Something new

It’s almost the end of July. What’s been happening? The X-rays have confirmed I have moderate-to-advanced hip arthritis, but the physio has discharged me because I’m doing well enough to be left to build strength alone. My son has a “proper job” in his field in Australia, so he’ll be living there for the foreseeable future. I’m trying not to dwell on that, but he’s living the life he wants which makes me happy. Something else that makes me happy is that I’m not going to lose my job in the current wave of redundancies afflicting universities in the UK. Thank fuck. And we’re hoping to complete the sale of Dad’s house at the end of August.

Selling the house has become the marker for the end of the slew of unasked for changes that have come from the first half of the year. We’ve lost too many of our elders. Summer helps in the transition.

On the creative front, I dug out a short story I wrote for my Masters application in 2014, and I’m reworking it to publish on Patreon for those subscribed to the paid tier. I want to be true to its original energy and intention, but I’m a much better writer now, and I’m having fresh ideas about it. It’s exciting. I understand why I haven’t been writing, but now that I am engaged in a project again I can see the cost of having to put my attention elsewhere. Writing a story fulfils a part of me that can’t be satisfied any other way.

Much of this fresh energy comes from buying an iPad with an Apple Pencil. (I gave my father my last iPad because he wouldn’t buy another when his broke. That’s a nice circle to close.) It’s helped me think again about how I organise myself, take notes, do research, capture my thoughts, everything. I will always use a physical notebook and pen, but the iPad is giving me a new space to work in, between digital and analogue. Something new.