A Month Without Hugging

"Covid Cancel" button

A month ago, I needed to be in central Massachusetts for the first board meeting of an organization I belong to here, in the community where we built StarField Farm. My spouse told me to pack assuming I was going to stay here indefinitely.

I tried to argue, wanting to be there with him to support him, but we both knew the safest place for me was at the farm, where I could limit who I was in contact with. It would also limit my exposure to whatever virus might hitchhike home from the hospital on his clothing or person.

It would be a week. Maybe two. At least that's what I told myself, even as I knew better. This is the start of my second month here. As covid-19 cancels our regular lives and plans and hopes and dreams, as people I know have lost loved ones, I struggle to find a new kind of normal.

I won't lie. It's been extremely hard for me to keep to a daily schedule. My sleep/wake cycle has been upended. I'm not eating regular meals. Some meals I forget to eat alltogether. I'm spending far too much time scrolling social media, especially Twitter to find covid-19 and political updates. I turn on NPR. I turn it off. Dozens of times a day.

The only writing I've done is this blog. I had been fighting to write fiction for most of the past year, and just as I was getting back to the novel in progress, this happened.

I hate how whiny I sound.

My own life has not much been changed. Many of the things I miss are things that are luxuries - being able to be at the ceramics studio with my fellow potters, meeting with a writer friend at a local coffee shop, running to the market for fresh food for that night's dinner.

So many people have lost so much.

What is hardest is not being able to comfort my friends, my family, my community. Like all of us, I have experienced tragedy and trauma in my life, but at all those moments, I was literally embraced by those around me. We were able to come together, physically, to mourn, to process, and to heal.

As an introvert, I am comfortable with silence and solitude. But this past month has shown me how much I need physical contact. People who know me know that I am a hugger. Non-sexual platonic touch is as necessary as breathing for me. I hug when I'm happy, I hug when I'm sad, I hug to comfort others. (Within appropriate boundaries - I promise.)

My greatest personal wish right now is to live in a world where we no longer need to be wary of physical closeness, where we can greet dear friends with welcome hugs.

Until that day comes, know that you are in my thoughts and I offer you these words of kindness to wrap around you in place of my arms.

May you and your loved ones be safe and be well. 

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

We are all in this apart

some of last year's peach harvest

Yesterday it was finally dry and warm enough to prune the fruit trees. It's important not to prune just before rain, as the newly cut branch ends are susceptible to mold and rot and disease. And fruit trees need to be pruned in order to yield a harvest. (This is not a metaphor.)

So I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon with my pruning sheers and my loppers working on 3 peach and 2 plum trees. I left my phone inside and for those precious hours, my world was clipping all the upright suckers, branches that crossed other branches, and anything that either grew into the center of the trees or would block sun coming into the canopy.

It was calming and soothing to do this work and the fatigue I felt afterward was a normal tired, not the emotional exhaustion of watching the covid-19 projections or hearing the news about new hot spots and deaths.

I have at least a half dozen friends who personally know people who have died from covid-19. I know it is only a matter of time until I do. 

*

I spoke (by telephone) a few weeks ago with the gentleman who heads our small community's emergency response team. He talked about the painful irony in that all of their emergency/contingency planning assumed we'd be using community buildings as shelters and that we would be gathering together. 

Now we are isolated, apart. 

*

This is a fragmented reality. We are forced apart from the communities that help give structure to our lives - schools, houses of worship, jobs, entertainment. And while we are all experiencing some kind of shared trauma, we are also experiencing completely different, individual traumas. 

This virus will take a toll on all of us, but its effects are not distributed equally. I don't know what to do with that understanding, but I think it's important to acknowledge. 

My children are grown and living on their own, so I don't need to face the pressures of managing young people's fears and the stress of being responsible for their learning. 

I am physically well, so I can complete my activities of daily living without assistance. 

I am coping emotionally as well as can be expected and have access to mental health supports.

I am living in a house on a small farmstead, so it's easy to practice physical distancing as well as have access to being physically active outdoors, weather permitting. I'm also in an area with a ton of farms that are either delivering food, or have it available for contactless pick up, so I'm well fed. 

My relationships are sound and healthy, so I don't feel unsafe.

My spouse is still employed, so I don't have to panic about paying a rent or mortgage, or having health insurance. 

I have friends, family, and acquaintances for whom some or all of these (and more) stresses come into play and so added to the shared trauma, their individual traumas make everything that much harder. 

*

Never in my experience have I understood more clearly the need to protect the public good and to ensure that those who are vulnerable are safe. 

*

 

Never in my experience have I been as dismayed by our leadership's utter failure to respond to the urgent needs of all its citizens. 

*

We are all in this together. We are all in this apart. Both of these are true. 

*

I still have 3 young pear trees to prune. They are probably still not mature enough to bear fruit this year, but with time and care, they will. This is both my task for today and a metaphor.

Be well. Be safe.

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

Day 19: The soul cries out

And the soul cries out

I am used to being alone. Solitude is my typical work companion, so I wasn't overly worried about spending time on my own at our farm, practicing physical distance as my spouse works at his hospital.

After all, I had the dogs with me. I had a manuscript to work on and a planned writing retreat that moved virtually instead of physically. I also had more yarn that I could find projects for and 50 pounds of clay to work on my ceramics from home. Not to mention a half dozen fruit trees to prune and the daily work of keeping the woodstove burning.

While I knew that the covid-19 virus was dangerous and would sweep through the country, there was not much I could do against its enormity beyond practicing good viral hygene and staying in isolation. I had thought I would be able to keep some emotional distance from my distress by pretending my time at the farm was simply a personal retreat. I have come here before on my own, for a week or so at a time for the silence and the stillness.

And for most of a week or so, I was able to hold back the sadness, even as I allowed myself to follow the news and social media. Even as I heard daily from my spouse about what his hospital was preparing for and then seeing. Even as people were sickening and dying. Even as place after place shut down and people retreated into isolation.

Last night, it hit me. Hard.

This morning, I awoke with a profound sadness like a lump in my throat and a weight on my heart.

My manuscript sits, unlooked at. The yarn is set aside in a cardboard box. The clay is in a sealed plastic bag and all my tools scattered on the worktable.

*

A friend called me a few hours ago. She recounted a conversation she'd had with her sister, who said "I finally get it" in relation to the virus and its seriousness. She finally got it because a friend of hers had fallen ill. 

And rather than feel any sort of vindication over this, it made me angry. A sort of exhausted fury that just made me want to weep in frustration.

I didn't hear someone who was enlightened. I heard someone with a profound and dangerous lack of empathy who couldn't acknowledge suffering unless it happened to someone in her small circle. 

*

I have always described myself as a relentless optimist. Today, I am weary. My soul cries out. And yet I want to feel more, not less. 

I will let myself be sad and tired and angry. No good comes from shutting down feelings. Not for me and not for those around me. 

Day 19. And my soul cries out. 

Let yours cry out with me. 

 

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

The terrible waiting

"Figure on the beach" by Oliver Dixon is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

My amazing and utterly competent husband is many things - a physician, race car driver, musician, skilled chef, amateur radio operator, among others - but one thing he is not is a poet. The heightened language, the metaphors, the alliteration, these he leaves for me.

Yesterday, he said that he feels as if he's on the beach in the moment before the tsunami wave roars in to scour the sand. The water is gathering in the far distance. He can almost see it. He knows it's coming. There is no way to run far enough or fast enough to outpace its power.

He's a doctor at a Boston teaching hospital. For two weeks, they have been sounding the alarm and doing their best to prepare. He and his colleagues are on the front line of a war that far too many of us still refuse to believe is already here.

Some are literally frolicking on the beach, pretending that by acting normally, life will be normal. Or somehow convinced they are protected by virtue of their magical thinking.

*

When I was in college, I studied how epidemics and pandemics changed society. Plague, typhus, cholera, influenza, polio - these kinds of diseases have always been with us. Epidemiologists and public health folks have known for decades and decades that it was only a matter of time before another pandemic would sweep across the globe. It's why public health is concerned with clean air and water, in vaccines, and in ameliorating poverty. All things that we seem to have decided are less important that accumulating wealth and resources and concentrating them in as few hands as possible.

We have been so dangerously complacent. Even now, there are those who can't believe they will be affected. Who believe that their wealth or privilege or technology will save them. 

And even if it somehow saves them from contracting Covid-19, it will not save them from the aftermath.  

*

After this wave recedes, it will leave behind a landscape we won't recognize. I wonder if we have the empathy and the wisdom and the humility to navigate it.

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

A Lesson in Listening

StarField Farm
photo by Chris Howard

3 years ago, we purchased a home in Central Massachusetts. Since we don't live there full time, I knew I wanted to establish myself as part of the community and am on the board of a local organization, used local tradespeople for our construction, and joined a local social group.

It's a small, rural town, not far from the Quabbin reservoir and still has its primary focus as an agricultural community.

Being a 'come-here' rather than a 'born-here', I work hard to be sensitive to local concerns and adapt myself to the community, rather than the reverse. It has surprised me how easy it has been to feel comfortable and at home in a rural setting, given that I spent a lot of my formative years as a NYC girl.

All of this is a preamble for a meeting I was called to attend at the town planning board.

*

We are planning to install a ground-mounted solar array of 24 panels which will pretty much take care of all of our electrical needs there. In order to get the required town permissions, I had to speak to the planning board who had to grant several waivers from the way the solar regulations had been written. (They were created for large commercial solar farms, not meant to apply for household use.)

As part of that process, a public notice was sent inviting any interested parties to also attend and speak about the project.

One of our neighbors came to the meeting. When I say neighbor, I mean someone who lives within a half mile, but who does not abut our land, nor can either of us see each other's houses. StarField Farm is located almost 2000 feet from the main road and tucked in around 54 acres of land.

After I said my brief statement (it's a residential solar installation, it cannot be seen from the road or anyone's home, it would pose no environmental harm), my neighbor was invited to speak.

He was an older man. White. Definitely a long term smoker. His face was deeply lined and it was clear he'd lived a hard life.

He started by complaining that he was tired of seeing solar panels when he couldn't get his electricity from them. It wasn't fair. There were too many of them everywhere. And if he couldn't have them, they shouldn't be installed all over.

Somewhere in his long statement, he mentioned that he was widowed. He sounded lonely. And he was adament that he didn't want to see any solar panels as he was driving around his neighborhood. It was bad enough that one of his close neighbors put in a residential array where he could see it as he drove by. He had wanted to object to that installation, too, but got to the planning meeting where it was discussed too late.

Through all of this, he wouldn't make eye contact with me.

I tried to explain that because I didn't live here full time, we needed to keep the back up electric baseboard heaters at 50 degrees to keep the pipes freezing and in the winter that led to electric bills over $400/month.

He grudgingly admitted that that was a problem and that someone he knew had pipes burst in a cold snap when they didn't keep the heat on. But he was still objecting to the project. He said he'd driven around to our house and knew that he would see the panels from the road.

The house he thought was ours belongs to our nearest neighbors. Our driveway is accessed over 1000 feet down a shared access road and then the house is set back even further. It's actually not possible to see our home from the road and most folks don't even realize there is a home back there.

As he was talking, I realized that his objection had no standing with the planning board. Outside of a glare complaint or an environmental impact claim, there was nothing in the town laws against a homeowner putting up solar panels. I could have blown him off. The board would grant the waivers we needed: this was pretty much a pro-forma meeting.

But I also realized that this man needed to be heard, not argued with.

So I pulled out a site plan that showed where our home was in relation to the neighbor's home he had mistaken for ours. I understood his frustration and I assured him that the only way he'd see our panels was if he visited them and that he was certainly welcome to come by any time. (People who know me know that I am earnest. This was a genuine invitation, not anything sarcastic or mocking.)

He looked at me, finally, and when the planning board president asked him if his objection still stood, he said no.

The waivers were unanimously granted.

I thanked the man for coming to the meeting.

*

Behind anger is almost always fear. Fear of the other. Fear of losing out. Fear of change. I likely represented all of these and more for this man. I could list a dozen ways in which we are different. But I understood the critical way we were the same:

I have been in that place of vulnerability. I understand trying to hold onto something -- anything you think you can control. Even if it's not true or even helpful.

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

When social media doesn't work as planned

Mya is an expert at blanket fort. 

I'm an introvert.

While that may surprise some who know me from social events, the reality is while I can be quite gregarious in public, I pay a heavy price for my energy outlay. (Case in point: I am still recovering from the intense 'peopling' during Arisia.)

For folks like me who are introverts and also creatives, the internet was supposed to be the great equalizer.

Be social on your terms! Discover a tribe, a community, an audience while never leaving your safe and comfortable blanket fort! Be protected behind your screen persona! 

While to some extent, all those promises are part of the internet and social media, it's more of a "yes, and" proposition. The "and" part being that even asynchronous and curated interaction can be stressful. And that's when the interactions are relatively benign ones. For the time being, I'll put trolling and harassment to the side here, though those negative interactions seem to hit the introvert and/or socially stressed harder than the socially comfortable/confident.

And I certainly can't speak for all introverts on the internet. This is my experience. These are my musings. YMMV.

I tend to be an early adopter of all things techie and social media was no exception. I was part of the early AOL message board community and then jumped to blogging in 2004. RSS readers were my jam. They helped me keep up with folks all over the world using blogs to do short and longform essay writing, prose, poetry, and sharing images.

Then came the more overtly commercial platforms: facebook and twitter and pinterest and tumblr and google+, among others.

I made logins for all of them and for a time, tried to keep up with the communities of users in each one.

It was exhausting and instead of focusing on my blog and my own writing, I went from new posts here every 2-3 days to maybe writing something once a month. It was as if the entire landscape of social media morphed from a place to express myself to a place where I needed clicks to validate myself. It got to the point where I felt I was only interacting to get that little seratonin hit whenever someone would notice me.

And you know what? It was all draining. Being noticed is exhausting. Not being noticed is exhausting. Managing all those communities is exhausting.

I am not a small-talk kind of person. If I have a conversation, I want to dig deep and wrestle with the problems of the universe with you. In my offline life, I have a handful of intense friendships and even those folks understand that I may not see them or talk to them in weeks or months before picking up where we left off. I am the kind of person who will drop everything for a friend in need, but have a panic attack if I get too many social invitations in a month.

Computer based social media should have been the perfect place for me.

And I thought it was.

Until I realized how many hours I spent relentlessly refreshing notifications.

Part of this understanding has come by way of the loss of Google+. I spent a lot of time and energy cultivating relationships on G+. I found an amazing contingent of fellow creatives and just fascinating people talking about really interesting things. We shared long conversations, friendly arguments, and terrible puns. I invested a lot of myself there. And Google basically sabotaged the place - both actively and through neglect - until they announced its shuttering.

By then, I had dropped my investment in the other platforms to maintenance mode. Which is primarily where I am now: make minimal comments on posts that amuse me, try to post witty things that will garner notice. It feels narcissistic and shallow, but I can't seem to help it. The thought of putting any more work into a siloed network where users create the content and the value, but are only an afterthought to the commercial interests behind them makes me want to scream.

We've been sold the belief that social media is there for creative people to reach their audience. But I no longer think that's true. WE are the audience. And what social media is selling is our own attention back to us, but fragmented in an endless, recursive loop.

I am trying to find my way back to using the internet in a way that sustains me, rather than drains me. But I'm not sure what that looks like, to be honest.

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

The Importance of Small Joys

I have voted.
My husband has voted.
My sons will vote.
I have talked to friends & neighbors about voting.
I have written post cards for contested races.
I donate money to social justice causes.
I call out racism/sexism/ableism/hatred when I see it.

I still feel powerless.

— LJ Cohen (@lisajanicecohen) October 30, 2018

This was the start of a thread I posted on Twitter this morning. I wanted to keep it all in one place, so I am sharing it here as well.

In every quiet moment, I try to focus on hope. And I repeat this over and over:

May all beings be held in lovingkindness.
May all beings be at peace.
May all beings be free from suffering.

I struggle on social media about boosting all of the terrible acts of evil around us.

Am I adding to the despair?

Or helping to warn people of good conscience?

If I let the evil pass without comment, am I complicit?

If I celebrate small joys, am I minimizing the pain & suffering around me?

If I deny those small joys, am I allowing evil to win?

A dear friend posted this to my FB wall. Because I love word-based puns, & I'm a potter.

I had two loved ones send me silly things today that made me laugh.

I am grateful for the momentary respite. It feels right and good to find something positive to cling to.

Right now, it's a blue VW Bug with the license "Alonzz" my son sent me.

My son took this when he was stuck in traffic this morning. Any day that starts with a Doctor Who reference is a good day.

Maybe that small joy is what allows someone a burst of hope & energy to keep fighting.

So I will keep sharing silly dog pictures & groan-worthy word play.  And I hope you will keep sharing those with me, too.

As we fight. As we keep fighting.

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

There is no "them"; there is only us

Our synagogue sent out an email last night inviting congregants to gather for a service in remembrance and in honor of those who were slain in Pittsburgh.

I am not a religiously observant Jew, despite attending Friday morning services nearly every week. I don't keep kosher. I don't quite believe in a biblical God. But I am Jewish and have been part of my local synagogue community for nearly 25 years.

When I do attend services, I meditate. I read the English translations of prayers and argue with that God I'm pretty sure doesn't exist. I breathe. I lift my voice in song with melodies that have carved their way through me to my core. Melodies that link me in an unbroken chain with my far away ancestors. In those moments, it doesn't matter what I believe: I am whole.

Today, I woke up early on a day I might have slept in.

I dressed and drove to the synagogue.

As I parked in the midst of other cars, I wondered if any of the other people here came with hatred and harm in their hearts.

I went in anyway.

Inside the small chapel, I gathered with other congregants. Some of whom I knew, others I did not. Their eyes all wore the same haunted look. Many were red rimmed. Others were openly weeping.

It was an act of resistance: raising our voices together in prayer in a sacred space knowing that just yesterday, someone had violated such a space. In that terrible moment, our community became inextricably tied to other communities of different faiths whose peace had been desecrated by hate. To classrooms of school children whose joy of learning had been shattered. To victims of violence in our streets when a normal trip to the market or a night out dancing became a death sentence.

This is not a Jewish Issue. Or a Black Issue. Or a Muslim Issue. Or an LGBTQ Issue.

This is an Human Issue.

______________________________

I am afraid. Not so much for myself, but for my loved ones. Particularly for my children and the world they have come of age in. 

The world I have helped shape. I cannot absolve myself of my part in a terrible complacency that has allowed hatred to flourish. We believed that things were getting better. That society had moved beyond narrow tribalism to embrace a multi-ethnic culture. Perhaps the truth is I allowed myself to believe that because I was prospering. 

Over the past several years, a small voice inside keeps asking the same question: At what cost?

______________________________

What can I do to help repair a wounded world? It feels so trivial to gather to say a prayer for the dead when the living are in so much pain.

Even in my current anguish, I argue with the translated blessings. Instead of reciting the Amidah, I meditate.

May all beings be held in lovingkindness.

May all beings be at peace.

May all beings be free from suffering.

To those reading this, thank you for being here with me.

May you be held in lovingkindness.

May you be at peace.

May you be free from suffering.

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

This is Me: An Adoption Story, Part 7

Coincidences and Connections

If you haven't been following along and want to catch up, here are all the prior installments of this strange and mostly marvelous tale:

Part 1: http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2018/07/this-is-me-adoption-story-part-1.html
Part 2: http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2018/07/this-is-me-adoption-story-part-2.html
Part 3: http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2018/07/this-is-me-adoption-story-part-3.html
Part 4: http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2018/07/this-is-me-adoption-story-part-4.html
Part 5: http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2018/07/this-is-me-adoption-story-part-5.html
Part 6: http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2018/08/this-is-me-adoption-story-part-6.html

Part of the weirdness of this journey for me was watching all these odd coincidences unfold. Realizing that I had a circle of friends in common with my Uncle Paul was certainly one of them, but not the only one.

Another delightful discovery was that I had a cousin who lives a few towns over from me. He and I met for an extended breakfast last December and pretty much talked nonstop. G's father is my maternal grandmother's brother, so I *think* that makes us second cousins.

(Parenthetical aside: No matter how many times I look up the difference between a cousin and a cousin once removed, I can't keep the distinction in my  head. It makes sense when I look at the genealogy charts, but vanishes after a few minutes.)

I realized, when putting this blog post together, that it's been nearly a year since G. and I met and I definitely need to reach out to him and reconnect.

So to recap:

• In October of 2017, I found the adoption file that I had believed was lost in our 2010 house fire while looking for something in the attic.
• I fired up google and typed in my birth mother's name
• I found her; but she had died in 2010
• Through the family tree that was posted for her, I found her brother, my uncle
• He and I were connected by a circle of science fiction & fantasy creators
• Through Paul, I was embraced by my large extended maternal-side family (cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and my birth mother's 2nd husband) with one exception:
• My maternal half brother utterly rejected me

That brings me up to the Spring of 2018. To that point, I had not yet connected to any of my paternal family. 

During this process, I had signed up with both Ancestry and 23andme. Despite my initial misgivings about the confidentiality of my genetic information, I decided to go ahead with the genetic testing mainly because I hadn't known at the time if I would ever get my health history from any relatives. Given that I have children, and given how much we are discovering about the importance of genetics in health and disease, I chose to risk the privacy issues. 

One of the things that 23andme does is sends you periodic reports when it finds genetic matches and gives you their best estimate on how close a relationship you share. 

In late June of 2018, I got an update from them with a new genetic match. RB was listed as a likely 1st or possibly 2nd cousin. And his last name was the same as my birth father's. This was my first clue to discovering my paternal side family!

I sent an email through the website and got a response back a few days later. Here's where it gets tangled.

The person who answered my email was LA, the daughter of RB. She had been the one to manage the DNA test for her father. It turns out that her father, rather than being my 1st cousin, is actually my half-uncle on my paternal side.

RB's half brother is my birth father, but R did not grow up with his half-siblings. They shared a father but had different mothers, as my paternal grandfather divorced his first wife, who moved with her child (R) to Utah. My paternal grandfather then remarried and had multiple children with his second wife, one of whom is my birth father. 

Through this half-uncle, I was connected to a huge branch of the family, much of which live in Utah. I have corresponded with multiple levels of cousins only to discover that one of my (2nd cousins? Removed? Gah, this gets so complicated!) is a science fiction writer with whom . . . wait for it . . . we share an entire network of mutual friends. 

Yes, folks, there are bone fide science fiction geeks/writers on BOTH sides of my genetic code. 

And it was utterly delightful when I discovered that both Paul (my maternal uncle) and Karen (my 2nd cousin, something something removed on my paternal side) were both attending WorldCon in California this summer. The two of them found one another and took a photo together for me. 

Paul and Karen - the 2 sides of my heritage meet!

To be continued. . . 

P.S. Happy "Foundaversary" Paul! It was just a year ago that we spoke for the first time!

(Read on to part 8)

---

Subscribe to BlueMusings and receive my short story collection, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE, as my gift.

Email        
First Name
Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

Playing Hooky

For much of the past week, I've been at StarField Farm with my friend Jayne.

She had a week's vacation and needed a major recharge. I was more than happy to have an excuse to spend time in the quiet of my personal "Rivendell" and recharge as well.

For the first time in a long time, I let myself just be. No deadlines. No writing projects. No to-do lists.

I immersed myself in the quiet and the day to day.

Watched the day lilies and was rewarded by seeing the first bloom.

There has been a little swallow's nest tucked in the beam of the back door porch. The babies had finally fledged and were looking mighty cramped in the nest, but were refusing to leave.

It's hard to see with my cellphone photo, but there are three fully fledged swallows crammed into this nest. The parents spent the better part of several days swooping over the nest and yelling at the babies to get off their asses and fly, damnit. Well, that's my translation of bird anyway.

Our most ambitious endeavor of the week entailed making strawberry rhubarb jam. The strawberries were ones I'd picked last June and frozen, when I knew I wouldn't have the time to deal with them. The rhubarb was fresh picked from just outside the kitchen door.

Until this year, I didn't know rhubarb was something to cook with or eat. It looked like weird celery. It's leaves are poisonous. Who looked at this strange plant and decided it was food?

The jam was fabulous. I adore making jam. For those of you interested, I don't use a recipe, per se, but have honed my methods from these sources:

https://nwedible.com/how-to-make-pectin-free-jam/ My favorite resource for playing with making jams.

https://www.southernfoodways.org/southern-summer-in-a-jar-jam-secrets-from-april-mcgreger/  same method as above,but with the basic ratio I've found the most helpful for fruit and sugar.

http://justhungry.com/strawberry-jam-copious-detail

And a few links from this blog, along with photos of past year's jamming: http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2012/06/strawberries.html
http://ljcbluemuse.blogspot.com/2013/08/we-be-jammin-blueberry-edition.html

Speaking of local food, we also ate tons of local asparagus and strawberries. It's hard to pass up local food in season. So we didn't. :)

I also culled the peach tree. (Full disclosure - this is a photo from last year, but the peaches were about the same size this year when I culled them.) This city-mouse has never had fruit trees before, but I have learned that peaches (and many fruit trees) do best if you cull the fruit when it is small to avoid overloading the tree and having it use all its energy to make fruit. Otherwise, you get decent harvests every other year rather than every year.

There is a kind of patience you learn living like this. You can't hurry peaches. They ripen in August, no matter how impatient you are for them.

Most of the nights this week were overcast, and while there wasn't a lot of opportunity to stargaze, we did experience a wonderful consolation prize: fireflies. Jayne and I spent most early evenings on the swing out front watching the dusk deepen, waiting as the birds settled for the evening, spotted the dragonflies dancing, and the first swooping bats. And then the fireflies would rise. I know they're just bugs, but there does seem to be something magical and otherworldly about them.

So Jayne and I spent a lot of time watching the world go by. Over the course of the week, we saw birds and hawks. The aforementioned dragonflies, bats, and fireflies. A deer came to visit on two occasions and I lost count of the rabbits. (The dogs, I'm sure, did not.) Jayne thinks she saw a bobcat slink by one morning. There is a deep silence here and it sinks into your bones. 

And then there was one clear night. I had fallen asleep with the dogs in the living room. When I woke up is was well past midnight. I took some time to stand out on the front stoop and watch the stars shine overhead.

It's easy to forget the stars. It's easy to forget to look up. It's easy to forget to breathe. 

---

email:

• Free eBook
• Free/DRM-free short fiction
• publication news

So you want to be an ally

This post emerged from my observations and experiences, especially over the past year and in response to the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements. This is by no means an authoritative or complete guide to allyship - that would be a pretty large ego-driven statement - but it is something that's been bouncing around my head and I thought I would start to lay it down in words.

I welcome comments and suggestions.

1. Examine and understand your motivations

You don't get cookies or gold stars or a cool t-shirt for performing the role of ally. It's not something you can cross off your bucket list, like "Visit Iceland" or "Climb Mt. Everest."

Being an ally is a position or identity you stake out in your life. An avocation, if you will. More like being an amateur painter or musician. And as such, it means committing to a lifetime of practice and learning.

And if your motivation for being an ally is "so people think I'm a good person", stop. Just stop. You are making this all about you and your ego.

2. You must be willing to risk your position

Congratulations - you have come to a point that many do not: you recognize that you have benefited from society's inherent biases. That while you may have worked hard for what you have, you started out at a more privileged position or easier difficulty level. And you want to do something about it. That's great. A level playing field seems like the right thing to fight for.

There is no fight without risk.
There is no change without loss.

You may lose your standing in your family, your place of worship, your profession, your neighborhood.

If you do your work well, you may see yourself be passed over for promotion or opportunity in favor of someone in a less privileged position. And that may hurt, because deep down, whatever our politics or outward actions, we believe we earn what we have achieved.

Understand that in a more equitable world, you may not always get the winning lottery ticket. If you've always gotten them in the past, that will feel like a loss, instead of a correction to a rigged game.

3. Amplify, don't shout over

The main jobs of an ally are to listen, educate, and amplify.

Listen: make sure you really understand what the people you wish to ally with want. And this may be more difficult than you think. There is rarely complete consensus in any group and just as you cannot speak for all white people, you cannot think that anyone speaks for all people of color, or all women, or all people in the LGBTQ communities, or all Muslims, or, or, or. And that's not even acknowledging that individuals can and do belong to more than one marginalized group.

Educate: Educate yourself and your fellow folks in privileged positions. Read foundational source texts from folks in marginalized groups. For all that is good and pure in the world, DO NOT MAKE THOSE YOU WISH TO ALLY WITH do the emotional labor of educating you.

Amplify: Here's an example: Imagine you are an actor. Spend time actively promoting movies with actors from marginalized groups. Talk them up on social media. When someone praises your role in a specific show, thank them and recommend something from a group you wish to be an ally with. Same for artists, musicians, writers, etc. Use your platform to boost voices that wouldn't otherwise be heard.

Frequent shops owned by people from marginalized groups. Use the power of your economic privilege to support them.

Signal boost; don't obliterate with your voice. That's a callback to point #1: If you are talking OVER marginalized voices in your effort to be an ally, you aren't. That's ego. Examine your motivations.

_________

I wrote this post as much as a reminder for myself as well as for my fellow white folks, both allies and potential allies. I know this is not a complete list and if I have make any errors or omissions, I apologize and will edit as needed. 

Know that this is hard work.

Know that you will make mistakes.

This is okay; learn from your mistakes.

No change happens easily.

Change can happen.

It must.

---

email:

• Free eBook
• Free/DRM-free short fiction
• publication news

2017: A Year in this Writer's Life

I suspect most of you will understand when I say I won't be sorry to see the last of 2017. With a few notable exceptions, it was a difficult year, personally, professionally, and in the world at large.

Still, I have been fortunate. I have good health care and our family has financial stability. Those two things alone make me an outlier.

And, while I haven't written as much in 2017 as I had wanted or planned to,  it was still a full year of writing news and personal news.

Writing Life

Chris Howard knocks it out of the park again with this cover image.

Publications 

2017 saw the publication of PARALLAX, the 4th book of my space opera science fiction series Halcyone Space. 

I also contributed a new original short story to the anthology ORPHANS IN THE BLACK called "In the Clutch", unrelated to the universe of the Halcyone Space books. It's a bit of an homage to Earnest Shackleton and the Endurance mission. With reptilian aliens. 

Writing in Progress

The drafting of book 5 (A STAR IN THE VOID) has been going more slowly than I had anticipated, but I'm still working within my original publication time frame of Summer 2018. 

After several false starts, I finished another short story for an upcoming themed anthology and am awaiting editorial notes. It's a bit more on the literary side than my novels and I'll be interested in seeing what readers make of it.

In other new writing, the Vito Nonce project that I'm co-writing with Rick Wayne has taken a brief hiatus as both of us are working on finishing current series, but will be a focus in the new year. 

So between novels, short stories, blog posts, and poetry, I've probably eked out 50,000 new words in 2017. Considerably less output than I've managed in prior years, but I'll take it as a victory. 

Events and Honors

I addition to attending ARISIA (and garnering an invitation to participate in 2018) and participating in programs at BOSKONE and READERCON, this year marked a convention first: 

One of these days I'll learn to to take goofy photos.
But not this day.

I was invited to be a Guest of Honor at G.A.M.E. in Springfield, MO. They folks at G.A.M.E. were gracious and welcoming and I had a great time meeting old and new fans and talking about SF&F tropes that needed to die. 

This year also found me in Denver to attend MILE HIGH CON. The highlight was getting to meet Nathan Lowell in person for the first time since meeting him virtually 4 years ago.

DERELICT picked up a new honor in 2017: It was chosen as the inaugural title for a new Feminist Book of the Month Club, featuring speculative fiction titles. It also had another run on Amazon as a best seller during a sale in the fall, introducing the series to a new group of readers. (Welcome!)

This fall, I was able to spend a productive and wonderful week in the company of writing community friends from Writer Unboxed when we gathered for a retreat in the wilds of Vermont. 

And finally, in December I was interviewed by my fellow Broad Universe member Rona Gofstein along with Kevin Ross Emory on their show: Dragons & Unicorns & other creative creatures. 

So if you've ever been curious about my creative process, my stories, my ceramics work, or just what to hear my squeaky voice and watch me talk with my hands, have a look. 

 

Personal Life 

Star Field Farm rises

In January of 2017, my husband and I closed on a home in Central Massachusetts on a 54 acre piece of property that is part farmland, part Rivendell. Ultimately, it will be where we retire to. In the meanwhile, it will be a personal and writing retreat space.

In March of 2017, my gallbladder and I decided to part ways. It was less an amicable divorce than a forced separation. I don't know how it is faring, but I'm a lot healthier without it in my life. 

My birth mother, circa 1962

The year ended with an incredible discovery: my birth family. After decades of searching, and after believing that door had closed permanently, I have made contact with aunts, uncles, and cousins related to my (late) birth mother. It has been quite a journey finding new family in my 50s and discovering that, yes, poetry and geek are carried in the genes.

I suspect that I'll be continuing to process what this all means for me over the coming year both in my journaling, my poetry, and my stories. 

In looking forward to 2018, I wish you all a year of creative energy, of personal growth and breakthroughs, and most importantly, of peace and joy.

#SWFApro

---

email:

• Free eBook
• Free/DRM-free short fiction
• publication news

Food, Words, Dogs

When I'm at a loss for what to do about the pain of the world, I turn to a few things that keep me centered: food, words, and the comfort of my dogs.

Today is for chopping and freezing more tomatoes and canning applesauce. There is something about preparing food for the future that reminds me there is a future. There will be family meals and laughter and the reminder of a clear summer day or a cool autumn breeze.

I put away the harvest in part because I want to hold to that imagined future day when we will gather with loved ones to feed more than hungry bellies; we will feed souls and nurture our whole beings.

Food is definitely my love language.

And I also turn to words, particularly poetry, during times of crisis and mourning. Sometimes that's reading others' work, sometimes it's writing my own. I can't count the number of times I've read Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" and received comfort from her assurance:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

This week, I was reminded of something I wrote right after hurricane Katrina tore through so much of the south. We were visiting our in-laws at their home by the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland - the home that they had lost and rebuilt several years earlier in a different hurricane.

After the Levee is Breached

Only the lightest puff of air stirs
pennants along the dock. Telltales hang
from luffing sails. In the stillness, bees
stagger between the open throats of thirsty

orchids. When wind and full moon forced

the bay to rise, it scoured the eastern shore.

This time, the great tidal surge gathers

elsewhere. Camera crews rush to film

other places more prosperous, newly drowned.
Watermen haul their catch by hand, chant

a guilty mantra--Hugo, Andrew, Isabel;
new storms spin elsewhere. Tonight a front

gathers force; it rends high, thin clouds.
Stars pour through the rift like water.

                                                                       LJ Cohen 2005

The lines that keep running through my head today are these: This time, the great tidal  surge gathers/elsewhere. Camera crew rush to film/other places more prosperous, newly drowned.

We seem to only crave the newest tragedy, the freshest disaster. And only until the next surge and the next.

I envy my dogs, especially on days like this. They soak the world up through their senses, find happiness in a warm pool of sunshine and the sound of a familiar voice, the jingle of a car key, the promise of a treat.

We are left to try to make sense of what cannot be understood, to carry heartache piled upon heartache. Is it no wonder I want to feed the world?

May you find and hold to that which brings your comfort and may you be able to share that comfort with others.

---

email:

• Free eBook
• Free/DRM-free short fiction
• publication news

Losing Home

Along with the rest of the country, I've been heartsick looking at the damage in Texas from Harvey. Right now, people are in shock, but in the days and weeks to come, the reality that they've lost their homes, their belongings, and their communities will start to sink in.

I know at least a little of what that feels like.

In December of 2010, we were woken by the smoke detectors in our home screaming their alert. We fled a burning house at 5:30 am, in our pajamas and bare feet.

Standing in the cold New England morning, watching our house burn, watching the firefighters smash windows and knock the fire down, I was numb. At that moment, all I could think of was how close I came to losing my family and that's what sent me into a spiral of anxiety and depression that lasted over a year.

In that first week or so, I didn't have the time to fall apart. My husband had to go to work. Our sons had to go to school. I was consumed with the details of just surviving: finding a temporary apartment, getting us all a few days worth of clothing, finding winter coats and boots, dealing with the insurance company and getting the house boarded up so the winter weather wouldn't make the damage worse.

Everyone remarked about how calm and in control I was. How amazing a job I was doing keeping it all together.

Which was true as far as people could see.

Whenever I was alone, I would start to cry. It took me about 15 minutes in the car before any errand just to put myself back together.

And we had only lost our home - not our neighborhood or our support network. Our losses were covered by insurance and we knew we'd rebuild and move back. Our children had the structure of school and their friends. People around us were able to help.

We were lucky.

We were incredibly lucky.

And I still struggled to get through every day.

If I heard a siren or smelled smoke, I would have a full blown panic attack. It was almost a full year before that became manageable.

The people displaced by Hurricane Harvey are not only dealing with enormous personal loss, but the loss of their communities, networks, and structure. Schools won't open soon. Or houses of worship. or local government services. Even if they have the financial resources, they can't just go shopping to replace clothes because all the stores are flooded and closed. If they had a car, it's now drowned. Hell, just getting food is going to be difficult for some time to come. Need medicine? Out of luck. Pharmacies are closed and their computer systems likely down.

If you've never experienced a personal loss like this, it's hard to imagine the scope of the devastation and emotional gut-punch of it. I'm not sure how I would have gotten through our fire and its aftermath without the support of our community. 

It took almost 10 months, but we got back in our rebuilt home. For most of the people in the hurricane, even if they have homeowners insurance, it doesn't cover flood damage. Whatever disaster relief funds there are, they won't cover everything and many of the displaced won't be able to afford the loans available. Or will fall prey to scammers once the rebuilding starts.

In the decade since Katrina, there are neighborhoods in Louisiana that have still not recovered.

So if you can donate to the recovery, please do so. And know that what we're seeing now is nowhere near the worst of what's to come. The destruction of the flood waters is a very visible reminder of the disaster, but what is more devastating is the emotional cost of these losses and that cost will continue to be paid by the people in Texas for years to come. 

---

email:

• Free eBook
• Free/DRM-free short fiction
• publication news