Apologies for the Short Silence...

My daughter and I built those trellises in a hot afternoon.
The one on the left is for the pole beans;
the two tall ones on the right, for the cucumbers.

Sorry for my brief absence. I am back, with a farmer's tan (pun intended). And, just in time to see my cukes, beans, and summer squashes thriving. Hopefully, witnessing all this hard work bear fruit will inspire me to focus on my other "gardens".  Okay, I will stop with the metaphor.

Following a fourteen-week blogging drought, I returned, produced two back-to-back posts, then went silent the weekend after. Well, my family and I spent a week vacationing along a beach in North Carolina, hanging with family, eating good food, and swimming in the surf. Last Sunday, after two days of driving, and a night of partying, I was in no mood to blog. In fact, while I managed to wake up every morning around 5:30 in order to hike along the beach, I could not bring myself to sit down and write, not even a journal entry. And, despite bringing two books, Ancillary Justice (fiction) and Nuclear War: A Scenario (non-fiction), I ended up rereading (for the sixth time) the first book in the Wheel of Time fantasy series (there are fourteen total, and I have yet to make it past the fifth one). 

Anyway, I am home and settled. Spent yesterday unpacking, gardening, and some laundry. Continued with those tasks first thing this morning. Eventually, weighed myself, took a nap, then showered. Yep, hung out in my pjs most of the day. Finally, cooked dinner.

Then. to make up for a week of no creative productivity, I sat down at my laptop, and began typing up this blog post. That was my motivation: guilt. Yeah, yeah. I get it. Vacation and work do not mix. But, I do not see reading and writing as work. Plowing through a book that I have read so many times, well, is cheating. Especially one book was a sequel to a book I thoroughly enjoyed; the other, a fascinating and informative take concerning an existential threat to humanity and civilization.  Also, not a single journal entry--even with all that happened to me--, or recorded dream--despite experiencing two vivid and illuminating ones. So much inspiration swirling around me.

But, it is over. I cannot go back, nor hate myself for it. Instead, acknowledge, then move on, even if forward progress is ragged and slow. Hence tonight's blog post. Ugly and brief, yet, done. 

Maybe tomorrow will bring something better. In the meantime, I am going to try and journal.

(At least my garden is holding up. In a few weeks, I may have several jars of pickles!)