Plot twist? At my age?

 

Meme stolen from Facebook

One of the things they don't tell you about life after retirement is that stuff keeps changing. And if you didn't develop skills for coping with these new situations in your previous, working life, you have to develop them now. 

I have always believed that the meaning of life -- for me, anyway; your mileage may vary -- is to learn and grow. I just kind of figured that at this stage of my life, the learning-and-growing would be fun stuff, things I picked -- like, say, attempting to learn another language. Not situations that other people have set up, expecting me to react the way someone twenty or thirty years younger would react.

Which is to say that I feel like I'm at a turning point. Again. And in some cases, I don't know what to do -- or else I do know what to do, but I'm reluctant to do it. 

• My time on the condo board is coming to a close. In the past, these positions have been sinecures, more or less; most owners don't volunteer, so the folks who do keep serving 'til they've had enough and quit outright. But our new management company seems intent on making sure there's actual turnover on the board. So once we have the annual meeting in a couple of weeks (a month earlier I expected, because this management company also wants us to follow the bylaws and hold the meeting in November instead of December), it's very possible that I'll be done. 
• At work, our department manager seems intent on promoting someone (maybe more than one someone) to the next level up the pay scale. That next level involves extra duties and responsibilities. It kind of seems expected that I'd want to move up, and twenty years ago, I would have wanted to. But now? I went full-time figuring I'd coast for five years (or however long it took for the ginormous special assessment to run its course) and then re-retire. Fighting to reach the next level at work doesn't feel like coasting. 
• Re the promotion: One of those extra responsibilities involves training session proofers. I've taught before (Intro to Video Production for one semester at American University), and it didn't feel like a good fit. Oh, I'm happy to explain stuff -- to readers of my books, to listeners when I was a reporter, to visitors at El Rancho de las Golondrinas -- but it's not like any of those folks would be tested on the material. Nobody's future job prospects hinge on remembering the difference between warp and weft. Now, I acknowledge that I could just have a mental block. But I also remember that one of the suggestions on those listicles for Things to Do Post-Retirement is always to teach, and I consciously said, "nope!"
• I've been attending meetings of a Pagan group hereabouts for most of this year. I haven't gotten a ton out of the meetings (and some of the info the organizers have provided is a couple of decades out of date), but it's been a way to connect with other Pagans/Wiccans in the area. The group was originally slated to keep going for another few months in its current form, but the organizers told us at the last meeting that they're pulling back on their involvement now. This sounds like a great opportunity to reform this group and/or start a new one, right? But I'm hesitant to step up and do it.

I never envisioned myself running a Pagan group in my old age -- certainly not while I'm still working full-time. Although I never envisioned myself working full-time after I retired, either, let alone climbing the corporate ladder.

And if I reject all of these possible-disasters-cloaked-as-opportunities, what do I do instead? (I hear you out there: "Go back to writing!" It's in the back of my mind, sure, but it probably won't happen while I'm working this particular job. I already spend too much time in front of a computer every day.)

Anyway. I'm not looking for advice or "you can do this!" encouragement. I'm just musing on how even when you think you're settled into a routine, things can change on a dime. Even after you've retired.

***

I'm also aware that November 1st is the start of the new year for many Pagans, including me. So it's apt that these doors are opening and closing now. I just need to spend some time meditating on which doors to step through and which to gently close.

I'll keep y'all posted.

***

These moments of plot-twisty blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Onward!

Samhain lights.

The Wheel of the Year turns, as ever, and so tomorrow is Samhain -- known as Halloween to most, and as New Year's Eve to many Pagans. Samhain is the final harvest, both of the growing season and of our personal goals for the year. 

I'm not sure why, but I find that I'm welcoming the encroaching darkness this year. I waited 'til mid-October to put up my Halloween/Samhain/Día de los Muertos decorations, and for some reason, seeing them in their proper places cheered me up immensely. 

I've added something new this year, too -- a mutant maple tree. 

Lynne Cantwell 2022

I thought about getting one last year, but thanks to the supply chain problems, the prices were just ridiculous. I'm glad I splurged this year, even though this poor fake maple tree has fake acorns and tiny pumpkin-shaped lights on the tips of its branches. Almost every tree around here turns yellow in autumn, so the red maple leaves add welcome bit of color. And I figure I can segue seamlessly from Samhain to Yule if I leave this tree in place until I break out the fake birch tree in early December. Last year I left the birch up through Imbolc (that's Groundhog Day to you non-Pagans), and I liked having that light on the porch so much that I expect I'll do it again this year.

So yes, lighting the darkness seems to be a theme for me these days. 

Back in September, I was chatting with a group of women and the topic of Zozobra came up. This is an annual Santa Fe tradition in which people pay to put a "gloom" -- a thing they'd just as soon get rid of -- inside a massive marionette, which is then set afire right before Labor Day. One of the women said she'd thought about putting in a serious gloom, but all she could think of was to ask to banish her shadow side, which she didn't want to do. 

Well, yeah, of course not. The idea is not to get rid of your shadow side, but to integrate it into a whole self. The way to heal is to shine a light on the stuff that you've hidden away in the dark. But it's not a bad idea, I think, to keep some of the shadowy parts of your personality in reserve. That way you can draw on them if someone crosses you or tries to take advantage of you. But first, you need to know those shadowy parts are there and what they're capable of; that's what the light is for.

And anyway, there are plenty of gloomy things you can have Zozobra burn up for you -- mass shootings, COVID-19, student loan debt, the war in Ukraine, homelessness, world hunger, and on and on -- without giving up any of your power. 

Now that's what I call lighting the darkness. 

***

I keep meaning to post an update on my fling with carbon steel cookware. Now is as good a time as any, I guess. 

I must have bought my carbon steel frying pan about a year ago, because that's when I first blogged about it. I'm still using it, but I'm not as entranced with it as I was when I first got it. First, I can't cook anything acidic in it or it'll take the nonstick patina off -- which means using chunky salsa as an omelet filling is a no-no. Second, it seems like the only way I can get the pan to be truly nonstick is by using bacon grease -- but actually cooking the bacon in the pan is a problem because the bits of leftover bacon in the grease stick to the pan. So I'm frying my bacon in a regular nonstick pan and pouring some of it into the carbon steel pan to make my eggs. Oh, and third, this particular pan has a hot spot in the center where it seems like stuff sticks no matter how much bacon grease I use.

Might eventually toss this pan and just get a frying pan without the nonstick coating. Or else resign myself to buying a new nonstick pan every year or two. 

***

These moments of bloggy illumination have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Blessed Samhain! Happy Halloween! Don't forget to vote!

Samhain musings.

 

bigdan | Deposit Photos

Blessed Samhain! Happy Halloween!

Here's a reminder that Jerry Atherton requests the pleasure of your company this Halloween. The Atherton Vampire is featured at Book Doggy today -- and it's still just 99 cents. 

***

For the past few days, I've been watching some of the Dracula movies I've missed over the years. The 1977 BBC production with Louis Jourdan was...not good. Jourdan didn't do either menacing or sexy very well. 

Somehow I missed Frank Langella's Dracula when it came out in 1979. It was appropriately scary, and more overtly sexy than the original novel by Bram Stoker. I didn't like Langella's pop-eyed stare, but everything else was good.

The third movie I watched was Mel Brooks' take on the story. A couple of people have told me that it's their favorite, and I can see why -- Leslie Nielsen is a better Dracula than I expected him to be, and Brooks himself is hilarious as Van Helsing. 

But the common element of all these books is Stoker's original story. And it hasn't aged well. For starters, there's the obvious sexism -- both Mina and Lucy are victims (no matter which one Drac targets first, and why do screenwriters feel the need to swap them? Or combine them into one character? But I digress), and it's up to the manly men to save them. Just as in Stoker's novel, the women in these movies have no agency. At least in The Lord of Cries, the opera I saw this summer, Lucy actively chose her destiny. She made a lousy choice -- it wrecked her life as well as those of everyone around her -- but still, it was hers to make and she made it.

The other thing that bothered me about the legend, particularly in the BBC version, is its reliance on that old dichotomy of Good vs. Evil. This probably deserves a post of its own; maybe I'll get to it later this month. But I don't believe there is such a thing as capital-E Evil -- or capital-G Good, for that matter. Briefly, it's because the bad guys never think of themselves as bad. They always have what they believe is a good reason for what they do. Maybe they're mentally ill, or maybe they've just talked themselves into believing that what they plan to do is justified -- or someone else has talked them into believing it. 

The January 6th insurrectionists are the most glaring example of the latter; a number of them have asked the court for mercy, saying they believed former President Trump when he claimed the election was stolen from him and that they were convinced they were righting a grave wrong by invading the Capitol. (Now, whether you believe Trump himself is Evil or a narcissistic sociopath or just the sorest loser ever is a separate thing, and not where I want to go in this post. For this example, let's just stick to the mindset of the insurrectionists.)

My point is this: Even those we perceive as Evil usually have one or two good qualities, and those we perceive as Good often turn out to have bad qualities. Nobody is perfectly Good or perfectly Evil -- except in myth. And by "myth" I mean the stories that underpin religious beliefs of all stripes, even those of the Christian faith. One of the things that bugged me about the BBC production was that the Catholic Church had the power, through the crucifix and communion wafers, to combat Dracula. Interestingly, though, those talismans couldn't kill a vampire -- only sunlight or a stake through the heart could do one in. If the Church was so powerful, why did the cross merely scorch the vampires? Why couldn't it utterly defeat them? And why was that final power left to Nature, via a plain wooden stake or the light of the sun?

In the Dracula stories, the vampires are capital-E Evil and the church is capital-G Good. But in reality, we know the church isn't capital-G Good: witness the modern-day revelations about pedophile priests, to say nothing of the Inquisition. Farther back, we can see the cunning the church used to convert pagans to the new Christian religion, such as absorbing Samhain into a three-day church festival honoring the saints and the dead when the peasants refused to give up their end-of-harvest fire festivals. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess.

I suppose you can make the argument that the Church is made up of humans, and humans are imperfect by nature. I acknowledge that humans have flaws, but I don't believe we are fatally flawed. 

And keep in mind that it was the ancient pagans who knew how to handle a vampire -- and their solutions actually worked.

***

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I'm not signing up for the official event. Here's why.

Alert hearth/myth readers know that the goal of the November event is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Unlike the Camp NaNo events, you can't set your own goal in November -- the 50,000-word thing is immutable. And my project for this month is the third Atherton Vampire book, which I know isn't going to be that long because the others have been in the 40,000-word range and I'm aiming to keep this one in the same ballpark. Besides, I've won NaNo every time I've entered; I have nothing to prove by signing up this year and setting myself up for failure thereby. So I will be keeping y'all apprised this month of my word totals, week by week, and I'll share the cover for the third book when it's ready. But I'm not going to do the official event.

***

These moments of hallowed blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. And a reminder that COVID-19 is scarier than any vampire -- so get vaxxed!

SNOOOOOOW!

Looks like I'm about to get a taste of how my new hometown copes with winter weather. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for Santa Fe. We're forecast to get between 10 and 15 inches of snow between tonight and Wednesday morning. If that forecast is right, we'll get about half of our average annual snowfall in this storm alone.

This guy lives in Iceland. I bet he's never had a snow day. 
David Mark | Pixabay

I'm of two minds about this. Alert hearth/myth readers know I grew up in northwestern Indiana, where it was routine to get half a foot of lake-effect snow in a single storm. Life rarely came to a stop. Snowplows would make pass after pass throughout the storm, and if you were smart, you shoveled your sidewalk just about as often. Why, I remember standing on the street corner in a dress, with drifts all around me and snow still falling, waiting for the school bus. No snow days for us, no sir!

Then I moved Huntington, WV, and then to Norfolk, VA, and from there to the DC area -- and in all those places, I learned about the concept of "solar snow removal": everything grinds to a halt until the sun has melted the offending white stuff. DC adds an extra element of fun; as soon as snow is even mentioned in the forecast, everybody rushes to the grocery store for bread, milk, and toilet paper. No one knows why. Someone once suggested the bread and milk are for making snow-day French toast, but then why isn't there also a run on eggs? And cinnamon? And how does toilet paper figure into the menu? 

To make it even more frustrating, DC appears to sit in a "snow hole." In winter forecast after winter forecast, the weather guys would say we were going to get socked with multiple inches of snow -- and then? Nothing. Maybe a coating, but usually blades of grass would still be visible. Again and again, we'd go through all that angst for no reason at all.

In short, when it comes to human coping mechanisms for snow, I've experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly. With the ugly still fresh in my mind, I have some trepidation about this forecast.

On the other hand, I'm retired. I have a package to pick up at the post office, but that will keep for a few days. It's semi-arid here, so the snow should melt pretty fast once daytime temperatures get above freezing on Wednesday or Thursday. And gods know we could use the moisture.

Anyway, I'll report back next week. Probably with pictures.

***

Between now and then is Halloween, a.k.a. Samhain, the day many Pagans celebrate as our New Year's Eve. Apparently I've never done a whole post devoted to the holiday in all the years I've been keeping this blog. I should rectify that. In fact, I believe I will, next week.

***

And once we get past Samhain and Día de los Muertos, it'll be Election Day in the United States. Millions of us have already voted, but if you haven't yet and you want to vote early, time's a-wastin'. Go to iwillvote.com to find out the process in your state. Then make your plan and get it done.

***

Oh, right -- NaNoWriMo starts next Sunday, too. I'll be starting work on a new series this time. Stay tuned!

***

These moments of anticipatory blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and VOTE!

The Dakota Access Pipeline - the final harvest?

magickalgraphics.com

I'd like to say I waited deliberately to post to the blog today so that I could post on Halloween -- but it's not true. The truth is that Kitty and I spent last night driving home from Columbus, Ohio, and this year's World Fantasy Convention. The panel I was on went very well, judging by the fact that a few people I'd never met came up to me afterward and told me they enjoyed it. Maybe it was because I got to mention Nanabush.

Anyway, I had a swell time at the convention, but was glad to sleep in my own bed last night.

***

Samhain is the Pagan version of New Year's Eve: the final harvest on the Wheel of the Year. And I think that makes this a good time to talk about something that's been going on in North Dakota for the past several months: the Native American actions against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

Earlier today, a post encouraging people around the world to "check in" at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota flew around Facebook, and tens of thousands of people did. The post said the idea was to confuse the Morton County, ND, sheriff's department into believing the crowd protesting the DAPL was much larger than it actually was. While a spokesman for the department said they don't use Facebook for such surveillance activities, the technology does exist. And the Standing Rock protesters said they're grateful for the publicity.

What's this all about? Briefly: The $3.8 million project is already under construction. When finished -- assuming it's ever finished -- the pipeline would stretch 1,172 miles, bringing crude oil from northern Montana and North Dakota to Illinois. There, the DAPL would hook up with existing pipelines to route the crude to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.

The project has won approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But the pipeline route crosses a corner of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, threatening some of the tribe's sacred sites. In addition, the pipeline would cross the Missouri River twice, endangering water for crops, livestock, and people (not all of them Indians - the Missouri River watershed is home to some 12 million people) if the pipe were to spring a leak, which happens more often than pipeline advocates care to admit. The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, David Archambault II, says the government didn't follow its own rules for negotiating with the tribe. Members of the tribe have been protesting since April, blocking construction crews and prompting police to beef up their presence at the site. Protesters and police have clashed several times since then, resulting in arrests, injuries, and compelling photos of unarmed Indians facing cops in riot gear. Last week, police arrested more than 140 people blockading a road, first subduing them with pepper spray and tear gas. In September, Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman was arrested while covering the protest. A judge later dismissed the charges against Goodman, but the fact she was charged at all is troubling to this former journalist.

Indigenous peoples from across North and South America have announced their support for the DAPL protesters, as have A-list actors, numerous politicians, Muslims, gay pride groups, and many others. The United Nations International Indian Treaty Council is investigating reports of human rights abuses at the site.

Fibonacci Blue | CC 2.0 | flickr.com

Those speaking in solidarity with the Standing Rock protesters have focused largely on environmental issues: not just the danger to the watershed -- #WaterIsLife, as the hashtag goes -- but also climate change, and our continued reliance on oil and gas rather than developing cleaner sources of power like wind and solar. But the environment is not the only issue at stake -- and for the Standing Rock Sioux, it may not even be the most important one.

Not long ago, I read a book called The Shawnees and the War for America by Colin G. Calloway. It's a quick read, but it highlights the way the white man -- from the British to the French to the American government -- have been lying to Native American tribes ever since whites first came to North America. In treaty after treaty, Indian nations agreed to give up some of their hunting lands in exchange for other lands, beads, and money -- and the government has lived up to the terms of none of them. Now, again, with the DAPL, the United States government is violating a treaty with Native Americans and skirting its own rules. But this time, in a way that has been impossible until the advent of social media, the whole world is watching -- and this time, finally, the U.S. government may reap what it has sown.

Blessed Samhain, everyone.

***
This bloggy harvest moment has been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.