It's cool here on the back porch this morning. I'm wearing a hoodie, like most days, but this time it's for warmth as much as comfort. Sunflowers in the garden make me smile just looking at them. The fountain gurgles that calming sound of running water. Simply enchanting. Why did I take so long replacing the electric pump?
This is what the end of September feels like. Most people live for summer but I'm an autumn guy. In the last week alone, cross country season saw some of the first serious racing, I completely cleared the decks of all writing activity for the first time in three years, and Bruce Springsteen turned seventy-five. This is a time of rejuvenation and possibility. I call it Christmas in autumn. Well, that's what I call cross country season. But it's my term, so I think it's time to make the definition more inclusive.
Also last week, I received my editor's comments on Taking Midway and spent a good deal of time addressing them. I trust Jill's instincts completely and they served as a North Star in taking what was already a solid body of work and giving it more heft.
Calene had some hospital business — also last week — and I sat with her, typing away on my laptop as she slept. Hospitals are an amazing place to write because they're so damned quiet. It just sucks to be there.
For entertainment, I read Calene some of the Amazon reviews of Confronting the Presidents. My co-author and I each wrote an essay to end the book, explaining our thoughts on the last two presidents. We have differing views. The laughs came from people writing in to say how stupid and misguided I am. Never before in the history of Amazon, I am quite sure, has an author so enjoyed being pilloried. Hilarious.
On a more practical side, I finally addressed the pile of dirt that Django has turned my garden into, with his digging and patrolling. I added lots of new flowers, with the focus on drawing more honey bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. I'm sitting there now. Clears my head to be out here alone. Very inspiring.
I'm in talks with my publisher about the next history book but this hole in my schedule seems a very good time to write that fiction project I've been talking about for years. I'm a little afraid. Fiction is new to me. But I took a lot of storytelling chances with Midway (you'll see — it's not your normal work of naval history) and am emboldened to carry that positive energy into the heavy lifting of making something out of nothing. It starts with rewriting that first chapter I published in this space awhile back. I can do better.
Finally, my cross country team gave me an enormous boost this week. Both boys and girls teams ran monster races on Friday. Nine weeks to State and I think we're looking just fine.We've got a huge training block before our next race and I can't wait to introduce a few new sharpening elements.
Thanks for indulging this meditative rambling. The last week was a mixture of many things and I'm still trying to process them all. That hospital time was a mini-dose of trauma for Callie and I. She said my face looked like cortisol. So the fountain, sunflowers, revived dreams, content with Midway, laughter produced by those Amazon reviews, and watching my runners get the job done is quite the remedy.
On to October.