Jan. 4? Already?

Well, I am already late.

I thought I would try to write something on my blog this year, if not every day, at least several days a week. I used to be more faithful to do that, but between California and Texas, I lost some of my words. They are still kind of there, but mostly float to a place of capture only as I try to sleep.

I didn’t think moving would be so hard. I knew it would be hard physically, but the grieving–the loss of people and places left behind–has been harder than I imagined. (But I don’t miss Gov. Newsom!)

We have come to a very picturesque place, but we have no friends, just barely a church, no family in this town. We chose it because it is the halfway point between far-flung grandkids. But at our age, setting up a homestead in a new place is challenging, to say the least.

Covid is a factor, I think, in having some people keep their distance, but mainly, being retired means you don’t automatically have a community to plug into. Finding a church where you are not hired to do worship. walking in with a sort of Jesus-pedigree, is challenging for someone like me who is basically shy until you get to know me or unless I am singing to a crowd or doing live television. Just being a plain old parishioner in search of a parish is different and unsettling. And in this process, I have lost some of my words. Life and passion.

I have lost them to exhaustion and worry.

I have lost them to the loneliness and blank-staring, realizing that halfway in-between might just as well be a half continent away.

I have lost them to the stream of dissent and political pundits that crowd the airwaves and my mind waves in this tumultuous time.

But it is high time to fight back. To reclaim the right to think and write and find joy in the middle of all the mess. To create and not destroy.

To be confessional.

To change and be changed.