I'm here! Where are you?
Seventeen months! I counted them because I was in disbelief!
Seventeen months have passed since I last wrote something new for you to read. So: Hi there! Let's get reacquainted!
"Here I am!" That's the answer to your question "Well, where have you been?"
I hope the past 17 months have been good to you. I've allowed the busyness of life to hold me back creatively. I've conceded to others and let their agendas become mine. Shame on me. I've been unwell.
Depressed? Maybe. Tired? Definitely. Mostly, thought, it's been that arbitrary something's just not right. Maybe it is the slow closing of an artery. What I know is I've been a bit out of sorts.
Which, I've come to realize, is really apropos ... as the term "out of sorts" (the term for ill-tempered, cantankerous, grumpy or downright ill, as in the unwell sense of the word) has its roots in the work of typographers.
Ahhhh ... people who work with letters that make words. Communicators... My tribe.
In any case, typographers set each individual letter of type in the old days, in rows; backwards. Metal type was read from right to left. With all the little "sorts" lined in their proper backward place.
A skilled compositor could adeptly read text backwards. So backwards was right. But back to out of sorts: The word 'sorts' should be viewed in the context of sorting the letters of the alphabet into boxes or cubby holes for storage, meaning each letter or group of letters were a sort, sorted by type. Each dot and tittle. A sort. Sorted.
Each sort in its proper place. So, all was well because all was right and each little blocked letter was, well, properly sorted. Now comes my "out of sorts." My "A's" and "Z's" have not been in their proper places. My dots and tittles have been jumbled. Minding my "Ps" and "Qs" has been difficult. Finding my "Rs" in my "Ps" has been disturbing. But I'm sorting my sorts and straightening the crooked lines.
And yes, I blame COVID! Maybe I shouldn't, but it's nice to assign blame. The lingering, long term effects of that little virus are varied and real.
And in the meantime, here I am!
How are things sorted for you? Know where your "T's" are? The shovels are lifting the heavy debris off my neck and shoulders and back and I believe I will again create. Depression is like that, isn't it? Grief is like that, isn't it? Illness is like that, isn't it? Heavy. With sharp edges. Here I am! Thanks for being "here" with me ...
Tell me, where have you been the past 17 months?
