Who lives here?

Who lives here within the skirts of the deodar cedar?

I found this Audubon box nestled in an environmentally-protected park and let my imagination run. No clues came from surrounding sounds:
crows caw, ducks yak-yak,
thrum of water over stone,
whistling songbird

It’s early for nesting, of course, but looking at the tiny, empty home made me remember the excited sensation I had as a kid whenever I discovered some secret place where an animal or fairy might live.

Places-we-live is on my mind a lot lately. I’ve moved my mother to a board-and-care, because her condition deteriorated and she needs 24-hour care. I spend half my time at my home and half at hers, where I’m sifting through a lifetime of memories, good and bad.

Can a home be built of memories? I think it can.

I finished my fairy tale!

Happiest of valentines to myself. I just wrote the last line of my YA fairy tale. 82,300 words ending in tears and laughter.

My little dragon was cheering me on these last few days. I think I wrote about 4k to get to the finish line.

My beta readers will be hearing from me as soon as I make a final sweep and swoop through the book.

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However, I'm still dealing with my mother's health and personal issues, meaning I'm about to go away for a few days again. No Internet at her place, either.

So I'll catch up with you all soon as I can.

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Wheee!

An update

Sometimes we need to be stripped down to our bones, laid bare and open to the elements in order to remember who we are.

Since my life tumbled into chaos and high stress when my mother broke her hip, I felt as if I lost my own life in taking care of hers, but actually I've learned some things.

First, take care of what you have to and then turn off the anxiety and do what you love. For me, that's writing and being somewhere in nature. I've found those moments and some of them have been really rewarding.

Despite the many hours of settling my mother into a new reality, I've made huge strides in my fairy tale manuscript, found a new inspiration, wrote a short short for a contest, enrolled in a writer's event I wanted to attend. All of this has been spirit-raising.

There's a great graphic my daughter shared with me that asks:

Do you have a problem in your life?

No. >Then don't worry about it.

Yes.>Can you do something about it?

No. >Then don't worry about it.

Yes. >Then don't worry about it.

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The solution is to do what you can and let it be.

In doing what I can this week, I go back to my mother's to take her to a followup with the surgeon, to have the electricians check out her wall socket, to meet with a board&care home, but then I also plan on an afternoon with my critique partners and another event with a lot of co-workers from the newspaper where I used to work. Some of this, some of that, and steps forward for all.

I'll be offline at my mother's, so I may not update again all week. My best to all of you and thanks for reading.