scenes of these lands.

And although I love these journeys around the state, sometimes, the best sights are ones very close to home, as we were reminded as we were approached home that evening:

I've seen plenty of deer in our neighborhood, and Slumlord refers to them as pests, nuisances, rodents with long legs, but I never get tired of seeing the deer. And this was the first time I saw a buck! I've not yet gotten tired of seeing these magnificent creatures.