Texas had a very nice spring, which lulled me into complacency. Somewhere along the time when June arrived on the calendar, the rains just… stopped. We haven’t had significant rainfall since then, and the temperatures have been well over a hundred degrees, sometimes up to 113F, for almost every day since then. I’d put in a garden, including trees and shrubs. I’d been putting in an irrigation system when a crisis hit, and by the time I could try and give it some attention, the whole garden was dead or dying, trees, shrubs, and all. We’ve been in a drought, which is a new experience for me. I don’t like it. I’m going to have to re-evaluate a lot of things, going forward. I may have to give up my garden dreams.
The same crisis that distracted me from the irrigation shut down the writing brain. I’ve had fits and starts since then. More recently, I had an ideal opportunity where I could just sit there and write because I couldn’t do anything else… and there was nothing there. My well is beyond dry. Like the front yard, there are cracks you could put your hand into, and the foundation is shifting underneath me.
I know, intellectually, that summer cannot last forever. It’s September, now. The heat will break, we will get some rain, and green will reappear in a rush once that happens. I’m not planting anything again until I’ve got irrigation installed, though. I can’t afford to make that mistake twice. Winter is coming, and this may be the first time in my life I’ve said that with anticipation in my voice.
The writing, though. The creative wellspring isn’t as predictable as the turning of the planet. I know – or think I know – that I can sit down at the keyboard and start writing and after a while the story would come. Finding the time, the uninterrupted time to do this? And my interruptions aren’t always other people, or a very cuddly kitten. My own mind has been shifting, the last few months. Certainties are no longer. My desire to write hasn’t changed, and if anything it’s intensified, simply because I cannot. My ability, though…
I ran away last weekend, to try and fill that well. It was the equivalent, I suppose, of doing a rain dance. I’m very glad I did get away, it was great to spend time with friends, see some beautiful countryside, and have no responsibilities for a few days. It did help. I was able to come home again, even with the delay from a flat tire in a tiny town that held me up for a day, much relaxed and renewed. Still, as you can likely guess, it didn’t solve the problems I’d run away from. There were the still the same dishes needing to be washed, the laundry room needing my attention, the sere garden mocking me with ghosts of dead dreams.
The dishes are done (and done again), the laundry room still needs my attention, and the outside chores will have to wait for days that don’t rise over 100F. I hope for rain. Perhaps, when the rain comes, my creativity will come back with it. Perhaps not. It’s going to be a long dry season, I’m afraid.
Mad Genius Club 
31 responses to “A Drought of the Mind”
I wonder if it is the rate of change that is doing it?
I started my wip before the AI explosion happened and it feels like the world that was written in couldn’t exist anymore.
The fanfic thing was set in a loosely contemporary setting, but it felt like it was really set in the near but lost past.
I’m just having a really hard time picturing what tomorrow is really going to be like with today in such flux.
*Hugs* I think something like this contributed to my writer’s block on Second Space Opera – it wasn’t relevant to the story, but it was deeply distracting.
It doesn’t help.
Especially since changes can look larger than they are before they settle in. I remember recipe books for cooking just about anything in a microwave. Nowadays, microwaves are used for what they are better than conventional means, but not everything.
Well, unless you’re a guy in college, then you use them for everything.
And frozen dinners have hit a point where you can pretty much love off of them without it being insane or very repetitive.
I actually don’t know what bachelors did prior to microwaves as they aged out or random leftovers. I’m not even sure what they did prior to aging out of random pizza.
Suffered from malnourishment
I mean sure, but what did they eat? Was this the period when you bought bread from the baker every morning and basically lived off of that?
cooked porridge, ate ready-made meals (which already are more expensive), leach off another family’s cooking….
That because guys in college have limited diets.
For instance, limited numbers of entire turkeys.
*hugs* I don’t think I’ve ever faced a RL setback as serious as your garden situation, Cedar, let alone the other crisis, but “can’t brain, let alone write” is a place I have been. I’ve sometimes found just picking at stuff I’ve read or watched (how would I have handled that?) is helpful during that time.
Life makes its own demands. Take the time you need to refill the well and attend to real life.
Eventually, the words come back.
Mine finally are! It’s been well over a year since I wrote new fiction. Nonfiction (mainly Agatha Christie movie reviews) I could write. Something new and imaginary? Nothing.
The words will come back. Have faith. Faith is all we have.
I don’t know when your writing will come back, though I’m fairly certain it will. But your creativity is still present. It is just totally occupied with your crisis in the spring and what that might mean for you.
I think.
It is being creative in a completely different and as yet unrecognized way. And your eye for beauty is still working.
This year reminds me of 2002. August came in mid May and lasted to the end of July. Then the spring storms arrived. In 1995-96, Amarillo went 100 days without measurable moisture (over winter, but still). Then the rains came all at once. 2011? Even drier than the 1950s! And it all passed, and green returned, and the people rejoiced.
Drought wears on you like nothing else I’ve experienced. It’s almost as if the land has a chronic illness, slowly drying and cracking. You hope for rain, for humidity, for cooler weather, but it never comes. It takes rain to make rain. Day and night, dust and heat, they grind people down. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fire, they hit and depart. Drought loiters with the patience of a vulture.
As someone who grew up in California, 100 day stretches without precipitation are what is known as “summer.” But it’s adapted to it here. The large Valley Oak trees actually suffer if they get irrigation in the summer, and parks newer than, say, 40 years ago have giant no-lawn rings under them. (Unfortunately, the large regional park, created around a huge stand of these oaks, put lawn under a significant number of them and they can become hazardous very quickly.)
You get a stretch like that when it’s not adapted and the suffering is real.
Except for Bermuda grass. That damned stuff *never* dies.
A change in the weather is most welcome, here in the Demented Dominion. It has been disgustingly hot since early July, and wet. So much rain.
My “pond” aka drainage issue is full of water. Completely. Usually by mid August I’m mowing the whole thing, not this year. The rest of the lawn is too wet to cut, there are puddles just like early spring.
Too wet to cut means I don’t have to cut it. ~:D Yay!
I am currently going through my own word drought. I’d blame finishing something that took 7 years to get from initial image in my head to final form almost…. almost!! out the door. Except there’s also a lot going on with Day Job, and with friends, and with health in this household, and with the world, and…
It will come back. We’re writers. Even if we wanted to grow out of it, I’m afraid it’ll come sneaking back in like a cat.
We rely on a drip irrigation here, much less water used and less unwanted residue left behind by evaporated/wasted water than sprinkling or flooding.
One big thing that many forget when using a drip system is a pressure regulator, too much pressure will continually split lines and spit out drippers, making for much waste and extra work. Most systems are rated for 40 PSI maximum but happily work at 20-30 PSI. Get a good quality but inexpensive regulator like this brass RV one, it will do the job.
Add a simple timer to control the water flow and you can water late at night cutting evaporation even more.
Thank you Stanley, that’s information I really needed. I’ve been debating hiring a professional to put the system in. It’s just all so overwhelming right now.
It isn’t really hard to put one in yourself. All the common parts are available, along with the install tool / hole punch, at most any hardware store. Home Depot and Lowe’s here have a good stock.
You basically lay out 1/2 inch feeder line, cut it and slip the ends into Ts, Couplers or Elbows as needed. Then go along and punch in drip 1/8 inch lines and add a dripper to each. You can also put several drippers on each 1/8 line using Ts to save line length.
For a flower bed you can make things pretty by burying most of the lines but using an 1/8″ elbow to stick the drippers out of the dirt a couple inches.
Which dripper depends on your soil type, we find 1/2 GPH works well here making a 6 to 10 inch wet spot. Smaller makes a smaller wet spot so less roots get water but the same amount goes deeper. Too big a dripper 1 to 4 GPH ones make a puddle and water far too much area, and not deep enough.
The drippers are cheap so you can buy a small bag of 1/2,m 1, 2, 4 GPH ones and try them on a test chunk of line to see which works best for your soil.
We had drip irrigation at our last place, which I fixed up; I really liked it for veggies and shrubs. It’s certainly a lot easier to fix up and extend than traditional buried irrigation (although you can bury the main line to 4-6″ deep).
You can mix systems (e.g. Mister Landscaper, Rain bird, Rain Drip, Orbit, etc), but note that main hose diameter can vary (e.g. 0.5″, 0.6″, 0.625″).
There are also A LOT of accessories you can get, such as soaker hoses, isolation valves, mini sprinklers, misters, etc, so I’d recommend looking at what your local hardware store has in stock, and looking on line.
Gardens can return. So can hope. And we are told that joy comes in the morning. (hugs)
Wonderful!
I hadn’t actually realized we were in a drought. Spring has been very wet.
Took a look at the tree in the back yard and realized it is very brown at the moment. Stuck a hose under it for it 30m, and none of the water drained into the street.
It’s really dry out there…
Burning Man is in an official state of emergency as of today. It rained, and the whole palaya is mud. Like, the whole thing.
Thus, nothing can move. No cars, no RVs, no bicycles. You can’t even walk on it. Lake-bottom silt. Like gumbo.
No gravel roads on the site, 4 km to the nearest paved road, 20 km to the nearest town. Estimated 75,000 people to move, mostly dumb kids there for a party. Let it keep raining for a week and this could get serious.
I have a friend out there who did an update not too long ago. He and his group are just fine, having planned to already stay into next week. The groups with experience are helping out the ones who don’t have water. (I hope some bright folk think about capturing the stuff falling from the sky—that would certainly solve the worst issue.)
You can walk, but it’s that clay stuff. You’ll definitely get your cardio in with all the extra building up on your shoes.
This is one of those situations where you have to weigh complying with the authorities against your own life. I applaud those who are getting out now.
-If- it stops raining, then everything will be okay, and people will be able to drive out no problem.
If it -doesn’t- stop raining, then no one will be driving anywhere. The mire will be truly bottomless, like one of those prairie mud holes that swallows an entire combine right up over its roof. RVs will sink into it and disappear.
The danger is not only how sticky the mud is, but also churn. Nothing tears up wet ground worse than people walking on it. Let a hundred people walk across wet grass, and it looks like it was rototilled. Let a thousand walk on it, it becomes a river.
Typically, the authorities are betting on it stopping raining, and trying to make everyone sit still. I see from USA-Today that many of the roads on the site are hard enough to drive on, so perhaps disaster will be avoided. I am hopeful they get everybody out in one piece.
Wishing you a fresh garden with good irrigation and many new plot seeds. It seems strange to this desert rat that drought seems strange (if that makes sense). In 2021(ish) Vegas went 303 days without rain. Jolie LaChance KG7IQC
We used to live in Campo, CO. It is tiny.
You have still been doing art and photos, which means the creativity is still there, just focused on easier things right now.
We had drought earlier. Now I’m trying to gauge how long a rainfall will last before I need to water again.
BTDT, wore out the t shirt. 😉
This too shall pass. Don’t beat yourself up or think the words are gone forever. One day you’ll be washing the dishes or folding the laundry when the characters and ploys just pop out of nowhere