Like most people would say, I think, this has been a rough season. Which I hope explains my extended absence. Generalized mild anxiety bloomed into a mostly controlled anxiety as the world seem to go to pieces around me. Lockdown, Shelter In Place, Daily case rates and how full is the ICU? Will it come here? It has. What happens next? Murder hornets.

All that to say, like most, I have been in full-on coping mode. I did puzzles and washed my hands way too much. I stressed about groceries and toilet paper and meat shortages. I doom scrolled social media. I started sewing again and made over 100 masks for a local charity and for family. I kept working out. I picked up working on my family history again. Anything to keep myself distracted. To keep the low-level anxiety at bay.

And now cases in Texas are spiking. But the garden is blooming and bearing fruit and I have masks and wear them anytime I am out and about. I still wash my hands but the cracking and bleeding has stopped. Mostly.

And I am back to trying to write again. In fits and starts I get words down, slowly.

I fill the bird feeders and bird bath and write a few words. I pick cucumbers and squash and write a few more words. I clean the kitchen and delete some words and reshape that sentence. And I fold laundry and watch Netflix and then write a few more words. Because sitting and focusing for hours just … isn’t happening right now. Not while the world is falling apart around me.