This week I am up in the mountains of Maine all by myself. No children, no parents, no pets. Just me. For many reasons, and the worldwide crises (googling “crisis plural”) is definitely among them, I may post a lot of small posts on this here web log. Just a head’s up, especially for those of you who get my posts by email!
Here’s where I am (heart emoji x a thousand):
With a new plugin here on wordpress that finds broken links, I took some time the other day fixing links and saving the updated information. Apparently, this sent out posts as if they were new to some of you. I’m honored that you elect to receive my posts! but I’m sorry you’ve been flooded with old — extremely personal, I now see! — posts from a decade or so ago!
I haven’t posted on this personal blog since June 2018. It’s now February 2019. I wonder when I’ll post here again.
Hello! This post continues to have many visitors every day. I’m not sure how you’ve found it, but I’m very curious. If you feel like it, please leave a comment about how you got here? Thank you! —serenebabe
Listening to solid news coverage about the struggles of immigrants and refugees, I was struck today about how disheartening, depressing, and even traumatizing it might be for Black people (and, now that I’ve been thinking about it, for Indigenous people in the US) to have excellent passionate and committed activism and news coverage about the current issues facing immigrants and refugees. Even if Black and/or Indigenous people fully support the rights and causes of immigrants and refugees, I can’t help but wonder (and I suspect google would bear this out) if Black and Indigenous people might feel once again as if they don’t count or are invisible to the “allies.”Read More →
My friend Paula says we should just blog our hearts out (my paraphrasing, with great liberties). I used to write lots and lots and post it on here. But, that was before the days of “everyone has facebook.” I’m still not sure what I want to do here, though I know I want to lean less on facebook.
Moments ago, I posted some photos on facebook, and it felt weird. I used to share photos of our family’s activities all the time; it was super-fun! And, it’s true that most people I know use facebook. So, a lot of people I care about will see the photos of me and my daughters and our Christmas. Posting photos of my daughters on here feels strange, mostly. What is this blog for, then? I’m still not sure. Maybe just little updates?
I’ll give that a try, again…
I’m still recovering from the concussion I sustained in June, but I’m doing really well. I’ve “graduated” so-to-speak from occupational therapy, physical therapy, and soon will finish up with speech therapy and talk (emotional) therapy. I’ll continue with osteopathic manipulative treatment (“OMT”) and acupuncture for a while now, though at my next appointments I’ll be discussing with the providers how long they think I should continue treatments. (By the way, OMT is amaaaaaaazing and I recommend it highly!) My symptoms (headaches, a certain kind of confused thinking, trouble prioritizing, inability to multi-task) are much less frequent. When they come back, I know what to do to get better and a return to mostly-normal happens pretty quickly. For example, 5-10 minutes of eye and brain rest can get me thinking clearly and just about headache free in most cases.
I’ve stopped writing for the Bangor Daily News, which is a serious disappointment. I was told by someone on staff that opinion columnists who didn’t get enough clicks weren’t getting their contracts renewed. But, I’ve gotten a new regular writing gig about which I’ll share details as soon as my first piece comes out (yay!).
Finances are still quite tight, though bridge loans from my parents after the concussion have made it a little less stressful. Now that I’m able to work on the computer for much longer periods of time without causing terrible concussion symptoms, I should be back to work at the level where I’m not terrified every month about whether or not I’ll be able to pay my bills. It’s not close to how it was when I started writing about being “newly poor,” but it’s closer to it than I’d like. I’m perennially grateful my parents were in a position to provide the bridge loans to me. What I’ve been through with this concussion could have ended much worse if it wasn’t for my lucky birth circumstances.
As I think about and ruminate over how to use this blog, I’m thinking about my father’s annual Christmas letter. Each year, it’s truly a work of art. (There’s an excerpt from this past Christmas’ letter on his blog, here.) Maybe writing to an unknown audience as I do on this blog could still be an intimate space, I could write stuff like this but maybe rather than train of thought, I could put some more writing effort into it.
But, oh, I don’t know what I’ll do here.
In any case, thanks for reading this far! I hope to make posts worth your time in the future. :-)
