…A long time comin…

…It’s been a long time runnin, its been a long time comin…it’s well worth the wait… - Gord Downie, The Hip

I’ve stepped away from the blogosphere for awhile, gentle reader.  Your patience is always appreciated and to be fair and honest, I don’t know that my work would have been any good.  Discordant would be my best word association. 

Sometimes life just kicks you right in the mind.  And heart.  Repeatedly…  Moxie passing last October was really tough for me.  I had that dog the entirety of living in my home.  She was as much a part of the history there as anyone else.  I bought that house to get a dog, so yeah, I bought a $170,000 dog. 

…

Worth every god damn penny.  I’d give all that up in a heart beat for just one more day with that goofy old girl.  I miss her dearly, even now…. especially now.

An odd thing happened after I said my goodbyes.  She left me…and so did my ability to write or play guitar.  The two things I enjoy the most and inject the most passion and energy into.  I simply couldn’t create, try as I might. And I tried… mightily.  I eventually recognized this as a stage of my grief, although an unexpected one.

Time flies.  Stephen King once said that it’s the last magic left in the world, that time passes…whether we want it to or not, it has this mischievous way of sneaking under the radar even during the hard times when ‘the night draws out like a blade’, to borrow another King quote.

It’s been a wild and agonizing year.   A lot has happened and to be honest, most of it has been not awesome.  I’m holding to some of the victories though and anxiously waiting for this summer-time sadness to pass (thank you Lana Del Rey)... Look at me, full of the pop culture references today.  

I won’t list any of the bad stuff I’ve been wrestling with, but I’d like to mention a few good and fun things recently that have propped me up during the bumpy bits.

• Ireland for St Paddys weekend. A definite bucket list item with some pals, was a good trip

• England/wales, see above comment.  I have also found a new nerdy interest in visiting castles that begun in Italy and Poland and has carried on.  A checklist for the world travels, as it were

• My niece is getting married soon, and has honoured and blessed me by asking me to walk her down the aisle.  I cried when she asked me…blubbering in my truck, pretending I’m tough and cool ‘It’s fine, I’m fine, dirt in my eye’, she called me on my bullshit… as she does.  I love that kid alot, and I’m so very proud of how far she’s come in her journey… even if she IS marrying a maple leaves fan.  (grumble grumble), No one is perfect I suppose… annnnnnyway…

• I did a thing and bought a new home.  Possession is September 1.  I needed to move on from the old place, for reasons aforementioned as well as other ghosts of a past life, never mind the pragmatic long drive through the city to work every day and all the stresses that this scenario brings to me constantly.  I’m officially an out-of-towner.

The people who are closest to me know all of this already, but for you, gentle reader, maybe this is new information.  I’ve been busy, most of it stressful and upsetting business but I can hang my hat on these victories and the hope that come Autumn, at least some of the stressors and frustrations will be mitigated.  The hope… it’s real.

For now, a quick update and a hope that maybe, just mayyyybe, my grief over the loss of my sweet old pup has subsided enough for me to come back onto the writing stage, fiesty and a-swingin!

Today… literally, TODAY, I finally feel like writing and the words have come to me where previously they refused and putting any sort of pen to paper was futility personified as well as exhausting.

   BUT, I have also been thinking about writing more of the fantasy/fiction content should anyone care to read whatever I can spew forth.  I am suspending the story I was working on Pre-Mox, and I may just re-write the whole damn thing, but I have a little “practice” story I may try to flesh out and turn into some kind of thing. It’s based off of a picture by an artist I enjoy from my junior high Dungeons and Dragons days.  The picture can be found in the 2nd Edition Players Handbook and I’d like to just magic up some fictional accounting to bring that amazing piece of art even more to light.

I have issues trying to show pictures and embedding links here in blog world but Ill spam my instagram/FB/Threads and probably get a copyright infringement warning and a pee pee slap! Ah, what we do for our art.   I’m very nervous right this minute. A little scared that maybe the ‘gift’ of words won't fully come back…but also I’m pretty stoked and feeling the good vibe energy that comes with a really long blast of creative writing.  

So! Here we go, Gentle Reader, on this next chapter and lets hope that it truly is well worth the wait…