November Doldrums, Grieving a Loss and Moments of Light

Typewriter with red maple leaves

November Doldrums

It’s been a rough week. It started with me staying up all night with kitten Sylvia that required the emergency vet (okay now, but gave us quite a scare), continued with me being too sick (not covid, but a stomach and sinus infection) to get much work reading or writing done, and ended with the news that my maternal grandmother, after surviving covid-19 for two weeks, passed away today, just a few days short of her 96th birthday. This was my last surviving grandparent, and one who shared with me a love of literature – Poe, Hemingway and Faulkner were a few of her favorites, and in her youth she read voraciously. She lived in Missouri, which has some of the highest covid rates, and no one was able to visit her the last weeks of her life, because of covid.

I know people are chafing under travel restrictions during Thanksgiving, but remember that people like me – and my grandmother – are the people that need protection. Wear a mask, stay six feet apart, and stay home. Having to miss a Thanksgiving with family is much better than having to mourn a family member you can’t even have a funeral for, which is what I’m doing this week. No amount of pumpkin pie is worth that.

Sunshine in November, Seattle View from Kerry Park

Moments of Light

Even in the darkest times, there are moments of light. Most of the week has been cold – in the low forties – and rainy, but yesterday the temperature was above 50 and the sun was shining, and suddenly everything was beautiful – the last remaining leaves on the trees, the snow-capped mountains, the neighbor walking his dog.

Besides the emergency-levels of “real life” stress of this week, I also got a rejection from the NEA grant, two book rejections (though my manuscripts were semi-finalists, sigh) and several regular poetry rejections. When you don’t feel good and you’re wondering what the point of all your hard work is, it’s important to remember the sun will shine again, figuratively and metaphorically.

This coronavirus has made 2020 a very tough year for everyone. My grandmother is just one casualty of a pandemic that has killed a million people world-wide. Travel plans and curfews and shutdowns have impacted the economy, our quality of life, almost every part of it. So I’m hoping you have a safe, happy-as-possible Thanksgiving week, and remember it won’t always be the way it is right now. Light a light. Get outside in every moment of sunshine. Grieve the things that are lost, and hope that 2021 will be a better year for all of us.