Tulips, Bookfairs, and Things to Boost Your Immune System/Confidence

Sometimes you have to purposefully do things to inject your life with joy, hope, and confidence.

Since last week was a meeting with the head of rheumatology/immunology at UW, and this week is the (much feared, long awaited) replacement of my scary root-touching temporary filling with a real filling by my new dentist (sans novocaine but with lasers this time), plus I received a record number of sometimes kind, sometimes blank and bland rejections, I thought to myself: this might be a good time to grab ahold of some joyful and confidence-building moments.

So I took myself on Sunday to The Richard Hugo House where they were having the APRIL Small Press Bookfair. It was wonderful to see and talk to so many people accomplishing things in our little community – people who have started their own presses and literary journals, like Kelly Davio, Kelli Russell Agodon, and Annette-Spaulding Convy in the picture at the Two Sylvias table above. I mean, you can complain and lament about the literary world, or you can do something positive, and it is such a confidence booster for me to be around women who choose to really go for it in the literary world. Did I mention Kelly Davio’s new venture, The Tahoma Literary Review, will be at AWP next week? And that Kelli and Annette’s Two Sylvias Press just got a mention in Oprah Magazine’s April issue? I mean, I feel so humbled and yet I feel like I can do more when I’m around them. And Seattle’s literary community is pretty great, full of genuinely sweet people I like to hang out with – it’s good to remind myself of that. I came home with new books, literary magazines, and other inspiring items.

On Monday, Glenn and I decided to take off from work, taxes, real estate worries, doctors, and dentist appointments to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival – sometimes we try to take the whole weekend and stay overnight, we love it so much up there (and this visit I was thinking – what about buying a house in La Conner or Mt. Vernon? So much cheaper than Seattle, beautiful surroundings, and genuinely small-town friendly people…) but this time we just snuck in a day trip. We found to our delight, besides blooming tulips, cherry blossoms, rhododendrons and lilacs (!!) that there were hundreds of loudly honking migrating snow geese, a few dozen trumpeter swans, and several bald eagles and herons during our trip. Pictures do not convey the way this place fills up your eyes, nose, ears with such splendid stuff. When I lived in California, land of year-round flowers, I missed Skagit’s Tulip Festival. Quaint shops and galleries, little restaurants, and wonderful parks surround this area, and I feel we’re always discovering something new when we visit.

Anyway, after a frank talk with the UW guy about my autoimmune stuff, he said something that stuck with me about doing the things we can to boost our immune system – not just negative advice, like “avoiding stress,” (which is impossible anyway, right?) but positive things to do, like taking probiotics or actively seeking out things that light up our joy, awe, and gratefulness sensors, which apparently can help our systems out (I mean, and along with also taking helpful things like steroids when symptoms act up, but still, this holistic stuff really hit home.)

Spending time with friends that inspire you, reading books that move you, spending time in nature, and lighting up your brain with beauty and awe – I’m realizing at 41 that our lives are not eternal, and these are the things I should prioritize. Instead of worrying over a rejection, listen to a friend tell you their new idea; instead of (as in my case) worrying about some health problems that are probably never going to go away, go out and do what you can with the stuff you have that still works.

An update: this morning, I woke up to this kind review/feature of The Robot Scientist’s Daughter on Tweetspeak Poetry. “The Robot Scientist’s Daughter is a remarkable, cohesive collection, built upon the same theme. It is a story of a unique childhood, and an American childhood. It is also the story of nature and technology, and the bargain we make between the two, often without fully understanding what we’re doing.” An unexpected gift! Thank you, Tweetspeak Poetry!