Red fox triplets

Rough Week with Blue Minimoon and Baby Foxes

Well, I was supposed to spend the last week on the San Juan Island at a writing residency. The first day was glorious – beautiful warm sunshine, seal heads bobbing in the water, and my first ever real-life encounter with baby foxes! The second day was cold and rainy, but I got a lot of reading and some writing done. The third day, sadly, I woke up with my jaw swollen from a tooth infection (root canal next week!) with fever and it was determined that I should probably get home so I could rest, get antibiotics and move up my root canal.

Me and Glenn getting ready to leave for San Juan Island with mountain in background, pre-tooth

So we had to leave the island early, rapidly throwing everything back in our bags and catching the last ferry out of town. I was pretty down for a couple of days, and yesterday was the first day I felt good enough to go out – for ice cream and Blue Moon pictures – and promptly threw out a rib sneezing and coughing (it is definitely crazy allergy season – visible pollen was floating around our drinks while we saw outside with our dessert.)

I felt very lucky that I saw any fox kits at all, on this trip, honestly, because I’ve been to the island many times and though I’d seen otters, seals, eagles, whales, and adult foxes, this was the first time I got to see baby foxes cavorting among poisonous hemlock flowers in bloom (which smell very good but even the pollen can cause neurological symptoms, note to people not familiar with this plan which is everywhere on the island, along with beautiful pink and white flowering laurel, also considered a noxious weed on the island, but not quite as potentially harmful.

Blue Micromoon

Here is the rising of the Blue Micromoon of May, which is slightly smaller AND a rare second full moon of the month. Apparently, all weird moons are signs of health doom for me, so I should really pay more attention to them (see many blog posts where weird supermoons coincide with unexpected trips to the hospital.) Should have paid attention to that horoscope!

Anyway, one thing I did get to do during the residency besides writing a new fox poem was look over my manuscript, and you know what? I had the strong feeling that, at this point, I could make it different, but I could not make it better. I definitely had the feeling it was time to send that manuscript out and start on a new project at last.

Mountain (I think Rainier?) from San Juan Island lookout

And what about you? You say your week was drama-free? Well, enjoy it while you can. The summer is coming with all of its accompanying pleasures and risks (wildfire season, anyone?) We’re supposed to plan for summer by 1. getting together your reading list for summer, 2. maybe planning a big trip, 3. preparing for ever-increasing food prices by starting your own organic farm. As a writer, do you find you write more or less in summer? I was looking back and seeing patterns, that I do not write as much in the summer as I do in fall or spring. Part of this might be because the heat and MS do not mix, and I tend to have a lot more fatigue and neurological symptoms in summer. But I am committed to sending out the old manuscript so I can work on some new work. The kit foxes – a sign of new life? And another first – though the rabbits have not returned since being wiped off all the San Juan islands a few years ago by a contagious plague – I saw quail here which I never have before.

Green Heron (!!)

Green Herons and Goslings

It was a wonderful week for bird watching – we saw goslings, ducklings, Great Blue Herons, a Green Heron (much rarer!), more Goldfinches. We had a couple of perfect sunny days to see flowers blooming – roses, peonies, clematis, azaleas, even lavender in some places already.

The Pacific Northwest, and specifically, Seattle is doomed, say some, with their new millionaire tax. Yes, why would anyone want to live here? I mean, there’s no state income tax for anyone but millionaires but… a millionaire tax? I’m out! Just kidding.

Me in Kirkland with roses and Lake Washington

Planning for a Writer’s Residency

I’m planning for a writer’s residency and thinking about what makes for a successful residency – crunchy snacks? comfortable pants and shoes? Inspiring reading material? A set of goals? I want to work on my book that I’m still sending out and write some new work – either essays or flash or poems. I haven’t felt very creative the last few months for some reason.

So I’m hoping this time away will give me some new perspectives, some time away from social media, television, and the routine.

This pair of barn swallows is gossiping about AI writers

AI Lit Mag Scandals

This pair of barn swallows is gossiping about the latest AI lit mag scandal – that a very prestigious fiction contest at Granta was won by an AI story possibly written by an AI company. The prize came with some pretty good money attached so the human beings who were rejected are pretty steamed, understandably.
Then there’s other scuttlebutt: if AI writing can only be judged by AI tools, um, isn’t there a snake biting its own tail or something? Is the author even a real person or just some AI collective hoping to scam the system? If the writing was boring and rote, is that what the literary community prize system rewards? Is this the end of human writing??

Okay, probably not. But it does point out that now we literary writers – basically making a couple of dollars a year – are now competing not just with human writers, but with AI. I mean, can’t they just leave us alone?

Okay, wishing you all a good week, with very little scandal, a lot of late spring moments of wonder, and time to write and be inspired.

Admiral Butterfly

Personality and Poetry

Hello my friends! I survived my Novocain-less root canal thanks to some serious drugs that knocked me out for a day or two this week. Later in the week we had our poetry group meeting, and one of the things we talked about was personality types, and I was surprised to find many of the group had very different personality types than me. Do you think that personality type affects our poetry, or what kind of poet we become? If I’m achievement-oriented and extroverted, that already makes me a little different than a lot of poets. I told the group I probably would have stayed in corporate life—or followed my original plan of becoming a doctor—if my health hadn’t interfered at various points in my life. My health has necessitated a dampening of my natural ambition and love of social activity, no time more than during the pandemic in the last few years. But a lot of writers were required to spend a lot of time indoors because of health troubles—maybe even a majority of them? Maybe we become artists and writers because our energies have been bent into a different shape than “normal” people, because of lots of time spent alone having to entertain ourselves. Fate shapes us in ways we can’t really anticipate—like marrying a certain person or being born into a certain family shapes us in ways we can’t anticipate. Money also exerts more pressure than we like to admit—being born without it certainly places barriers in the way to art, and being born with it makes it easier to go to a top university or not spend hours on the corporate ladder if we don’t feel like it.

Anyway, just something I’m thinking about. Also, the first butterfly sighting of the season!

Rufous at Fuchsia

Songbirds, Sorrow, Springtime

It is spring but it has felt more like winter this week, with highs in the early fifties and lots of rain and wind. And maybe it’s the root canal talking, but I’ve struggled with feeling a little more melancholy lately too. Have the little things in life felt a little harder lately for you? It’s not just the relentless bad news or worry for my family members—or I can’t say it’s just those things.

I tend to take pictures of beautiful birds and flowers because I want to remember the things in life that make life joyful, to appreciate the small things. It’s why I garden, too, though I’m not a natural gardener by any means. I generally am in good spirits in the spring—it’s my birthday season, and a lot of happy moments have happened in the spring for me. But this spring has felt a little different. Melancholy, sorrow, even depression aren’t necessarily things to be squashed down, ignored, or fixed—different seasons of life are going to involve more of those feelings than others. Maybe I’m in one of those seasons now. Things aren’t going easily, I haven’t had a ton of good news to share, I’m struggling. I worry about those in my life who are going through hard times. I worry about finances. (With “The Economist” announcing “Employment Apocalypse!” on its front cover, and paying $6 a gallon for gas, who wouldn’t be?) And although I’m generally an upbeat person (I think,) I can say that the weight of the world—I’m feeling it. Philosophers like Kafka and Kierkegaard bring me more solace in these seasons than some more upbeat personalities. Yes, friends, natural beauty, even a small thing like a bouquet of peonies or a peach shortcake can bring a day a moment of joy.

I promised a review of Juliana Spahr’s Ars Poetica, which, as the title promises, is a lot of poems about poetry—kind of a slim volume, not that many poems, and an unexpected large chunk of prose in the middle, talking about attending antifascist rallies where violence breaks out, being threatened by the ex of a friend with gun violence at her workplace and consequently going to the shooting range and thinking about a bulletproof vest—probably the most interesting part of the book. Juliana is seven years older than me but still in my age group (Gen X), started blogging and such around the same time I did, lived a large part of her life in Ohio (which I also did), and she’s a feminist who struggles with what that means. She also has some privileges—a lot of famous writer friends and a steady paying fancy academic job—that I don’t have, which she makes pretty clear in her acknowledgements, all ten pages of them (!). Is it worth reading? Probably. Is the best book of poetry I read in the last year? Absolutely not. (I would give it to Martha Silano’s Terminal Surreal, such a searing book about dying of ALS, or Lesley Wheeler’s Mycocosmic, such an intensely intelligent meditation on mushrooms and death. I think the people that choose the Pulitzer Prize are probably picking friends from their own cohort of academics, not reading too far outside their comfort zones, and boy, do they love poems about poetry. (Remember Diane Seuss’ frank: sonnets also had a lot of poetry talk, though her style is pretty different than Spahr’s.) I absolutely adored Marie Howe’s Pulitzer winning New and Selected Poems, which had a totally different flavor, which won the year before, so I guess it just varies by year. If I was a judge, I would have probably fought for a different book, but no one has asked me yet, LOL.

In the meantime, I have a residency coming up where hopefully I can get some of my writing enthusiasm and magic back. What do you consider important residency packing? Sunscreen? Inspiring reading material? Special pens? Snacks? Comfy clothing? Leave me your tips in the comments!

Wishing you a great spring week.

Rufous male facing in flight

A Week for Poetry: Book Launches and Pulitzer Prizes

This week saw my friend Catherine Broadwall launch her book Aftermath at the downtown gallery/bar Vermillion, the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes, a new poem in the lit mag Assaracus, and the return of some favorite birds, like the Black-Headed Grosbeak and the Rufous Hummingbird.

Also, the Iran war continues and a hantavirus scare from a cruise ship. Plus, the Supreme Court continues to abuse the “shadow docket” in order to support an evil, racist regime. Is this all discouraging and apocalyptic? It is.

Catherine Broadwall at her book launch, with me and poet Erika Wright at Vermillion.

Catherine’s Book Launch of Aftermath at Vermillion

On Tuesday night Girl Noise Press (a local feminist press) launched Catherine Broadwall’s book of poetry, Aftermath, and I was one of the opening readers. Everyone did a great job, and the publisher seems really together. It was great to hear Catherine read. You should really check out her work for yourself, of course! Girl Noise Press also sells adorable collage journals with themes such as “Ina Garten” and “Gilmore Girls.” (Yes, I am still accepting birthday presents! Just kidding.) We parked by the Unicorn Bar, and it made me bizarrely nostalgic for an earlier time in my life and Capitol Hill, when I was still energetic enough to go out to bars with friends after readings. The crowds outside the bar were actually really nice, with one teen stopping me to comment that he liked “my poetry thing.” Heartwarming moments.

Charlotte poses with her copy of the issue

A Poem in Assaracus for the Desert Rats

This lovely journal from Sibling Rivalry Press celebrates Gay and Queer Poetry. I am part of it thanks to Jeff Walt and his wonderful Desert Rat Residency program for writers, which I had the pleasure of judging when it first opened its contest. We were meant to include a poem inspired by Palm Springs and the residency, and so here is a sneak peek at the poem which involves imagining Jesus and his reactions to the Palm Springs scene.

And Some Bird Photos…

No matter how bad the news gets, or how my health is (not great right now,) the birds outside my window cheer me up – and I hope they cheer you up too. This week, we have Rufous Hummingbirds, Goldfinches, Woodpeckers, and Black-Headed Grosbeaks.

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced this past week, and Julianna Spahr won for her book, Ars Poetica, which I’ve ordered and will be commenting on it here soon.

Me at 53, with Crabapple Blossoms

Birthday Week with Full Flower Moon

This was my birthday week, and it was pretty quiet, although we did a small family dinner celebration with my little brother and my nephew and his family and Glenn took me out to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 and we did a downtown Seattle visit to Open Books, The Seattle Japanese Garden, and Fran’s Chocolates for birthday treats, including a chocolate fig (which is amazing and I highly recommend). I also got two fillings (boo! do not recommend) and struggled a bit with writing/health discouragement.

But I was happy to pick up a few new books at Open Books, chat with Billie the owner, and see the Seattle Japanese Gardens before they close for construction this summer (during FIFA) including razing the iconic azalea rock wall we took a picture with below (for accessibility reasons, but still sad). We don’t get down to Seattle very often, and we definitely will be avoiding it during the World Cup, so it was good to go on my birthday. Devil Wears Prada 2 was great and the theater we went to was nearly empty (pre-May 1, which was the official release date). For a first movie experience after the pandemic, it was nearly flawless—a good movie that I actually had thoughts about (should publishing rely entirely on billionaires’ favors? I felt like it had a lot to say about the fate of journalism and publishing that also applied to poetry), great seats, a really nice local theater, the only thing I was sad about is that we missed out on promised swag by like one or two people.

Full Flower Moon

We had a beautiful full moon right on my birthday, too, and we had lovely sunny weather, so we got out and gardened and Glenn power-washed the deck, so we were ready to entertain. The full moon always gives me insomnia, and this one was no different. I was thinking about an interview with Meryl Streep about the first Devil Wear Prada and how she was thinking of retiring from acting when she was offered the job at 56. I am 53, so it made me think about when we retire as artists. I’m not making the kind of money Meryl is, and I’m much less in demand. If I retired, there probably wouldn’t be as much of an outcry as there would be over Meryl (who was not only great in Devil Wears Prada 2, but if you’ve seen her, she’s terrific in Only Murderers in the Building). It’s surprising to me that she was thinking of retiring but then spoke openly that she did the movie that was so beloved because of the large paycheck it afforded.

Goldfinch notices camera

I’m also thinking about retirement because Microsoft is offering early retirement packages next week. Glenn still loves his job and enjoys working, so it’s not very attractive to him yet. They’re doing it to invest more in AI and less in humanity, which seems depressing. I guess poets can work until they die or decide to do something else, and we definitely won’t be offered a nice paycheck to quit, and AI may try to take our jobs anyway.

This week EcoTheo re-ran a photo I took for them a while ago, and Rattle re-ran an older poem in their newsletter. So it was nice to be remembered in these ways on a week I was feeling discouraged and thinking about quitting.

And I’ll be reading in support of Catherine Broadwall’s book launch for Aftermath at Vermillion in Capitol Hill on May 5!

Anyway, I hope your beginning of May is as pleasant and free of AI-replacement as possible. And stay away from those billionaires (unless they really want to support the arts!)

Kelli and I with cherry tree in my yard

Kelli Reads In Woodinville

Kelli Russell Agodon came out to be our featured reader at the J. Bookwalter Poetry Series (just rebooted!) on Thursday night and she did a great job, as did the open mic-ers, and a wonderful audience. It’s always a pleasure to hang out with poets here in Woodinville, and the weather obliged, not being too cold or too hot, and the evening ending in golden light as the last reader read.

We also got to introduce Catherine Broadwall’s upcoming book, Afterlife, which will debut on May 5, and she’ll be our featured reader on June 18. I feel very lucky to have so many talented friends and writers around for inspiration.

Kelli with literary kitten Lady Charlotte

Kelli read from her upcoming book with Copper Canyon, Accidental Devotions, which if you haven’t thought about preordering, think about it! It’s got Alexa solving existential crises, mermaid dreams, Emily Dickinson’s phone messages, and a whimsical take on a world in chaos. Kelli and I have been friends since before our first books were taken, so we were reminiscing a bit, how we’ve changed as people and writers, how we haven’t changed. I think both of us have become better writers, and part of that is a function of having supportive writer friends, and part of it is not giving up, and another part is becoming more comfortable with who we are as people, which somehow translates into poetry.

We also had some folks sign up for the J. Bookwalter’s book club that I curate, which was a fun switch (wait…people coming out to poetry event THEN signing up for a book club? What is happening to us here in Woodinville? Are we actually getting some cultural activity?) Just an FYI to readers outside of the area, Woodinville is about thirty minutes outside of hipster Seattle, but it feels like it’s another universe—farms and wineries sort of dominate the landscape, but I’m happy to be meeting more and more people interested in art and books.

Goldfinches Return (with Cherry and Crabapple Blossoms)

Today was the first day I had seen a goldfinch, and the Rufous hummingbirds have returned to drink all of our hummingbird feeders. We’ve had pleasantly warm (almost seventy!) temperatures, and Glenn and I have been power washing the deck, painting the lamppost, and planting seeds and dahlia bulbs. (In case you couldn’t guess, Glenn did the majority of the heavy lifting, but it was nice to spend time in the garden!) Our lilacs have just started blooming. And the quail family returned to roam our yard in the rain.

My birthday is in a few days, and I’ll be turning 53. I definitely did not think I would last this long, so I’m at loose ends on what to do with a 53-year-old self…Should I have a midlife crisis? Re-brand as a totally different person? I haven’t gotten any Botox or laser peels or tattoos yet. Sometimes I feel like I should be more vain about getting older, or something, but I can’t really work up any anxiety about it, especially since I sort of feel like I outran a mortality race already (see my previous book, Flare, Corona, for more about that). No big party this year, just some family gathering and Glenn cooking at home. I’m getting a root canal (happy birthday to me lol!) and getting my bones scanned, both of which are I guess pretty normal for this age. I feel like I act and look more like myself than I did 15 years ago, if you know what I mean. I try to hide less. I wear what I want and dye my hair fun colors. I prioritize rest more of the time (darn that MS and perimenopause) than I used to, but in almost every aspect, I’m happier and healthier than I was a decade ago. So I guess I should just be thankful and enjoy things as much as I can. Now, speaking of struggling…

Goldfinch with coral bells

The State of Publishing (and If You’re Struggling Right Now, You’re Not Alone…)

Have you felt lately as if the floor is slipping out from beneath you as a writer, as universities collapse, lit mags disappear for lack of funding, and publishers are consolidated into nothing at all?

Vicky Weber’s Substack struck a nerve when it wrote about the state of publishing and what no one is telling writers:

What Nobody’s Telling Querying Writers About What’s Happening to Publishing Right Now

And as you might suppose, it’s mostly not good news. Yes, there is less government support for the arts, but more than that, traditional publishing has been struggling, distribution more limited. All of this means yes, it’s harder for new writers to break in, harder for existing writers to get attention, harder for everyone – from big deal publishers to little lit mags to writers like me—to get paid or even published at all. If you have a fear of failure, it’s probably been activated by rejection or just lack of response in the last few years. I admit I have been feeling not great about not having found a publisher yet for my most recent manuscript, which I thought was better and more audience-friendly than my previous books.

At midlife, and mid-career, I thought I would be doing better, to be honest, in my writing career. Then again, I’ve had mostly good experiences with my publishers, I have an audience that seems genuinely interested if small, I have met a lot of wonderful people in the literary world, and I continue to read books that fascinate me from tiny publishers and the big three alike. We had a pretty good audience for a “poetry” event the other day! I mean, that’s got to be a sign of…something. So, I won’t give up. I wish that I had the money or influence to make a big difference in the art world. Maybe someday! In the meantime, just remember a lot of people in the arts are having a hard time, and try to be kind and supportive when you can.

Mt Baker with Tulips from Rosalyn Garden

April Tulips, Poems, and More!

This week has been so busy I’ve barely been able to catch my breath, and next week looks to be just as busy.

This week my nephew Dustin moved out here with his family and my brother Don, who was their U-Haul driver on the four-day trip from South Carolina to Marysville (pic was right after their move-in so thanks for letting me snap this!) We couldn’t wait to welcome them to town and also took the chance to stop by the Skagit Vallery Tulip Festival so we could bring them some kettle corn and fancy tulips. More on that later…

Sylvia and Prairie Schooner’s Spring 2026 issue

Poem in the New Issue of Prairie Schooner

I also received my copy of Prairie Schooner‘s Spring 2026 “The Loneliness Issue,” in which I have a poem, “If I Will Be Queen, Let It Be Queen of the Dead.” Also check out my friend Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s poem “The Immigrant’s Very Good Daughter.” (I loved the poem and maybe you will too!)

Here’s a sneak peek at my poem too:

With pink tulips in RoozenGaarde

Tulip Festival Notes

This year we had the chance to see apple trees, cherry trees, daffodils, and tulips all blooming at the same time, though we missed our snow geese and trumpeter swans. It has certainly been a weird month for weather—didn’t it just snow here a month ago? We also visited not just RoozenGaarde but also a new smaller tulip farm called Garden Rosalyn. After a dreary cold beginning to April, it was nice to have some warmer temperatures and sunshine. We didn’t really have enough time to do everything we wanted, but it was a good reminder of how beautiful April can be out here. More pics below:

Hosting Kelli Russell Agodon at J. Bookwalter This Thursday!

This week is super crowded, but I am very much looking forward to a poetry break on Thursday, when we’re hosting Kelli Russell Agodon reading from her new collection, Accidental Devotions, at the J. Bookwalter Tasting Room in Woodinville at 6:30 PM (wine and open mic after!)

Kelli’s book is a wonderful combination of thoughtfulness on anxiety, middle age and mortality, and the nature of love and sex, with her usual whimsy and humor. I hope you’ll come out and see her read!

I hope you get a chance to celebrate something poetry-related this month. It’s good to balance the insanity of the world with a little bit of poetry and tulip-gazing.

Literary Kittens Charlotte and Sylvia with Kelli’s newest book

It’s National Poetry Month! Poetry Book Clubs and Upcoming Poetry Readings

My poetry calendar is getting crowded, and I don’t know about you, but I could definitely use the distraction.

This Wednesday at J. Bookwalter’s in Woodinville, at 6:30 PM we’ll be meeting at our monthly book club to discuss Kelli Russell Agodon’s newest book, Accidental Devotions, just out from Copper Canyon Press. (Well, technically its launch date is in May, but we’re celebrating early, because Poetry Month!) Here are my cats jealously guarding their early copy. I have already read the book and know it’s fantastic. I recommend it.

And on April 23rd, J. Bookwalter’s Tasting Studio in Woodinville is re-starting its Wine and Poetry Night with Kelli Russell Agodon reading from her new book. I’ll be hosting and doing an introduction.

We’ll have wine to buy (I recommend the Double Plot if you like white, and Suspense if you like reds,) books to buy, snacks to eat, and a brief open mic. Starting at 6:30 PM and ending at 8:30 PM. I hope we draw a crowd of poetry lovers and just casual poetry fans.

It should be a fun night!

I am also looking forward to just spending time with poet friends this month!

Poet Friends: Erika Wright, me, and Catherine Broadwall

And just in case this isn’t enough poetry for you, I’ll be reading at the Poetry Book Party for Catherine Broadwall’s new book Aftermath from Girl Noise Press on May 5th at Vermillion in Capital Hill, as part of the opening act at 7 PM. Catherine is the poet on the right in this picture with a Rainier cherry tree.

In between all this poetry month (and early May) excitement, I’ll be welcoming my nephew Dustin Hall’s move to the area, celebrating my birthday, and probably snapping pictures of tulips, daffodils and cherry blossoms along the way.

I also have a poem in the upcoming “Loneliness” issue of Prairie Schooner, along with friend Aimee Nezhukumathil, and another upcoming in the next issue of Cimarron. So keep your eyes open! Until next week, friends!

Possible Easter bunny?

Happy Easter (with Easter Bunny)

Hello and Happy Easter to those who celebrate! This is the first Easter in recent memory to have a bright, sunshine-y, warm day on this day of rebirth, even though this one seems early? This was the first day since my trip I felt energetic enough to get up to much, so we went to the Seattle Japanese Garden to see what was blooming. It’s still early spring, so we did see camellias, azaleas, and some early magnolias, but to cheer us, there was: 1) a possible Easter bunny, 2) many turtles with their heads out, 3) a very large frog, and 4) many ducks and geese, which felt very seasonally appropriate. We spent Saturday night getting into the Easter spirit by watching Jesus Christ Superstar (tradition!) and making Easter cookies. The post is getting more serious after this, so just prepare.

Presence in daffodils

Poem in Presence – Elegy for Martha Silano

I was very proud to be in good company in Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, with an elegy for my late friend, Martha Silano. Besides our mutual friends Ronda Broatch and Kelli Russell Agodon, I was happy to see my former professor Don Bogen’s work in that section (who was an editor at Cincinnati Review). I still miss Marty palpably, and it seems appropriate for her memory to be celebrated in this season of resurrection and rebirth, among daffodils. How many characters in mythology go to the Underworld to bring a friend back? None of them were successful, a reminder of even legendary heroes’ mortality. Maybe the internet is our new way to keep out loved ones immortal.

Here’s a peek at my poem, “Internet-Age Elegy: After You Die, I Promise Not to Forget You:”

Mortality with Cherry Blossoms

Having just returned from a visit to Cincinnati for my dad, who is very ill, I was also confronted with other reminders of mortality: a visit down to UW for more testing for me, a good friend’s longtime partner passing away suddenly, other friends dealing with aging and ill parents. April is the cruelest month, right? I am turning 53 at the end of the month, reminded that exactly ten years ago I was told I had barely six months to live, and then was diagnosed with MS a little bit later. I am lucky to still be standing, as it were. My dad and I used to joke “Every day above ground is a good day.” Not sure where we got that. Two cross-country flights and the visit took a lot out of me, more than I expected—I had to spend two or three days in bed, caught a stomach bug, and couldn’t really walk for a bit (MS + virus = increase in symptoms). Yes, we all have limitations. Some of my friends slipped away from me in the last year, some with long-term illnesses, some, like my friend’s partner this week, suddenly, in sleep. When I saw my old friends and family back in Ohio, I was reminded that we are all aging; one old high school friend has already had three heart attacks—my older brothers are starting to think about retirement. I am the age I strongly remember my grandmother being when I considered her “old.”

Late camellia in my yard

So yes, it is important to celebrate this strange season when people can disappear but the earth reminds us that disappearance isn’t final—a flower that hasn’t bloomed for years suddenly shows brilliant blooms. I realized I was in a hurry to get my next book published so that my dad might be able to see it, although I can’t pressure publishers for this reason any more than I could when I thought I had six months to live. Poetry is a slow business, my friends. To go back to the garden with the metaphor, you can spend a lot of money and time on seeds that don’t take, trees that a careless lawnmower kills in infancy. The cherry blossoms and daffodils and birds will return whether I am there or you, whatever losses we face. Poetry has an uncertain lifetime as well; some poems will live beyond our lifespans, perhaps, although our voices and styles will almost certainly fall out of fashion (see H.D. or Edna St. Vincent Millay—how many kids today are reading them?) But we keep writing and sending our work out into the world. We do the business of living and try not to despair at the news or the difficulties of our little mortal lives—we do our best to enjoy the blue skies and pink cherry branches.

Hall Family in Cincinnati

Going Back to Ohio

Just like Chrissie Hynde, this week I went back to Ohio (and my city was gone!) We went to visit my and Glenn’s family, and it was really nice to be together with family and old friends and neighbors, and check in my dad and mom. Also great to spend time wit nieces and nephews, who I don’t get to see often enough. Cincinnati—and our old neighborhoods—had changed a lot, and also felt both familiar and a little sad. Some parts had built up, and others had been left to decay.

Brother Mike, my mom and me, after flying in late together

And I forget how much I take the beauty of being on a coastline with mountains, oceans, rainforests, islands compared to the flat and somewhat tepid landscape of Ohio. Also, when we were flying over the state, the Ohio river looks like a sickly green snake—it had an odd color, probably because of agricultural runoff and recent flooding? Pollution problems are real. I am so sad Trump is rolling back so many environmental protections places like this really need.

This was the longest trip I’d taken on a plane since several years before the pandemic, and I was admittedly nervous with all the news about airports and the TSA, but everything went pretty smoothly at SeaTac (except my legs getting bruised—using their wheelchair help through the airport is a necessary evil because sometimes people don’t see you (or pretend not to see you) and wham you with their big luggage or hockey sticks or their legs.) The Delta 737-800’s luggage overhead compartment was duct-taped shut, and the seats were wildly uncomfortable (note for people who have not flown on one of these before). The people sitting by us were rude. I was like, flying, right?

Me with Glenn’s family – The Gaileys

Visiting with our families—and the friends that stopped by – made the stress of the flight all worth it, though. One thing that struck me is how the “kids”—my brothers’ and brother-in-laws kids—all had these amazing personalities, and were so different, and all of them so tall!  Just spending talking and catching up was great. We are dealing with some sad health realities which made the visit a necessity, but the blessing part—where you remember how much you really like and appreciate your family members, how much fun you had together, not having to be “on” all the time because everyone has known you forever.

Me, dad, mom, Chuck and Mike

I love Seattle and look forward to being back home, but I do regret how far apart I live from my far-flung family. (I never regret moving away from Ohio, but I do miss my loved ones there.) On the other hand, I’m getting a permanent new family resident out here in two weeks—my nephew Dustin! Expect pics soon.

Common Blue Jay (still pretty though!)

Cincinnati Spring

The other fun thing I did was hang out with my mom, who has an amazing bird collection because she feeds so many birds, and play with our Merlin app and try to take pictures of elusive birds. We saw rare-to-Cinci birds but also cardinals (which I miss)—and several deer and hawks. I also was able to acquire a rare old edition of Louisa May Alcott short stories for my mom—she’s a big Alcott fan but like Daphne du Maurier, didn’t know just how many short stories she had published during her life. (I also got a rare edition for myself,

I can’t lie.)

The weather except for the first day was wonderfully mild, with temps in the sixties and seventies, and rows of my mom’s daffodils and hyacinths were blooming, and we even saw a few cherry trees in bloom (nothing like Seattle, of course, but not nothing). April will be here soon, with its celebrations and tulip festivals and generally increasingly cheerful weather. With MS (and a fractured immune system), travel may always be a hardship—and I will need a few days to rest and recover—but this trip seemed like it was worth the effort.

Wishing you as good a spring as possible…