Evac Day 11: Thanks, Godfrey!

Finding a place to stay for four people last minute over Christmas and New Year’s in New York City is not super-easy, but we’ve done it. Thanks, Godfrey! So that’s what I was busy with yesterday, the footwork part of that, and I’m sorry for not posting. Now, starting tomorrow, or maybe even after I write this post, we’re going to focus on putting the vacation back in this evacuation. We are safe, we are okay. I’d be lying though if I didn’t mention how incredibly discombobulated we still are, how I’m having trouble sleeping, how Ax’s art is all wildfires being doused by water in various media including, quite impressively, Lego. We’re okay, but it’s a thing, this disaster-in-our-neighborhood-being-evacuated-thing.

A couple of friends have observed that I sound really together on my blog, much more together than perhaps I do in real life.

“It’s aspirational,” I told them. Like, I know where I want to be emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and a lot of the time I am there or can get myself there especially if I write through it, but yeah, in real life, moment-to-moment, sometimes the lemonade is pretty bitter. It’s not my default way of being, it’s learned. It’s practiced. I don’t wake up singing, not yet anyway. So sorry I gave you that impression.

“What is this ‘I’m gonna keep going’ thing, anyway?” Jaz asked me. “It sounds kinda rah rah rah.”

“Oh, no, that’s not how I mean it, I don’t think,” I said, wondering if it was in fact, how I meant it. “It’s more like I’ve considered the alternative and just for today I have decided to keep going, like, even after everything, even if I don’t feel like it, even if I’m not even sure how or if I can do it. Just. Keep. Going.”

“Ah,” she said. “That makes better sense.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s like, it doesn’t have to be a wedding cake and fireworks every day. Some days, a lot of days, are pasta marinara and maybe a bath.”

It’s like I have to remind myself that’s what’s happening. Evolution, going with it, moving with the ever-changing landscape of my life rather than fighting it or trying to make things different than they are is much, much, easier.

Maybe if I keep telling myself that one day I will wake up singing. Maybe even tomorrow. I’m gonna keep going.