With Stormy Apologies to Shakespeare

I quit, I surrender.  First Superstorm Sandy, now Nor’Easter Athena.  And I take no consolation whatsoever in this latest assault on my farm coming from a natural disaster named after a Greek god (That’s the little lady’s satellite photo above). 

The new storm is predicted to bring on a heavy wet snow, perfect for bringing down additional trees and power lines and extending the current power outage in my rural, northwestern corner of New Jersey for another two weeks.  To make matters worse, my trusty chainsaw is broken.  God knows how I’ll end up clearing the road of fallen trees so that the propane truck can make deliveries needed to fuel my generator.

Elmer Fudd at work.

All of which is my way of saying that for the time being my mind is consumed with the non-writing aspects of life.  Even the edits to my new book are taking a back seat to Athena.

But there is a bizarre serendipity to it all:  In thinking about this week’s blog I remembered something I’d written as a lark about a year ago about why to write a blog, never thinking I’d “publish” it.  It’s a parody of Hamlet’s self-questioning To be, or not to be soliloquy that asks his famous “whether” question in its second line.  Ironic, I thought, how my weather had me thinking about his.

Laurence Olivier as Hamlet, with friend

Whether/weather everywhere and not a stop to think. [Sorry, Sammy, but I just couldn’t pass up that line.] 

Yes, folks, cabin fever has set in.  Now suffer along with me if you dare…

JEFFREY: To blog, or not to blog--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

In despair at most blogs’ outrageous fortune

Or to take pens against our shared troubles

And by exposing end them. To fly, to leap--

To soar—or do we creep away to end

The headache, and the thousand natural blocks

That publish is heir to. 'Tis a consternation

Devoutly to be wished on others.  Weep--

Perchance even scream: But at the very nub

Of a possible death to the dream of some

Is why we suffer at this mortal toil.

Let us pause. There's the respect

That is the balm to a long writing life.

For who would bear the ups and downs of time,

Th' reviewer's wrong and downright contumely,

The pangs of edited work, the pub delay,

The insolence of the press, and its spurns

Showing patient merit worthy of a saint,

When he or she might quiet exit take

To make a living?  Who would deadlines bear,

To grunt and sweat a solitary life,

But that the dread of giving no more breadth

To all those undiscovered thoughts that churn

Our traveling minds, and puzzle our will,

Would make us far more ill by half

Than denying readers what they know not of?

Dedication makes writers of us all,

And a simpler life of remuneration

Is sacrificed to one of words and thought.

Any enterprise giving pitch and moment

To our words, even if currently awry,

We can’t lose in the name of no action.  

So now fair Colleagues, bring on opinions

That our blog be long remembered.

Jeff—Saturday