power outage

Telling No Tales

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woman-41201_960_720I’ve hit on this before, but sometimes it’s almost impossible to sit down and tell a story. Sometimes the stories are just too difficult to tell. Sometimes life just gets in the way. And you know what? That’s okay.

I mean it’s not okay if you can’t tell stories sometimes because it probably means that you’re so stressed out your brain, body, and soul don’t have the energy to do it. Trust me, that kind of stress is not okay.

Pressing on and trying to force yourself to put thoughts into words can be…painful. Again, trust me, I know. When that happens, when you find yourself in that situation, by all means, step back and take a break. Walk away. It’s okay to give yourself a vacation to clear your head or to take care of whatever it is that’s blocking your way.

Just don’t forget to go back and try again. That’s the part of the crazy trip I’m on at the moment. My brain and my body keep telling me at the end of the day when I would normally write that I just don’t have the energy left to try. I feel worn out and washed up and can’t imagine trying to capture the stories in my head.

writing-933262_1920But then we lost power during a storm about a week ago. With no phone, no computer to distract me, I say on my bed with a tiny lantern and tried to think of something to occupy my time until I settled enough to sleep like everyone in the house had already managed to do. So I grabbed an old notebook I use to capture bits and pieces of stories, dug out a pen, and took a deep breath.

I pictured a scene in the novel I’m working on and started to write. It started with carefully crafting the letters and words that came from the end of the pen as my brain tried to find what belonged on the page. Within a few minutes, the writing went from neatly printed to cursive as I started to write faster. A few minutes more and the writing became messy, misspelled and incomplete as I tried to force my hand faster and faster to capture it all as it poured from my brain.

It was an awesome feeling to finally have the words coming out again. Until sitting at an odd angle with the lantern got to be too much for my back. Then it was a little painful. Overall, I felt like a weight was lifted off of me.

The good news is, I know the words are still inside me. I know that I can access them. I just needed to look at it from another angle. I’ll be trying to write again soon, but with a lot more light.

 

It’s Electrifying

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On Wednesday night the power at might house went out. Now I’ve been through more power outages than I are to remember, but this one seemed to be the worst I can remember. It was cold folks. Really cold.

Add to it that early in the Fridge Fest, just when it go to really freaking dark, trees in the neighborhood started to come down. Here’s an aftermath picture of my next door neighbor’s car.

Tree Branches & Cars Cannot Be Friends

Large branch laying across a car

My husband and I went out when it happened, just after 9 PM, to do what we could to help. Originally the very large tree branch laid  across the road too! Another neighbor had a small chainsaw so we were able to cut up the tree enough to clear the street so that vehicles could get through. It was really eerie standing in the quite darkness of the neighborhood hearing the cracking sounds of wood splitting as trees and branches feel in the wooded area behind the row of houses, and in yards we couldn’t see in the darkness.

It was just under 24 hours until the power returned. And it was a long 23.5 hours at that. We managed to get dug out, gawked at some of the houses in the neighborhood where trees were now in places that trees do just not belong, and found heat in a local mall.

When we got home the house was cold. 51 degrees as a matter of fact. It could have been worse, and there are other neighborhoods not far from ours that are still without power – boy do I feel for them. It’s a really damp cold. Snow feel for a long time, and fell again this morning. It’s the kind of cold that get’s inside you and takes you a long time to warm up from.

It makes you appreciate just how spoiled we are. Most of can walk into a room, flick the light switch, and have light. If we get cold we can turn the heat up. I will gladly admit that like to be spoiled. Very, very spoiled.