Season of Broken Things

It has been a season of broken things.  In the past three weeks, my spouse's Fitbit went dark and refuses to be revived.  His laptop went to the dreaded blue screen, and we await a visit from the tech wizards to see if it can be fixed.  One of our hybrid cars may have been drowned--again, we await, this time for the insurance adjuster to tell us what the insurance will cover, and we'll go from there.

When I pull the camera back, I can see this pattern of brokenness, and perhaps this pattern is appropriate for autumn.  But it's often felt like a more wintry brokenness.  Since late August, I've had lots of moments of self-doubt about various aspects of my life.  I thought my self-doubt might have been triggered by our impending accreditation visit, but after a successful visit, the self-doubt didn't lift.

And perhaps it's been more than self-doubt.  Usually self-doubt encourages me to have some reflection, do some course correction if necessary, and keep going in the same trajectory.  This season of brokenness has made me doubt the trajectory.

As I look back on this season, I wonder how much of the trajectory doubting comes from not doing the creative work that has fed me through the decades.  For example, I've been doubting my poetry trajectory, but nothing substantial has changed.  I send work out, a bit of it gets accepted, more of it gets rejected, and there are kind words with a few rejections.  But this season, I have had to beat back the "Why bother?" blues.

What has changed?  I haven't actually written as much poetry.  I haven't done as much other creative work either:  cooking, sketching, sewing, journaling, any writing at all.

I've also been teaching more online classes than I often do.  There have been weeks that have felt like a long grind:  8 to 10 hours of work in the office, with every scrap of free time dedicated to grading, grading, grading.  I have let my good disciplines fall by the wayside:  cooking nourishing meals, reading the work that can talk to the negative voices in the larger culture, doing some creative work each day that keeps me rooted in my core values, core values that aren't often found in the larger culture.

My time away has been refreshing and renewing.  I have a bit of fear as we move forward into the new year--the grind begins again.  But let me reframe my thinking.  Let me do some planning in this last week before the pace picks up.  Let me think about schedules that can keep me more grounded.  Let me find a way to nurture new growth.  Let my wintry season melt into a good spring.  Let my season of broken things give way to a season of mending.