The sliver of the moon hangs lightly

A sliver of the moon hangnails in the eastern sky as the sun chases it. In a few moments, the moon will disappear in the light. There's no way I can take the picture to capture the feeling, but I like to wake up my brain with a few words after I've done the dishes.

I've got a lot to today, and I'm much more calm. The last few days have felt odd and strange. Today I don't have to go anywhere except to go pick up my car from the shop. I have to write a script for an interview show, but I'm hopeful I can get a newsletter out as well.

I may challenge myself to go do one new thing today if I can. I'm in so many ruts I'm a town in southern Vermont.

The slivery moon does not count, for it is not a calculator. My writing song is almost over and then it's going to be time to get to work. The silver crescent ducks behind a pink cloud as the radiation from the sun is becoming too much to bear. Or at least to witness.

Song is over. Sliver has risen. This one likely goes straight to the blog due to a lack of pop culture references. Time to write and get paid for it.

The screen still doesn't work today

Yesterday I spent about 12 hours working on a newsletter, sitting in either my kitchen or my front room. This morning I woke up ready to work yet again, and I'm listening to a meeting from last Monday that I've not had a chance to listen to yet.

I'm moving stories from yesterday's newsletter onto an archive website that may well one day become my main venue for putting out information. I just know I need to create it, and keep asking questions and trying to provide decent answers.

The world doesn't make sense to most people. I see patterns and forces, and have an ability to write that I've honed across a lifetime. I've cleared mostly everything else out of my life except this work.

I'm only able to do this work now because I feel connected to the world through a series of friendships. I want other people to enjoy their lives, the same way I've clawed my way back to where I am now from a deep dark hole.

I know so many others want to stay in that hole. Others want to get out, but they can't find any tools to climb. Others have almost made it to the rim but have fallen so many times they don't want to bother anymore.

I know my posts may be bordering on annoying for many people, but that's not my intent. I write every morning on Facebook while my brain works up and I begin to remember how to put words together. I sincerely hope that each of you has a good day, or can withstand the onslaught of a bad one.

Two years ago I quieted my doubt and got back to work in a panic. Long ago, I learned how to turn my fear and apprehension into information for others. That's how I climb. It's how I fashion ladders.

Including my own. One day I too may have the area where I live bombed and destroyed. Until then, I want to live and bear witness.

Brushing off the cobwebs from the Town Crier

I briefly spent the morning looking up places I might go today to write my newsletter. I could use a change of pace!

But then I look out and see the Bradford pear is blooming and there's a cool breeze blowing in through the window that now has a full working screen. In a few minutes, the sun's light is going to hit the flowering invasive and it will for a moment look remarkable.

And then I look around and think that today can be a day to make this place better, and I can take my time writing the newsletter. I can get up and walk around. I can go walk in the park for a moment, and then come back to another cup of coffee. I can make a nice brunch while also being productive.

I do want to travel again and I want to see more of the country. But, that may have to wait until later in the spring. For now, the world around me continues to wake up, and I find myself comforted that the world renews itself, even in the midst of seeming collapse. There's magic all around.

I never used to be like this. I may not be like this again. But I'm feeling so blessed that I'm aware of this moment and to hopefully allow it to radiate throughout my day, powering me through whatever misfortune comes my way.

Now, off to take that walk before doing my job as a town crier.

Appreciating "new" Sonic Youth

On Friday, Sonic Youth released a five song EP of unreleased material from the last ten years of their career. I'm listening to it for the first time today and I am consuming raw fuel. There is no way that most people I know would consider the raw noise that is "Social Static" to be enjoyable, but this makes sense to me. I hear harmonies reconciling before a tragic break-up that seems so familiar.

When I was in high school, Sonic Youth's noise felt like heaven to me. I somehow made sense of what I heard first on Daydream Nation, and I devoured their back catalog by buying everything I could from the Record Exchange, both in Lynchburg and in Blacksburg.

Sitting here at my kitchen work table, hearing this, it's like hearing a lifeline from a long ago past that taught me it was okay to like things that were way outside the mainstream. I wanted to live my life my way, which included accepting chaotic music as a way to calm my chaotic mind.

Hearing "new" Sonic Youth at 48, with the wind blowing through my kitchen window, I feel renewed. At 18, I heard this kind of noise and understood it and this band has helped me immeasurably in a career trying to sift through a chaotic world to try to bring order.

Sonic Youth will never be for everyone, but I suspect there are many like me whose lives were affected so much by their approach to music.

Gosh.

Always look at the bird

The waters began rising a few days ago, for the first time in a couple of years. The last time this happened was when my longtime downstairs tenant was still here. Last spring I was alone and there was not enough use of the basement plumbing, so the waters didn't rise.

In years past, this would have sent me into a negative spiral. Since I bought this house 14 years ago, there have been issues with the downstairs plumbing in the spring. There's a blockage somewhere, and the emergency drain floods back when the laundry water is released from the washer. I've paid money for temporary fixes for years, but it's time to fix the problem for real.

There are entire towns that have been destroyed in the past three weeks in Ukraine. Millions of people will never see their home again. The entire world watches to see how far the flames of war will spread. Many are doing everything they can to help.

The past two years of crisis have changed me. Things that used to cripple me emotionally no longer are obstacles. My crisis goes back many years, as many of you know.

What's saved me in part is that at any moment, even a terrible one, I am able to notice what's happening in the background and bring it to the forefront of my mind, even if just for a moment. Just now I looked out at the dogwoods that stand in the corner of the park. The blossoms remain pink despite the 23 degree weather and yesterday's wintry weather.

My eye was drawn to them by two birds that flew up to the very top. Where did they come from? What will their day be like? Do they have a safe place? Are they preparing to raise their young? Where will they fly off to next?

There never needs to be an answer to any of those questions. But there is a lesson, I think, to try to be a person who notices what is outside of your mind. This can apply to anything.

I make my trade providing notice of what's happening in regional and local government. I'm grateful to everyone supporting me in this effort, and I am confident I will be able to address the likelihood of rising waters. I shall not drown today.

A memory of the end of a dream

My morning begins in a slightly different location. There are pink blossoms that have remained on the trees for several days. I want to continue to see the day begin. The colder weather makes me feel more sharp when I wake.

I've had several days of vivid dreams, and last night concluded with an encounter that can only happen in my imagination. I reconnected with an estranged family member after a long journey and search.

While not real, I needed the catharsis that came within the dream. I've woken up with a sense of conviction to get to work do what I need to do.

New music plays through the headphones of a band I know the estranged family member loves and I can imagine the two of us listening to it together. Another sign from the universe that a path of peace might lead to favorable outcomes. It may be that internal peace is all I may have for a while. This is acceptable. The reward is knowing the sun's rays will hit me soon, and by then I hope to be far down along today's path.

Preparing for one f'ing thing after another

We are two weeks into a war a long way away, and I read the Guardian live blog to keep me up to date on what's happening. It feels very important to keep an eye on that, because this a serious conflict with more geopolitical consequences than the wars that have been going on all over the world for the past 20 years. 

A direct war with Russia terrifies me, and yet here we are, with that being the real and serious threat. Already this disruption to the usual is affecting commodity prices such as oil, and adds to the inflationary pressure that's already there as the world continues to wrestle with the pandemic. 

Just over three years ago I watched my English son in a play magnificently deliver a line with words that could put me in Facebook jail. So I'll put them in the comments. But to know I have family all across this globe and that I've been able to communicate with them easily has allowed my sense of humanity to grow. I am first generation American, and I have been the beneficiary of a hard-fought peace that wasn't always peaceful for everyone. 

But now I am alive and this is where we are, with one f'ing thing after another and what I thought was a laugh line delivered by my son was in fact a prescient warning. This was in a presentation of the History Boys by the Tring Youth Theatre Project. I saw it twice at a time in my life where I chose to travel to see my son as much as I could to see the person he was becoming. 

Two years ago or so I felt the calling to get back to who I am - someone who want to use as much time as possible to write and research what's happening. For many years I was paid to do it as a journalist, but took a break, and was out of time. But when the pandemic hit, I fell back on instincts and went to work reporting because I needed to have a base set of facts for myself. 

Now, I get paid to do the work again, based on that calling. I don't have time to question that anymore, because the world has changed and we are awake in history again. 

So here we are. The world is changing, fast, that's something that periodically happens. None of us have ever been through this before, but we've all been through tough times.

For me, none of mine approach what it's like to have bombs dropped on your house by a foreign force that wants to take over where you live and conquer it. A piece of civilization has broken down and the images of horror are something I must bear witness to. 

We all have histories that seem like they were tragic and awful, because they were. But more than ever I'm aware of a need to create the future by doing what I need to do to document as much as I can, every single day. 

That's the post. There's no big summing up. I just find that I need to write, and there's a place for me to write to people here. Maybe you need to write, too. Maybe you need to sing. Maybe you need to dance. Maybe you need to live!

I think I am. I hope I am. I strive to live.

Deadline but deadline

It's a strange day when I don't have a deadline and I break from the routine. I'm trying to take it easy, but there's so much work to do. 

So I'm organizing and noodling, allowing some deep part of my brain the ability to just do what needs to be done in the moment in front of me, thoughts allowed to wander and just go wherever they need. 

I keep glancing at the Guardian to bear witness to what's happening as I try to figure out what government meetings I still need to do. I'm writing up an explanation of why I think I could teach the practice of journalism. I'm thinking about how I'm going to create a new workspace today so I can work facing the sunrise. I'm wondering who I should call to get the bathroom downstairs fixed. I need to contact someone else about getting an estimate for the gutters. Why does the music of Les Claypool make me feel so alive inside? What time should I aim to get these real estate transactions out? It will take about an hour or so to focus, but I don't want to focus today. I want to be blurry and obscure. I don't want to think about what I need to do, and I just want to let whatever happens happens, knowing this will somehow repair my brain from a barrage of daily deadlines. 

For someone who didn't have a deadline, I certainly posted something anyway. This is behind my paywall, but only until Monday.