veterans day – Natalie J. Case

I’m sitting here on Sunday morning, in my nice flannel PJs, sipping on some coffee and working on waking up enough to write. Today’s writing agenda is to start/finish chapter thirteen, get the plot moving and step up to the next thing on the vague sort of journey in my head.

Of course, being a working woman with no one to help with other important things, today’s agenda also includes laundry doing, kitchen and bathroom cleaning and tons of other fun house chores. There is the added bonus of having Monday off, so I get extra writing time this weekend.

Yesterday I worked in sprints of twenty five minutes, twenty five cleaning, twenty five writing. I may up that to forty-five minutes each today, see if it gets me out of the weeds. I’m also going to be making some beef stew, once I get the kitchen clean up that is.

Meanwhile, this is what is keeping me company through this whole weekend. The album just dropped this week, from my friend Steve Carlson and his friend Jensen Ackles (yes, that Jensen Ackles). I’ve known this was in the works for a while, and have been looking forward to it anxiously. It was totally worth the wait. If you like a little gothic southern rock mixed with a heavy does of blues and jazz notes and some AMAZING vocals, check this out. You can get it on Spotify and iTunes and probably a bunch of other places.

If you dig it, you can check out the band’s website for cool merch and to get the album on vinyl. Someone find me a record player! My favorite is probably Drowning, but I love Cannonball and Sounds of Someday too. Hell, I love it all, so I’ll be over here with the volume cranked up to 11 while I clean.

Happy Sunday, Readers. Time to make the words.

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

I’m a big fan of remembering our past to keep us from repeating our mistakes, and the keeping of armistice day is particularly important to my mind. When we look back at human history and the loss of human life that came from both World Wars, and war in general, it’s hard to comprehend any justification sufficient enough to bring us to the brink of such violence again.

And yet, I look at the world around me and it saddens me to see how close we are today to a violent clashing between world powers, and how much destruction it could bring us today. As a species we seem to have excelled in the technology to destroy ourselves, perfected it in a manner of speaking. Today we have the power to end life on this earth over the minor, trifling disputes that seem all together important, important enough to demonize and otherize those not like us, those who believe differently or look different or whatever reason we might give.

Even just within the country I call home, I have never in my life seen us so divided, so willing to level blame and accusations without consideration, even without fact in many cases. Our technology allows us to spread lies as if they are truth in a heartbeat around the world. It provides us glimpses of who people are when they are presenting their worst side, but never when their better selves are on display.

I sometimes feel as if war is inevitable now. As if we are about to toss all of the lessons of years past, disregard the humanity of the “other side” and fall headlong into a bloody, terrible conflict that will not end until we have once again grown weary of the bloodshed.

But, sometimes, there is hope. Sometimes someone reminds me that humanity is not yet lost. Sometimes we put down our guns and our flags and our pride to remember what has gone before.

Now, if only we could vow to keep that peace beyond a single holiday.

Tag: veterans day

time to make the words

november 11