Tag: fiction

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June Serenity Update

I did my best to get to Serenity and get the place ready for a month-long writing retreat. Honestly, I really did. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas.

At the beginning of each week, I’d check the weather and plan to go. The forecast was promising—sunshine, low humidity, and temperatures perfectly warm in the 70s. By Wednesday, it was no longer so promising. By Thursday, the weather app was calling for rain or snow and low temperatures.

Of course, that weather didn’t keep me from going up. It did, however, keep me from painting the cabinet doors that were still all over the cabin—leaning against walls and windows, stowed in closets, and occupying the steep, narrow stairs to the loft. They were everywhere, primed and waiting to be painted. They had to keep waiting.

June arrived at last. The long awaited final teacher workday ended, and I could head to Serenity. I would have two days before it was slated to rain. I made a lot of use of those two days. To be fair, I had a bonus day—the rain held off for one extra day. So actually, I made good use of three beautiful days and got all the doors painted and hung back on the cabinets.

All the pulls were scrubbed, some were painted a nice gunmetal black while the rest kept their original gold finish, and all were put back on the doors. I finally felt like I was making real progress.

Each day, the pups and I would take walks through the woods and enjoy the beauty of early summer in the mountains. One day, our walk was a little more exciting because, as we were heading back to the car, we saw a bear. It wasn’t too close to us, but it was by the car. We—the dogs and I—beat a hasty retreat to a house that wasn’t too far away. I gave the bear about ten minutes before we headed back to the car.

The next day, we had another wildlife encounter, though it wasn’t quite as exciting. We saw a flock of turkeys (Is a group of turkeys called a flock? It seems like they should be called something a little grander.) in the field. I tried to give them space, but they were nervous and flew off.

Back at Serenity, I scrubbed the place down, vacuumed all the carpeting with my small shop vac, and sprayed homemade peppermint cleaner on the carpet as a deodorizer. I packed up almost all the tools and found a place to stash the extra paint out of sight.

I’ll be glad when we finally remove the musty carpet and put down the new luxury vinyl plank flooring. (I love that “luxury” is actually part of the name—LUXURY vinyl plank flooring—as if it’s the pinnacle of flooring technology.) Then we can bring the bed up and set it up in the bedroom. I’ll be honest, the mattress on the daybed I’ve been sleeping on isn’t anything to write home about.

Aaahhh. It is now a place where I can go and spend time relaxing and writing. Until, of course, we tear out the flooring to make way for the new luxury vinyl planks.

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Another New Beginning To the Dystopian Dream

Turns out it is very difficult—for me, anyway—to keep up with the daily grind of teaching, trying to remodel Serenity into a writing retreat, keeping up with my house and yard, and finding time to write. So here I am, starting over. Again.

It has been hotter than blue blazes while I’ve been out working in the yard, thinking about my dystopian character—or my dystopian self. So here I go again. I will try to live my dystopian character’s life.

In my mind, this dystopian world is one where conventional society has collapsed. You know, the kind you see in movies—the kind of world where there are no grocery stores, Targets, Walmarts, or Amazon. Yet it is a world where people somehow still have electricity, cars, and gasoline, but live in whatever kind of dwelling they can muster or protect from someone else taking it. The kind of world where you trade for goods and services. Goods are bought at street markets through bartering or some type of odd monetary system that people don’t really trust but use sometimes.

This is the imaginary dystopian world I have placed myself in. But in my case, the street markets are thrift stores. Thrift stores are a good substitute for street markets because, like dystopian street markets, they always have stuff to sell, but they don’t always have what you are looking for. I’ll throw in pick-your-own farms and call it foraging. Anything else I’ll need, I’ll have to barter for or get for free from somewhere. I will need to learn to be resourceful!

This is the beginning. Again. New beginnings are always fun, even when you have one every few months. This one starts in my yard where, for the last two years, I have done nothing more than cut the grass. Everything else is an overgrown mess. It is the perfect setting to begin living the dystopian dream.