Book Vacation

I have two series and one stand alone book. The stand alone and the UF series are all set in Seattle. Okay. It's a Seattle that has demons and magic swarming the city, but still. I had picked Seattle specifically because I was living there and had long, deep affection for the place. Still do. So while I still love Seattle, if I could visit one of my book locations, it would absolutely be the SFR series I'd pick because SPACE.

I have so many questions and so many things I want to see with my own eyes. Let's be clear - I do not want to experience getting space sick. Don't. So I'm gonna go with being aboard one of the ships that has supplemental gravity. Then I want to go everywhere. I want to know if there's a palpable difference between how a ship navigates interstellar space and interplanetary space. This is where you realize I'm a sailor and I'm mistakenly comparing navigating vacuum to being tossed around on ocean waves. Intellectually, I get that time/space doesn't necessarily work that way, but it is the only frame of reference I have. THIS trip would fix my frame. 

Don't know what it says about me that I ache for an experience I'm not going to have in this life time. I mean, sure, it's theoretically possible that I could suddenly make the money that would buy my way to the International Space Station. But let's be realistic. With that kind of cash, there are a lot of other things I could do that wouldn't end up with me barfing my guts in zero g. Nopitynope. 

So I'll do my vacationing on paper, thanks. 

Making Space

Have you ever wanted something badly enough to change your habits to get or achieve it? Did you say to yourself that you needed to make space in your life for the effort required to achieve your goal? Maybe it was making the baseball team and what you needed was to make space for dedicated practice every day. Only that way could you develop the skill needed to make a team.

Have you paid any attention to some of the New Age-y philosophies about 'making room' for something in your life? There's the story about the woman who decided she was ready for a committed relationship, but no prospects appeared. She finally realizes she hasn't made room for a partner. Therefore, she cleans out her closet so half is empty. She clears the second bay of the garage. Presto. Because she'd made physical space, she'd made psychic space, and put herself into the frame of mind to see possibilities she hadn't before. The natural cynic in me nods and says, 'how neat, tidy and accommodating.'

Regardless, both stories point out a single fact: Space is predicated on loss.

If you need space, you have to lose something you currently have or do or are in order to have what you believe you want. In the case of the wannabe baseball player, the loss is after school TV and games with friends. In the case of the relationship, it's the loss of physical space, yes, but it's a larger psychological shift - it's a case of reframing one's identity as an individual to someone who is part of a pair.

If you require further proof, think back to a time you'd lost someone. Tell me you didn't exit a funeral home or leave the gravesite with a sense of vast emptiness. There's that space we were looking for. Granted. It doesn't always require a human or animal sacrifice. Sometimes a job loss, or getting dumped, or losing a place to live suffices. Once the panic subsides, a kind of numbness sets in that somehow stretches time and you're staring over the rim of the Grand Time (and Space) Canyon.

This is where I am. I always want more space for writing - and for dedicated mental/emotional energy to apply thereto, but that's another blog rant. I've had a specific vision for how that would work. Turquoise water, a beach, and a writing desk that looks over it all. While that pretty vision isn't assured, we are moving across the continent. From Seattle to Tampa, Florida. It's time to sail warm water.  To make the space for all of this to happen, we had to lose our home and our eldest feline. We had to lose a ton of assumptions about ourselves, too. Like a friend said, we defined Pacific Northwest. But you know, the moss has grown thick enough, I think. Time to redefine ourselves. I have no idea what the definition will be - but it will involve writing, another boat, cats, and the ocean. Always the cats and the ocean.

So what do I need to make space for? Nothing. The space is made. I'm wallowing in it. Now it's time to execute.