Tag: writing

January 25, 2026

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The last thing I knew, it was the middle of November and now suddenly it’s almost February. This busy season blindsided me. And it’s not over, I’m just lucky enough to have a little break. I’m pretty sure the angels arranged this to prevent me from losing my mind which is not entirely off the table and would be a real shame.

Eighteen years ago today on a very hot and windy afternoon in Tamarindo, I married Pio. And we lived mostly happily ever after until, in fact, death did us part. Many things did not go the way we imagined them that day, especially the fact that we only had 9 years. The great thing about learning from your experiences is that you can keep learning from them even after they are over, for as long as you remember them. In that way, we still have a very present relationship and I am still learning from him, being formed by the fact that he was present with me for a time.

Today I am sitting on a rocking chair on the front porch of a mountain cabin. My sister came to visit me at the most dreadfully busy time of year and by some miracle we had a few free days from the mad catering schedule. So she whisked me away to the mountains where I can read a little, write a little, sleep, breathe, sit and stare at the sky. That sitting and staring at the sky part is so good for me.

Blessed are those who live in places or have jobs that provide a steady stream of income all year long. For they can choose to have reasonable schedules if that is important to them, and lives that retain some kind of balance. A little bit less blessed are those who depend on seasonal tourism and know what balance is when they see it but don’t get to experience it personally. If I had a nickel for every time I say to myself, “Suck it up. It’s high season,” I would probably save enough to make it through the low season. No mercy.

And there’s the house. How do you like that? I can now call it “the house” and not just “the lot.” Because there is a “house” on it–the beginnings of one. You can hire builders who will charge you a fee and present you with your house, or you can do what I did: hire a builder for a smaller fee and source all the materials yourself. Advantage: you choose everything down to the last nail. Disadvantage: you have another job. One that is extremely important no matter how much time you do not have for it.

It’s all good. So very very very many blessings all at once. So many things to remember. So many things to coordinate, and only one car. Only two hands and one mind to do all of this with. Only 24 hours in each day and some of them have to be spent sleeping. So many reasons to feel happy and lucky. In between the absolute exhaustion and constant bass note of the terror of having forgotten something extremely important and probably obvious. All the blessings. Simultaneously.

The biggest blessing right now is this pause. To step out of all of that (oh and I forgot to say it’s also so very very hot) and come up here to the cool mountain with the hot springs and rest for a moment. It’s the eye of the hurricane, but how lucky I am to have it pass directly over me.

November 15, 2025 (55)

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And then one day you wake up and it’s your 55th birthday.  Which amuses you because that’s an awfully big number and doesn’t really feel like it belongs to you.  Although, clearly, it does.  If you think about your stories, you have to admit you can’t collect this many of them in 25 years or 30.

Your cats are somewhere on the periphery taking naps and the sun is burning off the dawn fog.  Your significant other is off serving breakfast to tourists—something you refuse to do—in your favorite beach town about 20 minutes away.  You’ll make the coffee cake and the gallo pinto for them, but no one is taking away your mornings.  They belong to you. 

You can make statements like that, stuff your hands in your pockets, and refuse to budge if you want when you’re 55.  Nice.

You feel an ache in your heart, though, because your husband was 55 when he suddenly got cancer and died.  You aren’t worried about repeating that yourself, but you are aware of the juxtaposition between how he felt on his 55th birthday (perpetually exhausted) and how you feel on yours (tired from last night’s big catering job).  You miss him.  You can’t believe how you have learned to live without him, but you had to.  It was the best/only choice.

You don’t have any plans for today other than cooking up more coffee cake and gallo pinto for the breakfasts in the coming days, and you hope you finally sit down and write the blog post you‘ve been meaning to write.  You hope you think of something to say.  And as the temporada alta is unleashing over Guanacaste, you have emails to answer and accounting to do at your desk no matter who’s birthday it is.

They’re going to break ground for your house on Wednesday, si dios quiere.  And you really hope s/he does.   You are trying not to think about it because if you think about it, you might get too excited to sleep.  And you need your sleep.  You HAVE to be lucid and well-organized to keep your catering business going while building your house, both of which are happening in opposite directions of your physical location, which is in the middle of nowhere and you only have one car.  No pressure.  But you have to spend the night sleeping, not wondering (like you did the night before last) where the workers are going to go to the bathroom. 

So this is the year.  You are going to have your very own house on your very own lot, with your very own cats and your very own trees and your very own jasmine bushes.   You never minded renting and have always loved moving, but for whatever reason, you suddenly felt possessed to do this instead.  And you try to follow the voice inside your heart as best you can.

In the kitchen, you can hear the sound of the cat food bowl bumping on the floor which means that big fat sapo who lives under the refrigerator is stealing the cat food, and let’s just say it’s not the cheap kind.  It’s time to get moving. And you are very hungry and need more coffee. You think that although by “the world’s” definition of success you are definitely a bit of a failure, you have, in fact, succeeded at what you care about.  And you love knowing that if the 10 or 25 or 35 year-old version of you could see you now, they would be so very proud.

Hard to Read/Impossible to Put Down

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Booksbywomen.org offered me the opportunity to write an article for the site about my experience of releasing “A Lucky Breath.” Following, is the article, and this is the link to it on the website: http://booksbywomen.org/hard-to-read-impossible-to-put-down-thoughts-on-the-release-of-a-lucky-breath/

This Forgotten Commodity

 A Lucky Breath is my third memoir.  It met the world in December of 2023 after having lived in my notebooks and my computers for over 20 years.  When a book exists with you for that long, it becomes a member of the family.   Its completion and “departure,” for as much as it is joyous, also unlocks nostalgia.  The house feels a little too quiet, afterward.  There is a sense of accomplishment and pride.  A delicious wave of relief.  An odd and unfamiliar sort of loneliness. 

A Lucky Breath wasn’t always kind to me in its journey from the universe to the page.  It grabbed me by the ear and dragged me, kicking and protesting, to the desk to work on it.  When I had time.  When I didn’t have time.  When I wanted to do nothing or do something else.  When I needed rest.  A Lucky Breath had a mind of its own from the beginning, and the months following its release have been an adjustment period for me.  I couldn’t wait to have such a demanding book finished and out of my hair, but now that it’s gone, I miss it.  I’ve found myself with this forgotten commodity called “free time.” 

Hard/Impossible

This memoir is not like the previous two that I published.  This one rattles my readers.  My first memoir, When the Roll is Called a Pyonder, shares my early childhood memories of growing up on a farm in a Mennonite community.  It’s charming, funny, sometimes poignant, and easy to identify with even if you didn’t grow up on a farm and are not a Mennonite.  The second memoir, Marry a Mennonite Boy and Make Pie, is a coming-of-age story, and deals with the struggles of beginning to make your way in the world.  It’s set in a ratty college apartment and, again, is funny, often poignant, and easy to identify with if you grew up to leave the first world that you knew. 

A Lucky Breath is a bittersweet memoir of a love affair with a village in Costa Rica and my doomed marriage to an abusive husband there.   It’s a divorce story.  There is very little to laugh at, and, unless you have also been frightened by your husband and found yourself nearly homeless, it does not give voice to your experiences.   I’ve been told it’s both hard to read and impossible to put down.

After the release of both When the Roll is Called a Pyonder and Marry a Mennonite Boy and Make Pie, delighted readers who are also friends, created Zoom chat groups with me to talk about the books, to share their feelings, and their experiences of growing up (first book) and leaving home (second book).  Let’s just say that this time nobody jumped up to put together a Zoom call about domestic violence, intercultural marriage challenges, or how we sometimes make the same mistake over and over.

I did, however, privately receive moving responses from readers who found themselves gripped by a tale they were not expecting.  Nobody wanted to call me up to talk, though.  We love to laugh together but we do not prefer to share our shame face to face.

Riveting and Important

“So, when is the next one coming out?”  This is what my readers have wanted to know.   As if the fact that I have something else riveting and important to say is a given.  I love that.  It terrifies me.  There’s nothing more fulfilling than hooked readers who want more.

I’m certain that I have something else riveting and important to say.   I wonder what it is.

All My Worlds

All of my stories are true.  The innocent Mennonite world of the first book, When the Roll is Called a Pyonder, all this time later, is still where I come from.  It’s still right where I left it, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  You can go visit it.  I can go visit it too, and I do.  I feel a deep compulsion to protect that world and the people in it from the world of A Lucky Breath.  They are all my worlds, but they do not overlap anywhere except inside this head, inside this body.  And so, as I have wished and attempted to promote A Lucky Breath and offer it the possibility of success that it deserves, I have also hidden it. 

This isn’t normal.  But it is real.  In this way, I am this book’s own worst enemy, and it is mine.  We’re working on our relationship.

Wise and Wonderful

In the stillness left by this book that has left the nest are the voices that urge me to continue.  “The Work.  You must do The Work,” they say.  “Come back to The Work.”  The Work is writing, my work.  The thing that, to live well and be happy in this world, I must do.  

I obey.  I’ve begun haphazardly working on another project.  I call it a “project” because, at present, it is a pile of mishmash, ideas, and many blanks.  I am collecting fragments, writing scenes, and drawing the bones that will give shape to this creature.  There will be plenty of time later to overthink everything—this is the time for the jumble of ideas and impressions that roll all over each other like puppies at play.  If I am brave, clever, and do not give up, something coherent may materialize though all this.    If my other books are any indication, this one may take me until I am 70 to finish, so it ought to be wise and wonderful.  

Champagne, anyone?

Cheers!

Purchase “A Lucky Breath” on Amazon or leave a review

Writing About Surfing

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A Picture of Wind

I wish I could write about surfing.  I love it so much.  It creates the shape of my life. 

It’s easy to talk about a surf session, a break, a particular wave, or a board with other surfers, but writing about surfing is very hard.  It’s like trying to paint a picture of wind or describe love.  There are things that, when you wrap them in a blanket of words, they stop being what they are.  I can describe to you a picture of surfing, but how can I tell you what surfing is like?  It is motion.  It is pain and delight and infinite patience.  It is “stop” perfectly braided with “go.”

Can you tell me how to ride a bicycle?  Explain it to me.  What you say will not at all describe the actual experience of riding.  It is a thing you know in your body, not in your mind.

Heavenly Bodies

Surfing begins in the sky, with heavenly bodies—the sun, the moon, maybe even the stars.  The gravitational forces of the sun and the moon pull on Earth’s water, making bulges the planet spins through.  And then there are the storms.  Warm and cold air swirl in the sky.  Storms form over the ocean and, like kiddos jumping on the bed, cause the surface to bounce up and down.   These disturbances travel over thousands of miles of open ocean exactly the same way ripples radiate outward from the point a pebble tossed hits the water.  They arrive at the coast as sets of waves.

We wait for them.  It’s all very predictable.

A multitude of variables are constantly changing.

The Conditions

There’s not much to say when you write or talk about surfing except to describe the conditions.  The swell direction—as in where the storm was.  The size of the swell.  The wind direction.  The speed of the waves.   The time of day.  The water temperature.  The length of time between sets.  The height of the tide.  Whether the tide is rising or dropping.  The currents.  The number of people in the water.  Any time one of the variables changes, the entire experience changes. 

All of the variables are constantly changing.

You must pay attention.

Lessons

These are the lessons of surfing:  Wait.  Pay attention.   Commit.   Release fear.

Surfing Is Waiting

Most of surfing is waiting.  You wait days or weeks for a swell to come across the ocean.  You wait hours or days for the tide to come in or to go out.  You hope and wait for the wind to switch, stop, or start.  Right there we’ve whittled a lifetime into a few hours each week. 

You paddle out into the ocean and wait.  Wait for the set of waves.  Wait for a good one.  Wait for the best one.  Wait, if someone else positioned closer to the peak than you are.  Paddle.  Stay in position.  Wait.  It doesn’t make the most exciting photos.  Exciting photos are misleading.  Most of surfing isn’t standing on a surfboard.  Most of surfing is waiting, paddling, being ready, feeding brave thoughts to your heart.  Exciting photos are monuments to the best seconds.  

At Any Second

When the time comes to turn, paddle, and stand, you must be very strong, very fast, and very brave.  You cannot hesitate or fear.  This is why surfing is a lifestyle—because you must always be ready either to wait or to give 100% at any second. 

Then the ocean’s conditions interact with your conditions:  What you’ve eaten.  What you’ve drank.  How much you’ve slept.  How often you’ve surfed lately.  How happy you are or how sad.  How angry.  How much you love yourself.  How relaxed you are.  How afraid.  Where your body holds pain.  How much energy you have left.  What board you are riding.  How focused you are.  How quick.  How strong.  How brave.

All of the variables are constantly changing.

You must pay attention.

The Soul

The wave isn’t water.   The wave is something else.  It’s a pulse of energy, large or small, that moves through the water.  Water itself lies flat.  Waves move through it and shake it the way you shake your towel to be sure there are no scorpions hiding there.  Water is an element.  Waves are live moments that move through it.  Water is the body; the wave is the soul. 

We interact with them intimately.

From a Verb to a Noun

Somehow, waves and particles are the same thing in quantum physics.   Separated unto itself, I cannot understand this statement.  But in the context of surfing, it’s what we know instinctively.  A wave is all of its moments.  The wave is the swell on the horizon that you sense in the back of your eye before you can see it.  It is the bulge in the water moving toward you, forming.  It is the push behind you.  It is the sudden slope you are diving into as you leap to your feet.  It is the myriad of instants that shape and disappear over/under/around you as you ride.  It is the boom of whitewater as the wave empties its last energy onto the sand bar, or the gentle fading into calm water as it ends.  It’s not one of those things; it’s all of them.  Any of them, separate from the others, is not the wave. 

Get a camera.  Take a photo.  The wave turns into a particle.  It stops being a motion and becomes an image; it switches from a verb to a noun.  Long before you look at the photo, the wave doesn’t exist anymore at all.

You must pay attention.

These are the lessons of surfing:  Wait.  Pay attention.   Commit.   Release fear.

One Thing/Homework

When you love surfing, it shapes your life.  And so you love your life.  

It all becomes one thing:  Surfing, living, love, the water, the motion of waves pushing through it, waiting, the work of paddling, the courage to engage a mountain of water, what you eat, when you sleep, the coffee brewing at dawn.   The magical moment when you release your coiled energy into a push, a leap, and moments of flight—this is the highlight.  But surfing is everything you do if you love it. 

Love is everything you do if surfing is your teacher and you have done your homework.

Very exciting photo by Leonardo Pinero, Tamarindo Costa Rica

Poems with Safe Places

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let there be poems
with safe places
poems with doors that close
with cats on the bed
shade tress and
sunday mornings when
no one is
outside

let there be poems with
pillows
curtains
clocks that move slowly
and rain clouds to
cover the
blinding sky

 

Poemas con Lugares Seguros

que existan poemas
con lugares seguros
poemas con puertas que se cierran
con gatos en la cama
con arboles que den sombra y
las mañanas de domingo cuando
no hay nadie
afuera

que existan poemas con
almohadas
cortinas
relojes que caminan lentamente
y nubes de lluvia 
para cubrir 
el cielo cegador

L’accento L’avrò Per Vita: Poesie in Italiano da CERTA COME IL POMERIGGIO

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Il sabato 9 novembre ho fatto una piccola presentazione del mio nuovo libro di poesia e ho letto 5 poesie primo in inglese, poi in italiano.  Il libro, CERTAIN AS AFTERNOON / CERTA COME IL POMERIGGIO e una raccolta di poesie sull’amore, la vita, e la morte.

Un mio amico ha fatto dei video della presentazione e oggi, qui, condivido con voi le 5 poesie lette in italiano. 

Non ridete. L’accento Americano l’avrò per vita.

 

1 di 5: Una poesia che descrive il mondo di “prima,” e finisce con un avvertimento

2 di 5: Sul momento in cui la malatia è scoperta

3 di 5: Una poesia che parla della morte e il primo momento (di momenti infiniti) di silenzio

4 di 5:  Contemplando cos’è che si deve fare quando hai gia fatto tutto quello che potevi fare

5 di 5: Una poesia riguardo i cenere, promesse, e il mare

Namaste

 

You Can Always Come for the Cookies / Videos from a Poetry Reading

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On Saturday, November 9 at Tamarindo’s one and only bookstore, I held a small launch party for and reading of my new poetry collection, CERTAIN AS AFTERNOON. I think I had realistic expectations regarding how much of a crowd a poetry book about death might draw, so I was pleasantly surprised by how many people showed up. Thirty is the number I heard: old friends, new friends, strangers, other widows.  I sold all the books I have.

I made a lot of cookies and bought some wine for the occasion. Even if you don’t love poetry (not the biggest draw in a surf town), you can always come for the cookies. I’m good with that.

A dear friend of mine videoed my presentation in short segments, which, today I am sharing with you. Following, is the introduction to CERTAIN AS AFTERNOON, and each of the 5 poems in English.

A neighbor who is also a poet made this comment to me after reading CERTAIN AS AFTERNOON:

“You say it’s a book about death, but it isn’t. It’s a book about life. You use shades of black to show us all the other colors.”

 

INTRO 1: HOW THE BOOK CAME TO BE, AND HOW IT CAME TO BE IN TWO LANGUAGES

INTRO 2:  WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK?

POEM 1 OF 5: A poem that paints a picture of “before” and ends with a warning

POEM 2 OF 5: About discovering sickness

POEM 3 OF 5: A poem about death and the first (of an infinate number) moment of silence

POEM 4 OF 5: On what you must do after you’ve done everything

POEM 5 OF 5: Later, contemplating ashes, the ocean, the idea of going home

Namaste

CERTAIN AS AFTERNOON / CERTA COME IL POMERIGGIO

Available Now: CERTAIN AS AFTERNOON / CERTA COME IL POMERIGGIO

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My new poetry collection, Certain as Afternoon, is now availble on Amazon.com, Amazon.it, Amazon.es, Amazon.whatever.

Mia nuova raccolta di poesie, Certa Come il Pomeriggio. è ora disponibile per ordinare su Amazon.com, Amazon.it, Amazon.es, Amazon.tutto.

I love this book. I love the terrible story it tells because it’s my story, our story. When stories are all you have, you’d be amazed how much you can love them. A lot. They don’t have to be pretty. Certain as Afternoon covers about a year and a half, calendar time. Which equal about 7 eternities in real life. I didn’t write the poems as the things happened; I wrote them later. A thing has to get done happening before you know what it was. All you can do while it’s happening is hold on for the ride.

Adoro questo libro. Adoro la storia terribile che racconta perché è la mia storia, la nostra storia. Quando le storie sono tutto ciò che hai, è incredibile quanto puoi amarle. Tantissimo. Non importa che non siano belli. Certa Come il Pomeriggio racconta la storia di circa un anno e mezzo, tempo di calendario. Equivalente a 7 eternità nella vita reale. Le poesie non le ho scritte quando accadevono le cose; le ho scritte più tardi. Una cosa deve finire di succedere prima che tu sappia cosa fosse. Tutto quello che puoi fare mentre sta succedendo è rimanere aggrappata.

If you helped me translate this book, please don’t order it—I will get one to you.

Se tu mi hai aiutato a tradurrre questo libro, per favore non ordinarlo—ti lo regalerò io. Se tu sei nella famiglia di Pio, non comprarlo. Ti lo vorrei regalare.

This is how we begin:

Si comincia così: 

New Poetry Book Next Monday / Nuovo Libro di Poesie Lundì Prossimo

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Certain as Afternoon / Certo Come il Pomeriggio is ready for you. Next Monday, one week from today, I will post a live link to it on Amazon.com, and you will be able to order it. The price is $10. It will also be available on Amazon.it (if I understand correctly) for anyone in Italy who wants to purchase it. I have not made it an ebook at this time because, honestly, I don’t like ebooks. This book, especially, wants an actual physical body.

Certain as Afternoon / Certo Come il Pomeriggio è pronto per voi.  Lunedì prossimo, a una settimana da oggi, vi darò un link per farvelo trovare su Amazon.com.  Il costo è $10. Sarà anche disponibile su Amazon.it (se ho capito bene) per chiunque vorrà acquistarlo in Italia.  In questo momento non l’ho creato come ebook perché, onestamente, gli ebook non mi piacciono. Questo libro, in particolare, vuole avere un corpo fisico.

Cover design in progress


Eternity, At Least / La Eternità, Almeno

Whole Fennel/Finocchio Intero

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This poem, from Certain as Afternoon, is a the story of a day.   I talk to myself in this poem, explaining to myself what happens on the day Pio is in the hospital for tests, and he calls me to tell me the bad news I have already intuited. Why must I tell myself about it? Because you have to explain things to yourself over and over as you try to understand, open, make room for everything.

In Certain as Afternoon, the voice in the poems moves around.  It switches between pages from first person to second and to third.  The voice speaks to me.  It speaks to you.  It speaks to the one who is dying.  Sometimes the voice speaks to the poem.  Sometimes the voice becomes the poem.  It sounds complicated, but really it isn’t.

First in English, dopo in Italiano.

 

Whole Fennel

when he calls you
on the phone
from the Policlinico to
tell you he is
dying, you say
alright
and
i’ll be there soon

then you go to the
park and walk,
order the trees
not to let you
cry. you don’t want
him to see you with
red eyes and
puffy lids

you stop at the
mercato for his favorites
prosciutto crudo and
whole fennel

it isn’t going to be today,
anyway

at the hospital you will
sit together at a
table in the sun
eat sandwiches

share fennel and
both wonder
if it is true

 

Finocchio Intero

quando lui ti chiama
al telefono
dal Policlinico per
dirti che sta
morendo, tu dici
va bene
e
arrivo subito

poi vai al
parco e cammini,
preghi agli alberi
di non farti
piangere. non vuoi che
lui ti veda con gli
occhi rossi e
gonfi

ti fermi al mercato a prendere
i suoi spuntini preferiti
prosciutto crudo e
finocchio intero

comunque
non sarà oggi

all’ospedale vi
siederete insieme ad un
tavolo al sole
mangerete dei panini

condividirete il finocchio e
vi chiederete
tutti e due
se è vero

No Language

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y que del poema
que existe pero no
nace porque
non trovo la lingua giusta?
none of them have the right
kind of give
per una cosa così necesario
critical and
importante.
bestow se aproxima but
is too formal and
sounds troppo come
chewing something sticky.
obsequiar feels like you
earned it
and you didn’t
assolutamente no;
soy yo la que merezco
mettere in giù questo peso.
dare, così semplice
andrebbe anche bene
until you conjugate it.
first person singular
cae como un puño
al ojo, a la oreja
y me deja
with no language
per questa poesia
così tenera
que muere por nacer.

Radar

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It’s generally safe to assume that when I’m not posting much it’s because there’s a lot going on.  When I pick up the talking stick, it’s because I’ve had time to think—to transpose everything that’s happened into words.  It takes me a while but you know I get there.  There’s been a lot going on.  I don’t know if I’m there.

THE LIST

For one, there’s my book.

Then, I had to move.

And the 2nd of October marked the one year anniversary of the last day I sat beside Pio and held his hand.

I took his ashes into the ocean on that day.

Also, not specifically related to any of this but happening simultaneously, I’ve started experimenting with intermittent fasting.

So there’s a lot going on inside of me, but I don’t know what to say about most of it yet.  Here’s a feeble attempt to start:

UNSOLICITED ADVICE

I guess I can begin with an unsolicited piece of advice about what to say/not to say to your friend who has lost someone as significant as air.  Do that person a favor and don’t make comments about how fast time has gone.  Have I said this before?  I’m sorry.  I’m saying it again.  Like, for example, “Wow!  Time is flying, isn’t it?  I can’t believe it’s already been one year!”  Please don’t say that.  Because to the person who lost someone, the first week took a year.  I guarantee you that friend of yours feels like they have already lived without their person for 100 years and I promise you they don’t think it’s a nice feeling.  Just so you know.  There’s that.

LUCKY AND UNLUCKY

AMAZING reviews have been coming in about Marry a Mennonite Boy and Make Pie.  I’ve also had touching private conversations with friends who have experienced journeys that are similar to mine in one way or another.  I can see now that I was right:  this book did need to be written.  And it did need to get out of my computer and into other hands.  I’m so proud of it.

And, yeah, I moved.  My landlord suddenly needed his extra house back, so I had to make other plans.  I was SO SAD to get the news that I needed to move, but then something happened that you kind of won’t believe.  I almost immediately (2 days?) found another house.  It’s about the same price and it’s so close to the beach I can hear the waves all night long.  If there is ever a tsunami, I will never know what hit me.  But the best part is that back before I even knew him, Pio built this house.  Can you believe it?  It feels exactly like home.  It is home.  Caramelo and Ambrogio like it as much as cats can like a new house.  Is all of this some random coincidence?  I have no idea.

So again, I’m lucky.  And unlucky.

I’m not ready to tell you about the ashes yet.  I might have to write it as a poem because I don’t know now you make a thing like that fit into sentences.

And the book deserves more focus than what I’ve been giving it.  You’re supposed to blog mercilessly about your new book and drive everyone who knows you insane with shameless self-promotion when it comes out.  I don’t think I’ve been doing that.  That would have been hard for me to do even if this was the only thing on my plate.  It isn’t.

I have a good friend who does intermittent fasting and got me curious.  I didn’t think I could do it.  It sounded horrible. I  thought I would be miserable or dizzy or grumpy or…  I just thought it would be too hard or somehow unbearable.  It isn’t.  It isn’t easy, but what’s easy?  Pretty much nothing worth doing is easy.   And there’s the spiritual/emotional side of it too.  I’m not sure I have words that give this any meaning, either, but I’m acknowledging it.  Either fasting is a spiritual practice that turns out to be good for your body, or it is a health practice that turns out to be good for your spirit.  I don’t really feel the need to differentiate.  If you get curious, you can read about it on line.  If it was anywhere near as bad as you think, I would not be doing it.  I always say I’ll try anything once, and I didn’t think I could live with something as lame-sounding as “intermittent fasting” being the one thing I wimped out on and wouldn’t try.  I’ll save that for something actually dangerous.

I didn’t take all the ashes.  I saved some.  That’s cheating, but whoever does the surviving gets to make at least a few of the decisions.  I made up that rule.

BATS

I’ve been thinking a lot about bats.  How they fly around in dark caves and no, they can’t see, but they “see” with other senses.  Radar.  They turn on their radar and they can tell where they are, where other things are, where they should go.  I’ve been trying to navigate by radar.  Because I can’t see shit.  It’s all fog.  But I try to see and listen with other senses.  Sometimes when I walk or run on the deserted beach, I close my eyes and try to keep going in a straight line by listening to the sound of the ocean to the side of me, feeling the wind in my face, feeling the sun on my back.  It isn’t easy but I can do it.  I keep trying.  I follow my gut, hoping that will teach it to give good advice.

I spent a whole year of evenings, essentially, lying in a hammock on a dark porch in silence trying to take it all in.  Not unlike a bat in a cave, except I wasn’t hanging upside down.  I was hanging though, in the hammock.  Most people are afraid of or dislike bats and dark places and sadness.  Most people run away from the cave.  Not me.  I am trying to see my way around in it like a bat.

I told you, there’s a lot going on and I’m not sure I’ve arrived at the words for it yet.  But I’m trying.  I never stop trying.  I’ll get there.