Tag: personal

Sickness and Health

Hope ZaneGeneral

It’s been a really rough month and a half. First I caught covid, which led to a really scary asthma exacerbation, and now I’m dealing with some really exhausting side effects while adjusting to new medication. I’m not having a good time, guys.

Which I say just because… I want to say something. To let you know how I’m doing and not just disappear. I’d like it if it was something more positive and fun, but, well, this is where I’m at.

I’m trying my best and trying to be kind to myself in these times. Hopefully I’ll feel good about writing again soon. <3

When she’s hungry, she looks for the garden

Hope ZaneGeneral

I love Annie Dillard. I love her writing, which seems to possess a kind of singular beauty. I’m once again thinking of this quote of hers and finding it at once bolstering and convicting:

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

– Annie Dillard

I confess I haven’t felt like much of a writer lately. My words have slowed down. I’ve been prioritizing other things. Life and health have become sometimes sad—maybe moreso than usual. This will pass, and yet it still seems hard.

Ah, I want to end this blog post triumphantly, but maybe it’s most honest to say that writing is still someplace I can go. That even when the light on the porch of my own creative practice seems dark and dim, it never goes out completely.

And there has to be something very hopeful in that.

Silent Night

Hope ZaneGeneral

I have been so anxious lately. I’ve been wishing for good health. And praying—lots of that, too. I feel better and worse in a lot of ways, lately? I don’t know, I’ve been feeling very scrambled. I’m trying to keep up, and I’m trying to slow down.

I just stopped spending time with some people who were not very good for me, and yet I still miss my friends.

I’ve been encouraged every time I go outside lately. “Touching grass.” I feel like I’ve been getting peeks over the wall, little breaths of fresh air, those moments where you see that the world isn’t so bad, isn’t so unsafe. That there is help and comfort and friends everywhere.

But still, sometimes I’m anxious. I’m perhaps trying to be a little more open. I’m trying to relax. Maybe we’ll see how long it lasts.

I finished the short story I was working on last time. It’s called Silent Night, and I think it turned out kind of strange and beautiful. It’s about a painter with a single-minded devotion to his art and another painter who’s floundering his way into a new medium, manic-eyed and struggling. They get together, but I think they’re still lonely. There’s something about art school… with your dedication to your craft so big and between you, how close to another person can you really get?

It lives here on Patreon for now. It’s roughly 7k words long, and I think I would like to revisit Heechul and Kaoru again some time in the future, but I feel good about where this story leaves them.