Ironic that it’s been … eight months since my last post, which was titled, apparently fittingly enough, “Burnout.” I have kept meaning to return to the blogging habit, yet somehow that was a hurdle of ever-increasing height. After worrying for a couple of months about KouKi, we finally arranged for a vet visit, to discover in February that she is diabetic. Evidently, in dogs, this is not something that can be recovered from, so we have had to accommodate her needs with a much stricter schedule, involving feeding her and injecting her with 20 units of insulin every 12 hours. Happily, she is responding very well to treatment, and has evinced signs of happiness that have been rare since we moved to our new house three years ago, and then lost her two older siblings two years ago. She still doesn’t watch TV with us though.
More than anything else we’ve tried, conforming to her health needs has meant we’ve finally yanked our bedtimes to earlier than 1AM. The pace of my work days lately has ensured that napping is not an option for me, much though I’d appreciate it, so I’m grateful we’re managing a solid seven hours most days of the week. Strangely enough, it’s also meant one or the other of us has awoken to the other one talking in our sleep. I can’t say I’m a “famous writer,” but I will say that the majority of my stories are based on dreams I’ve had – whether or not those prompt me to mumble anything as convoluted as what hubs said one night in the past couple weeks: “Wow! Iron?!” pause. “Their factories of wood and ice dominate iron!” The wonder in his voice kept me awake pondering its meaning for a while. Gayla’s interpretation was: “sounds like a line from a half-mad, homeless elf.”
Of course, Gayla is about as Texan as they come, and there is a whole host of unique phrases from that state, so she might be well-equipped to comment.
Now that it’s June, though, the days are longer, and our gardens and trees have sprung back to life. I’ve been experimenting with a dead hedge to take another step toward building a wildlife habitat on our property. The more I see suburban landscapes dominated by grass monocultures, the more I lean toward the attitude Kate Bradbury expressed in her book. To me, it is one of the more profound components of what makes life worth living. Certainly, I don’t struggle with the overstimulation many complain of with their social media presence, which I attribute to the abundance our gardens have been producing. We had a month’s worth of asparagus in March, have been eating Swiss chard I grew from seed late last fall, and have had a few harvests of early strawberries in May. I love Thoreau’s question in Walden: “Why level downward to our dullest perception, always, and praise that as common sense?” When you center your life on the rhythms of nature, it’s hard not to find wonder in the beauty that magically renews itself each year.
That’s not to say I’ve yet found the rhythm to re-incorporate writing into my new schedule. I’ve dabbled at it a few times – started yet another new story with Gayla, and added a few more pages to Team Shifter – but nothing to cement the habit. Maybe I’ll yet get there this year. The boys have settled down and grown up enough not to require the constant supervision that distracted me last year. KouKi is stable, and back to playful interactions with all of us. And I’ve planted so much on the property, it’s time to give my back a rest and let things germinate and grow, both outside and inside. I will see about at least resuming my blog habit to keep those of you who are waiting for the interminable end of my Planet Seekers trilogy posted about my progress.