Stain-glass Eyes

NaNoWriMo ( National November Writing Month)   has been a challenge again to write 50,000 words in thirty days.  https://nanowrimo.org 50,000 words can seem intimidating, especially when I skipped writing for a day or two.  The panic hit when I kept seeing there were fewer days left to get the novel finished.  But I accomplished my goal.  Today is the last day of November and I’ve written 50,000 words.   After I Iost a friend to death this month, I didn’t think I could write.  And when the election results came in on the same day as my friend’s funeral, I felt I was grieving two-fold.  My brain was full of sadness.  The sadness permeated all my power to think.  It felt like my thoughts had been put into an apple press and it had mashed up everything, leaving me with liquid. When I began writing, for the NaNoWriMo challenge, I’d look at my computer screen, put my fingers on the keyboard and nothing.  No ideas, no desire, no brain. Then my character, Myan appeared

I lost a friend. It hurts and it hurts.   Loving is risky business.  I allow myself to love and I know damn well I leave myself open to pain.  I know you may be thinking, “That sounds pretty depressing and pessimistic!”   But I’m grieving and I’m allowing myself to feel depressed and pessimistic for now.   I’m angry, too.  I wanted….I needed…it’s about me.  I wanted to say goodbye to Doug.  I wanted to tell him how much confidence he gave me every day by being my friend.  I wanted to tell him how much I admired his intelligence, his worldliness  and his kind heart.  And most of all I loved his zeal for living and his sense of humor toward life.   Doug owned the Washtenaw Dairy.  I didn’t know him as the owner.  I knew him as the “Boss” at the end of the table.  He was 90 and he had been around long enough to command the title “Boss”.  When he entered the Dairy in the morning his presence was always noticed.   Doug-with Gray Sweater, at the Washtenaw Dairy in Ann