Amid much angst, nail-biting and throwing off better dietary angels, I took a few weeks away from my writing work (save perfunctory tasks) and sorely feel the hiatus. A blog post may connect some dots of insight. I miss heading down to the little cabin, lighting the Little Buddy propane heater, to return when it’s cozy. I miss the sense of joy and peace I derive within the four pine walls. I miss the ineffable Flow, the Zone, the trance of being so caught up in telling my tale that all sense of time and concern evaporates. I miss my characters (along with proper flesh and blood varieties). I say (glibly) that the writing saves my life, borrowing the sentiment from fellow Wyomingite Craig Johnson of Longmire fame. I don’t wish to appear “precious” about it, but there you are.

Enough pep talk. Does it sound false? Will truth indeed set us free, and will it arrive soon enough? Especially for the child refugees in detention. Of all the damnable obscenities perpetrated by this sitting head of state, to me, this is the worst. . . An October 21, 2020 New York Times story cites the deported parents of 545 incarcerated children have not been located. An ominous thundercloud hangs overhead.

A maelstrom of discouragement, sadness, loneliness, disappointment and fury swirls in my head. A synesthesia. I draw no facile comparison, but how long before we’ll be able to enjoy our grandchildren and children once again? I complain too much, given those who have lost loved ones, jobs and homes to the virus, to fires, to misfortune. Those in nursing homes are especially vulnerable to both the virus, and the confusion surrounding it. A matter of degree, I suspect. Everyone dreads their critical breaking point, where “I just can’t take it anymore!” burgeons from the subconscious. A good cry can relieve our emotions, if not our circumstances.

One night this week, about 2:30 in the morning, I permitted, even coaxed, a bubble of repressed emotion to rise in my gorge and I allowed the tears to flow. Dear Reader, it helped. Weep, cry, stamp your feet, pitch a fit–as Mom used to call it–and then weep some more. I’ll let you know if and when I am tempted to break dishes. (Not yet! not yet!)

A medieval “alternative fact” perches on my shoulder like an abused bat: the tempter-demon introduced in Catholic grade school, the “angel-on-my-right, devil-on-my-left” concept. No mention of metaphor. No psychological analogies. No elementary treatise on maladaptive behaviors or coping mechanisms. Plain old fear tactic 101. A version is employed by mothers the world over to frighten children away from a rushing riverside. La Llorona is a mother who has lost her children. She haunts shores, looking for those who might “do.” The clear light of day generally disperses any and all such notions, but the analogy begs a look.

Consider the end of the film, Saving Private Ryan (spoiler alert), when Tom Hank’s dying character tells the boy, “Earn this,” meaning, the deaths of those answering the call to help find the soldier. Earn it: Live a gracious life. Loosely based on a family’s loss of three brothers during WWII, a fourth brother, Fritz Niland, was plucked from combat by the Army’s “sole survivor” policy. Fictionalizing an incident, as novelists may, affords an opportunity to relate over-arching truths and poignancy.  Poetic Justice. It remains the bedrock attraction of literature, and a means to teach and to form conscience and consciousness. Great tales do this (whether we realize it or not). We stand at the Earn this! moment of the 21st century. The deaths of over 220,000 Americans, and over a million Earthlings worldwide, require our due diligence, and, our unmitigated attention. . .

Some of us self-medicate against the existential affronts bombarding our conscience and sensibilities. Others find satisfaction in working on creative pursuits. Some double-down on child-raising-and-educating efforts. Others live on social media networks. Some throw their heart and soul into improving the lives of those others, by serving and protecting in various capacities. Finally, many let go of their precious lives. “Enough, and Adios.” We owe a debt of gratitude far beyond a capacity to fill it, and this informs, and confirms, our humanity. Our reach must exceed our grasp, as they say.

With this post, I declare my independence from most social network sites, owing to the amount of time and energy related to their use and influence. Fundamentally a matter of physics, the personal cost is too dear. I understand it is precisely our fragile agency that is at stake. Each of us is a “product,” whose attention is to be mined and cultivated, according to producers and writers of The Social Dilemma documentary. (See Netflix.) My Gmail and WordPress accounts will have to suffice as tools to communicate online about my books. Must needs, as the Brits say. I was simply never that extroverted, but I am fine (if you wonder).  Carry on, we must, despite the obstacles. Do what brings you joy, I hear. Figure it out. Meanwhile. . . breathe deeply and, “Look for silver linings!” as friend Gundel counsels.

Ahh, silver linings. . . I looked up the idiom. I read John Milton likely coined the phrase in the 1600s with his quote, “Was I deceived or did a sable cloud turn forth her silver lining on the night?” Further meaning: bright side: Wikipedia calls this “a metaphor for optimism . . . a negative occurrence may have a positive aspect to it.” I imagine a sleek sable on her back, offering her long belly to be scratched, with Eric Idle’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” playing in the background.

Our daughter will occasionally speak of grace with a surprising candor and capacity for sense perception. She exudes a quality of the word, depending on one’s definition. Here I’m thinking of its roots in gratitude. Before sleep, a gracious and useful exercise would have us identify “three nice or encouraging things” that happened to us that day. Grace of gratitude naturally follows, and the exercise prompts inklings of further serendipities. Seek and ye shall find. Merci to French author Raphaelle Giordano for her novel about seeking happiness, Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Have Only One. Pithy title.

Our better angels beseech us.