Peace in the Continued Sort of Chaos

While things are much calmer than they were a year ago, we are still processing much change around us. And the grief of the life and ways that are no longer part of our routines. There have been many losses, not just deaths, but in the way we do things and, for some people, the loss of relationships with people who have chosen different routes.

We don’t grieve overnight, get up the next morning, and forget what once was. Grief is a process and it’s a journey. Some people are afraid to venture out after so much time alone or without having the responsibility to leave home. Other people are still afraid of what virus lurks among us.

We have all lost something, many things. While not to the virus, I’ve had quite a few deaths of people in the outside orbit of my life. My sense of time has changed in a way I can’t explain– for some reason it feels like the days are spinning faster. I even said to Greg yesterday, “How did an hour go by?” when I realized the tomatillos I was roasting in the oven had been in there an hour already.

But we all also have had the opportunity to find peace within ourselves. Our days are never perfect commercials on television where everyone is happy and having a great time. There is alway a bumble, a hiccup, and usually a person causing havoc.

One thing we should be taking away from this pandemic experience is how to find peace inside ourselves. Have you done that? We can’t control the outside world but we can control our reactions to it. Some people remain reactive to it, others have learned to step away from the world (or just their phone which in many ways can be one in the same).

I’m finding I don’t want to be on my phone, not because of the chaos of the world, but because it keeps me from being more creative. I want to write, to sew, to paint, to draw. I don’t need to keep looking things up, checking the newsfeed. It all will be there later when I’m ready to share what I’ve created.

This morning there was a road runner on my front porch ledge, definitely a reminder of the peaceful pace as he stood and looked around, not in a hurry to go anywhere. Instead, he stood and surveyed the scene as if to stop and smell the roses.

My Own Genre

When I have been looking for a publisher and an agent, it’s been a challenge to say what genre my books fit because as my writing has evolved, my work doesn’t fit into one space.

I have a friend who said she didn’t read The Green Dress because, “I saw it was a romance and put it down.” Well, Green Dress wasn’t a romance nor is That Cooking Girl or anything else that’s going to come after it. When I think of romance, my mom’s cabinet filled of Harlequins comes to mind and I could only stomach a few of those and never read them again (although I would love to find a few for Chelle Summer photos…).

I really struggle to find fiction that I like, often resorting to my first love of biography and autobiography. I often find myself not identifying with main characters– the same problem I have with many television shows and movies– because of their, well, stupidity. I get tired of the bad decisions. People say it makes them feel like they can relate to a character, but I have tried to write characters who make bad decisions and I find it so hard to empathize with them that it comes out…wrong. That also means that my writing doesn’t fit neatly into one box which also makes it hard for me to find writing that enjoy. And so I keep writing.

I’m not saying my characters– or me– or perfect. I’m also not saying that my character and I have picked the perfect relationships (speaking of my past– not life with Greg!), but I see relationships as secondary to the stories in my books. Yes, the relationships are important because they make life and reading more interesting. However, I don’t see my stories that way.

I prefer to write about women who are trying to go forward, to make the best decisions, and trying not to stand in the way of their own happiness and success.

That Cooking Girl was never meant to be more than a fun story (charming, someone told me just the other day) to be enjoyed and also as maybe inspiration for someone who has people rooting her (or him on) in this game of life.

The point of the book was that Megan is on the brink of success in her life and it’s about how she lets the past and her own fears go to enjoy the excitement of all that’s ahead.

After all, isn’t that what any of us want?

The Big Move

After an extremely hot July here in New Mexico, the mornings have cooled into the lower sixties. It's one sign that fall is around the corner. But in August I also see the days getting shorter as darkness keeps with us later in the morning and just a general feel that it's time for school to start as the shadows change.

But I am always reminded of August in Albuquerque because twenty-two years ago this week I moved here as a twenty-two-year-old college graduate heading off to graduate school at the University of New Mexico.

New Mexico was not a place familiar to me much more than my uncle's brother lived here. I didn't intend to stay so much as I saw it a stop on my journey, hoping to continue to head west to Los Angeles, the place where I'd wanted to live since I was thirteen.

Yet twenty- two years later, with a year and a half hiatus where I moved back to Illinois, here I am.

And here I intend to stay. With time spent in Los Angeles, of course.

I know that it was hard for my parents to leave me here, and a Uhaul filled with my belongings as well as many useful items from my grandmother's house because she had died less than a year before (to this day I have more Pyrex glass dishes than Target). My move was only eighteen months after my younger sister's death and it would have been easier for everyone if I had stayed closer to home. But my parents knew I wasn't going to be the kid who stayed close to home. 

While I did try to move back for a time, I realized that I might be a Midwesterner by blood, but I'm much happier here in the Southwest. It seems to fit me better (the vast amounts of sunshine help). A priest I knew back at Ball State said, after I had come back to New Mexico for the second time, "I don't know why you left. You spent almost your entire adult life there."

I came in New Mexico as a twenty-two year old and it has influenced much of who I have become right down to my cooking. 

I won't leave but I also don't forget the journey here.