It’s been a strange, strange time of life.

And before the latest twists and turns really got going, Rick wanted a new bathtub, and me being me, I turned it into completely gutting the bathroom and renovating the whole thing.

In case you feel badly for poor Rick at this point, I’d like to remind you that it’s been a month of utilizing the spare facilities without a door. You don’t much think about the store you put in a door until you ain’t got one.

The most recent piece has been the wallpaper. We thought we were being smart little childrens in getting peel and stick wallpaper, and to be completely fair, it probably is easier than the wet and stick stuff.

But easier is not equal to easy.

But doesn’t it look cool?

So, after watching Rick wrestle this stuff for two days while I worked on work and cookies and various putterings in my courtyard, I was concerned when I saw him coming in from the garage with a crowbar and a thunderous expression.

Me- Ah, hon, you’re looking a little grim this morning.

Rick, still Rickfaced, continuing to advance.

Me- Whatever I did, I swear I’m really truly sorry, I didn’t mean to I swear!

Rick, wrapping am arm around me and pulling me in for a cuddle- This isn’t for you, it’s for the baseboards.

Me, cuddling back- Oh good, I’m sure whatever they did, they totally deserve it. Sic ’em.

Yeah, I know, right? It’s weird to be able to type that, but fact is, the fantastic, marvelous, stupendous Meredith Bennie finished book 1 of the series and it’s currently awaiting approval for sale at Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. I’m told this takes about a month-ish, so I haven’t scheduled a launch party or anything.

But for now… wanna hear?????

When I’m a little less scatterbrained, I’ll be sitting down to write out what this process has been like, and hopefully encourage more folks to give it a try. For now, I’ll say that hearing Nessa speak in reality like she always has in my head has been an incredible experience, as has partnering with someone who appreciated the characters the way that I do and even gave me fresh insight into people I’ve been carrying in my head for literal years now.

There’s been a level of ambivalence in my work for me- I saw an excellent piece of advice of trying to write the book you’d want to read, and I finally tried it, as opposed to trying to force myself to be clever and finding the characters felt plastic. I think time plays a part in it too; I first started on Nessa’s story about five years ago, and in having that distance as well as a few other books under my belt, I find I appreciate the balances more now than I did then.

I honestly think my book doesn’t suck. I believe there’s an audience for it; maybe moreso now that there’s an actual wry tone bringing life and wit to Nessa that’s easier heard than read. At least in my opinion.

It’s been a very strange time, I think for everyone. Being into social justice as a concept is now pretty mainstream. The political situation in our country… well, whatever view you may take, it’s clear that leadership and change isn’t really coming from that direction.

So, like I do, I got to thinking about it. How do you make a difference within your sphere of influence? And more than that, how do you build the habits to keep making that difference a habit that is top of mind rather than a series of one offs?

That thinking led me to a few different paths, and I hope you’ll wander with me a little ways.

I have some favorite essays that I like to refer people to. And while I could sum them up, I think they are too profoundly moving not to share.

No Zero Days

Today you, Tomorrow Me

Got those parts? Okay, good.

Now thinking about those got me to thinking a little bit differently about what it takes to be in the place where you can give of yourself. You have to be kind to and love yourself so you have something of yourself to give to others.

That got me a little further down the path to another group of people who were committed to supporting their community and making the world a better place- and that landed me on reading up on the Code of Chivalry.

And then I started editing to set up a code that I want to try living by myself for awhile, and see how my world feels after a month.

To appreciate the world around you for all it gives
To serve your three selves with no zero days
To offer an ear to those that need it, making their concerns your concerns
To give what you have to spare to those in need of it that cross your path
To refrain from the wanton giving of offence
To live taking into account the happiness of others, and endeavoring to add to it
To turn away from self promotion of deeds done for others
To fight for the welfare of all
To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
To keep faith
To speak the truth when it is kind, necessary, and useful
To persevere to the end in the enterprises in which you engage, unless it contradicts any other part of the code.

If anyone is interested in joining my little Mission to Civilize, I think there’s a lot of benefit to be had by supporting one another in finding ways to not have Zero Days, and highlight inspirational acts from outside the group.

The timeline of your life is marked by a lot of different kinds of events. Some are the little demarcations of a trip or a time when you knew so and so before life swept you in different directions. Some are joyous things, the creation of family, beginning a new chapter, or starting a journey. While there are marks in our minds for each of these, they are of the light sort that blend together with all of the busyness of living.

Some, though, some cut through the heart and to the soul, and they are harder to bear. They are the ones that crack your world in half, forever separating some part of you into before and after.

It’s almost a joke at this point that I called Rod my stepdad- and I can remember the face he made the first time I did it in front of him, even though it’s technically 100% accurate. But the truth goes beyond technicalities- Rod is one of the last people that’s been a part of my life that has known me since I first came to Albuquerque, over twenty years ago. We worked together, and managed to form a friendship that survived time, distance, divorces, and yes, him becoming, technically, my stepdad. There’s a few times in life when you run across that person that gets you- the person that it doesn’t matter how infrequently you talk or how much or little you say- you can always resume that special level of comfort and acceptance with one another. Whatever you want to call it, it’s just there, and if it’s not there it won’t get there for all the wanting in the world.

Today, we had to say goodbye for a while, along with a lot of other things that needed saying. I’m deeply joyful that we got the chance to say those things; it was an especially rare and priceless gift that I will treasure until we meet again. I’m grateful that there will be no more pain for him soon.

But oh, how I miss him. I’m not sorry that I’m carrying this new mark, no matter how hard it is to bear in the next days, weeks, and months- to regret that would be like wishing I’d never known him.

And that I could never do.

It’s been a really scary time, this 2020, and I’m very much hoping the chaos quiets down just a little bit, just for a little while, to give us time to cope.

I will say that our various circles have been just amazing at stepping in and offering support, and it means the absolute world to us. It’s been strange and surreal and gut wrenching, yeah, but all these hands and voices behind us, wanting to help cushion the fall any way they can think of- well, it helps.

I was laying in bed this morning, half hoping and half dreading the phone ringing. Sunday mornings are a time for laying in bed, reading the news together, and snuggling down into a nest of ‘not right now’.

I had my head resting on Rick’s shoulder, pretending for just a minute that going back to sleep was an option (ha!). Bree decided she needed to show me she cared too- she crept up and laid her head down where my shoulder meets my neck and snuggled in.

I truly believe our pups know when we’re hurting and worried, and want to help us. Whatever today brings (and it’s been all good news so far), that’s the moment that I’m going to return to in my mind instead of lingering on the bad parts.

How are we? Coping with lots of love and support, and maybe a little snuffling and drool.

It’s a weird fuckin time. And has been since 2020 first kicked off.

But this? Waking up and seeing protests in 30 cities last night… it feels more surreal than it has before. And I know, believe me, I know- I have lived life enjoying the benefits of being white and female. We have have a certain degree of caution that borders on fear, but mine is at a lower ebb.

I don’t have to turn on the news every other day and see some other person just like me who died just trying to live life. I can sit here and say but we’re all people and I don’t see myself as different or better than anyone else, but that is the barest sliver of the problem.

It’s not how I see the world, and I can’t excuse the life I’ve enjoyed so easily. It’s how the world sees people of color.

And yeah, I can sit and point at the root causes and contributing factors all damn day. It doesn’t help because I’m not in a position to effect change.

So, here I sit, without agency or power to help when I desperately want to.

Here’s what I can do- I can understand. And right now, I understand that this fury, this grief, despair, fear to the point of madness at what our society has become must be vented. And if that venting is on the buildings of the city that houses that society- I get it. Acceptable losses. That’s what insurance is for. And after that purge is done, there’s a chance for healing.

And if you want to tell me I’m delusional or stupid… I’m going to point out the fact that when a white guy felt like he needed to vent his frustration with race relations, George Floyd ended up dead this week, and that was the final spark on this powder keg of insanity we’ve been calling 2020.

Because it wasn’t just one act by one guy. There were two other guys helping him.

And how many raided Breonna’s home and killed her?

And how many chased down Ahmaud and shot him in the street?

Why is it so easy to find videos of white women screaming abuse at people of color? Telling them they are less than, threatening them?

This is where we are… and the complex mix of grief and guilt and shame that I feel today- it doesn’t help a goddamn thing.

So I do my best to understand, and to hope, and talk to those that do have the agency and the power to be a part of the solve.

I hope if you read this, that you’ll take some time to think it through, and find some understanding in yourself, too. And I hope it can lead to a call to your powers that be, a letter, a kindness. When you hear someone condemning the protesters, I hope you’ll speak up.

If your courage falters, and you feel yourself slipping into the path of least resistance, remember George and Breonna and Ahmaud… people who were just trying to live.

 

 

 

Awhile back, I did a giveaway for some of the books I’ve written. To me, I was doing my teensy tiny part to help out with people staying home during lockdown.

I got a bunch of response to it… even after the giveaway part was over. One of the coolest parts is that I was invited to consider turning my stuff into audiobooks to be sold on Audible.com and iTunes.

Well, this past weekend I decided to take the leap… I took a deep breath, I put The Witch’s Daughter up for auditions for audiobook readers, and held that breath awhile.

The recordings started coming in… and I cannot tell you how wonderful and strange and awful it was to ‘hear’ Nessa for the first time. I teared up at the end of each recording (where Nessa reveals her mother is missing) even if the voice wasn’t the Nessa I had in mind.

I couldn’t be objective about this- so I reached out to some folks, both readers and non readers, and got feedback on who they’d listen to for the 6ish hours of reading the first book will take, who absolutely could NOT be Nessa, and why.

What I haven’t told any of the readers yet is that if they can pull off Cliche, I’ll probably end up doing all three books with the same reader.

It’s been exciting and terrifying and a lot of things in between… and if all goes the way I hope it will, soon I’ll be able to say that From the Journals of Nessa Ysbelle will be available however you like to listen to audiobooks.

And that’s pretty damn cool.

This will be rambly, and probably unpopular. It is what it is.

It’s Memorial Day, when the general idea is to remember the people who fought and sometimes gave their lives for our freedom. And I do remember them, especially the ones that touched my life personally.

It’s hard, though, not to think of current events. Because we Americans love nothing better than a cause to rally to, our government (and I mean both sides of the line) has cast the pandemic as a war against an invisible enemy.

Do you ever think about why they use that terminology so very carefully?

It’s because we all accept that war brings casualties. We accept that there will be heroes and there will be loss. We hear ‘war’, and we mentally steel ourselves for the martyrs to follow.

This is not acceptable. As I sit here writing this, close to 100,000 Americans have died, and they didn’t have to. What’s worse is that, as I sit here, writing this, there are protests going on across the country, led by people to whom those losses were acceptable and inevitable. They believe their freedoms are being violated by quarantine and the ask to wear a mask in public. And they believe that if more people need to die so that they can have ‘daily life’ back, it’s worth it.

Clearly, I don’t see eye to eye with those folks. And that is what it is- at the heart of it are the issues that continue to divide us- faith, economics, and clinging to things that should have been left in the past. I can’t fight all of that, and I don’t have the right to- one freedom I do hold to be inviolate is the right to think any way you want to.

It’s your actions that can and should be curtailed when they do harm to others.

Back to my central point, though- this is not a war. A virus isn’t interested in justice, and there’s no peace talks to pursue to end this. It is mindless. To keep calling the pandemic a war because it supposedly makes people band together is delusional.

And clearly, it’s also not working.

So how about we drop the bullshit rhetoric and look at the situation and our actions with a little more clarity? Not only does it do more honor to the people who have given their lives, it also puts control back in our hands to stop it from costing more lives.

And it also dishonors those who so deeply believed in the ideas of freedom, justice, and peace that they laid down their lives to achieve that goal- not for themselves, but for us all.

Happy Memorial Day. To those that gave their lives in war, I honor and salute you. To those that have had to die due to lack of PPE, awareness, and the ability to face the reality of our situation, I mourn for you and wish the powers that be had a better plan through this.