Not Dead, I Swear

I just this afternoon decided to post an update here, since it has been a while, and to my horror, I have discovered that my last post was made in October 2016.

Okay, I have excuses. Mainly that I moved from Brooklyn (my home city for more than twenty years) and my apartment there (in which my wife and I lived for 16 years) to a quieter, greener pasture (and a big house with no other tenants) about an hour and a half north of Brooklyn.

Also, I wrapped up my final semester of being a college professor, which has been my life for–also–more than twenty years. I taught my final semester this past fall. I miss it and don’t miss it at the same time. (I do miss having people listen raptly when I speak…I’m a middle-aged fat woman, so under which other circumstances is that likely to happen for me? It doesn’t help that I retired reluctantly and prematurely mostly because my extemporaneous abilities have declined significantly, due in large part to the nasty tricks of Multiple Sclerosis, which makes teaching–at least the way I’m able to do it–almost impossible. I miss my mind as much as I miss having people respect me for my mind.)

Point is, my life has changed radically–mostly for the better, though I still sometimes feel wistful for my grimy, inconvenient, congested, highly-peopled life in Brooklyn. I’m a city mouse at heart, so where I am now feels like the country (though most people would probably disagree…but my neighbor has a tractor and my other neighbor raises ducks, and as soon as there’s farm equipment or non-dog/cat animals involved, that’s the country to me). It feels far too easy a life–even getting to a grocery or hardware store in my new town requires far less planning, energy and effort than it did in Brooklyn. Which, I recognize, is a stupid sentiment–there’s no valor in hardship; anyone who’s suffered not by choice will tell you that. But I can’t help the little creep of guilt and disappointment in myself at how easy I have it now.

Anyway, as I am more wont to do out here without the constant and senseless pressures of the honking, smelly, angry city to which I’d grown accustomed, I’ve wandered from my point. My point in writing: I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of being stupidly busy with moving and then being stupidly tired from it, and have neglected what I really like to do (read and write). But I’ve got my new office mostly set up now, my books are all unpacked and in place, and I’ve figured out the proper way to make good tea with the water out here (it seems to require more tea leaves/bags than it did in Brooklyn… is this a thing with hard water?)

All this is to say that (1) I’m not dead as far as I know and (2) I will be back to posting book reviews and essays in this space right soonly. I’m happily making my way through Rachel Davidson Leigh’s novel Hold at the moment, which is a really lovely sci-fi (speculative fiction? alternate reality?) story about a guy who discovers he can freeze time, and I have a stack (okay, more of a virtual stack) of new novels waiting for me when I’ve finished that one.

Please don’t give up on me yet. I’ve got reviews and essays coming soon, I promise. It’s just that I find myself moving much slower, much closer to a reasonable speed of life, now that I don’t have the red amphetamine of NYC ramping me up into constant insomnia and fretting.

And that is a fact about which it’s clear how I should feel (relieved), but about which I’m not sure how I do feel (is it weird that I miss it a bit?). Not sleeping was bad for my already-teetering health, but made me much more productive.

We shall see, though: perhaps I am slower out here, but my thinking will be deeper and clearer. We’ll all find out soon enough.