Clatter and clutter.  Suddenly it’s the first of November again. End of nice-car-weather season.  Beginning of NaNo. A quick and busy slide toward the end of the year, punctuated by tumbling politics, finances, projects, family and chores. 

We feel like we’re pushing up against the edge of a breakover, into a more-evolved version of ourself, ready to shed a too-small skin and see what the new set of wings and claws and eyes is capable of.  

There’s still a Toyota to be rescued in Albuquerque.  A book about Tael to make complete. An exercise regimen to create.  A Patreon idea to pursue. A half-dozen cars to build and skills to learn.  

The “you-can’t” feeling is pretty thin.  Veils feel thin as well, between worlds, between states of mind.  

Winter’s a season we like. We don’t hibernate.  The weather pushes and we push back. And so often that pushing feels reflexive, making space for ourself lest we be encroached upon and overrun.  

But right now it feels more like pushing Tetris pieces around, not just making space but making New Things, clearing clutter but also building steam toward something.  

We’re speaking in vaguenesses.  We’re out of practice, in terms of putting thoughts to scribble.  Since the last time we opened this window, we’ve been to Wasteland and back, we’ve brought Alison (the F250) home, we’ve acquired a big cargo van  we’ve been to Theatre Bizarre and we’ve let go of some assumptions about ourself. It’s a changed world, is what it is. 

But hand in hand with that feeling of imminent self-evolution is a growing conviction, familiar to us from growing up during the Cold War, with the threat of nuclear war always hanging overhead:  the world itself is on the verge of cracking open as well. There are entirely too many fractured moments with the desired outcome requiring people to do the right thing, people who have extremely poor track records at exactly that.  The number of scenarios in which we see a good, peaceful outcome to America’s schism is dwindling fast, and so come those old fears of the world coming to an end, whether locally or globally, or both. And with them, there’s a very adult, very somber feeling always in the wings:  enjoy that sushi, take that hot bath, appreciate your Miata, cherish your time with your partners.  Because there’s a growing sense that, evolution or not, we’re speeding toward a near-ish future where they’re not going to be available any more, and will be haunted by every occasion that we didn’t appreciate them to the fullest.

November first is Dori’s birthday too.  Not that she expected you to remember.