Transitioning in the Void

“We begin again, constantly.” —Robert Fripp

Spring doesn’t start in my part of Colorado
until May. It’s all windstorms and cold snaps
until Memorial Day.

What a week. One month out from Christmas, the New Year no longer new, we begin again.

I like to think it all began (again) on Thursday, a morning of minor catastrophes. First off, the coffee maker went kaput. A Black & Decker I bought in August 2012, not even 18 months old. Just refused to work.

My son was being surly to his mother, which means I hear it from my wife. It had snowed overnight, leaving three inches to drive through in 16-degree Fahrenheit cold. No coffee to warm the insides.

Once Surly Boy was off at school (after a stern, “You don’t talk to your mother that way” from me) my wife went and got a Mr. Coffee. A little more expensive, but at least our last Mr. Coffee machine made it for five years. As luck would have it I didn’t have to go into work until noon. Everything worked out, if a little later and crankier than we all would have liked. Still, going into work was a relief.

It’s been a rough month for the blog. Especially as I’ve had nothing to talk about but work and how I’ve been looking forward to the end of the temp gig so I can get back to my writing. As of yesterday, that finally came to an end. Six weeks, through Christmas and New Year’s, all the way through the penultimate week of January. A lot later than I expected to work, for which I am grateful, because I shudder to think what our bank balance would look like if I wasn’t drawing checks every week.


So now I’m free. Free to hit the ground running.

Except I’m not. As always, I have to ease slowly into my groove. I’m taking my time as fast as I can, very conscious that we’re only 11 months away from next Christmas, and things need to be radically different already by summer.

Here’s to starting over. We begin again, constantly.