On Leaving America - Part 22

Thank God it’s Monday. Wife at work. I am at a moment of peace. The house is quiet. I have made Monday a day of peace. A luxury of the retired and unemployed. But not easy to acquire. There’s always something that needs doing. About a year ago I started taking Monday off. A day of rest. Sundays don’t work for me. I end up cutting the grass or washing the car . . . pulling weeds or fixing something.  Monday I refuse to do anything at all, unless is brings me pleasure. A total refusal to work. This weekend I shoveled five yards of gavel. One yard weighs 2,800 pounds. That is a perfect definition of work. Weight X Movement =Work. Earlier this week I shoveled and distributed five yards of wood chips. Lou was helping with the chips.

Writing this blog is relaxing, kind of fun and is as close as I can come to writing these days. In a way these blogs are notes to myself—to be read a year or so from now. I know I will write something about this move to Sweden – On Leaving America.

But it hurts not to write right now . . these past months. There are so many things I want to work on, and I’ve been getting published these last two years, even now when I’m not writing I’m getting a few acceptances from the eighty-three submissions I’ve made since January. I hate not writing. But today I play with this—and you.

I think it was Sharla who commented she wanted to read more about Amber. It’s provocative thought. It would be fun and easy to do . . . and I could do it here on the blog on Mondays maybe. It seems kind of silly and might bore male followers. But I don’t have time to be writing anything serious. I should be working on Dearie, a 70,000 word novel I’ve been working on for 5 years. It’s close to finished. It’s been written, revised many times. I have a nice cover and am working with an editor. I need one more revision and I’m done with it. But I just can’t go there now. But I could write, Buckminster & Amber . . easy I think. How would Amber see the world? Herself?

I could also write about the Tamil Tigers when they were active in Sri Lanka and Madras. I’ve written articles about my time in Lanka and the Tigers, but have never been able to get them published. It drives me crazy because almost no one knows what happened there—the why and how of what happened there. The news media never gave people a clue. Some Lanka manuscripts reappeared while packing, but are now in a sealed box in the garage. But I could talk about it if people are interested. It wouldn’t have to be long winded . . . just the facts. No conspiracy theory. A little about the land, about religion and governments . . . about bats. It would be easy to write, but maybe Kitty is the only one who might be curious.