Now is the winter of our discontent

Living the last few days of 2022, I can't say I'm sorry to see this year end. 

 

Once, I never worried what the new year will hold but looked forward with anticipation. I still  do but there's a wee bit of trepidation. I'm living a life I never imagined - as a widow, going on four years, as a mother of children who grew up and have mostly flown the nest, living with a crazy and frightening level of inflation, the turbulent world where peace is a distant thought and concerns for the future exist, where each trip to any type of store brings sticker shock and where shortages exists on so many things in a nation I once thought plentiful.

January comes after the bright days and merriment of Christmas, a time when life shifts back from the sublime to the ordinary. The skies are often gray, temperatures are cold and there’s often precipitation. Remember that both “cold” and “snow” are both four letter words.

After days of frigid temperatures, sub zero wind chills, and some snow, temps have soared until it's almost springlike. Winter has just begun, though, so I don't trust the weather.

I once thought about January as a fresh beginning, a clean start and although I'll hang new calendars, I also worry who might depart this life. Both my husband and my father made their final exit in January. From an early age, I dreaded February because my grandparents, Granny and Pop, both died in February nine years apart. Granny passed on February 5, 1980 and her funeral took place on February 8, the day in 1971 that Pop died.

Recent years have had losses that hit hard. My mother died in May, 2022. Although she was in her eighties and her health was far from good, it was unexpected in the way it came. The first holiday season without her, all the more poignant because her birthday fell on Christmas, was difficult. Memories lurked everywhere, ready to pounce at unexpected moments.

 

 

My much loved Jack Russell terrier also died this year. I miss Jackson!

 

In 2021, my cousin, friend, and brother in spirit Bill Sontheimer died.

In 2020, my brother-in-law Randy Murphy died.

In the past decade, I lost my beloved aunt, Janet Puett.

Death took several good friends thanks to covid and other causes but I won't list them in fear I might leave someone off the list.

Some of my favorite parishioners at St. Canera died, leaving a space yet to be filled.

On this cold January day, the outlook seems as bleak and dreary as the view outside my window.

Before I bog down into sadness, however, I will change to the positive.

I may be all but broke at the moment but the writing goes well.

After a hiatus of several years due to job duties and my husband's failing health, in 2021 I had four new releases.

In 2022, there have been five - Return Of The Christmas Bride (ebook), By Any Other Name (ebook), The Puca's Forever Mate (first of the Faery Folk series with a new pen name) Where Dreams Come True (hardback, paperback, ebook, audio) and Scrooge and Marlee (hardback, paperback, ebook and audio).

So far for 2023, there are seven titles under contract. They are Scarred Santa, Gray's Good Samaritan, (both reprise titles with new publishers and upgraded content), At Face Value (stand alone novel), Tall Dark And Cherokee (standalone) and three new Faery Folk titles, The Lone Wolf of Kilkenny, The Last Love of the Leanan Sidhe, and The Bean SIdhe's Change of Heart.

 

I have submitted a work called The Cowboy's Last Chance and am working toward finding an agent or publisher for my Laredo series, a historical family saga that chronicles the lives, loves, triumphs and tragedies of the Wilson family in post Civil War Texas. There will be at least seven planned novels in the series, four are complete and I'm working on a fifth.

A new project is a short play and doing some editing as well as writing. I also have a baker's dozen new ideas, some of which I am already working on writing.

The title, now is the winter of our discontent comes from Shakespeare's Richard III. John Steinbeck also used it as a title for one of his novels.

Here is more of the quote, from the opening lines of Richard III, spoken by Gloucester on a London street:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

My wish is that 2023 be a glorious year for all, that both you and I will see peace, prosperity, health, and pleasant times.

As we ring out the old and ring in the new, let's lift our hearts in both song and prayer!