Cogitus Interruptus

On trying to get my ship together

Here’s Mosey, our volunteer cat, with us since late August 2019, skin and bones and two months old. I chose to put her picture here in this unrelated post because she insisted. And now in a household with three females, I just say Yassum.

A writer (anyone who sits at desk with a scribing tool and intention for such purpose) should never write about why they are unable to write. Or to lament about the labor involved in bringing home the bacon, in words, at the end of the hunt. As I said elsewhere, excusing myself in the early days of Fragments from Floyd for taking on the label "writer" while feeling self-conscious: A hunter is a person who leaves home hoping to return with food. If he fails to do so, he (or she) is still a hunter. So I digress.

I do confess that, as some famous author once replied when asked if he enjoyed writing: "I enjoy having written."

And I feel the same, save for the fact that once written, of late, I have failed to tell anybody that dinner is served.

And in all honesty, my head is in so many other places these days that I wander off and forget to ring the dinner bell--which these days I suppose is this "newsletter" in SubStack more than it used to be in Fragments or Facebook or Medium.com.

And I'm thinking this higher-order distraction and fragmentation of thinking and planning and accomplishing likely holds true for you, too. We have so many mega- and meta-crises to contend with, from household to civic to national to global that it is hard to know WHAT to think, and lately impossible to find a WHEN free of static and squelch and stench.

►I have a post that pits our prior "normal" against what lies head, even under the "best of circumstances."

►I have a post that wonders what brings some to tears at the offer of images of beauty in form and function in nature, and leaves others cold.

►I have a post about the role that digital tools (specifically nature ID apps) might play towards Earth Citizenship.

But what lies just ahead and for the entire "Interregnum" of transition of power--or not--and beyond makes it impossible to serve any of these items to you sufficiently seasoned and arranged. Presentation is everything.

The fact that we now, as of Saturday, have my mom living with us for "the Duration" or until or if her housing in Blacksburg is ever safe once again for assisted living---this is a new cause for some rhythm changes I will need to sort out to get my keyboard-and-typing-fingers life back in balance.

I should be journaling and sharing the change of seasons here, our first year away from Goose Creek. I need these kinds of pieces to wrap up the book chapters. I should be focusing on the upcoming Blue Ridge EcoFair where I hope all of you are now ticket-holders.

So I have slipped away from coffee and chitchat and behind a closed door just to say hello this morning, and I wish you well in your own version of Life Not Normal. But as I was told how to think about writing, I think about life ahead: Without hope and without despair. We soldier on, and never end the hunt while there is breath.