A Busy Week of Pre-Holiday Teaching, Celebrating with Friends, SAL Event with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and More

A Busy Week – Pre-Holiday Teaching, Celebrating with Friends, and More

I saw the sunrise more than once this week, as I got up early at the beginning of the week to do a class appearance for Dr. Lesley Wheeler’s class at Washington and Lee University at 9:30 AM Pacific Time. The class asked great questions, they asked me to read poems from Flare, Corona I hadn’t read out loud yet, and generally had great vibes despite the early hour.

This week was also filled with social activity—downtown Seattle dinner with poet friends, attending a Seattle Arts & Lectures (SAL) event, and an early morning downtown Seattle breakfast to end the week with old friend (best-selling writer and poet) Aimee Nezhukumatathil.

: Glenn, me, Kelli, and Rose

: Kelli and I with Sorrento’s Christmas tree

: Aimee Nezhukumatathil after her SAL reading with me

Some days you don’t feel great, your MS has been acting up, but you peel yourself out of bed, put on a dress and do your makeup, battle an hour’s worth of crazy Seattle traffic (narrowly escaping accidents multiple times) to see your friends for dinner and see your other friends read at SAL.

At you know what? At the end of the night, it was definitely worth it. And part of the reason you spent four hours getting an IV of covid antibodies over a month ago. I think the moral of the story is: even if sometimes you’re not feeling 100 percent physically up to something, sometimes it’s beneficial for your mental health to do it anyway. Counting my spoons but also counting my blessings for great people!

The next morning, I woke up early again to meet Aimee for breakfast at the beautiful Edgewater hotel lobby, and saw, once again, beautiful skyline with early morning light. And it was great catching up with Aimee—it can be years between good catch-up sessions with my poet friends who live in other parts of the country, so I don’t take it for granted. Thanks Aimee! I left breakfast feeling more cheerful than I had in weeks. Not only that, both times I went downtown, people stopped to say hi, compliment my hair or dress or just wish us happy holidays, and I was like: is Seattle getting friendlier?

: Early morning with Rainier and Ferris Wheel

: Aimee and I pre-breakfast with Edgewater’s tree

: Glenn and I with tree

Next week we’ll celebrate Christmas early with my little brother and sister-in-law. In the meantime, we’re still in the middle of decorating the house, getting out holiday cards, and oh yeah, seeing endodontists for a root canal, scheduling MRIs and blood draws and eye exams. It was nice to have one week where I felt like a writer again, a real person, instead of a case study, if you know what I mean.
If you are struggling, and I know many are, please be kinder to yourself than you think you need to be. Take a trip outside your house to see people who brighten your life. See some holiday lights. Give strangers the opportunity to be friendly for once. Have that espresso martini. Tonight I’m going to try to write and send out some poems. Work on my next book manuscript. Listen to the tiny voice inside my head that says: despite everything, cling to the light.