It seemed only yesterday I was celebrating the release of my second book, ready to crack the whip on my third. Then life happened. It’s a simple tale with not so many simple twists and turns. I get started, I write a few chapters, and then another detour. How many years are we looking at? Google Maps would have a field day with all the road maps I’m certain.  Is any of it an excuse for not writing? No, not really. Am I ashamed that I haven’t finished my work? No way! Do I feel that everything that has gone on has enriched my world view giving me an extra depth I didn’t have before? Heck yeah!

At this very moment I am sitting in the bedroom of a house I used to live in. Nothing big has changed since I moved away. It looks the same, smells the same, and I fall into the same patterns as if I were a small teenager. The small town life never really suited me, not to say I’m all for Urban living. I just knew there was something more than this Tennessee county could offer me in life. Yet here I was staring at the same blue(not blue) walls and taking in the emotions. The biggest change for me, and the reason I rarely came back,  is that my grandmother no longer resides here. That was a tough pill to swallow the first step inside the door.

I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be. In the other room is an older man trying his best to sleep. Too much time in the hospital left him with a horrible schedule. My father’s health brought me here. One day he’s headed off to the doctor about the shortness of his breath and the next I am on my way across state lines to meet up with him in ICU only to chase an airlift to a hospital that was going to do a quintuple bypass surgery. A week in the hospital and almost a week in this house.  He doesn’t complain,  he doesn’t need pain pills, and he’s almost the model patient. Only I see his frailty; his fear. He lived alone and the worst cases flashed before him and, like me in the past, has faced Mortality.  So we take this one day at a time, me by his side through recovery. One more week and back across state lines to my home where he can recover and not be alone. I’m not saying the times won’t be trying, but we’ll at least have each other around.

Besides, wait until the stories roll in about my now teenage daughter,  the terror twins(miniature pinchers), and my aunt Birdy, who I have also become caretaker to.

So if I find time between all this chaos don’t think I wouldn’t jump at the chance. Got the muse juiced up and notebooks everywhere as something hits me. I’ll get through it all, and heck maybe it will help me in the long run.