A week ago today, the nation suffered through the actual day of election after weeks of mail-in ballots and early voting and pontificating and bullshit leading up to it..

Four days later, president-elect Joe Biden was announced while the current president went golfing and the nation’s COVID rate spiked sharply.

Today, the current administration refuses to acknowledge their defeat. They believe, somehow, that election results favoring Republicans down ballot were somehow legitimate but the main event was bogus, a stolen election, a lie.

Preposterous. Unthinkable. A coup being staged by senior administration officials in the current administration. A(nother) stain on this country.

I am having a hard time spending time on this blog. I will still bake, cook, and write. But it seems insignificant and stupid to post anything right now.

Now is a time for reflection, renewed action, and meaningful planning.

Look after the vulnerable people in your life and wear your fucking mask.

Cancel your Thanksgiving plans and wash your hands.

I may or may not continue here. For now, I need to come out of the virtual space and make attempts to ground myself and not hate the 70 million people who voted (and all of those who chose, yet again, to sit one out).

Take care of yourselves. Maybe I’ll see you on the other side.

So I am reading The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, a book from 2017 that reminds me of how elemental it is to retreat to a natural space when it’s time to consider things – to reflect, if you will.

This week, KWeeks and I hit the road for a couple of days to camp, only to realize on our one full day there how challenging it is to just leave everything behind simply because you get in the car and make the wheels turn.

But sitting on the banks of any kind of water, surrounded by birdsong and only just a faint hint of traffic noise, is a good way to begin to release, to loosen every clenched thing inside that you didn’t even know was clenching.

It was not enough time, nearly, but it was a taste, and my first trip out of town since February. This blog does not mean I am back – I am keeping all of my writerly things close to my chest in terms of poems and other work – but it seems fitting to post the theme of this latest retreat here.

As ever: wear your mask. Be kind. Black Lives Matter.

So this is it for me. I am officially going on a break with this blog, at least until the fall, I think, or until I redesign the blog and move it to another host, or something becomes so compelling that I simply MUST SHARE with the three regular readers of this blog.

What, Three Readers, will you read when I am gone from here?

I have been through the stages of COVID-induced writing: defiant daily chronicling of quotidian thoughts, a desperate ploy for some kind of structure, haphazard posting of things that I find interesting.

I have made some delicious food here. I will make more.

But just not for a while.

For now, I will defy the nature of the season and the people who are flouting the virus that still runs rampant and turn inward for a but. Turns out, this space may be more of an avoidance tactic at this point.

But it’s not serving anyone. S

So adieu, for now. See you back when the shadows lengthen and the days shorten.

Be kind. Wash your hands. Black Lives Matter. 

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” Frederick Buechner

As I type this, Khristian is teaching cooking on Zoom to his pre-K class. Their shining faces jiggle and dance in their frames, and it’s hard to know if they are paying attention except when Khristian asks a question, and their sweet voices chime in.

It’s a good reminder on this, the last week in April, on a cloudy day with little sunny prospects, literally or figuratively. Have courage.

Be well. Wash your hands. Love each other.