Mottled gray nimbostratus clouds stretched across the valley from the mountains and ridges on this Wednesday. The clouds and news cycles leave me feeling gray and tired. It’s mid-week, too, the end of a wearying month, a week out from a trying week. My complaints are first world mutterings about losing friends, the weather, inflation, oh, and what will I do with myself today? It’s darker times for too, too many people. Damn, shouldn’t really write these things until I’ve had some coffee, done a Wordle and a Sudoku. Doing those always gives me a boost, as if successfully solving these silly games can be applied to life, to the world situations. I feel like the fool upon the hill.

It’s March 30, 2022, March’s penultimate day, then April takes the stage. I’m holding my breath to see what she might bring.

Sunrise kicked in at 6:57 AM and sunset will be at 7:34 PM. Temperatures have dipped again under the umbrella of rain ruling the area. The temperature is 46 and the high will be 56 F.

My dream mind was busy creating complex scenarios full of bright colors. I was not young in these dreams. Numbers were prominent features. Scribbling them out left my fingers knotted and my mind busy, trying to figure out WTF is going on in my head.

Of course, I’m writing. I’m in that stage of my novel writing process where scenes and ideas leap into the concept, which is still the broadest of sketchiest ideas. Thirteen characters are on hand, plus two cats and three dogs, and the ship. All of the characters have become someone other than expected when I sketched their basics in my head and documents. Like the muses are sticking their tongues out at me, taunting, “You don’t know anything.” They’re right. Every leap and change encountered makes me ask, “Wait, why.” They reply, “Just write. The answer will come.” I don’t know that I have that much faith or courage. Still, it’s an entertaining, satisfying, challenging, frustrating, exciting, despairing, exhausting process. I highly recommend it.

Hah. Had to break off writing this to attend a floof request. Immediately began writing in my head; the muses instantly said, okay, now this happens. I said, “WTF? Seriously?” Yeah, they answer. Yeah.

As you might imagine, the morning mental music stream is busy this AM, too. Looking out windows, thinking about writing, dreams, weather, mood, news, past, and future, I saw so many birds busy with spring rites. Jays, robins, sparrows, finches, wrens, crows were all energetic. Bit uplifting. Out of that morass came a Nelly Furtado song, “I’m Like A Bird” (2000). Where her song is about flying away and flying around, my thoughts are more about rising and falling with the beatings of wings, following a course when it seems like everything is a whim.

Stay positive, test negative — do you know this one? Good. Here’s the music. Excuse me while I see the coffee man for a fix.

Cheers