Update

It is several months since I created this blog and noted some intention to write every day. And I have not done that. So much for that promise. But instead of judging myself, I need to just acknowledge and move on. This past week has been intense, emotionally. I attended rehearsals in Des Moines of my play, "Window Treatment," currently in production as part of the 2nd annual Iowa Fringe Festival. The script is very sturdy, well constructed, damned funny, in fact. I'm happy with the script, and look forward to the production that opens July 20, and runs through July 22. I'm going to see it.
Then, this week, I learned that the mother and daughter who were shot to death in Washington state are relatives, beloved relatives. My cousin David Stodden's wife Mary Cooper and their eldest daughter, Susannah, were shot while hiking near Pinnacle Lake on Tuesday. We are all stunned and saddened by this news, and the only way I can presently think of to make use of this tragedy is to vow to get busy with my tasks. Life is short; art is long.
So, I'm presently dealing, in the world of feeling, with the emotional highs and lows that occur around an original work being presented -- and believe me, there are plenty of feelings, many of which I simply cann't discuss here! -- and with the feelings of shock and sorrow around the deaths in my extended family of two truly beloved women, and with my own attempts to discipline -- and the word does NOT equate with punishment! -- myself to write EVERY DAY. This simply has to happen.
Sitting here at my laptop this morning, in small town silence, sensing the day's temperature on the rise, record-setting in fact, listening to the hum of the laptop, the occasional chirp and twitter of the birds outside my windows, I contemplate -- well, everything! The writing I want to do, screenplay, maybe a poem today, even this blog post, and then the venetian blinds to be cleaned or replaced, the housecleaning that awaits me, and all the while I am waiting for a phone call to pick up my car at the repair shop. My neighbor backed into my left front fender and it had to be replaced.
These are mundane things, everyday life. My cousins, peaceable, centered Mary and her lovely young daughter were reveling in the natural world, I'm sure, when death caught up with them. They are now past suffering; that task is left solely to all those who loved them and still remain here in this world.
Today, I will assess every task, every perceived problem, even every triumph however large or small, in relation to the lives and sudden deaths of Mary and Susannah.
Take heart. Take courage. Live! Who knows when the final stalker will arrive and claim his prey? How long has it been since I thought of death in this manner? When each of my parents died, it was anticipated in some way, and though each death was wrenching -- the soul pulls away from the flesh, the final division -- each death was also somehow expected and thus, in the logic of emotions, grieving was a logical move. I witnessed each of my parent's actual dying; I often say I no longer fear death. That may be true. But I fear violence, and the possibility of a violent death that reverberates through the world.
But this violent end to two lives so vibrant and promise-filled and promise-fulfilled shocks and angers and frustrates everyone who loved them; the manner of their dying causes beliefs and faiths and values to be blown into the light of harsh reality for yet another look, yet another pawing through. What god sanctioned this? What about free will and god's will? Where is the line of demarcation? OR does such a line exist? What in HELL happened? What meth freak or misguided soul has blown our loved ones apart and shattered our comforts?
Some days questions are more important than answers. Today, I raise questions, and move into my tasks for the day. Writing has had its effect once again. Enough.