The Cruel Prince

 Sometimes I don’t know who I am if I’m not pushing. I met with my doctor and she said I need to eat more and ease up on my self-improvement projects. I went straight from her office to Steak and Shake and got a Frisco Melt, cheesy fries and a sweet tea. It was delicious. Not long after I went to Barnes and Noble where I bought The Inner Work of Age realized I was doing it again only differently, so I added The Cruel Prince to my pile. I’ve been researching Book Tube, ok, mostly watching Ariel Bissett. I’m thinking of starting a Book Tube channel about my Crowhook project. In the meantime a lot of chatty people had The Cruel Prince on their shelves, and since these people make reading their special project it would augur that the book was good.

And it was! The world is well-imagined and fun once you are adjusted to Jude’s well-earned PTSD. You cared about the characters whether you loved or hated them you took the energy to care. The plot was great and she handled the murky depths of the main romance with no let up of tension even on the last page, and yet you were satisfied. Money well spent. I might need The Wicked King.

Baby’s

 

Heart-broken Below

Bawling Bellow

Only Be low

Riven Blow

Setting My Clock

“Redeeming the time because the days are evil.” I believe I was asked to memorize that verse three times as a kid. I liked it because it was straightforward and easy to remember. I also have a deep-seated instinct to fill in nooks and crannies of all kinds, and this verse is an open invitation to do what I love. I wish I would have understood that way back when.

I had the great honor to have been born a woman. I’ve always loved my gender even though it meant a lot of doors were closed for me, closed so firmly they didn’t seem to exist. Doors of leadership, doors to professional work, doors to achievement, were all if not outright denied were hidden, buried under rhetoric and dogma. Every day I make new discoveries about how wrong that ancient way of thinking is and also how much I can truly do. My given agenda, anchored in the house with my children is giving way to my inner longings that have been so long denied. As they grow up and leave me this life I couldn’t have is becoming possible. I suppose it was always possible, but it didn’t seem that way to me.

Thanks to Haruki Murakami I have learned to respect my work and the time it takes. I’m meeting goals as a novelist and as the creator of curriculum. My mindset that those pursuits were for my “spare time” is flipping as the time in my office is becoming my true work. No, I’m not getting up at five, but I am using time to meet my agenda, and that’s a new gift. Around it are coming other priorities that were squelched by someone else who didn’t know or understand me. Saturday is for odds and ends work. Sunday is for rest. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’d like to go to church more. I need a day where pizza is guaranteed. The discoveries are numerous and fun.
 

Echoing in the Rain

 

One evening in my childhood, it was time to get out of the wading pool and go in. Unexpectedly a summer rain started and since there was no lightning Dad said we could stay out until the rain stopped. The rain went on and on forever and we made up all kinds of new games you could only play in the rain. It is still one of the top twenty experiences of my life. I was so happy to be wet.

Of course the next rainstorm there was lightning (I did remind them that per Maryland code our house had a lightning rod and that we were much shorter than the house so we would be safe) Dad was taking no chances. The next time it was too cold, and the time after that I was too old, so they said. I determined that when it was raining in the summer when I was an adult I would be out in it, and then I grew up and got busy.

This summer I was ready for a determined effort. My first chance I underestimated how hard it is to walk in the rain with all that water in your eyes, so I gave up. This time I was ready. I had my umbrella in my fitness bag (yes, I have a bag for everything) and I’d checked the forecast. Exercise clothes replaced my suit. I went out and it was glorious, short, but glorious.

As I stepped out I made contact with that little girl, and I’m determined to do so more often. A lot of stupid stuff has kept me in the house, when I’d rather be out in the rain. It’s weird, but so am I.

In a Time of Crisis

 Sometimes you just have to simplify, particularly in times of great stress. Now, is a time of distress for our planet. It is time to simplify things. At the moment I’m thinking about plastic. We do not need so many different formulations. If we restricted our plastic use to certain types of easily recycled plastic we could focus our efforts to improving our recycling process and making these simpler processes more widely available. 

I know that restricting anything means that some plastic users will struggle to create packaging in this limited format. Obviously we would make medical plastic anyway they like, but containers for dish soap, water bottles and take out boxes can adapt. It would probably need to start as a voluntary pledge led by a group that is capable of choosing the four or five formulations of plastic that are most used and most easily recycled. Having limited our choices we could then get good at recycling plastic, allowing smaller communities to participate in plastic recycling efforts. 

Just thinking.