I’ve been trying to figure out how to inconspicuously reboot my blog after many months of inactivity. But I’ve been learning that putting a blog post out there is a bit like praying or writing, it requires at least a mustard seed of faith. And like both praying and writing, the best way to dig back into blogging is to “Just Do It.” So with hat tipped to Nike for the best slogan ever, here goes!
Five months ago I retired from the credit union where I’d been working for going on seven years. I use that term “retire” very loosely, because I don’t feel like I’ve retired from working at all. If I’ve retired from anything, it’s from receiving wages for hours of hunched-over-a-desk labor. In all my years as an editor, journalist, freelancer writer and author, from 1986 when that era of my life began until my husband’s death in 2016, I have never worked without earning an income from my efforts! Yet here I am, another book under my belt now, without a cent to show for it.
If you’re a writer, you might know what I mean. The general population doesn’t have a clue, and that’s okay. Once a writer always a writer, and the passion doesn’t die with the money flow.
Ideas stream in waves. So many topics to choose from. My faith will always inform my writing, as it did in blog posts from the past. But faith as a monologue might not take center stage, as other areas of interest have arisen, too. The writing life looms big for me right now. As does my desire (maybe widowhood and age have something to do with this?) to connect all of the lose ends of my life into a cohesive whole. More on that later.
Two huge stories in the news recently hooked me. One was the jury trial of Carlos Dominguez, guilty of two deaths in Davis in 2023. There was no doubt of his guilt in the murders but a caveat kept him out of prison—he was declared legally insane when he carried out the deadly attacks. He has been committed to a State psychiatric hospital. The Lindsay Clancy trial that gripped the nation, over the murders of her three young children in 2023, ended after the jury could not agree on whether she was legally responsible for their deaths due to concerns of her sanity at the time. She too has been committed for the time being to a state-run psychiatric facility, until prosecutors decide whether to retry her.
Two excruciating stories, both involving mental illness. Lives lost. Families decimated. Questions left unanswered. Calls to mind my first year working for the local newspaper in Placerville in 2007-2008, and the stories I covered as the crime beat reporter involving mentally ill individuals. Calls to mind, also, a few of my own family and friends who have experienced mental illness over the years. There’s some happiness to be found here, but tragedy as well. All of these stories and the people involved hang in the balance as time and the future weigh in. Kind of like a shack that is about to slide off its foundation, only you don’t know which way it will go.
With so many ideas floating like clouds catching different air currents, don’t mind me if I jump around a bit from topic to topic. But like life in general, they will begin to converge as my post numbers build. See you at the crossroads.
