To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn...
I do a lot of research and writing on my “patio” these days. I live in a small apartment (though it’s feeling bigger and bigger since we spend most of our time in it!)—this is the rooftop. You’ll see my list of things to research to the right—just wrapped up my summer copyediting job at Guideposts, so I’m finally catching up. The salad: As you know, Steven and I are both vegan—I’ve been sharing especially healthy stuff on Instagram lately because I’m completing a virtual marathon this month.
Been busy around here lately.
I promise this isn’t just me putting off my book proposal. I did make great strides with that two weeks ago. It’s taken longer than I hoped to put this together, I think because the pandemic has turned everything upside down. I went through a few months where I was glued to my computer and phone, checking on the latest news and numbers every morning…and sometimes late into the night. This gradual observing gradually worsened my anxiety…and not just about our current situation. My dad’s list has given me quite a comfort level with uncertainty. It’s helped me to understand that everything is always uncertain, no matter what’s going on. But rather, it made me start to absorb the general public’s unease….and made me anxious my story wasn’t big enough to help anyone any longer.
My essay on Upworthy today proved me wrong. As did this interview I did a few weeks ago with Alessandro Fresco, my friend Adrian’s photo assistant when we did my tuxedo photo shoot:
It’s a wonderful thing, to still be able to connect with people in this way. At the same time, I’ve chosen to view this quarantine—which my husband and I are still doing, because he’s high-risk (he has severe asthma)—as a time to be alone, to embrace being alone and finishing this writing, which has turned out to be my opus.
People ask me sometimes what I will do after this and I can’t really answer them. I’d like to keep writing books, I say. I’d also like to pursue art and drawing more again. But mostly I plan to really live my life, using my dad’s list-making inclination as my guide—I will follow my own list. This has already started. My husband’s so high-risk that we can’t see any of our loved ones during this time, so I’m setting out to section hike the Appalachian Trail next month—at least the parts in New York and New Jersey…basically whatever we can drive to, spending the night and then coming back the next day—to get my mind off of the seclusion. This is something that’s been on my own bucket list for a while. I can’t explain why I feel so drawn to these woods. But something tells me this will be the biggest test in this journey with my father’s list—what happens when I’m left mostly alone with it? So far I’ve received so much help!
So the next few weeks you’ll be seeing lots more posts from me…I will update you on my proposal progress, but also share bits of the articles I’m working on here. I have one coming up that talks about the runs we did through every street in our town in May and June. It requires lots of digging through history, which you know I love (I’m a research nut). Then I have one I promised to The Fix about my second smartphone cleanse—this helped a lot with the aforementioned Internet news fixation. Then I’ll write a story about our camping experience in July…I have high hopes for where that one lands. I’ll keep you updated.
Backpacker Betty
It’s always good when we are setting out to do anything to visualize the finished result, but leave room for God to shake things up a little bit. I had no idea people would respond as they did to my interview with Alessandro, nor did I think my essay about checking off “be invited to a political convention” would end up on Upworthy and reach so many so fast. Best we can do in a trying time is still do our best and send hope and good wishes out into the world.
Never, ever give up.
PS: More to come on my interviews from the spring—behind the scenes of my tux photo shoot, the University of Delaware interview and the two podcasts I did….