Wake Up Ginger
“I’m pretty tired… I think I’ll go home now.” – Forrest Gump
Sweet Meryl I cannot apologize enough! I know it has been ten thousand years since I last wrote. After being away from the prairies for so long, I fear Vancouver has finally turned me into a flake.
There is so much to catch up on that I don’t even know where to begin. For now, I can tell you that after traveling to Paris and London last Spring, I spent the rest of the summer asleep.
(Side Note: Now I realize that if any of my fabulous sleep-deprived friends with screaming toddlers are reading this right now, that last line probably makes you want to kick me in the shin, like real hard, but I beg you to please pour yourself a Bailey’s with a splash of coffee and stay with me. But also on a further side note, who I am kidding, what new parent has time to read?)
While it is true that June and July are the perfect months for a ginger to hibernate, I must admit this summer slumber was beyond my control.
Do you remember that scene in Forrest Gump when Forrest finally decides to stop running? Well, a similar feeling stumbled its way upon me. After a tumultuous few years running back and forth between two jobs and my hometown Winnipeg, I was finally able to stop. And as soon as I did, I turned right back around, crawled into bed at the Fox Den, and just woke up five minutes ago.
I have been searching for the words to articulate this period in my life that do not include “drinking problem” or “lost.” If I could have been a fiction writer, believe you me, I would have. But that is not what Meryl had in store for me. The fact is, writing non-fiction is great when you cannot wait to turn the page on your next adventure; but as soon as the going gets tough, well, I just kind of want to put the book down and slip a reusable straw into a bottle of red wine.
“If I could have been a fiction writer, believe you me, I would have. But that is not what Meryl had in store for me.”
As some of you know, after intensive chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, my Dad, Papa Fox, miraculously survived Stage 4 Cancer this past year. While I do not wish to go into more detail about that story right now – for that is not the intention of this particular post – it is important for you to know. At the moment, like my favourite Podcast, I am “Still Processing.”
There are stories I can share, however, and I simply must get on it! I just need to stop writing about writing and start writing. Months ago, a good friend of mine shared a video to my Facebook wall of a pooch that pawed its owner’s hand away whenever he reached for a glass of wine. The short clip made me chuckle at first but then I started thinking seriously about tracking down set pooch. Talk about a service animal.
I say it here and now, I cannot look back on my early thirties and think that, while the rest of my friends were busy creating and sustaining life, all I did was drink wine and watch Netflix. I will not stand for it. Someone get me a new sweater that says, “Rosé not okay!”
On that note, I should probably have a glass of rosé.
Talk soon.
