You’d have to be living under a rock not to know what has been going on in the last two and a half months. (Two and a half months?!? Seems like a couple of decades.) Here’s a little rundown on the state of my tiny world.
It was early March. I had returned from the San Francisco Writers Conference, completely fired up and full of ambitious goals and new ideas. I even opened up one of my old files containing a novel I really wanted to finish. I had high hopes and a ton of adrenaline to propel them with. In addition, I was looking forward to returning to my part-time job at the zoo. After a couple of months off from dealing with the public, it was time to go back and deal with the public.
I’d started implementing the changes that I thought were necessary for the inn we had purchased. You know, getting bids, trying new technologies, tearing my web site apart (mentally) to put back together. I was armpit deep thinking of the events I would host. The room I was going to fix up as my gallery/gift shop. The kitchen I was going to clean and reorganize.
Then BOOM! In comes a virus and the cozy world I had devised had come to a crashing halt. Not an end, just a halt. Stopped on a dime. I, like many others, got whiplash.
The first couple of weeks (March 16 to the end of the month), I was glued to the TV, absorbing all the bad news I could soak up. Having done this right after 9-11, I knew this was bad, not only for my psyche, but for my health. I had to back away from that, and then from social media. I’m informed, but I don’t need to marinate in all manner of (dis)information. And of course, I was worried about my health. After all, I’d spent a week and a half in California, where I had shaken hands and exchanged breaths with a lot of people in a very large city. (I amazingly did NOT contract the conference crud – first time since 2009.) My husband became sick with a lingering (five week) cold. I worried that I had infected him with THE deadly virus by passing on my West Coast germs. (He survived. It was just a bad cold.) I help care for my elderly father and the last thing I wanted to do was share my cooties to him (he’s fine too).
Of course, then you imagine YOU’RE going to die. (Well, the media tells you you’re going to die, by doing this or neglecting to do that. Listen to that enough and you’ll believe it.) Those first couple of weeks I had been seized with a panic with every cough, sneeze, and shortness of breath I experienced (most of that is due to living at a high altitude and owning an inn at a higher altitude).
The zoo was closed, so there went my part-time job. Ditto the husband’s part-time job at the casino, which he relied on mostly for the health insurance. The bed and breakfast was open (essential infrastructure), but people were laid off or if still working, not going anywhere, and so we had many thousands of dollars worth of cancellations and an 11,000 square foot monstrosity of a building to maintain and heat in the winter. Cable. Phone bill. Garbage. Taxes. The new web page and the advertising I’d spent just a week before the you-know-what hit the fan. Linen service. Monthly charges for the credit card processing, the utilities. More taxes. The larger capital improvements we had to put a hold on. Soon the fear wasn’t only of a virus, but of impending bankruptcy and the death of a business we took over before it could even take a first breath.
It’s a lot.
And the writing: The first thing I realized was I couldn’t sit down and write. Or edit. This is the kind of writer I am. If I’m paralyzed by a psychic fear, I can’t write. Likewise, if I’m happier than a pig in a poke, I also can’t write. Writing for me ebbs and flows in the in-between.
How do I know this? Dry spells have happened before, usually when I’m totally stressed and depressed. (The last one stretched for a year and a half.) I attempted to journal my way into writing this time. These are momentous if not historic times. I would leave something for future generations to ponder, right? Wrong. The first day I wrote about five pages. The second day, a half page. The third I fell off the wagon.
This is what happens when you’re frozen.
What I felt helped me the most during those initial trying times was to use my hands. One week, I made 11 pine needle baskets. I worked on them while watching mindless drivel like The Peoples Court and Judge Mathis. I wove baskets to old films on Turner Classic Movies.
The next week, I finished some wire weaving projects. Wire weaving is much like making pine needle baskets – you don’t have to think too hard about it. Your hands have to be strong and your stitches nice and even and tight. It’s also a portable hobby and perfect for those afternoon court shows.
I then went back to pine needle baskets.
I cleaned out every room in my house. Then we cleaned every room at the inn. I next started on the closets in both buildings.
The next thing that was oh-so-helpful was to use my feet. Thank goodness this winter/spring wasn’t as severe as last year’s, what with bomb cyclones and hail and late snow. I was able to walk, and walk some more. I took my chihuahua, Chuy, who has turned out to be quite the adventurer. My husband actually started walking too. Then we took to hiking in the mountains. Now he wants to climb Pike’s Peak. (I’ll pass.) Meanwhile I’ll just walk and think.
I also forced myself to take small writing workshops. I’m supposed to start one this week. It’s not my best work, but it’s cattle prod in the right direction.
I’m also now returning to this blog. Hopefully later to writing and editing. I feel like a seed that’s been trapped in my cocoon, sheltering in my place, warding off the virus by inactivity, but now it’s time for the seed to germinate and shed the shell.
Summer’s coming, the ideas are there, waiting to blossom.
And if you’ve never been to Cripple Creek and want to visit, I’ll be here.
