Weird Neighbor Edition, sort of

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I am having a difficult time writing these days, or thinking, or doing much of anything at all. The world is terrible. I find myself disassociating regularly, crying at odd intervals. We spent the weekend in Albuquerque, with my mother and sister-in-law, the expanse of sky and sage and sand stirred up by fierce winds, sun unrelenting and thicker-bodied than the sun here. The pandemic is clearly over in the Southwest, or at least everyone has agreed to pretend it is so. We were the only family wearing masks in food halls, grocery stores, the airport. At the airbnb, my boy and R. and I played cards and laughed until our sides hurt, then spent the days quietly in my in-law's house, my mother-in-law ailing upstairs. Ailing, but still herself, still rolling her eyes at her children. We went through family memorabilia recently shipped from Nevada: Masonic regalia, cavalry swords from the Boer War, gold ledgers from 1868, war medals, old letters, and then shockingly, Nazi patches and a Nazi dress sword and pin surrendered to a great uncle, an American intelligence officer in WWII. J. and I walked dry arroyos while winds whipped the pinons and sweetgum trees. R., J. and I took a tour of Breaking Bad locales (both have watched; I have not and do not plan to) and saw a roadrunner in the middle of a sleepy suburban road. I got sunburned, drank whiskey beneath a veranda, flew there, flew home.

It is a difficult time of year, as always, and much unbloggable for now. But also: America is terrible. One mass shooting after another. Temperatures rising in places to make them unbearable. I remember my former president at my old job giving an all campus speech one year, where she said we were headed toward a time where nations would be fighting over water, where PhDs would be unemployed, where we would be teetering on the edge of societal collapse and the college had to prepare for this, how to educate a new generation fo students. I remember rolling my eyes, guffawing at her hyperbole: this was a community college budget meeting, for Chrissake, in Middleofnowhere America. Get a grip, Marilyn! The stakes are not that high!

I have thought of that speech a lot in intervening years, as it seems she was prescient, or at least paying attention.

Ah. But I wanted, originally, to write something more lighthearted. Something less dire. Something that says even though I am teetering on Very Large Life Decisions and A Lot is Going On and This Is The Time of Year That Is Hardest of All, I'm actually happy. I garden, I run, I don't write much, I occasionally bake, I sing, I produced an entire opera last weekend, I have a nascent idea of what my next creative project will be buzzing at the periphery of my vision. I wanted to write about the Sex Lizards across the street, about our little urban neighborhood, about the investment in stories R. and I have created about our neighbors, many of whom are lovely people and others who are, as above mentioned, sex lizards. But it feels mean-spirited and unnecessary. Let the sex lizard people live their sex lizard lives. May they prosper and be healthy and hale. 

Today J. and I walked the olden dog and talked about summer jobs--it's almost impossible for him to get one, like it's impossible for him to participate in sports or extracurriculars due to his mandated travel--and how different his teen years are from mine. Even the travel aside, everything is different. The pandemic, climate emergency, the real and tangible fear of a school as a potential warzone. It has been one of the wettest and coldest springs on record. But today, the sun shone and the air was humid and warm. Everything is blooming. The air smelled of roses, mock orange, mown grass. In the yellow cedar, waxwings and sparrows. My garden suddenly blurred with new growth, chaotic with blackberry, nipplewort, wild lettuce, clover. Everything reverts to wildness, even now. Even so. 

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