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October Not So Lonesome
Oct. 3rd, 2014 10:13 amWe are abruptly (and compared to some years slightly early) in our desert fall. The air is crystal clear, the sky is cloudless, the nights and mornings are crisp and lovely. Suddenly I need the comforter to sleep--first time since April--and I have to wear a jacket for the bedtime barn check. I even dug out socks to wear while watching Spartacus on the teevee yesterday evening, because it was just a little too chilly for bare feet.
Pooka is not quite ready for his placebo blankie, but that time will come very soon. He's a little crankier in the mornings, and a little spicier in the afternoons. Those are still warm shading to hot, but the heat is brief and sinks fast with the sun. I've had to turn my one working cooler off around 5, which a month ago was the peak of the day's heat; now it's cold in the house. The other cooler needs repair (Hillary took it with him: the moment he died, I smelled burning electrical circuits), but that can wait until spring. Time to get the furnace started; we'll be needing it in a week or two or at most three.
I talked about Transitions in this week's Horseblog over at Book View Cafe. It even got a response from another member. Fall has always been a major transitional time for me, because it used to be somewhat closely connected to the start of school, and because I've always hated summer and been glad to see the end of it, and that in turn is because something about my brain makes it wake up with the days get shorter and the light gets clearer and the air gets noticeably cooler.
This year has been an unusually stuck-in-molasses year. For months I couldn't move in any productive directions, couldn't think, couldn't plan or see a way ahead. Things got very scary, are still scary, but the difference is that suddenly I can think of ways to get through. Or at least ways to try.
I knew part of it was fighting through the years of crippling writer's block, finally getting out of the panic attack every time I opened the fiction file, but then struggling to get through the novel I had (effectively) under contract. Finishing that felt like the passing of a huge obstacle.
So, though it was painful, did the departure of the outside horse boarders. One left with grace, going home to loving owners. The other sneaked out while I was away in Colorado working on a wonderful new Sekrit Projekt. I came home to an empty stall and a note on the table, and the remnants of the unholy mess I had already been aware of: part of the sneakage included attempting to sneak the vet in (my vet, if you please) to get the horse's shots done, and leaving the main gate open and letting the entire herd out all night long. I'm still picking up bits of scattered debris.
That was not a pleasant homecoming. Not to mention the fact that sneaky one had been my farmsitter, so that option had gone bye-bye.
But even through the whatthefrakery and the breaking of trust, I could feel the relief. My space was my own again. My horses were much calmer. It was good. It was the removal of another obstacle.
Then the weather broke and I did my much delayed taxes--that's as late as I'll ever do them, ye gods, but ye gods^2, the year I've had. And I felt as if a really big door had opened and I could think again. As if maybe there's some hope of getting through this and it's no longer an impasse. Just a really tough time and a serious dry patch.
I have a book to revise. And decisions to make as to where to go from there. It needs a sequel. There's also totally unrelated Sekrit Projekt. And story ideas. And other novel ideas. Focus, I must focus. Which I can do. Because it's October. October is when my brain wakes up from its summer sleep.
Pooka is not quite ready for his placebo blankie, but that time will come very soon. He's a little crankier in the mornings, and a little spicier in the afternoons. Those are still warm shading to hot, but the heat is brief and sinks fast with the sun. I've had to turn my one working cooler off around 5, which a month ago was the peak of the day's heat; now it's cold in the house. The other cooler needs repair (Hillary took it with him: the moment he died, I smelled burning electrical circuits), but that can wait until spring. Time to get the furnace started; we'll be needing it in a week or two or at most three.
I talked about Transitions in this week's Horseblog over at Book View Cafe. It even got a response from another member. Fall has always been a major transitional time for me, because it used to be somewhat closely connected to the start of school, and because I've always hated summer and been glad to see the end of it, and that in turn is because something about my brain makes it wake up with the days get shorter and the light gets clearer and the air gets noticeably cooler.
This year has been an unusually stuck-in-molasses year. For months I couldn't move in any productive directions, couldn't think, couldn't plan or see a way ahead. Things got very scary, are still scary, but the difference is that suddenly I can think of ways to get through. Or at least ways to try.
I knew part of it was fighting through the years of crippling writer's block, finally getting out of the panic attack every time I opened the fiction file, but then struggling to get through the novel I had (effectively) under contract. Finishing that felt like the passing of a huge obstacle.
So, though it was painful, did the departure of the outside horse boarders. One left with grace, going home to loving owners. The other sneaked out while I was away in Colorado working on a wonderful new Sekrit Projekt. I came home to an empty stall and a note on the table, and the remnants of the unholy mess I had already been aware of: part of the sneakage included attempting to sneak the vet in (my vet, if you please) to get the horse's shots done, and leaving the main gate open and letting the entire herd out all night long. I'm still picking up bits of scattered debris.
That was not a pleasant homecoming. Not to mention the fact that sneaky one had been my farmsitter, so that option had gone bye-bye.
But even through the whatthefrakery and the breaking of trust, I could feel the relief. My space was my own again. My horses were much calmer. It was good. It was the removal of another obstacle.
Then the weather broke and I did my much delayed taxes--that's as late as I'll ever do them, ye gods, but ye gods^2, the year I've had. And I felt as if a really big door had opened and I could think again. As if maybe there's some hope of getting through this and it's no longer an impasse. Just a really tough time and a serious dry patch.
I have a book to revise. And decisions to make as to where to go from there. It needs a sequel. There's also totally unrelated Sekrit Projekt. And story ideas. And other novel ideas. Focus, I must focus. Which I can do. Because it's October. October is when my brain wakes up from its summer sleep.
