Into Deep Silence

After the Christmas hullabaloo and brouhaha are done, a deep silence sets in.  It helps if, as happened this year, a good thick snowfall comes to muffle the sounds and obscure the sights that might distract from the journey inward.

Now, with the presents put away and the guest laundry done, there is, for a little while, not much to do besides water the houseplants and brush the dogs.  And figure out what to do with my life.

Or at least with my writing.  I haven't been posting here much in the last year.  Instead, I have been working on a book-length manuscript, a memoir of my years with CFS.  I figured that working on that and posting daily might be more than I can manage, even if that is what I would really like to do.  Because of my CFS, I have to be ever wary of  my enthusiasms.  I never know when something I enjoy, something that feels great while I am doing it--whether physical or mental--will plunge me into a relapse one or even two days later.  So I have to be careful.

But I've really missed writing here.  I like the feeling of completion, of achievement that writing a post gives--there, that 's done for today!  Plus, I get comments from you good people, which takes away that voice-crying-in-the-wilderness feeling.  Whereas working on a book feels precisely like being lost in the wilderness, crying and endlessly wandering with no idea whether I'm getting closer to home. 

I may be getting closer to home with the book.  I've been working on it exclusively on the computer, and this week I plan to print it out for the first time.  I'm hoping that getting physical with the thing--shuffling the pages and making notes on the margins with an actual pencil--will enable me to find the shape of the story.

Still, during this momentary lull, when the world outside is holding its breath and there are no trees to prune/weeds to pull/seeds to plant/ chard to harvest, I will try to post more often.  And I hope that the CFS will be o.k. with that.

In the meantime, new year hugs and blessings to all.  And if the title of this post has a familiar ring, it's because I semi-stole it from a documentary, "Into Great Silence," about the Carthusian monks of La Grande Chartreuse.  It is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, and you can get it on Netflix.