The fleas are tenacious this year. The youngest cat in the household has an allergy to flea bites and he has been miserable with them, but no one’s having an easy time of it. Standard treatments become ineffective as generation after generation of ever-hardier bugs develop resistance to drops, collars, and oral treatments. We’re all scrubbing our floors and upholstery with Dawn dish-washing liquid and hoping for the best.

In her book Deep Creek author Pam Houston writes about the decimation of the western forests by the pine beetle in the 90’s and the spruce bark beetle in the ’00’s, leaving entire mountainsides covered with standing kindling just waiting for a bolt of lightning or an untended campfire. And just this morning I saw this article in the NY Times about antibiotic-resistant bacteria that are transforming what was once a vexing but easily treated infection into something life-threatening.

Here’s my takeaway: it won’t be fire or ice that does us in. It won’t be nukes, it won’t be an asteroid. It’s going to be the bugs.

It may be the case that expensive cities are killing creativity, but I suspect the real culprit is the belief that you have to live in a certain sort of place in order to create.

If you want to have time to make your art, it helps to live somewhere that offers low overhead. Cheap rent, or — imagine it! — an affordable mortgage, in a place that’s reasonably well-tended and feels safe. Because chances are it isn’t the city that’s killing your creativity, it’s the amount of money it costs to live there and the amount of time you have to spend acquiring that money. Scarcity — insufficient time, inadequate funds — is the real creativity-killer.

Maybe going home to your “dying” hometown — or some reasonable facsimile thereof — will serve your creativity in ways you can’t imagine from where you are right now.

The co-op had some great oranges this week. Sweet and juicy and altogether perfect. Sometimes one is all I need to feel really happy. Sometimes, it takes two.

Paul Jarvis asks, Am I presently happy or do I assume I’ll be happier in the future, and if so, why?

Good question(s).

My friend Mychele is a long-time a practioner of kundalini yoga. It was she who introduced me to the phrase “ambrosial hour,” which I immediately loved.

The Sikh expression is Amrit Vela, (“nectar time”), an altogether lovely concept, and practice, especially for those who awaken at three or four a.m. and wonder wtf.

Bonus Rives: Museum of Four in the Morning.

(via swissmiss)