This time I do have a concrete reason for not writing in such a long time. I am nearly finished with a book I have been writing on the natural and human history of Chico, California’s Bidwell Park. I plan on submitting it to an interested publisher in mid September. I do have high hopes here, and I think it is really important for people to know about this wonderful and very complicated open space. Many issues are involved in this story, and there are many things that must be known.
As things have developed, I am basically finished with the writing and am onto footnotes and bibliography and last minute revisions. These are not the kinds of writing that stimulate creativity, and there are times when I can’t wait to get away from the computer. I have thought for a while that I’ve needed to get back to this blog, and I am sitting down and doing it today. I will also begin an adventure in about twelve days, and am getting back to this project so I will be stimulated to write about that. More will appear about that soon.
I think my feelings about the world’s situation has kept me from sharing too. I feel kind of bleeaahh about it all. Politically, the US feels stuck to me, with no direction forward, with increasing divisions and mud slinging, Of course, and we are much better off than during Trump’s term in office, but He Who We Must Not Name remains in the background, at least for now.
But it appears to me that this mud slinging is not involving day to day people in politics. I do fall on the progressive side of things (not “woke”, but progressive – the two are not the same thing at all.) It looks to a lot of people that the current left has admitted that it can’t change things and is resorting to insulting, attacking, and cancelling people instead of organizing and building coalitions, etc. There are some signs that more and more progressives are at odds with this “woke” stuff – but at the moment, here we are. Stuck.
There is also the pandemic that refuses to vanish, and people who refuse vaccines, although there are signs that that is changing too. And climate change. It is not just wildfires in California; there are floods in China and they also hit Germany. I just heard of floods and tornadoes back in Pennsylvania, and I just read about wildfires in coastal Turkey. I’ve been having a phone/email dialogue with a very old friend, where we wonder if the world has passed the point of no return. My thinking is no, but as I wrote to him yesterday, I am capable of living in la-la land.
I do strongly believe in writers’ responsibility to create some kind of hope, so I will try to do that, including with the upcoming adventure. So here I just spewed… writing can certainly get the creative juices flowing and the sense of hope moving. So here we go and yes I have to be disciplined. Bye for now.