In the city. Benjamin has moved out. I see him from a distance – we wave.
I’m in the new place, yes, and I have the studio where I paint, yes, but there is also a writing room I have not been to in some time….
It’s a bit of a grody place, kind of like a rundown motel room, no real neighbourhood around, and dodgy things going down in the nearby rooms…
But it is a place to write.
* * *
In waking life, space is not such a problem – heck, you can write just about anywhere (if you can still go anywhere, given the day by day increasing restrictions on movement) but it is more about the time – time to write.
But well, hey. Looks like there’s gonna be a lot of free time ahead!
There’s so many things I’ve been meaning to write about – rambling thoughts in my mind, rough drafts sitting in the draft folder here… Not sure I’m ready to make a big public commitment to a daily practice or anything just yet, but it does seem like an awfully good time to a) be as creative as we can be, and b) enjoy the beauty of widespread connection the internet gives us and not just the obsessive paranoia.
Speaking of which – this was happening in the building across the street yesterday –
Scary dystopian scene, right?
So this is the challenge – to find the focus, to shut out the tremendous corona-noise for a chunk of time each day, and to find the joy that is always there, waiting, in creativity.
And so many people, across the globe, are stepping up, shouting out, in the most amazing ways already. For example, my hugely talented neighbour –
And you, Nose Followers? What are you up to in this strangest of times???
follow your nose 
Studio AND writing room! Envious. Your neighbourhood looks like a Charles Sheeler painting. It’s magnificent.
Much of a muchness here.
Ahhhh, I don’t actually have a writing room – it was a dream… but made me think. On the other hand, my computer died back at Christmas time, so I’m reduced to working by hand or on the iPad.
However all of that is Oh So Last Month, as now everything is about the current situation.
This morning I read several articles about what Brazil is facing – as the virus enters the favelas… ayayayayayyyy
And we have a racist president who *wants* it to spread.
Yeah, he’s a bit of a doozy, your new guy
I am glad to see something from you again! I haven’t seen a post from you in a long time. I have to say I don’t think I could create anything worth doing in a place like that. If I am stuck in a city it feels like my soul is shriveling. I have not been able to finish any woodworking in a while here for lack of a tool I use to hollow wooden spoons and bowls. The manufacturer quit making them so I can’t get parts to repair it. But I finally found one from another company that looked like it could work and ordered it. Then it took more than twice as long to get here as was predicted, but it finally arrived Friday, I guess. It was in the mailbox yesterday, but mail doesn’t come on Saturday. Now I am worried it might be too heavy to use as I used to use the ones I have depended on for something like 28 years. And my left hand trembles now.
But I have written a few more stories during this time. If I had a suitable address to send you a story, I’d send you one, but I doubt this would be the place to send you something as long as a story, even a short one only a page or two long, and most of them are several pages.
From my desk where I look out over miles of woods and hills.
Terron
Terron! Send me a story! Kataasals@gmail.com