This brave new world
Two years, and how life has changed. (And somehow remained the same…)
After an adventure abroad in South Korea and Vietnam, we have moved back to Maryland, and it feels like home. My wife has made the leap into her career as a plant nursery manager for a watershed restoration non-profit, coming from the Piedmont to save the Chesapeake Bay. Somehow, North Carolina was always terra incognita. So, rather than spend a few weeks each year returning to the Old Line State and spending the rest of the year pining for my beloved friends and family, I return with my family. My son (a Tar Heel born) has spent over half his life outside the US, which will only change on his second birthday. I used to say–never having left the US–that I was a citizen of the world. I feel that title truly belongs to him. We are the wings that lift him up, beating on to sustain his flight to heights undreamed.
I followed the election closely last year, and it is difficult to contain the feelings that arose afterwards, continuing onward through the transition and into the new presidency and Congress. A thousand Cassandras spelled out the doom that would follow, and yet I still see people surprised by events that unmask the professional grifters we have elevated to high office. I dedicated my life to truth a very long time ago, and to see such blatant disregard for it promulgated by friends and family rocks me to the core. It is a wound of the psyche, difficult to bear even as we live our lives in quotidian dismay and joy. My son and wife are my reminder that we still have power to change the world, by learning from our mistakes and teaching our children a better way.
Ever the Knight of Cups, I return to writing as the challenges of life ebb and flow. I succeeded in completing NaNoWriMo again last year, and the world of Maroon is more vivid in my mind than ever. The Boy guarantees that it comes in fits and starts, but my resolve has only wavered, never vanished. I tried writing groups, but the effort of keeping up with the group crowds out time for writing itself. It is a truism that people understand only after parenthood the meaning of not having enough time. We fritter so much away and call ourselves bored when we merely fail to perceive the gifts before us untouched. I have let drop so many connections with friends and family in the face of overwhelming responsibility, but as we emerge from the woods of our son’s infancy into the meadow of his burgeoning independence, I resolve not only to write but to connect.
Habitica or Google tasks seem reliable choices. (To this day, I mourn the passing of the Handspring Visor, and with it the Calendar+ app, set to Sinead O’Connors “Nothing Compares 2 U.”) I must try to avoid the trap of futzing with the medium too much, though. My life as someone with ADHD is a song of distraction and immediacy. Too often I absorb my stress into video games. But if, instead of playing games that merely pass the time, I make my life into a game of sorts (a la Habitica), that may serve.
Thanks for listening, even amidst the silence.