Something Clever about Raining and Pouring

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It's summer, so everything and nothing is different. The main thing that's different is what "thing" in the previous sentence refers to.



I'm juggling different things than I was a while back. New things like roofs and paint and sanders, and do we need a battery charger.

That said, some of the context from the past four months is the same: if we do need said battery charger (or paint/stain, or sandpaper), how physically do we get it when we're not going into stores. Also: is it time for another grocery pickup.

That said, many lovely people are saying nice things about my book, Reverberations: A Daughter's Meditations on Alzheimer's. And they all seem to have been talking about it in the past two or three weeks.  



This week, an extended interview with Suzannah Windsor appears at Write it Sideways. I read there, too. 

It was so much fun to connect with Suzannah, whom I first met online and later in a diner for coffee (and sometimes bacon!) to talk about writing. I found her questions really thoughtful.

This interview ranges from my pre-Canada background to the number of years it took to collect essays for my book, and my writing process. Here's a snapshot: 

Essay by essay, idea by idea, I groped my way toward a form that meshed my skills and the larger story. Luckily, many writers had stretched and experimented with creative nonfiction during this time, so once I found the labels “creative nonfiction” and “personal essay,” I could learn from reading their work.

While I'm sanding and painting (and making phone calls to siding and roofing companies and ordering things for pickup), I think too about this "new normal": the one we're in now. Where the seasons still change and give us different tasks, but elements of the contexts don't change as much. 

What parts of this "new normal" do we want to keep? What do we want to do differently, when we start doing different things again? "We" meaning me and my household, and "we" meaning the world.