Musings & Thoughts for Wednesday, November 15, 2023, or: The Boxing-Up of Things Continues…So Does Work on the Novel….

Late Morning/Midday, Wednesday, November 15, 2023, Lithia, Florida

Hi, there, everyone. As I start writing this new entry, it is a mild late fall day in the Tampa Bay area. Right now the temperature outside is 76°F/25°C under light rain. Like yesterday, it’s a gloomy, gray-tinged day, and – also like yesterday – it’s going to be a rainy day. Per my PC’s Weather app, the forecast calls for heavy rain to fall during the daylight hours, and the high will be 78°F/25°C.

Meanwhile, in my future town of residence, Madison, New Hampshire, it’s sunny but chilly – the temperature right now is 43°F/6°C. The forecast for the area says it’s going to be sunny with a high of 46°F/8°C.

From Lithia to Madison – the Movin’ Out Saga Continues

“Instead of moving on, it felt like everything behind me was being wiped out, as though I had conjured it into being and when I wasn’t looking it all disappeared.” ― Ciara Smyth, The Falling in Love Montage

Well, if I ever had any doubts that the moving process was just a bad dream and that my life here wasn’t going to change, the packing-up-of-things process has dispelled them. All of my hardcover and paperback books, CDs, and all but one of my Blu-ray sets – The War: A Ken Burns Film (2007) are boxed up. So are most of my Star Wars collectibles, although there are still a few up on the topmost shelf of my IKEA Billy bookshelves and several floating shelves attached to my wall. Oh, and the three framed Star Wars posters need to be taken down as well.

Aside from my computer, a small 4K UHD TV and its associated Blu-ray player and a few other things that need to be put away – such as my clothes, some family photos, and a few other knick-knacks – the stuff that made this room mine is now in moving boxes with the Home Depot logo and labeled according to the contents: Star Wars Collectibles, Blu-rays & DVDs, CDs, Stephen King Books, Tom Clancy Books, Star Wars & Star Trek Books, and so on.  

I know that I must move, and I understand that change is part of life, but this stage of the process is the saddest, especially since I’m not just leaving a house I called “home” for the second time in seven years, but I’m leaving the only state of the Union where I’ve spent 54 of my 60 years.

“You remember your first love because they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in this world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a person and why.” ― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

And, to top it off, this is Anniversary Week still. Last Friday it was the 51^st anniversary of my first and only kiss from my first girlfriend, a third grader named Cheryl Thigpen, aka the Girl I Left Behind when I was transferred from Coral Park Elementary to Tropical Elementary; tomorrow is the 51^st anniversary of the first kiss from my second girlfriend, “K.”

I feel a bit sad about both of these “red letter dates” on my calendar of life. I sometimes mourn over the brevity of my romance with Cheryl because it was over one day after it began – and mostly because Mom either lost or threw away her phone number. I don’t believe I got over Cheryl even when I was in a committed relationship with “K”; I never really talked about my first girl with anyone close to me, and for months on end, I searched my house in Westchester for the report card envelope on which Cheryl had written her number, hoping against all odds to reconnect with her. I eventually gave up, of course, and for the next four years and three months, I was devoted to “K” (although I will admit to admiring a few of the girls in my fifth and sixth grade classes, especially after March of 1977, when I found out “K” was seeing another boy at Riviera Jr. High…she was one grade ahead of me then, so I was still in Mrs. Vaughan’s sixth-grade class when “K” was in seventh grade).

On Writing & Storytelling: The Work Goes Ever On (Even Though I’m Not Adding New Material)

In case you are wondering if the moving process has forced me to halt all work on my novel, Reunion: Coda, the answer to that question is “No.” I’m still working on the manuscript whenever I get a chance to sit and not dwell on the move and the reasons I have for leaving. Sometimes I try to work on that epistolary chapter, The Big Smoke and the Big Apple: An Epistolary Chapter of Love and Music – March 2000, often with mixed results. Writing a chapter as an exchange of emails between a man and a woman is no easy task. Especially if it’s a first attempt to use this style of writing. It requires concentration, the ability to write in both a masculine and feminine voice, and dollops of patience and creative energy. And, of course, if I’m stressed over a life-changing event – such as an interstate move…in winter…to a Northern state where it fucking snows…I can’t focus as well as I ought to.

So, most of the time when I’m working on Reunion: Coda I am nibbling around the edges, making small but important revisions here and there. I think I have a decent first draft so far, but it’s only a slightly revised first draft, and it still needs more revisions before I can transfer the manuscript from Word to Kindle Create, and from there to Kindle Direct Publishing. So, in a way, the Madison move might end up being a good thing for the novel since I no longer have that “publish in time for the holidays” imperative hanging over my head, y’know?

Anyway, that’s what’s up with me on this dreary, rainy, and gray Wednesday. And since it’s time for my midday rest break (actually, a bit just past my scheduled break time), I’ll close this post here. So, until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.