Celebrating Poetry Acceptances, Summer Up in Smoke, Fighting Your Limits
- At August 26, 2018
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 2
Celebrating Some Good News – Poetry Acceptances
After a long summer with mostly bad news, the last week or so has been an amazing string of happy poetry news – lots of acceptances all at once! With poetry, it’s often a wall of rejections, followed by a bunch of acceptances, which makes it hard to celebrate when you should, because the wall of rejections feels so much more overwhelming than the brief flowering of acceptances. A couple of these acceptances were at dream journals – journals I used to think I’d never get into.
The bad news about the acceptances was writing those “withdrawal” e-mails, and realizing now almost all the poems in my newest poetry manuscript are published! I need a publisher who loves this book as much as I do. I’m ready to get it out into the world! Put out some good vibes for me.
Summer Up in Smoke
Here in Seattle they are calling this “the lost summer” because for the past few weeks we’ve been hemmed in by terrible smoke, resulting in being shut-in (air that is hazardous for all people, including dogs and children.) This is a shot of the moon in the red air. Driving a couple of hours doesn’t solve anything, because the smoke from wildfires is coming in from literally every direction. I can’t wait for rain to get rid of this fire season. In Seattle we didn’t used to have to worry about this, but the weather news folks have been calling this “the new normal.”
The weather’s depressing low smoke veil just makes things like the news take on eerie significance. This morning, the deaths of John McCain, Neil Simon the playwright and a Florida video game tournament shooting. I’ve been trying to stay off social media and read books, watch classic movies, etc. My health has been so depressing by itself with the weeks-long stomach infection followed by a smoke-related sinus infection.
Fighting Your Limitations
Yes, so here is my mixed bag – some good news – followed by bad news – followed by just feeling sick for so long and frustrated I can’t go outside and enjoy my garden. There are still good things going on, but the news cycle and my own body have been against any brief hope or optimism.
Everyone has some limitations. I may have more physical limitations than most people, and this last month has been rotten – just bad luck, plus autoimmune stuff, plus being sensitive to bad air because of asthma. I love my garden, but I haven’t been able to get out and plant stuff, or even go to the gardening store for dreaming/planning sessions, in a while. It’s hard for my husband and I to go out on a date because 1. nausea 2. lack of fresh air, neither of which are great for romance. I want to spend more time reading, editing, sending out work, but I’ve got limited energy per day, so I have to do everything in small doses. So it’s hard to cheer yourself up when even your coping mechanisms seem hard to access.
How do we face life with limitations? It doesn’t mean you can’t do anything, but it means maybe you can’t do as much as you used to, or as much as you want to do. It means even when you have modest goals for your days, sometimes you give up and sleep all day instead. It means you go to doctors to get everything (diet, physical therapy, medications) as optimized as you can, but since you’re working against multiple complex problems, sometimes they tell you: you’re doing everything you can do, and we’re doing everything we can do, too. So that feel like being up against wall. But there is always the possibility of change on the horizon. I hope for that, for the possibility of doing more, of seeing more hope, of the lifting of the “Eye of Sauron” sun and thick layer of pollution so we can see our mountains, rivers, trees, and ocean again. It’s the same with my writing – even after a long period of rejection, there will be that time when everyone seems to like your work again. We have to hang on to hope, even when our vision is dimmed.
Brian James Lewis
Glad to hear that the air quality is improving and that you are pushing forward with life. Congrats on acceptances! It is always a nice boost when that happens.
Poet Bloggers Revival Digest: Week 34 – Via Negativa
[…] How do we face life with limitations? It doesn’t mean you can’t do anything, but it means maybe you can’t do as much as you used to, or as much as you want to do. It means even when you have modest goals for your days, sometimes you give up and sleep all day instead. It means you go to doctors to get everything (diet, physical therapy, medications) as optimized as you can, but since you’re working against multiple complex problems, sometimes they tell you: you’re doing everything you can do, and we’re doing everything we can do, too. So that feel like being up against wall. But there is always the possibility of change on the horizon. I hope for that, for the possibility of doing more, of seeing more hope, of the lifting of the “Eye of Sauron” sun and thick layer of pollution so we can see our mountains, rivers, trees, and ocean again. It’s the same with my writing – even after a long period of rejection, there will be that time when everyone seems to like your work again. We have to hang on to hope, even when our vision is dimmed. Jeannine Hall Gailey, Celebrating Poetry Acceptances, Summer Up in Smoke, Fighting Your Limits […]