February 19, 2023
Sunday
Twenty-four years. That’s how many years Markings: Days of Her Life has been in existence. It comprises more than 700 posts. Tonight I spent a fair amount of time exploring Substack, the hot new place many of the coolest writers use now. I have a presence there, and I will probably eventually publish there. But it will be different from what’s here.
I’ve been silent here since December. I break that silence tonight because it’s time, time to write publicly again about my ordinary life as a suburban retiree, a writer, a reader, a woman of faith. I’ve been active on Facebook, where I have more than 800 friends and 130 followers. Some of those friends are purposely inactive there, or are deceased (yet they get birthday greetings from so-called friends, who must not be paying attention), and a few of them are not even actual people. (A cemetery friended me!) Interactions there can get tangled. I miss this longer, less noisy form.
I am, not unexpectedly given the season and the state of the world, depressed. That is, I am in a period of genuine clinical depression (my diagnosis is “dysthymia: endogenous depression with situational increase.”) So tonight my heart goes out to John Fetterman, my representative in the US Senate, who has checked himself into the Walter Reed Medical Center for inpatient treatment of his own “situational increase,” a course that will take more than a day or two to be effective.
Other than that, I am reading (currently The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, by Jamie Ford, whom I will be working with at the Looking Glass Rock Writers’ Conference in May), and writing (the novel I have been working on for ten years now). It’s the first twenty-five pages of that work that will be examined by Mr. Ford at Looking Glass. On Thursday, I am participating in an online event where he will discuss that book. I haven’t finished it yet, so I need to get busy.
As always, Thank you for reading.
Hello, Margaret,
I happened to be meandering ,checking some information about my art & related comments on my Ipad ; am always appreciative to read again your beautiful /description of one of my early
Drawings( within a series of pieces sold as cards) . You had found them in
Cambridge , Massachusetts back in the latter part of the 1970’s. I am still alive and well ,and
Creating within my realm of mixed -media Art , including my writing. Effected as we all have
been by the Pandemic and other “plagues”. Most recently, I’ve just had two pieces of furniture removed from my always too small apartment where I still live in Woodstock , New York. I
suddenly realized my Chi was being be blocked , being aware of “Feng Shui”. You might
seek some of that information if you haven’t ever thought of it as being a helpful tool against Depression.
All the Past of my driving off to This and That Show ,including Galleries and a few Museum
showing situations, are now just identified in print in what ever up-to-date Resume and
Statement I give out to people who purchase all of my different aspects of my work in the Present where,
every weekend ( weather permitting ) I set up a full display of my art to sell (with great freedom and presentation!) in my own Booth Space at Mower’s Saturday
and Sunday Market, a few steps away from the Main Street of Woodstock, New York.
This Season will end as of October 29,2023; Next year, end of May, 2024, I intend to be
set-up again with my Art ,from Past to immediate present.hope you receive this lengthy
description. I will read your future Blogs about your writing ,Novel and related works
Good thoughts and wishes always,