Mary Shelley Wrote Frankenstein during bad weather. I enjoyed reading two substack posts (Mala and Jessica) written inside during the terrible wildfire smoke yesterday, and I thought I might write my own today. But I think it’s a little less fun -not that yesterday was fun - of an event as it seems the rain might not be enough to take it all away, and more plumes of smoke are coming anyway, and it might not just be as simple as hunkering down, and looking forward to better next week, after all.
I don’t know. Waking up and looking at news headlines on my phone isn’t the best introduction to Saturday morning. Although Baltimore isn’t mentioned in headlines, it’s the same as DC and NYC, it seems to me.
Instead I ordered another air filter, and checked on my air filter’s filter (the one I had bought from the first time we had forrest fire smoke come to Baltimore) and realized it needs a replacement filter too, and ordered that.
I’ve been staying inside with the windows closed, with one great tower fan I got free from the curbside in my parents 55 and over community a few weeks ago, and a small air filter coming with me from the living room to the bedroom at night.
The cats are great company. Like weary sea otters battered down the seas of summer with me, new little things please them. A popsicle stick from last week is still a coveted toy. And pipe cleaners yesterday, gave them great joy: spreading them and the safety pins I had made a pile of across the floor as I frankensteined my emotional support mini quilts together in the start of a mobile. I think I’ll have to get actual metal mobile wire to string the mini quilts on if I want them to be a cool mobile, but for now, as its a beginning idea, I have a few quilts attached with string, safety pins, and recently pipe cleaners, as I see what I have around the house.
My mini quilts really aren’t pretty, but they really calm me a lot. I spend yesterday hibernating with a movie and sewing. I super enjoyed watching “Boy Swallows Universe” this long, traumatic, (is there a name for a Netflix show where everything goes very very bad all the time) but uplifting, such bubbly characters, and isn’t life just shit sometimes and how nice to have a show set in shit like that, plus the young boy he’s amazing.
And it did not let me down. It didn’t end how some series end making you think why you wasted your time with it. It end making me feel better about myself, in a lot of ways, but I don’t want to add spoilers here, although its not the best series, it really carried me through the day!
Now if alcoholic, drug dealing, killing, woman abusing, fighting, etc show isn’t what your in for maybe its not for you. But there were some character arcs I found uplifting. That in a way, I want to be like them. It really was a male’s point of view. Half true, I read after wards, based on a book. The writer wrote himself as a child, stronger, more resilient, what we wished he could do: and I really think there was pleasure in that.
It made me want to be a better person in a way. Like the old convict finally let out.
But the forrest fire is not over. And I will have to discipline myself a little more, today, I think. Not just mentally escape, escape, escape.
This evening I’m going back to my Vacation Nanny Elder care Gig. And I find myself a little afraid to check in on my sweet 95 year old shut in, helping her with her evening routine, knowing her people are out of the country and not having any back up plan if things go wrong. (What hospital would she go to? Who would I call? Why didn’t I put the neighbors number I made friends with in my phone?). But thats how it is these days. I asked these questions when I got the job. I was told nothing would go wrong. She’s fine. I was surprised they hadn’t thought it through. But it seems like no one is. And it’s all a lot to put just on me. So I do what I do and hope for the best. We fragile beings, everywhere.
Writing can be .. like writing into the void. Is anyone listening does anyone care? But it can also be really wonderful. A long last something. Inspiring others. Inspiring me.
Thank you for reading. Sorry for the dramatic tag line. I know it’s not those things. But it does all feel very adjacent.
Best wishes. thank you for the mentally stimulating writing and striving and existing. each little good thing you do each day, no matter how small, matters. xo China
I mean it all feels very dramatic these days so the tag line is ok especially now that the red sun has given way to rumbling thunder, flooded streets and lightening.
I should get back to my quilt today but I fucked something up so I've been avoiding it.