It's been a while since I've posted. As many of you who follow this blog know, over the past couple weeks Jason and I have been dealing with the loss of our dog, Baldur. It's left us with, among other issues and emotions, a lack of motivation or desire to really do anything.
As you also know unless you've been living under a rock all week, Notre Dame cathedral caught on fire on Monday. The world held its breath, wept as the spire collapsed, and then breathed a collective sigh of relief on Tuesday and Wednesday as images and reports started coming in: the building stood. Many statues and pieces of art had been removed for cleaning as part of the renovation project - some as recently as a week before the blaze. The bees that lived in hives on the rooftops survived. Even most of the fabulous stained glass windows are still intact. Millions of dollars have already been pledged to the rebuild. Documentation - photos, videos, digital recreations of the cathedral - have been offered up to assist.
At first, people were saying what a tragedy it was that such a beloved and sacred space burned at the beginning of Holy Week. But I think it is more, and better, than that. I think it is a fitting reminder of death and rebirth.
Monday night, after we had heard the news of Notre Dame, Jason had a dream. He dreamed that he had come into a large amount of money, and he took it and bought a run down cathedral in Baldur's name. In the dream, our boy who had always been so good, had been named a saint. Baldur had always been so good with small animals and somehow, with the mysterious way that animals sometimes know things, small animals - squirrels, cats, other little creatures - began to flock to this sanctuary. Jason took care of them. Other, larger animals started coming. Word spread and people would bring their ill and injured animals, while other people started to come to the sanctuary to offer their services. Soon Jason had a staff of veterinarians and other animal caretakers. He also had an "army." This army would go out and hunt down injured animals and bring them back to the sanctuary to be treated.
Jason almost never remembers his dreams, and he never remembers them in this kind of detail.
It is comforting to think that something good, something constructive, can come from something tragic and destructive.
As we struggle with getting back into our normal routine, getting back into the things that we normally want to do, I have also been struggling with whether to go back to The Wolf and the Sheath, or whether to work on something else for a while. There is, of course, the obvious problem of the canine connection with Baldur, as wolves figure prominently in the story. There is also the problem that not only are there characters who die in the story, but there are also characters who are dealing with grief even prior to that. Am I ready to go back to rereading and writing that?
But there is also the fact that this story is, in fact, a story of rebuilding after tragedy. The main character inherits the leadership of her aunt's realm. But that inheritance could not happen if someone hadn't died. The kingdom is still reeling from an epidemic that hit two years prior - but new people are moving into positions that would not have been open to them before; new friendships and alliances are being forged. Perhaps this is the time, perhaps this is the story that I need to be working on. Perhaps it is time for me to begin rebuilding.