October 8, 2016 — That’s an expression taken from Game of Thrones. Winter in that show is not a season, but a time that goes on for years. I watch the show, indeed it’s my favorite, but I’m not clear on what exactly winter is. I think the last-aired episode, oddly this past summer, said winter had begun. I find that show to have lots of meanings, perhaps even political commentary. If I’m right about where it’s going, and I think so, it’s definitely going to be political. However, the show’s main point, the strong undercurrent in the show’s characters, something rather interesting, perhaps lifelike, is nobody is any one thing. People are neither good nor bad, neither consistent nor inconsistent, especially during periods where one’s character is tested. We are everything. We are all traits. And from those traits, as they are tested, we are formed.

I am in the winter of my life. And this winter of my life is a rather Games of Thrones winter, meaning my winter has been long. My winter started years ago. It hasn’t ended. I think now it’s mildly better, but it’s still there: issues, tests, problems. My winter had a particularly strong period, a really bad winter storm, last year, 2015. Today, I’m working on my 2015 accounting. I was entering all the data from my checking account into Quicken to tally my income and expenses. There were times in 2015 where the trail I left on paper, or computer data these days, showed something nobody would survive. It started, as Game of Thrones does, in the spring. By summer it was really dire. Every entry I typed into Quicken jogged a memory for me, all very difficult memories. I wrote almost no articles here then. I had nothing left of my creative soul. Perhaps I still don’t. I still feel like I’m fighting to get back that part of me. I write every week, hoping to find it … if just from the exercise of doing. Aside from this place, from the summer of 2015 and continuing to the present, I’ve been fighting. Sometimes I feel like giving up. Most all the time I feel very alone. I’m not, but I truly have no place to turn. It really is all on me.

I was very young when a woman I worked with gave me some advice. I live by it. Probably it’s bad, bad meaning the opposite of good in a Game of Thrones sort of way, but it works. She told me if I want something, and I want it really badly, I have to just do it, and the key: tell nobody … because the second I talk about it, people will try to dissuade me. I’ve used that advice for every moment in my life when I needed to crawl out, … or to crawl up. And I have definitely crawled up. I’m a long way from where I started, and my fatal flaw is that I never want to go back. I think that’s the Game of Thrones trait in me, the bad of me, even though I’m generally good. The trait, a learned trait, is that one must, and I mean must, protect oneself. If you don’t know this feeling, you’ve never had to crawl up out of place you didn’t want to be. Perhaps you’ve never had anything truly bad happen to you. Or perhaps you’re just a way better person than I am, and a person who could never be a character on Game of Thrones.

But there is always light. Always. Always something happens for me that saves me. In the dire times of the summer of 2015, that was no different. That’s what I saw in this revisit to my books. I got paid. I sold things. I got lucky. I called every creditor I owe money to and got deals with creditors, strangers on the phone who helped me get a couple months’ delay. I paid what I had to, including a sizeable overdraft caused by something I won’t talk about because I never want to think about it. Even after that terrible thing, I worked night and day, sleeping about three hours total, over 72 hours, to do something that got the money in the form of a check to get me out of all of the problems. Indeed, perhaps that terrible thing that happened to me… had to. Perhaps that was the key test to see what would become of me.

As I was doing the entries into Quicken, I got to two entries in August of 2015, Von’s in Studio City, that’s a grocery store, and Home Depot in North Hollywood. I was home. I remember those purchases. I bought food and cleaning supplies, pest killer too, as very unwanted guests had moved into the house since I had been gone for so long. Still, I was home. When I typed these entries, tears came to my eyes. I was overtaken with emotion as to what I’ve been through, but also a happiness I really cannot explain about that time.

It was definitely Winter, that mid-August day of 2015. I will never forget the moment I crawled into this house of mine. It was 1:30 a.m., Pacific time I had been driving the 1,500 miles from Dallas to Los Angeles straight since 4:45 a.m., Central time the day before. The power and water had been off at my house, something I never wrote about here. I didn’t think either was going to be on. I owed $6,000, and the utility company (one for both water and electricity) said they wouldn’t turn them on until that amount was paid. I was prepared to live with candles and bottled water. But I walked into my overgrown courtyard and stumbled upon a yellow note saying the utility had visited. There’s a disconnect breaker outside my house. I went to it and flipped it. The motion detector went off, turning the light on in the driveway area. The power was on. I went running into the house, introducing my new dog to her new home along the way. I ran straight for the kitchen sink. It sputtered, pipes do that when they have air in them, but after a few fighting sputters, the water came pouring out. This was a prayer answered, and it was time to sleep. Fearing the critters, I grabbed a blanket from my closet and curled up on my sofa, my exact traveling clothes still on. My dogs curled around me. I had a hearing that next morning, and after about four hours of sleep, I crawled up out of the exact position I originally laid in to get to that. It was the beginning of rebuilding.

I got work, work that was not to last, but it was crucial. I kept my business breathing while I did that job. I worked every day until my surgery, from September 4, 2015 to March 22, 2016, except one day. Oh and Christmas. I didn’t work on Christmas. Sure, there were times in there I saw concerts. I’ll tell those stories later, but this was a very, very serious time. I had, still do, my entire life planned on stickie notes. I fixed almost everything. I paid every bill. I fixed my credit. I saved money. But one hit, one hit, and it all falls apart. Again.

I almost had that happen again this week. I work with people with more bad than good, and they will hold out from paying. And for eight days, I had no hot water because of my broken hot water heater. This was a little glimpse of 2015, a hit of the PTSD from that period I fear I’ll always carry. Add that to the tax deadline in a week, necessitating this re-visit to Spring and Summer 2015, aka the strongest storm in the winter of my life, and I feel a bit tentative. So I wish I could give you some great musical story. I wish I could write something other than something about me. In fact you probably wonder why is she writing this crazy sad thing? My answer… because I want to scare it away, but more because I really want to give thanks.

In those bad times, I begged my dead mom, my dead dog Shakespeare to talk to God, crying on my knees mind you, not knowing if I’d ever make it home. I couldn’t lose everything, I couldn’t, or everything I’d ever given up would have been for nothing. When the power and water were on in my house, I knew my prayers were answered. I looked up and thanked my mom and dog; God had listened to them. I never thought he’d listen to me. I’m just not good enough, what with all my crawling up. So I’m very thankful for that. I’m thankful I kept myself together though the days of cashing checks at those horrible places, carrying cash in boxes because I couldn’t use my bank account. I’m thankful I didn’t crack, not truly crack, when I did everything it took. I’m thankful I got lucky, lucky to get the things I needed, lucky that people on the other end of the phone helped me. I’m thankful for the water and electricity and the time they ultimately gave me to pay what would become even more money. I’m thankful for the really good professional who fixed some really serious things for not much money. I’m thankful I got the money to pay her. I’m thankful for the kindness of people, some of whom I never saw nor even talked to.

My scares this week, my times where I couldn’t get my nightly bath, the one thing that keeps me calm, my fear of not getting money I had earned, serve as reminders that my winter is far from over. Perhaps those little reminders were to make sure I don’t get complacent. I was getting too comfortable… too normal. And I can’t. Those things serve as reminders of my traits, good … bad… and who and whatever I’m becoming because of my challenges. I have a goal, the one goal that prevents winter from hurting me. It’s on those stickies. And until I get there, it’s still winter. But you know what?

Winter… was always my favorite season. I can sleep in the winter. Sleeping helps me concentrate. And I do concentrate so much better in the winter. I get things done. I usually get in better shape, okay not when I’m working every day, but usually. And I practice my music, very diligently, I practice my music. Winter is good for diligence. Oh wow. I kept writing and look at this! I made this about music! Perhaps I’ll learn to play the Game of Thrones theme on guitar, like this guy. That seems to suit winter.

Loving the double tracks, and following up from last week, I guess he has a recorder.

And on the Les Paul.