It goes by different names: the high-water mark, the touchstone, the epoch, the turning point. The reference by which everything is measured. You don't know it until you see it, but once you've seen it, everything changes.
Here in Florida, we've had a couple of hurricanes recently: Ian and Nicole. While Nicole didn't do too much damage to our area, Ian was a force to be reckoned with. The wind we expected. The flooding, we did not.
Inches upon inches of rain were dumped over the reclaimed marshland that comprises so much developed property in Central Florida. With nowhere else to go, the rainwater pooled into neighborhood retention ponds and manmade lakes, then spilled over. The delicate balance of our larger chain of lakes, with canals that usually transport excess rainwater across miles to the ocean, were unable to keep up. An outfall pipe was vandalized; pumps had to be brought in. And in my own little town that has now become a good-sized city thanks to the Great Migration, a number of residents sat on edge for over a week, waiting to see if the encroachment of floodwaters would continue over the lake's banks and into their homes, or if it would recede.
This was one disruption. But there have been others.
For safety and the use of shelter space, schools have had several days off. A number of local roads are currently under construction, and this impairment, like the floods, has caused the traffic to move elsewhere, unexpectedly jamming the thoroughfares that remain open. Of course, it doesn't help that literally hundreds of people a day (yes, a day!) are moving to Florida. Homes and apartments can be built relatively quickly, but roads, schools, stores, and other infrastructure cannot.
And so, disruption. Meanwhile, we are watching an outright civil war of values play out on the national stage. What is a woman? What is justice? What is a recession? What is America? If we really don't know the answer, and if we really can't agree on terms, how will we communicate? How will we operate? How will we govern, and how will we serve?
Well, the simple answer is, we won't.
Thus, the disruption.
But, to everything there is a season. And if there's one thing I've heard repeatedly from every writer's blog, podcast, book and conference, it's that some form of disruption is a constant. That's no reason to stop working. You may just have to work a little differently, or in shorter pieces, or for a longer time. But small, faithful steps add up.
I haven't written a blog in a couple of months, partly due to disruption from the things above plus life in general (appointments, obligations, etc.). But the other reason is because I have been putting my limited time into revisions of THE RATLIFFE HOUSE, my novel about feminism and literature. I'm convinced that there's no better time to have a book that examines the culturally accepted assumptions of third-wave feminism and draws them out to their full conclusion, because we are living out those conclusions now to dire effect.
People are beginning to reach their own high-water mark, and realize they have to do something to stop the flood. I hope that if I can produce a high-quality, entertaining, and enlightening work of art, it will not only encourage those of a similar mindset, but persuade those of different one. After all, what better story than a love story to show that men and women need each other, just as we are? What better story than a bildungsroman to show that there are some decisions only you can make?
Yes, stories matter. It's time to tell mine. God willing, it'll change yours for the better.
In the meantime, please keep the faith. Whatever good work you find to do, no matter how disrupted, soldier on, step by step, mile by mile. I don't believe for a moment that it will ever be in vain.
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