“I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth.” Miranda from  Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven

I feel like Dr. Eleven from Station Eleven, living a lonely life in my space station, longing to return to the life I used to know on Earth.

There is this song on the Station Eleven Soundtrack called Wandering Under the Moon that I glommed onto sometime after my dad and husband died and my studio burned down. It’s a sweet and silly little ditty about finding the sweetness of life after a planet changing pandemic has destroyed and/or changed everything. There are survivors in the story and they find beauty in the aftermath and gather around campfires under the stars and sing and laugh and keep keeping on in the face of adversity. I wanted to be one of those survivors. There is one line I think of often as I have been trying to rebuild my life. I thought of it last night as I stood out in my studio garden looking up at the sky. “The stars are brighter now after the doom.”  I thought that was where I was in my life. I thought it was time to look for joy and beauty and to start again — but I got the timeline wrong. We are all still living in the period of doom.

Our country is a house on fire and I have no idea how to rebuild in the middle of this inferno. I am horrified and disgusted by what is happening. I feel betrayed, ashamed, embarrassed and angry. And right now, I am feeling particularly wrung out and alone. Where is my Traveling Symphony?

I worked really hard to build my studio and to create this silly blog so I could make spaces to share my ideas and art away from noisy social media spaces and maybe even encourage some conversation and collaboration–but if I am honest, I am out of steam. I am disappointed that it has taken me so long to get these new spaces up and running. I love my studio and am starting to like my weird little blog but sadly, I think I managed to scare off the few folks willing to read my ramblings because I left Instagram and went public here before I worked out the blog bugs. Apparently it is also too hard for folks to leave social media spaces to read blogs anymore. I know I am guilty of losing touch with blogging folks. Not proud. I am guessing no one really wants to read about my monsters and haints either, especially now when our country is being overrun by real monsters. I am not exactly a sunshine and rainbows kind of gal these days, am I? I apologize for being so scattered and gloomy and hard to reach. That is my life these days, I’m afraid. I blame the doom.

So, for now, because I have no rainbows for you and it feels weird to keep talking to and about myself, I am making the Ghost House Studio blog private. I bought the stupid domain and I have done all of this work setting it up so I am not going to stop using it– but the posts here will be mine and mine alone until it feels right to go public again. Sadly, I don’t think the real live monsters are going anywhere and I don’t expect things are going to get better out in the world any time soon so I am going to write for myself and stay holed up in my studio making art, tromping in the woods and splashing through the creek and continuing my environmental counterspell work, spending as much time as I can with my family, planting a garden at my little Ghost House Studio and doing my best not to fret continually as I work to put my life back together–whatever that means at my age during these times. I am a widow and an empty nester trying to rebuild during a zombie apocalypse on a teacher’s pension. It’s kind of a joke–a sad and scary joke but I am doing the best I can. I will fight for what is right–at my pace and in my way.

I am determined not to go back to Instagram for a while longer and I don’t have it in me to start again on BlueSky. I tried. I downloaded the Flashes app but I just can’t do it– so there won’t be a place to find me online for a few weeks. I suppose I will be back on Instagram this summer (damn it) but I refuse to cave and go back now. It just feels lazy and wrong. I set out to extricate myself from the raging river so I could restore the balance in my brain and body. I am going to stay on this path a while longer–until a monster pops up out of the bushes, as they always do and I need to leap back into the fray to commiserate or scream in frustration –or do whatever people are doing in public spaces now.

I honestly don’t know how to fight the monsters that are destroying our country and planet. I wouldn’t have anything colorful or interesting or inspiring to offer if rejoined the fray right now. I am so flabbergasted and overwhelmed. The monsters are so stupid and mean and ugly and cruel!! It is mind blowing and terrifying.

I have been through so many personal battles that I am not sure I have a lot of fight left in me and I don’t think doom scrolling is helpful or healthy so I will keep up and step up in other ways less performative that posting my grievances on Instagram. I think social media platforms are making us lazy and stupid and are responsible for a lot of our country’s dysfunction. I need to see if things look and feel different if I step away. I am so discouraged and bone tired and even though I miss connecting with friends online, I need to readjust–well, everything! I have no idea how to continue to connect with folks without online connections. I’m going to have to be creative. I may fail but I need this time to recalibrate to regain some strength and focus. I hope you are stronger than I am and full of creativity and fight and have found your troupe of creative cohorts to help hold you up because, as the sign painted on one of the caravans of the Station Eleven Traveling Symphony says, “Survival is Insufficient”. I believe that. Be sure to stock up on some good literature, some fave tunes, a paint brush, a hammer and needle and thread to help you fight the monsters and fend off the doom. I think you are going to need them. If you need me, and I can’t imagine why you would, I will be doing my thing quietly at the Ghost House Studio. Leave a comment if you want to reach me. I promise I’ll get back to you, zombies, ghosts, coups and weird weather willing.

“What’s the point of doing all that work if no one sees it?” “It makes me happy. It’s peaceful, spending hours working on it. It doesn’t really matter to me if anyone else sees it.”

“You don’t have to understand it,” she said. “It’s mine.”

Miranda from  Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven

(and Tracie from the Ghost House Studio.)