Happy Little Life

Once a month, 5 retired ladies and a librarian choose from my days off and we gather for a writing club. We gather in the back room of the library, reading aloud poems, short stories, and novel ideas, handing out praise and gentle criticism. I sit on my deck, enjoying the turn of summer to autumn, and try to write. 

The "farthest reaches" theme of this blog feels a bit less accurate these days than when I started this blog. I am somewhat settled down now, living on a beautiful little piece of land on the lake that I bought just over a year ago. I've been working the same job for three years and am starting school again to increase my scope of practice. I have signed a return to work contract with my employer, guaranteeing that I will stay here until 2031. All signs point to some permanency. I often feel like I have less to write when I am doing well; much of my best writing was done during painful times of my life. 

So I try. I write a summertime poem looking over my lawn. I write semi-fictional recollections of my childhood. I feel the fall breeze on my skin and try to turn it into words. I sit on the couch, laptop resting on my legs, while Seda, my angel of a cat, sleeps next to me, and I feel too content to write anything.

Seda doing her best to catch a mouse

I got Seda from Silas back in May because I was looking for a mouser for my little country house and Silas was looking to stop taking care of a cat, and she fits in perfectly here. She has yet to fulfil her original duty of killing a mouse, but I think her presence deters them from coming out from wherever they hide, and I haven't seen any signs of them since the day I took the photo above. Mostly she naps near me, chases treats that I throw across the house for her, and purrs loudly on my chest when I'm getting ready to go to sleep.

I sew little felt stuffed animals, read more books than I have in my adult years before this one (still fewer than I read in a year as a child), and run farther and faster each time I try. I cook and bake, telling myself each time that I do something ridiculous like hand-whipping two cups of brown butter that now is the time to finally buy a stand mixer. I go to a book signing for a writer in my writing club and head home to try to push through another chapter of the novel I've had in the works for two years. Between it all, I work as many hours as I can sustain, take on a student on the ambulance, am promoted to a backup supervisor position, and get into Advanced Care Paramedic school.

It's a happy life, and I can't wait to see what else comes for me in the next five years that I am contractually tied to it. I thought I might be afraid of the commitment of buying a house and signing a contract, but I have a hard time imagining myself wanting to change this life I have within 5 years.

- A