Pandemic Scrambling Year

The year 2020 scrambled my brains and my life. I couldn’t tell Monday from Wednesday, up from down, or front to back. Like this collage, it seemed everything was jumbled. How about you/? Did you feel a pandemic onslaught interrupting your tried-and-true lifestyle and challenging your habits? Whichever way you turned, was there another obstacle? Mask or no mask; social distance or not; vaccinate or not; or simply stay home and say, “The heck with it.”

For us, there was a bright side or two or three to this otherwise pandemic-scrambling year. Creativity flows in my blood, and that bears fruit in my novels, short stories, and screenplays. And, too, it bore fruit, or should I say meat, in my newfound culinary delight—cooking. While cooking took on a new joyful pastime, I also found creative fun in the presentation of meals. The entire process of dinner took on a whole new meaning—the fireplace dancing its orange and yellow flames, music flowing from the Bose, the chandelier dimmed, the table set “just so,” and the dinner served with a touch that few restaurants will match. “Ambiance for two,” is how Gwen and I would approach the table, joking as though we were speaking to the maitre d', except we were enjoying newfound pleasures of being home.
To our delight, dinner became much more than sitting down and eating. It became an undertaking of planning, preparing, and presenting. The “Three P’s” of a meal. With it came unexpected bonuses. The meals were (and are) delicious, delightful to look at; inspired conversation; and we lost weight while eating better. 

The entire concept of the “Three P’s” suddenly folded over nicely into my vocation—creative writing. I looked back over my previous works of a strong female protagonist in the Christie Cole Trilogy, my one and only biblical work in “The Third Dawn,” the standalone whodunit of “Sweet Emily,” and the Border War series that started with “Color of the Prism,” continued with “We Were Young Once…,” and is nearing completion with “The Russian.”

Particularly with “The Russian,” I drew and am drawing on my inner-creative juices. Just like I don’t want dinner to “just be dinner,” I don’t want this third book in the series to be “just a book.”

NO! “The Russian” is intended to put into print what I know from personal experience, from interacting with “contacts” in that world, with research, and finally, tying it all together with a little spice here and there in the form of creating writing.

Life along either side of our southern border is not a picnic. It is a life and death struggle, fought twenty-fours a day with no holidays or weekends off. It is a tireless, dirty world. As taxpayers, you and I pay someone else to do the dirty work for us, but it is there. It doesn’t disappear simply because we don’t see it. 

“The Russian” will close out the Border War Series. If you dare sneak a peek into that world, you will be amazed at what you find. It won’t be sweet dreams and candy kisses. Instead, you will find the real world and the real war being fought while we enjoy our families, cook wonderful meals, and go about our pandemic infected lives. But we will still have to make our daily decisions – to mask, etc. Someone else will be on the border securing our safety.