Beloved

Why, hello there. Fancy meeting you here, of all people.

Since my last entry well over a year ago, I’ve had negative-zero-thousand time even for basic tasks, leave alone for the writing that I love. And now, after all this life-water has roiled along under the bridge, I don’t know how to catch up.

And boy has a shiteload of stuff been carried along in that current:

• After 1.5 years of living with my beloved Ember, I dutifully returned her to her rightful place with her immediate fam in June 2023¹.
  
• Days later, I moved 140 miles away from the Bay Area, back to a wildland-urban interface where I’ve since been visited by a bobcat, black bears (someone should tell the latter not to climb my wire fences, since now my wire fences have sunk to the ground, no longer fence-like), tons of grey foxes, and the usual assortment of nocturnal beasts, plus this 150-pound kitty that strolled across my patio.

• In the months after moving, I had to sink untold (and unheld) fortunes into selling my beloved house of 25 years. To say the process was difficult is an understatement. My realtor said she’d never seen anyone with such bad luck—and that was before vandals left shattered glass and blood in my just-perfected place hours before the open house. ‘Twas a time of almost paralyzing anxiety and terror. Small was instrumental in getting me through it, but I admit it still took a giant physical and mental toll.
  
• In my new town, I tuned into the news and events segment on my local community radio station, and learned about a “men’s vegan drumming circle.” Don’t even let me get started on that one.

That gets us only to August 2023, and the problem is that I just don’t have the heart to write it all from there. It’s been deaths and serious illnesses among my beloved humans (while my own sustaining organs and cells are inexplicably healthy), along with myriad challenges both unnecessary and brutal. Yet there have been a few flashes, like lazy summer heat-lightning, of good stuff. Like, I saw Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan in concert this August. (Willie was wonderful. Bobby was a bore.)

And so it is that I’ve come to the painful conclusion that it’s time to say goodbye to yet another beloved thing: Bloggy. I hope to write again someday if things ever settle down. Maybe I’ll set up a secret writing spot somewhere. Who bloody knows what the bloody future bloody holds? In the meantime, I’ve locked down the 1000-plus posts I’ve written here since 2004, just to keep them comfy, warm and safe. Now, one has to ask to see them, and why would anyone do that?

I leave you with the verse of The Parting Glass that I’ve always wanted on my tombstone. (Since I don’t expect to have a tombstone, can someone please write them on a scrap of paper and toss it into a river so it, too, can wash away under the bridge? But not yet, please.)

Of all the money that e’er I spent, I’ve spent it in good company.
And all the harm that ever I did, alas it was to none but me.
And all I’ve done for want of wit, to memory now I can’t recall².
So fill to me the parting glass. Goodnight, and joy be with you all.

Okay, y’alls (and by “y’alls,” I mean my four readers): It’s been real. Mwah.

Before I leave, I offer you one heartfelt piece of advice for you to hold close the rest of your days: if you ever consider getting a 3-month-old puppy, remember that raising puppies is like childbirth. You forget how awful it is, and so you go and do it yet again. Don’t.

Oh, and by the way: it’s still all about me. Never forget that, Beloveds.

1. But we had a fabulous summer together here at the new place, where Emmy found snakes and bugs and feathers, and heard owls and other cool nature things. ↩︎
2. Actually, one of my biggest problems in life is that I can indeed recall, in exquisitely vivid detail, nearly all the things I’ve done for want of wit. Obviously I didn’t write the damned song. ↩︎