Notes from Inside My Prickle Suit - May 2024

(5/21/24)

​Just be myself. Who else can I possibly be? What else can I do? Remain available. But not in a doormat or cheeseboard or slub on the rug or what have you sense.  My granddaughter Eva is not wearing her rare happy face. No, she is not. I am not wearing my rare happy face either.

Put all the big feelings into my writing despite feeling a bit trapped inside my prickle suit, rather like the one my character wears in THE THICK AND THIN HOUSE, the flash novel I'm struggling with, a mashup, a blend of genres, something for everyone or perhaps no one but me. 

And I'm back in business, after a fashion. It's May, trending June, as they say, halfway into my new year, THE year I proclaimed when all the big things were going to happen. I've already been to New York twice, crossed the country (mostly by train), camped in Utah. What else? Does anyone care? Much journey-ing. I've more or less done what I set out to do. Leave for Mule Days in Bishop CA tomorrow.

Leaning in to what leans into me, or sags or bags or seems to lilt or sway in my general direction. I'm working at not resisting, not fighting those uphill (or is it downhillO battles. I think perhaps that's a mixed metaphor or perhaps just a muddle done. The grandkids remain a sore, soft button. I know, I get it, I understand, that it's not about me. Yet I know too, or I think I know that I can't help pressing myself on them  which only makes it worse because they hate it and push against me even more, which makes me whiny and pitiful which makes them behave even more awfully which makes me behave even more childishly.

Ye gads. I wish they didn't see me when they looked at me. That I could, you know, transform into this other, more fun, thing. The grandma I used to be, the one they did art and crafts with and watched silly animal videos with and baked with. None of that seems fun anymore. Sigh. My prickle suit is itchy today.

(5/27//24)

Back from Mule Days. I want a mule, for Eva of course, and, well, me. Inserting mules and donkeys into my work in progress, of course, who wouldn't. Prepping for interview with Molly Giles. THICK AND THIN HOUSE -  perhaps I'm halfway into the draft. Just need to figure out the story arc for each character, what will break the story open for each of them. Perhaps we don't know exactly what it is, but clues are scattered like bread crumbs, clues that an interested reader could follow and trace backwards or forewords.

(5/28/24)

Writing because well, one makes a commitment. 

Willing the scale to show me I've arrived at some magic number below 170. Interesting, or is it, that two plus months ago, I was carrying around 15 more pounds than I am today. Do I feel any different for it? Surely I must. My jeans are looser. My belly is still my belly. My toenails are perhaps a bit easier to reach and clip, though still not easy. Another ten should be telling, should be noticeable, right? 

No one has said anything yet. Perhaps they haven't noticed or is it that I've been at this yo-yo dieting business for so long, this up, down, sideways business of obsessing over the size and dimensions of my body, that they don't dare? And to what end, seriously, to what end?

It does feel different this time. More measured and just for me. Not that it isn't frustrating, how slow it is at this age. But I have time, right? A good time as it will take time, that much is obvious. The pounds melt so slowly and the movement is not all in the direction one would want and of course I have all the control over that. 

Analogies to the writing abound. It's in my hands, my fingertips. Mind to fingertips. To do or not to do on any given day, at any given moment. Nothing hangs in the balance. It's all up to me. ​



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