Shitstorm

Day 78. Throughout this pandemic—adding to it our current crisis, the murder of a black man by a smug-faced white policeman, followed by riots and curfews that suppress peaceful protests (which is the right of every American citizen), disrupted by opportunistic thugs—and a president who has provoked violence and hatred, who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, I’ve been doing what I can on a personal level to heal, to work magic with crystals, to pray and meditate, help my clients navigate their pain, owning my own crap—my rage, my entitlement–accepting and forgiving.

And every day, during this whole shitstorm—me not sleeping, too much histamine in my system, breakouts of eczema, 100,00+ people dying, my cat in a health crisis, waking up at noon, up all night, house clothes worn out, an album release on hold because it just costs too much, helicopters overhead, sirens passing by—every day…  Every day I ask myself the same question: “What can I do?” And the voices of my soul and higher self always reply with the same answer: “Work on your novel.”

Today, with the curfew now set at 5pm in Los Angeles, I stayed home and completed Chapter Twenty-Eight. The boys from Vietnam made me cry—it’s a pivotal moment in my novel, which is a healing journey through the crosswinds of space-time, and a story I can’t get enough of. I love my characters. They are real. And they love me back by revealing who they are. If I’m strong enough to listen, to get out of the way, they tell me how to mine their story. Despite the unending research required to write a character that is not only a Vietnam vet, but also half Ojibwe Indian, during a time (1978) when Americans had pretty much discarded the horrors of that war and moved on to other things, I feel up to the task. The piecing together of the last part of the novel during this pandemic is what I do to help, a way I can love my country.

Interestingly enough, much of the story takes place in southern Minnesota, including references to the VA Hospital in Minneapolis. The photo I’m posting is where an important scene takes place in Chapter Twenty-Eight, near Cannon Falls, MN. To find out a little more about my novel, you can visit wildcoyotes.com/Totality.html