Frankly, things are on fire, the world as I know it is in a seemingly-constant state of upheaval,* and things are just…difficult. Even though I have three new books on my TBR pile that I’ve been looking forward to for months and months (one even for a year) I just can’t seem to motivate myself to crack ’em open. My creative-well is, also, running dry and I haven’t written much since… *low whistle* May. Egads. May. Wow. That’s, um, unusual to say the least.

I have, however, played 236 hours of ESO. I’ve been informed by a friend that’s nearly ten 24 hour periods, no breaks, and, when put like that, it oddly feels small? 236 sounds massive. 10 days is less than a fortnight. *shrug*

I have also been rereading a lot, primarily T. Kingfisher and Lois McMaster Bujold and Carol Berg. There’s comfort in rereading. Partly, it’s the knowledge that it can’t, really, surprise me. Nothing unexpected will occur, and there’s safety in that. A sort of grounding. Partly, it’s to be around the familiar, to enjoy the things I’ve enjoyed before. Often, I have snapshots of memory as I reread; I remember where I was when I first read this part, what the texture of that moment felt like, what I was experiencing. The Curse of Chalion always feels like mid- to late-summer, sitting on the back porch with a languid breeze, watching the morning glories devour the neighbor’s fence and sawed-off trees, listening to the screeching cry of cicadas. I have tasks to do, but those can wait till tomorrow. Swordheart is a quiet day at work, where my snickering goes unremarked since there’s no one around to comment on it. Song of the Beast is sitting in the front hall of a high school, the smell of waxed linoleum and the sound of perpetual conversation blending together into a constant humming buzz. And so on.

For me, books and memories are often intrinsically tied, and reading a familiar passage of prose can spark smells and tastes and sounds and textures completely unrelated to the story that’s unfolding and, sometimes, concurrently. I experience what the words evoke but simultaneously experience what I subconsciously observed the first time I experienced what those words evoked.

It brings a sort of pause, a moment where not everything is awful and maybe, maybe, there’s hope.

Which is a long way of saying there will be no Month of Books for July since it feels a bit weird to talk about things I already talked about, some quite recently. Instead, I’ll keep rereading, and those new books will be waiting for me when I’m ready to experience the unfamiliar and the uncertain again.

* I’m sure it’s peaceful(ish) somewhere in the world.