Three Dogs and a Garden

Hello, my friends.

It’s been a while, and the world has become a bigger dumpster fire than when I was last here. The overwhelming awfulness of it breaks my heart, and I’m doing all I can do to not let it break my spirit.

I’ve become a keyboard warrior trying to fight the good fight, and it can be exhausting but it seems to be bearing fruit. The other blue dots here, the ones who don’t come to our meetings, are seeing our posts and have starting swatting down the racists and delusional idiots with us.

Truth be told I don’t know if they are blue or just fed up with MAGA, but either way, it’s encouraging that I’m not the only one pushing back. It probably seems as if my world has shrunk to nothing but politics, but while it feels that way sometimes, it’s not true.

With spring in full bloom we’re getting ready to start our garden again. I’m hoping to be a bigger help this year than I was last year. I love the idea of being a gardener, I truly do, but the reality of dirt and bugs can be defeating. I’m determined to overcome some of that this year.

I’ve been reading a lot. Picked up an old favorite series of 21 books and devoured them again. I needed to hide from the outside world for a while by living in another one, and the Atevi world is one of my favorite places to visit. I’ll be sad when its creator, C.J. Cherryh, stops writing them.

Now that I’ve emerged from that world, I am feeling more centered and ready to face ours again. I realized this morning that I’m ready to write again. While technically I have been writing with my political counter narratives, it’s not the same. It’s hard to be creative when you feel constantly in fight or flight mode, but I’m on a new medication that seems to be helping with the anxiety.

To be honest, though, I think it was actually having ‘the dogs’ here that helped the most. Tennessee and I just celebrated our second wedding anniversary with a house full of other people’s dogs. We recently lost our beloved Buddy, and the house has been so quiet, but having the chaos of three dogs here was a balm for us.

We have both been grieving deeply. Hearing and seeing my wife’s delight (and exasperation) at the crazy antics of Olive, the oafish goofiness of Duke, and the sweet naughtiness of little Madge has helped heal me, and her, too, I think.

Once again, I have no idea if this will be a regular thing or if there’s even anybody still out there reading, but it feels really good to be here.

Take care my friends.