nothing in particular — just reaching out

I haven’t written for awhile. Lots of reasons, but mostly that it’s summer and I’m trying to devote my writing energy to my books.

I don’t know if it is the same for everyone. But, for me, the echoes of a schoolkid’s schedule still inform my work habits — at least on a seasonal basis. Summer simply is a hard time for me to work. When autumn comes I gear up; by winter I’m in full work mode; and when the grass begins to reemerge from beneath the snows, my thoughts start to move outward away from the task at hand.

I fight against this. But it is like fighting against sleep or a sneeze: eventually, nature wins out.

So now, it is full summer. We have paid the price of winter snows, ice, and thirty below temperatures to get to this moment when our life on the edge of a northern lake becomes a joy that seems too rich to drink in to its fullest. Truly, it is glasses of wine on the screen porch until ten in the evening when the last warm edge of daylight gives itself over to the chorus of loon calls and the star-filled night. We are reminded now of why we live here, and we don’t want to squander a second of it.

This, for me, is a good time to write only if I get up before daybreak and get myself in the chair with a cup of coffee before the sunlit colors begin to flood the day. The half light of dawn, and the growing chorus of birdsong seem to serve as inspiration. But if I miss this by reading newspapers or allowing the cares of the day to rush in, I’ve lost the moment. When I’ve lost the moment, I’ve lost the day.

I do have a few things to write about — some real movement of the long-awaited film of Neither Wolf nor Dog and some thoughts on affairs of the world. But they will come forth slowly. For now, it is coffee on the porch and an indolent day in the sun.

Stay tuned. I will return, and hopefully with more frequency. I hope you all are doing well.

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