Beginnings and endings

Brave Upon Being and other musings....

I might have to update my WIP page, adding a new playlist that has been evolving over the last few weeks after I inadvertently erased the playlist that had been under that title. That absent playlist still exists on my phone, the erased playlist on my computer. I'm old school that way, what can I say?

It's a weird kind of Monday; damp and gray and actually a wee bit chilly. This is our third, no probably fourth straight cloudy day and finally the lack of sun has cast a cool pall on these final days of summer. Technically summer. But summer is an abstract term along the North Coast in Humboldt County because when it's between fifty-eight and sixty-four degrees most of the time, what does summer mean? Summer means LONG stretches of daylight, the possibility of hitting sixty-seven degrees, maybe sixty-nine, and of course mosquitoes until the dragonflies emerge. That's summer. Summer actually lasts until as late as mid-October if the rains haven't started because as the heat dims inland, sunshine foists itself upon our neck of the the Redwoods and my goodness it's a beautiful time of year.

Except when in mid-to-veering-late September a cloudy cool-ish stretch of days erases those fleeting summer-like vibes. When it happens in October, it's not really summer. It could be the Last Nice Day. Yet even in October it might seem like summer if the sun appears not long after it's risen, and what I mean by that is how it finally sneaks over the eastern treeline maybe twenty minutes past when it officially rose. By then it's a good ways south, but early morning sunshine remains a treat and if it wasn't a cold night, then the day feels bright merely because a sunny start is a rarity.

But all that weather hoo-haa doesn't describe why it's a weird Monday. It's weird because.... Because here in Humboldt County a young man died from injuries sustained days ago when he was hit by an alleged drunk driver while setting up cones during work at night on Highway 101 as it turns into Broadway, snaking through Eureka. It's weird because five people are dead, another in hospital after a car accident on Highway 299 in Whiskeytown, north of Redding. Three of those dead might be from Weitchpec, in northeastern Humboldt County, though at the time of this post's creation that information has yet to be made public. Even if all those involved were and are from Shasta County, that's a lot of loss to absorb in one day, and while I have no connection to any of them, my prayers for the sole survivor of the 299 crash and all who loved all those deceased are many, my sorrow for them palpable.

Meanwhile I'm thinking about a novel and songs now suddenly associated with it, as well as reading chapters of Deadfern. Deadfern.... I don't plan to change that title or the name of the fictional town it claims for its own. Why did I call it Deadfern anyway? Why, why, why....

Why's as deep a subject as well: I wrote that in the first or second book of The Enran Chronicles, then threw it in The Deadfern Miracles, as well as a reference to Allen Brompton, just because. If someone reads those books, they'll smile at the slender thread connecting the stories, slender threads connecting us as human beings. Slender threads as fragile as lives crushed in the briefest of seconds when someone behind the wheel of a car does the wrong thing whether they are incapacitated by drink or drugs or their phone or something caught in their eye that makes them look away from the road and in those brief seconds the worst occurs. A life or lives are snuffed out immediately or a few days later. And in the case of Ronnie Franklin, if the driver was indeed impaired, their life too has altered, for they killed someone due to extreme carelessness and will have to live with that for the rest of their life.

Lives can be short or long or in the middle. Sometimes people take their lives and sometimes their lives are taken from them.

In about an hour I'm going to cut my husband's hair. After that I'm going to take a shower. Then I'm going to have a snack, maybe a protein bar with peanut butter or a gluten-free blueberry newton with peanut butter. Or both bars depending on how hungry I am. The rest of my day isn't planned, though I hope to sew some Lavender blocks later, maybe attach half of the last joining block along the bottom of the Mandolin quilt. Maybe I'll even type in that playlist, but probably not. But maybe.

The beginning and ending blocks for row #6 of the Lavender quilt. I placed them together last night, then snapped this photo thinking maybe someday I'll stitch a coaster in this design.

During all of that I will be checking for an update of the 299 crash, praying for all those whose lives are suddenly not at all what they thought today would be like. And well, yeah. That's my Monday. So much of life is not in our control. All we can do is love each other and forgive as best we're able and move forward. Sometimes moving forward feels like falling thirty feet downward. Yet as long as tomorrow dawns, we receive another chance to straggle ahead. Wherever on that scale you stand, keep looking for the light. Even on the darkest days it's there.

UPDATE: Ronnie Franklin was an organ donor. I too am an organ donor. If you can, would you consider giving that gift of life?