The plan for August 2023: Travel 3000 miles from western Canada to Massachusetts and New York, and spend 4 weeks immersed in family activities with my “right coast” family and friends.
The reality of August 2023: I caught COVID sometime during a 20 hour travel day.
So much for plans… Still, I can’t help gazing at my calendar and my neglected “To Do” list; at the Beam paints I ordered and the drawings in my sketchbook just waiting for color; at the story ideas clamoring to progress from my brain to their own Scrivener file on my laptop.
August is winding down, yet I linger in a state of introspection, my usual urge to move forward, move forward caught like wildfire smoke between the sky and the sea. Overhead, a dense, bluish-gray presses down; below, the fleshy pink surface of the Salish Sea reflects a sickly red sun. Bird song barely registers, silent vultures coast over the roof, and arbutus leaves crunch loudly underfoot on my way to visit my garden. The apocalyptic changes happening all over the planet creep ever closer to this island paradise I’ve called home for 7+ years.
I can’t ignore those changes, as I can’t ignore my drive to create. I feel neither push nor pull to vacate my cool, dim bedroom, where there’s always a cat willing to drape their weight over my feet.
My calendar tells me I return to the day job in four days, ushering in a harsh end to this hiatus if I don’t extricate myself from this nest of blankets before then and settle in my desk chair.
So September, bring it on.
