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Failure was always an option! I don’t know where the month went. I was waiting so much of the month, for something new to happen or to emerge from somewhere. And here, locked in to quiet of my room, nothing much happened at all. I feel a great sense of loss for the month that never began. I never quite seemed to find the right way to approach the days, and so many of them I spent sleeping… long indulgent sleeps. Were they brought on my depression, loneliness, laziness, seemingly chronic infections? I can’t rule any one of those things out I suppose. It’s everything. The weight of endings.

I think I’ve started to let go of the expectations I had of myself, but in doing so I find that the future is scary when it doesn’t come with those expectations. What do you mean by “I can do anything I want…”? Can I, though. What is all of this?

I’ve spent a few weeks now going through Mom’s 1968 diary, researching the references as I go, to try and understand Mom at 14. And that’s a bizarre thing to expect; I don’t understand myself at 14. How can I possibly understand her. Maybe I should pull out my own 14 year old writings, compare them to hers. It is only logical that the things going through my own mind would be similar to what might be going through hers. People are fundamentally the same over time. What terrible things would I discover about her? About myself? Maybe nothing. Maybe I’ll find nothing more than the innocent musings of childhood by two people who are not yet fully realized.

It’s so odd and arbitrary how we demarcate our lives with calendar months, but it still feels like a dawn is coming and the new month washes us clean of the old. It’s all just random nonsense, but I feel it so deeply. I hope this next period is fruitful. I love feeling alive, productive, busy. The routines I once cherished have unravelled, but I could start again; start to weave them back together until I find something new to gird my days.

To May, and to hopeful tomorrows.

30 April 2026  10:30 p.m.  57ºF/14ºC (cloudy)

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In a lot of ways, it feels like things are starting to make sense for me.  And it a lot of other ways, it feels like things are as chaotic as always.  Everyone seems just a little frustrated, but I’m not sure most of them can articulate why.  I know I can’t.

I finished Okie Dokie last month, and I have done a couple of edits to it since.  I hope I’m at a point where I can leave it alone now.  My copies come in the mail Saturday, and I’ll really know then.  I’m both excited and terrified to have my writing available for others.  That was always the goal, but I’m just so nervous about these things.  I hope others can appreciate my point of view and I’m looking forward to getting feedback, even if that feedback is negative.  Constructive criticism is always welcome.  I actually just assume that if someone doesn’t like something I’ve written, then that is just a preference they have and does not reflect on my writing in any real way.  If the consensus is negative, then I’m just writing the wrong things for current audiences.  I will have to wait and see.  The really difficult thing will be critiques by those I admire or grammatical errors pointed out by those I don’t.

I’ve started working on my next book, which will be similar to Okie Dokie in that it will contain selections of poetry from the past twenty years, as well as a few new poems to pull the book together.  I’ll have one or two more like that before relegating unpublished poetry to a “remnants” book of some sort in the future.  I have some things I’ve written that I really love, but I’m not sure how to make them work in any of these projects.  I do want a story to emerge from the collection, even if only loosely.  Okie Dokie was about myself and about how I see the world around me.  The second book will be about family and the places from which they came.  The third book is about friendship and love.  If I need fourth or fifth, I’ll do another about myself and then a last one about family, as those are the two subjects I’ve written the most about.  I’m also not limiting my writing.  I have other things I want to write and those things will fall into the projects that make the most sense for them.

For October, I’m enjoying some spooky stories and songs throughout the month, and I am of course bothering family with those things.  I miss sharing things with people.  I find everyone becoming increasingly isolated, and not just in my own family.  I’ll post some of those things on here during the month.

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Tomorrow I turn 40.  I don’t know that I’m reacting at all.  Maybe part of getting older is that these milestones mean less than they did.  That sounds right.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of legacy lately.  I recently watched a talk by an older woman who had been diagnosed with cancer and knew she would be dying soon.  She didn’t want a legacy; she was so excited to return to the Earth, to be a part of the natural world.  She talked about how beautiful that was.  That really resonated with me and I had never heard anyone talk about it like that before.  I find that I want both.

I’ve been working on my family tree for the past couple of years.  It’s fascinating to discover these people from the past, people whose existence influences my life in ways I will never understand.  They would have passed on lessons to their children, and those children to theirs, and so on.  How far back would I have to go to find the genesis of my belief in fairness, my general work ethic, and my independent spirit?  What would I find that wouldn’t be passed on?  It’s such an interesting space to live in.

I have no children.  Does that mean I will have no legacy?  I admit that it is hard to see a situation three generations from now where there are descendants of my brothers working on their own genealogy and giving much thought to their distant uncle.  But I do that for my own tree.  Some of the most interesting people I find on my own tree are those who did not have children of their own.  That is at least a little bit comforting.  And I hope they find me interesting.

That isn’t at all to write off having children of my own.  I still want that.  I’m not sure at what age it becomes a selfish pursuit, but I don’t think forty is it.  I make many excuses, but adoption is something I should really think about.

I’ll be forty tomorrow, and I’ve been talking about the loss of my youth.  I don’t actually believe that.  I think I’m trying to convince myself somehow that I have to grow up now.  Most days I feel like I’m twenty, but I have days when I feel sixty.

I thought I would be panicky, but I’m not.  I thought I would be coupled, but I’m not.  I thought I would be settled, but I’m not.  I thought I would be a lot of things.  But I am where I am.  And I’m okay with that.

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Welcome To My Oklahoma Family

I was looking for something fun to blog about in 2019 and I thought getting into my family’s history might be interesting. I’ve always been interested in the stories that make up our family, and I am particularly interested in the real lives of the folks without a strong an obvious record. I want to know the things I can never know. What sorts of things did my 4th great grandma think about? Was my 6th great uncle happy? What were the sounds and smells of the house of the young families? It’s unfortunate that legal documents form the understanding of the vast majority of our families. I long for journals or diaries, and maybe more of those will be discovered. Until then, I have only the facts and I will try to present as much as I can to try and help understand the various branches of my family.

I’ve been careful to avoid the words ancestry and genealogy until now, but after this explanation, I will use them. I consider myself a family historian and not a genealogist. I find DNA an interesting part of studying one’s own story, but it isn’t the complete story. Who I share genetics with in a lot of cases have less to do with who I am and who my family has been than close friends and communities, or even pets. There are more ways of facing what a family is than simply tracing one’s ancestry. And I’m also not saying that isn’t valid. If you are only interested in that, go for it. Do your thing. I am not trying to prove a pedigree or show how I am related to anyone in particular, so I’m going to look at the whole. I will definitely look at ancestry and trace my family lines, but I just won’t stop there or be defined by what that is.Continue Reading

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My week was pretty much defined by allergies, which is a little frustrating.  The pollen levels were very high, so I was trying to get through with puffy eyes and a scratchy throat all week.  I used to take a ton of allergy medicine to get through a day, and I guess it is a positive thing that I actually take none now.  This was probably the worst allergy week of the year, and honestly it wasn’t as bad as I’ve experienced in the past.  I’ve had allergies for a long time, but they seemed particularly pronounced when I moved to Oklahoma from Alaska.  I was spending my spring and summer months feeling just terrible, and taking a daily regimen of allergy pills, as I said.  The pills would make me very sleepy, as most medications do.  My allergies really changed for the better when I became vegan, which was curious to me at the time.  Apparently, the science looks like it backs that up.  Several studies suggest that those who eat a vegan diet are less likely to report having environmental allergies (as well as chemical, food, drug, and bee-sting).  I’ve heard anecdotally from other vegans that their allergy symptoms were also improved when they switch to a vegan diet.  It’s so interesting to explore the links between food and health.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that a vegan diet cured me of allergies — clearly not.  This has been a bit of a rough week; however, since they aren’t so bad I don’t have to deal with the side effects of allergy meds.

I’m pretty happy with my yard this week.  Unfortunately, due to the unusually wet August we had, I have black spot on many of the trees, and on one of my roses.  The problem is too widespread to completely correct, and I hope that everything is able to put on some stronger growth next year, as there are so many trees losing leaves.  The rose just needs to dry out, which will help.  Right now, about 20% of it is infected, but it’s a very tall climber and it isn’t possible for me to remove all of the infected canes.  I’m just going to treat it and hope for the best.  I’ll treat it next spring as well, and hopefully the problem will correct.  My Fourth of July rose had black spot earlier this year, and will some TLC it is now disease-free.  I think the Golden Shower rose is healthy enough that it will be okay, but it’ll be a bit ugly for the rest of this year.

The upcoming week looks like it’s going to be a wet one again!!  I’m amazed at the number of rainy days we’ve had.  I love those days, but it is so unusual and not great for my plants apparently.  It also really can help with my pollen allergies, but of course then the mold allergies increase with the moisture, so you never really totally win that fight.

I’ve been editing and rewriting, trying to put together collections of poetry for the books I have planned.  I’m really happy with the direction I’m going with them at the moment, and some of my rewrites make me very happy.  I think I am much more honest with myself now than I was in my twenties.  Maybe that is just an obvious statement.  I have such a lot of poetry from that decade of my life that is really great and requires no work to be exactly what I wanted it to be, and then there are others that almost certainly didn’t work at the time.  If I could have seen that then, or if I had been willing to say that to myself at the time, those poems could have been greatly improved and would not need my rewrites so many years later.  It’s been interesting to see my style over periods of time.  I tend to write in two or three different styles, and I can go months or years focused on just one of them.  At the moment, the poems seem to be naturally dividing themselves into four themes, which will be the books.  The fourth category is one that isn’t fully realized, so that one will need more time to fully develop, but the other three I do really understand well.

I need a schedule!  I am so bad about following a set schedule, but when I don’t have one I tend to forget certain tasks, or get into situations where I am spending far too much time on one thing and not enough on another thing.  So, for the millionth time, I am working on making myself a schedule.  I have too many different things to accomplish to just play it by ear at this point, and I need to make sure nobody feels like things are being neglected.  Some things are, but more importantly there are times when it probably feels like I am not focused on tasks around the property that need to be done, when in reality I am aware of them and not making any show of it.  Sometimes people need to see your work to believe you are doing it.  I hope that goes well.  I really want to get these books done and I think this helps with that goal, while ensuring that everything is still running smoothly.

The “update” category blog posts seem to be posting a day later than they should.  I’m trying to resolve this, but I’m not entirely sure what the problem is.  It’s almost certainly something I am doing wrong.  Bleh.

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This has been a wonderful week.  Once again, Justin and Conner were impressive workers and we made some excellent progress with the yard.  We did get a little rain this week, but nothing like we had been getting.  This next week looks warm and dry, which is both good and bad.  I also won’t be at all surprised if there is unexpected rain.  Why not!?

I’ve started to assemble things with the goal of creating a book of my poetry.  It’s really crazy that I have never done that, but it’s going to happen this year.  I’m trying to decide if I want to do short books focused on a theme, or if I should just chuck everything in together and have a slightly longer book.  I can see the value in both.

Senator John McCain died.  Whatever one thinks of his politics, I think we can agree that he deserves our respect as a veteran and POW.  I also really do believe he always fought for what he thought was right.  I didn’t always agree with what he thought was right, but what I’ve seen in the past decade has been the rise of Republican obstructionism, senators and congressmen who are no longer striving to move us forward as a country.  Instead, they try to gum up the machine, fight to keep people down, and cheat to retain power.  They are unAmerican.  I’m reminded of McCain’s town hall during which a woman asked about Obama, disparaging him.  McCain, being a fundamentally good person, defended his colleague.  It was about advancing their ideas, not about tearing one another down.  That election would include some less honorable moments, and arguably was the unintentionally handing of the Republican party that John McCain was a member of to the Tea Party obstructionists like his running mate.  He had a long career and was a well-loved patriot; my thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.

This has been the third week in a row when I lacked focus on the blog, but I’ve got plenty to write about.  I just need to get with it!

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You’d have a hard time finding someone who loves rain more than I do.  It relaxes me and even the slightest drizzle will cause me to throw open my windows in the hopes that I will hear the patter of raindrops.  It’s one of the things that makes me act crazy, but something I’m not apologizing for.  I love thunderstorms, light showers, sudden downpours.

I remember when I was a kid it rained on my birthday a couple of times.  By the beginning of August in Oklahoma, things can start to look pretty bleak.  Grasses start turning brown from lack of rain, and gardens become increasingly difficult to keep alive (in my experience anyway).  It’s been months since the storms of April and May, and it really feels unbearably hot and dry.  So, on those occasions when it rained on August 5, I remember being excited to have a break from the heat.

We had a fairly hot June this year, and while I hoped for below average temperatures for the rest of the summer, I didn’t have any hope of that happening.  I have been pleasantly surprised.  It’s been very warm at times, but the blistering heat has really stayed away this year.  At the end of July, it started to rain even.  That was so nice.

And the rain just kept coming.  It’s August 19 now.  The last rain we had was yesterday.  That was the last of almost 20 days of the rain I love.  Some days it would just rain a little in the middle of the day, and other days would see a large storm come through during the night.  Ultimately, I’d take that over no rain any day.  But I’m glad to have a break from it just now.  The plants need time to dry out, get some sun, etc.  We’ve got more rain in the forecast for next week.

This week was brilliant in some ways, but very sad in others.  Opie & Laura announced they are having a baby.  It was nice to have some good news, but I am having trouble with the knowing that Mom would want to have seen these two start their family.  And they are going to be great parents.  Opie had a few issues, and ten years ago I would have been worried about him becoming a father.  He’s really proven himself to be a wonderful person, and has a fantastic future ahead of him.  I’m so proud to have people like him in my family.

Brent turned 40.  I don’t think I will handle it well when I turn 40 next year, but it isn’t because I’m afraid to be in my 40s.  It brings up so many issues.  I don’t know how Brent dealt with it, but he does usually deal with things well.  I wish we would have had a party for him, but I’ve had some trouble keeping up with things like that.

I’m looking forward to a great week.  I’m starting to think it’s okay to do things… that seems vague, but I’ll elaborate in the future.