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Not completely out of words, as this windy post proves, but lately, I’m finding myself starting sentences and blog posts and sighing my way out of whatever format I’m wanting to type in without saying much of a thing.
My initial disappearance had a happy, celebratory cause. I retreated to my revision cave to clean up Book Three for you–what I have been calling “Project Galaxy”–and will continue to whenever I post about it. It’s with my editorial team now and I’m sure will need some more spit shining and maybe re-sculpting in places.
When I came out of that cave, however, it was as if the world had–sorry, I have to quote Hamilton here–turned upside down. It started with a gorilla in Cincinnati, quickly moved to singer Christina Grimmie’s tragic murder, and then of course landed firmly on the early morning hours–hours after Ms. Grimmie lost her life to gunfire–of June 12, 2016 where America woke up to the worst mass shooting in our gun-filled history.
A mass shooting that was, conveniently, in a gay nightclub. On Latin night. Slamming two marginalized groups at once. And of course, the public discourse is a complete mess. 49 people are dead. And all anyone can seem to do is scream and opine and divide.
Oh, the nation, for the most part, grieved. The world grieved with us. Our unity became stronger; our divisions became broader. We talked and talked and social media’d ourselves into all sorts of goodness and god-ness, ugliness and godlessness, and I sat back and fell into silence. Because my thoughts had already been expressed, or were so twisted themselves that they’d have only been lost in the cacophony.
And that’s where I’ve remained, for the most part. Oh, I got off my butt and went to our local 
pride parade. I got more sunburned than I’ve been in years (because I’m a grown woman and still have not learned that sitting in direct sunlight for 4 hours will, indeed, burn my Casper skin into a bubbling, pussing atrocity of grossness). I ran into the street to hug my parents, aged 76 and 80, who marched in that parade with their church–in the 85 degree heat–because they believe in love and equality and so much more than “tolerance and acceptance.” I sang with the musical floats and cheered at the joy and celebration and “Fuck All Y’all” attitude that lifted the cloud that had been blanketing our nation for a week.
I left feeling hopeful. Hopeful that the senatorial filibuster that happened days before would have made a difference. For the time, it hadn’t. I remained hopeful when the House sit in happened and grew and grew. But I must admit, my hope that change is in front of us is dwindling.
And today, it’s Brexit.
In the midst of it all are opinions. So. Many. Opinions. All demanding and loud and so sure of their rightness. It’s on my professional social media. It’s on my personal dashes. It’s on pages where I escape to be a goofy fangirl. When the world isn’t flipping itself inside out, there are huge opinions on diversity and how we’re doing it wrong, how we’re doing it right (often in the same breath). Opinions on guns. Opinions on leadership. On Islam. On a whole pile of topics that so few of us really know all that much about… and those that do know about them aren’t always in agreement with each other.
So, I’ve been silent. And it, in many people’s minds, I’m sure, isn’t the right choice. But, it’s mine. Because in this space anyway, I choose to write love. And celebration. And happy endings. And right now, I’m struggling with finding the right moment to do that without disrespecting the pain that’s going on around me.
But there are still things I want to share with you about Black Dust. And Project Galaxy will be coming along soon, with a title and a cover and potential conversation. You can always follow me on twitter and tumblr, even check out my Pinterest board from time to time for hints on those things. Once I regroup from the much longer silence than I intended, I’ll be back chattering away about musical boys in love, about cooking boys in love, about looking at the stars and leaning on our past in ways that help carve out our futures.
Thank you for your patience. Oh, and if you’re in America? Get yourself registered to vote. If going to polls is difficult/impossible, find out how you can absentee vote. If we learned anything with the news today, it’s that silence can say things you never intended to say.
So, I’ll be here, still singing about love stories. Silence no longer feels like the appropriate response.
