Comfort Ye,

and A New Year of Substack Writing

Comfort Ye.

These last many days I’ve been repeating those two words like a mantra. Words brought to us each year from Isaiah by way of Handel, and needed this year especially by so many, it seems. Comfort ye, comfort ye, comfort ye. Not that they go far toward transporting us to the comfort we long so for.

T.S. Eliot famously said, “April is the cruelest month” – but no, I think it’s actually December, specifically the last two weeks, when everyone is having perfect holidays with perfect families in perfect places decorated to perfection. Everyone but us, that is, though we don’t dare admit it, acknowledge it only to ourselves in secret. Comfort ye, comfort ye, comfort ye.

How then, to find comfort at such times? First a few ways NOT to, based on personal experience or observation:

Don’t think back to how thin you were when you were young. Don’t think back to when you were young at all.

Don’t Google the names of old lovers or distant friends, as I did lately: you may find that the lovers now have those perfect families, and the friends are gone, the BIG gone, with obituaries.

If you’re on the one side in politics, don’t watch the news as people you may loathe begin taking power. If you’re on the other side, don’t watch the news as those same people begin stabbing each other in the back. And if you are thinking of getting on an airplane, or having children and grandchildren, DEFINITELY don’t watch the news: who, in good conscience, could bring little ones into a world LIKE THAT?!

It might even be best, in fact, to never let your head peek above the covers, and DEFINITELY not at 2 AM. All the dreads and demons are astir at 2 AM, in the dark. (I pass this on after many nights of personal observation.)

Comfort ye, comfort ye, comfort ye – IF YE CAN!

No, I have no answers about the comfort thing, except to note that a way I’ve found a little of it is by writing. Getting lost in the sometimes thrilling (sometimes not) act of turning the images in my head into images in words. Now that my little holiday break is coming to an end, I’m looking forward to getting back to it.

I’ve almost always written. I have a cringingly bad poem written on the occasion of Mother’s Day 60 plus years ago to prove it. You can probably imagine how bad it is, but it was a beginning. And I stayed at it through the decades. Not poems. Even I saw how bad the poems were. But other things, off and on, more or less, over the decades.

Then, a couple of years ago, perhaps finally really realizing that my time is limited, rather than just giving lip service to that truth (as I’m afraid we usually do: “IF I die …”), I decided to try getting serious, to try actually writing instead of mostly planning to. The pieces I’ve been sharing on Substack are the results. And I plan to keep writing more, and sharing them, for as long as I’m able.

I have section three of my historical novella triptych planned, and some of it written. Once again, it’s a queer inflected look at aspects of Houston past. I plan to start sharing parts weekly early in the new year. And I’ve got some exciting ideas (I think they’re exciting, anyway) for pieces on Houston Art History, personal memoirs, observations about getting old, and older, and other things. I’ll be sharing those weekly too, alternating with the novella parts, as before – if I can keep up my steam.

That means there are a lot of Substack emails from me ahead – maybe too many for the comfort of some of you. So I wanted to mention (some of you already know) that it’s possible to customize which emails you get based on the sections of my Substack space I assign them to. I’d love for you to join me in seeing them all, but if you’d rather be selective, go to your subscription for my Substack, manage your account, notifications. Then you can toggle the sections you want.

And another housekeeping topic you may not have noticed: for those who prefer listening to pieces, instead of reading them, Substack is now generating automatic audio for many posts, which you can listen to in the app – not the email, unfortunately, but you can just click through to the app. You find them at the play icon at the top right of posts with such audio. It will be “Oliver” you hear, not me, but he’s pretty good – and I do still plan to make my own recordings available for many.

I think that’s all for now. Quite enough, I know. Happy New Year. I’m looking forward to it (except maybe not at 2 AM in the dark), and to launching into it with you.

Comfort ye, comfort ye, comfort ye. Yes, I think I’m feeling more comforted already.