Or; what the hell I’ve been doing for the past month.
When I look at a graph of the number of posts I’ve made here each month for the past 10.5 years a number of significant trends become obvious. First, that the average number of posts went down back in 2010 when I switched from blogger to wordpress and started taking the writing more seriously. Second, that the monthly total varies widely with only modest and seemingly insignificant trends (October has been a good month, because it is my favorite time of year). And third, that volume of content has historically been a reliable if less than direct predictor of my happiness.
The last month has nicely managed to complicate that. Going almost a full month with only one, not especially interesting note is the longest drought in the past decade. And it has been a hard month for me, one with some wild emotional swing and new emotional challenges cropping up just about every other day. In the last few days I seem to be coming out the other side, with a lot of new knowledge gained in the areas of home and auto repair, as well as of myself and how I interact with those around me.
When we got back from our backpacking trip a loud clock started; 35 days until the start of the school year, until days of almost guaranteed sun came to an end, until my schedule became much less flexible, until we needed to be not only somewhat unpacked but fairly close to the end of a long list that had to be done before winter. We made it, by the way, though being able to see the end of that list only serves to highlight just how extensive and intimidating we’ll find the master list of 2, 5, 10, and 20 year projects.
I am in short making the final and irrevocable transition to adulthood; assuming a frightening total of mortgage debt and willfully and joyfully spending crystal weekend days at home digging and painting and cutting. The investment is in this place and in ourselves, an action built on an assumption of both permanence and mortality.
Of course, we didn’t just come here to build, and fall is right around the corner.
Bedrock & Paradox 
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