Sitting in my sister’s…

Sitting in my sister's guest room with the door open to its little porch, where a huge tree fills the view, so you feel like you're working in a treehouse. It's raining, and the air is rich, full of possibility. I've been re-reading some Bujold, enjoying it, as always, but despairing a bit too, feeling like my novel will never measure up to what I want for it. The only way out is through, though, so time to roll up sleeves, put away distractions, do the work. I might not be able to make it as good as I'd hope, but I surely won't if I don't even try.

Not a bad mindset for approaching political change either. The last ten days have taken me from despairing that Americans will ever be able to create lasting change on racism, on gun violence....to shock and joy that we have actually, radically improved matters on healthcare, on access to marriage. And neither of those is perfect yet, and perhaps, in America as it is, neither is perfectible. Not in our lifetimes. But we try, and we work, and we roll up our sleeves. We spend all day staring at the page, and at the end of it, we take out a comma. And then tomorrow, maybe we realize we ought to put it back.

Slowly, slowly, we get better.