Great Starts...

The coyotes were restless last night...

Doesn't that sound like a great opening line to a fiction story?

It's not. It's just a stated fact. I didn't sleep well last night because the coyotes woke me up. When they get together in a pack (not always the case, coyotes hunt on their own quite a bit, they are more scavenger than pack hunter) they yip and cry and carry on. It's eerie.

Wolves howl. It's primal and will raise the hairs on the back of your neck a little. It's also kind of deep and vibrates in your chest a bit. Scary. But in that portion of your brain that understands hunters and hunted.

Coyotes? They scream. And cry. And sound like angry toddlers. Or banshees. They raise the hair on the back of your neck and on your arms and make your stomach kind of twist. Because you aren't sure if you should be scared or should try to help. If they are dangerous or in danger. If they are natural or supernatural.

The coyotes were restless last night...

I think it will be a start to a fiction story at some point. Because I love a good opening line.

Re-reading all of my old blogs has shown me that. Opening lines are most often the inspiration (or excuse) for the entire rest of the story. I like them so much that probably 60% of my stories open and close with the same line.

I love a good open and I love a call back.

Quite often what's in the middle is just a way to get there.

But anyway, last night the coyotes woke me up. I didn't check the time. I don't have a bedside clock. We use our phones for alarms so no need for one. And it's part of not fighting insomnia. If you have a clock you are tempted to just do the math all night. If I get to sleep right now I will get 6 hours of sleep...okay if I get to sleep now I will get 5 hours of sleep...oh my god if I fall asleep right now I will only get 4 hours of sleep... So I never check the time. I just relax and try to get back to sleep or at least to that zone of relaxation.

Last night I was having a harder time getting back to relaxed. Like I said, the coyotes were restless. It's hard to relax and go back to sleep when hell demons are outside your window calling for lost souls.

So instead I started thinking about my life over the past few years. Specifically that I have a written record of what I was thinking at certain times. What I believed. What was really going on in my head. Because (and there are scientific studies to back me up here) we are not actually reliable witnesses to our own past beliefs. We often think we have ALWAYS thought one way when we in fact held opposite views at one point.

I've talked about it before and I'm not bad at it for the most part. I know what I've always believed and know what I used to believe but don't anymore. The things I feel the strongest about I haven't shifted on. Some other things I have, but I've also talked about those and why I've shifted. I also believe that as we age we become more and more distilled versions of who we really are. We tend to shed things that we didn't really hold that tightly to. There are areas that I used to be more willing to bend in, opinions that I didn't hold myself but didn't view as being that bad that I now look at and think, nope. Now I'm not as sure if that's just me changing or if it's the world has shifted and now I see where certain paths lead.

I'm not as willing to keep my politics on my blog and then only sometimes, only for big issues, and not on my Facebook page. In the beginning of my time of Facebook (from reading my blog I can see this) I actually worked really hard at keeping my political opinions off of there and keeping them only here. That isn't the case anymore. Now I feel that it's important to make clear what I do and do not believe and why. I think it's a mistake to stay silent when people are saying things that are wrong, factually or morally. Who knows if in ten years I will feel the same way or think this was a mistake. But for right now I feel like we need to have discussions, and we need to see reasonable people make arguments and we need to see that we are not alone in our opinions so we can gain strength from that. (I also know that there are people who do not feel that I am reasonable or have shareable opinions.)

So as I was contemplating the changes in my own opinions over the years and where I am right now the coyotes were screaming outside the window. And I wondered to myself, Where are we? As a country and as a world where are we right now? There is a lot of divide. There is a lot of hypocrisy. There is denial of science, of facts. In the United State we have a president who constantly lies and his base tries to sweep it away by claiming that the media is biased by reporting that he constantly lies. We have divisions on gender, on color, on everything really. We are all very cemented in our opinions and think those that disagree with us are idiots.

"Don't tell me you honestly believe...."

That's how one comment started on a post I made the other day.  Don't tell me you honestly believe... I've written about this before. Of course I honestly believe that or I wouldn't have posted it. Don't be stupid and don't ever presume that I am.

I'm a happy person by nature. My baseline is happy. Most of my day I'm smiling or laughing about something. And yet, there is a rage that is just under the surface a lot of the time now. Now part of that is menopause. I will be honest here, if hot flashes were heat rays the whole world would burn...but it's also the feeling that the world is out of control. That important things are being dismissed. That the wrong things are being thought valuable. That we are in dangerous times and not enough people are listening. And those of us that are concerned are being dismissed. Pushed aside. Even though our numbers are strong and high, the systems are rigged and so we keep having to push and then get criticized for pushing. It leads to that slow burn anger being right there. All the time.

So sleep was difficult.

The coyotes were restless last night...