Northern Lights, Book Club Revelations, Winter Blues and Winter Holiday

Northern Lights and Book Club Revelations

Most of the week was dark, windy, and rainy, but for fifteen minutes we got to see the Northern Lights! I only got a couple of quick cell phone pictures because the clouds came in so quickly. My brother on the other side of town couldn’t see them at all.

Here is a poem I wrote the last time the Northern Lights appeared, which was published in The Normal School,  “Aurora, or When Firefoxes Spark the Sky.”

Sylvia with Terminal Surreal

We also discussed my late friend Martha Silano’s incredible book of poetry, Terminal Surreal. And the discussion was really amazing. An engineer in the group mapped the sections of the book to the five stages of grief, and someone talked about the idea of knowing something of the author’s life and how that can enhance the reading of the book. When I was in graduate school, biographical readings were very out of style, but I always talk about the culture, the time of the writing, some details of the author’s life—for instance, when we read Osamu Dazai’s Blue Bamboo, we talked about Japan in the 30s and the incredible stardom of Dazai in Japan. I only teared up once talking about Martha, and Glenn said he also teared up once. We still miss her! I had never thought about whether or not to discuss the context of the book and author at the book club, but I’ve always found that knowing more about the author enhanced, rather than hurt, my own readings. We’ve read poetry books several times now, but this was the first time we read poems out loud at the club, including poems that were referenced in the book (Stephen Crane’s “In the Desert” and Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese”). I think we’ll try that again—hearing a poem out loud is a great way to really get a different dimension of the book. For December, we’re reading Octavia Butler’s terrific Parable of the Sower. I discovered Butler’s writing only a few years ago, despite the fact that she was a Seattle-lite and is a first-rate science fiction writer.

Deer visitor

Winter Blues (and Winter Holiday)

It was a tough week for me physically—I recorded a tutorial on Monday and then the book club on Wednesday, and by Thursday I was run down and spent almost the whole day in bed. The weather’s been dreary—so much rain, wind, chill—that I haven’t been able to do much outside, and I feel like I have a head cold all the time, which is super fun, lol. I remembered that I always struggle—emotionally and health-wise—around this time of year. What do I do to help cope?

Candle lights at Redmond Town Center

A couple of things that help—scheduling something to look forward to, looking at the holiday decorations around town (see last week’s post for the Woodland Park Zoo’s beautiful holiday lanterns) and deliberately doing cozy things. I watched several film noirs (my favorite genre of movie, I think), read for fun, and since Glenn had never seen the Nutcracker, we got tickets to go see it after Thanksgiving. My mother used to play the Nutcracker Suite on a record player when I was a kid (along with other classics such as Jimi Hendrix and Jesus Christ Superstar—a diverse musical upbringing, really), and we went to see it when my brother and I were little so I have a sentimental place in my heart for it, hallucination-induced rat king and all.

Despite the rain, dark and cold, Glenn put up the holiday lights around the house. Too early, you say? Well, when it’s dark by four PM, it’s literally a safety hazard, and the lights help! Never too early for lights the Pacific Northwest—and we weren’t the first house on our street, either.

Sharp-Shinned Hawk

I feel like I should be more productive at this time of year, but maybe it’s okay to take a break from being productive and hibernate a little. I feel impatient, a bit, about getting my next book into the world. I’ve sent it out to a few places—it’s possible I’m a bit pickier than I was when I was younger—and have already waited over a year to hear back from most of them. So much of the poetry life is waiting, and I’m impatient by nature. And if you are feeling a little under the weather or depressed, remember the time change and lack of sunlight can cause a lot of emotional turmoil and immune system problems, not to mention the news and the economy and politics, so take your extra vitamins and don’t beat yourself up for not being Little Miss Sunshine all the time. (A great film to watch, by the way, when you’re under the weather—a little offbeat but I remember laughing so hard in the theater when I saw it, I almost fell out of my chair. I got a lot of strange looks that day…)