September Begins: Changing Seasons and Life Assessments, Reunions with Old Friends, and Back to Work

September Sunflowers

September Begins: Changing Seasons and Life Assessments

It’s the first day of September, which brings with it a lot of changes. A lot of us start to think about work after more leisurely summer days. Our local lavender farm closed yesterday, getting ready to shift to become a pumpkin farm at the end of the month. The weather today was bright and 85°F, unseasonably warm, but the days are noticeably shorter than they were a month ago. The gardens—my own and others around town—are in their last bright, ragged days, rampant and moving towards the end of their flowering. I admit to a fondness for September over August, usually a time of looking forward, to holidays, to a new year, a time of hope?

Waxwing in flight

A Facebook “memory” brought up something that caused me to do a brief life assessment—it was a blog post from about six years ago, when I was 45. The post was angry, frustrated, obviously a person who was struggling with many things in her life. Now six years later, I wonder why I was so angry. Of course, I had had a terminal liver cancer diagnosis the year before, and then an MS diagnosis—two things so devastating, and complicated by the fact that I have friends that still to this day have not called me since those two events (losing friends is tough, but I guess those weren’t real friends, as my mother would have said to me in eighth grade). The terminal diagnosis was wrong, at least a little premature, though I still have a liver full of tumors, and the MS diagnosis was wrenching, though years of physical, vestibular, speech therapies have helped a lot of the symptoms. I was frustrated by what I felt like was a stagnant writing career, full of frustrated ambition. (It could also have been the beginning of perimenopause, often punctuated by mood swings.) One good thing about blogs is that they capture a certain moment in time, in your life. Was I feeling lucky that we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic, that I could go to the movies or dentist relatively freely? No, I was not. Ah, hindsight.

Hello deer neighbor!

At 51, I wish I could tell my previous self about what was to come: the pandemic and all it would change, the fact that I would make new friends (and renew old friendships unexpectedly), that my marriage would improve, that my writing career might not be rocketing towards stardom but feels like enough to me these days. (I did have a book come out to some success, some good reviews, appearances in Poetry Magazine and Poetry Daily that bolstered my confidence, among other things. But also, a shift in mindset about what constitutes “enough” success?) That I would build connections to my community (and a pretty decent garden) during the covid years. That though things aren’t perfect, I no long feel as frustrated in my daily life. My health isn’t perfect, but my dental hygienist commented on how much better I was doing physically than five years ago, which caused me to wonder—what is she noticing that I haven’t about improvements in my overall well-being? I’m no longer in a wheelchair all the time, many of my MS symptoms are less acute, I’ve been getting treatment for more of my weirdo stuff. I lost weight during the last four years and increased my bone density, not usual at 51! I feel grateful for these positive changes, though sometimes they’re so gradual you might not remark on them.

Dr. Kathy McCue and me

Reunions with Old Friends, and Back to Work

I got to see an old friend (my best friend from fifth grade!) who is an ER doc living in Alaska doing all kinds of amazing charity work, and we caught up over brunch with our partners. It’s so funny, because I know we are both older intellectually, but I still see her as the tall, red-haired girl in fifth grade, a little awkward, just as I was at that age. It’s kind of like going to a high school reunion and goes along with my theme of life assessments—when you see old friends who knew you when you were a kid, you also remember the paths you’ve both taken—and the ones you didn’t take. Like many of my friends from Tennessee and Cincinnati, we didn’t ever stay where we were put, and I like to think we’ve achieved some of the ambitions we had as our younger selves.

September also reminds us to get back to our regular routines and, yes, that involves maybe more attention to details, accounts, work. I have a tutorial to do and I’m trying to write new poems, work on a manuscript for my publisher, manage my social media (I got spoofed on Insta and Facebook this week, which was no fun), and send work to the lit mags that re-open on September 1 or thereabouts.

While summer is a good time to reflect and remember, fall is a good time to refocus and try to put energy into the things that are important to you. Sign up for that dental cleaning, put on a face mask, donate some old clothing or clean out the pantry, read that book you’ve been putting off, because it’s September! It may not be sweater weather yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get out my notebooks and sharpen my (metaphorical) pencils, so I’m ready.

August Rain, the Last Days of Lavender and Bobcats, Considering the Female Midlife Crisis Novel, and When You Know a Manuscript is Ready

Sunflowers and Blue Skies

August Rain and the Last Days of Lavender and Bobcats

It’s been a rainy, cold week that reminds us again fall is on its way. For the pictures today, they were mostly taken on the one sunny day we had! But I liked the return of the rain, and so did my garden, mostly (I lost a couple of dahlias that snapped under the weight of the rain). We did have a brief visit from an adult bobcat, and I snapped a couple of shots of hummingbirds and goldfinches, but the birds are getting ready to molt and/or migrate. Fall/winter/spring here in the Pacific Northwest all bring out different wildlife and beauty, but it’s hard to not be a little sad about the flowers winding down and the swallows and Rufous hummingbirds leaving.

The Lavender Garden down the street is closing for the year on the last day of August, so we’ve been trying to get out when it’s nice to enjoy the last week of sunflowers, dahlias, and lavender. A pumpkin farm in roughly the same location will open up in about a month, so can’t wait for that. We also stopped by a local winery—but here’s a funny thing—three places we tried to go today were “closed for private events,” including the Seattle Zoo. Sometimes having a lot of millionaires (and 15 billionaires) in your town is kind of a bummer, because if you’re not in the 1 percent, everything is closed to you. I can’t afford to buy out a zoo or a winery on the only sunny day of the week at the end of summer! And there are three new snow leopard cubs I’m dying to see. (And if I was disappointed, imagine all the children parents brought to the zoo today only to find “closed for private event” at the door. They also closed down the main bridge out of the East side over the water for construction (which they’ve been doing since, oh, no exaggeration, 2008.) So we stayed around Woodinville. Sometimes the universe says “stay where you are!” LOL. Anyway, we did walk around and enjoy the sunshine, even if we couldn’t leave the area, so can’t really complain, can I?

I’ve been trying to get back to a regular sleep schedule (who knew sleep at night could be this elusive?), but I’ve been spending my nighttime awake hours reading. I’m still a little under the weather too, so spending time under the covers while it’s raining outside is okay. At the same time, I’ve been struggling with problems with my web site, for unknown reasons. I wish I could reboot my body to fix things as easily as easily as rebooting a server. Anyway, this is the bobcat visit below.

Considering the Female Midlife Crisis Novel

When I wake up from a nap…Charlotte

Speaking of bodily reboots, I’m thinking about the female midlife crisis novel/memoir/autofiction, which seems to be everywhere right now. Maybe there’s also something in the air with the Republican animosity towards “childless cat women” and “women’s bodily autonomy” but it’s sort of a counterpoint to decades (and centuries) of men’s midlife crisis books, too. Miranda July’s All Fours is all the critics are talking about, and they’re like “a novel about perimenopause for the first time ever!” which is definitely not true, because you could consider some of Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing’s books that dealt with similar subject matter, and I know Lesley Wheeler wrote a fascinating book about the subject that didn’t get enough attention called Unbecoming that came out about year or so ago. (Totally worth reading and much more fun than some of the other books I’ve read!) Also read Liars by Sarah Manguso, which belongs in the same category and came out recently, but I could also include Maggie Smith’s You Could Make This Place Beautiful and Sabrina Orah Mark’s fairy-tale autofiction/memoir book Happily. I mean, not all of these books are exactly the same, but they circle around some of the same subject matter – women at midlife reconsidering being a wife and/or mother, dealing with lack of fulfillment in their work and home lives, reckoning with their achievements, illnesses, choices, etc. All Fours and Liars both talk way more about masturbation and sex and other bodily functions, maybe (but probably not more than Doris Lessing?) but this has been something that’s been a palpable movement in the world of memoir and literary fiction. A LOT of these books seem somewhat depressing to me—the subject matter especially of terrible husbands who cheat, then leave, but it turns out they were always terrible—not empowering, which is what I guess I would like to see instead? But hey, these things take time. The critics are right that this kind of novel is sort of…novel in the world of midlife crisis memoirs and novels. But can a woman’s midlife and perimenopause/menopause be an empowering time? I hope the answer is not NO, as I am still in perimenopause and wondering if the sleep disruptions are part of it, or any time I feel grumpy, frumpy, or disenchanted. Anyway, chime in with empowering female midlife crisis readings suggestions in the comments if you want.

How to Know if a Manuscript is Ready

Using these rainy, sleepless nights to catch up on work—making a tutorial, judging a poetry contest—and working on my seventh book manuscript, which I thought was done two years ago but then I added a lot more to it, and now I’m looking at an unwieldy hundred-page monster that I need to edit down and somehow make into a unified thing. Knowing when and if a poetry manuscript is ready is an art, not a science—sometimes they’ll need a tweak, like a title change and a shifting of first poem—and sometimes they’ll need an overhaul, which is what I’m doing right now—before they’re ready to send to a publisher, and it’s difficult sometimes to make that judgement. Especially when one is sleep deprived and half-sick. I usually write a good solid collection of poems around a single theme, but because the covid-19 pandemic happened in middle of writing these poems, it’s been tough to reign it in. Anyway, I hope to have it in somewhat finished form by October. That’s my goal, anyway.

Blue Supermoons, Thunderstorm, a Little Good News I Can’t Announce Yet and Other Literary News, Kirkland and Sunflower Sunsets

Me in sunflowers, Woodinville sunset

Blue Supermoons, Thunderstorms, Kirkland and Sunflower Sunsets

Right now outside my window is August’s Blue Supermoon. A few days ago we had the biggest thunderstorm since 2019, a sign of the fall’s approach and the increasingly changing weather in the Pacific Northwest. Glenn and I tried to take advantage of lower temperatures by walking at sunset, one night in Kirkland, another night at our local JB Grower’s Lavender Farm, where the moon rose while listening to Jimmy Page and Alison Krauss at the concert next door. The light in the August evening  makes everything more beautiful. Waking up at 3 or 4 AM I am able to garden a bit in the morning. The roses and hydrangeas in my garden are taller than I am, there are figs on my fig tree and apples on my apple tree, plus strawberry plants still providing strawberries. After the storm we brought in wet dahlias and hydrangeas in big vases. Already thinking about what to plant for next year.

I am finally getting some mental energy back, as well as sleeping short stretches – 3-4 hours – at night again. Not firing on all cylinders yet, but getting better, I think. And I got some surprise good news this week. Here are a few sunset pictures from Kirkland and Woodinville.

A Little Good News I Can’t Announce Yet, Plus Birds and Literary Stuff

So this week I got a little good news (which I can’t announce yet, but will soon!) I have to say, it’s amazing how these things can make so much difference to a poetry small press author. Very few of us get any real reach, the big prizes, any real recognition, so when you get good news, we better celebrate, right?

In other literary news, Calyx put up their poetry contest winners (I judged that contest) and I’m getting ready to read for another literary magazine’s contest. It’s nice to contribute in this way, especially because a big contest win early in my writing career meant so much to me. (You never know when someone needs that little push to stay a writer!)

I hope that as September approaches I will be doing more reading, writing, submitting, catching up on writer things. In the meantime though, some pink roses, a house finch, the blue Supermoon, and hummingbird. Wishing you stars and supermoons and poems.

The Sealey Challenge, the First Sunflowers, and Fall is Coming Up!

Me with sunflowers and dahlias

The Sealey Challenge, The First Sunflowers, and Signs that Fall is Coming!

The first sunflowers have popped up at our local gardens, and with them the notion that fall is around the corner. I have been ill for so much of the summer that I barely noticed it passing so fast. I have been beating myself up for not getting much done the last two months, not much writing or submitting of poetry. I haven’t even been well enough to go get blood work done that I need to have done (they won’t let me get it while I’m sick.) I don’t always have control of my physical self, and that can be frustrating for a type-A control freak like myself.

But I did finally accomplish some of my Sealey Challenge (where you’re supposed to read a book of poetry a day in August.) Here are three: an anthology of mermaid poetry published a few years ago called Till the Tide, and brand new books Horns by Tiffany Midge (funny, biting wit!) and Autobiography of Rain by Lana Ayers (solemn, subtle, always worth reading.) I also pulled out Matthea Harvey’s If the Tabloids are True What Are You and Diwata by Barbara Jane Reyes for inspiration.

Glenn and I with wildflowers and sunflowers

Signs of Fall

I love thinking about blessedly cooler weather, pumpkins and sweaters. I’m emphatically not a summer girl. In the Pacific Northwest, the fact that rain is in the forecast – or there’s an unexpected drizzle in the morning – is a sign the season of sunshine (and fire, and smoke) is coming to a close. In case you ever come out here, September is the perfect time to visit – still have some sunlight, flowers are still blooming, and the crowds are gone. Also, apple and pumpkin everything!

I’m hoping that September also brings some more stable health for me as well as more pleasant weather. Here’s wishing you a wonderful end of August.

Welcome to August, on The Slowdown, Hot Air Balloons

Juvenile goldfinch with sunflowers

Welcome to August: On the Slowdown and Hot Air Balloons

As my insomnia continues and my nervous system seems to be on the fritz, it seems my site has had problems too! If you missed last week’s post, that’s probably because the site was down. Hope it stays up this time (WordPress really needs some tweaking).

A little glimpse of my back garden with a juvenile goldfinch moments before it landed on my sunflowers (which I’m so proud of—both the snapdragons and sunflowers were unusual colors grown from seed from local farms!) August is great for gardens—lots of sunshine—but the heat and haze have taken a toll on my body, already run down from a couple of weeks of poor sleep. On the plus side, have watched so much Olympics coverage. LOL.

On the poetry side, I was briefly interviewed on the Slowdown this week as they chose my poetry pick, Kelli Russell Agodon’s “Hunger,” for their audience choice show. Here’s the link—you can hear me say a couple of things about the poem before Major Jackson reads the poem (what a great voice for radio, am I right?) 1175: Hunger by Kelli Russell Agodon | The Slowdown (slowdownshow.org)

Another thing our area has during August is amazing views around our home—this week, we followed a hot air balloon sinking from our house to the lavender farm, and we caught a particularly lucky shot of the balloon along with Mt Rainier at sunset, the lavender garden, and a V of geese! Woodinville just has some above average chances to catch beautiful things. So even if I’m not at my peak right now (and rarely am in August), the world is still beautiful. Just got to get through a couple of weeks of heat waves and smoke and make it to September!

 

A Week of Insomnia, Visiting with My Brother and Lavender Festival, and the Olympics

Me in wildflowers

A Week of Insomnia, Visiting with my Brother and a Local Lavender Festival

I’m a bit foggy from lack of sleep (I haven’t been able to sleep at all at night for the last week—or more?) but wanted to report in. This weekend our local lavender farm had its second weekend of its inaugural Lavender Festival, which featured a ton of vendors from ice cream and coffee to art and plants. We went both days this weekend and took my little brother and sister-in-law on Sunday. (It seems ironic that walking through a field of lavender at night didn’t help my insomnia!) But the light was so pretty that most of the shots Glenn took of me don’t even look like I haven’t slept much. (Maybe there’s a potential author photo in here?) Everyone should do their author photo shoots in a field of flowers in late evening light!

Glenn, little brother Mike, sister-in-law Loree, and me at sunset

Family Visits and the Olympics

It had been a while since we’d gotten to visit with my little brother and sister-in-law, so we were happy to have dinner and walk around the festival with them. Besides the amazing field of flowers, the farm’s employees are terrific, friendly folks—a pleasure to be around. If you get a chance and you live in easy distance of Woodinville, you should definitely check it out.

With all my insomnia, I got to watch (live) all the Olympic opening ceremonies, plus some swimming and gymnastics. I thought the ceremonies were strange, French, and beautiful, and the sports part has been exciting too. Of course, I can’t help but worry every time a gymnast takes a fall or hurts their ankle—my empathy (and remembrance of my own sports injuries in high school) kicks in.

My own garden is in bloom, and many baby birds are cheeping around our feeders. We’re supposed to get some much-needed rain tomorrow, and hopefully that will help the surrounding air quality (we’re sort of surrounded by wildfires) and people suffering from fires. Remember to keep your ears open for the podcast The Slowdown, especially on August 2nd. Wishing you a happy (and for me sleep-full) summer week. I’ll be here, thinking about fall…

My Poem “On Being Told You’re Dying” is Up on Poetry Daily Today!

I couldn’t be happier to say that Poetry Daily has my poem “On Being Told You’re Dying, but Not Quite Believing It” from Flare, Corona up today! I am so thankful as this is the first time ever one of my poems has been run there.

Here is a link and a sneak peek:

On Being Told You’re Dying, but Not Quite Believing It – Poetry Daily (poems.com)

 

Poem from Flare, Corona on Poetry Daily this Thursday, Full Moons and Sunsets, Lavender Festivals and Heat Waves

Me in lavender field, during their first festival, evening

EEK! A Poem from Flare, Corona on Poetry Daily this Thursday the 25th! Aah!

Yes, the day has been full of news, but I couldn’t help being super excited—after writing six books of poetry over almost 20 years—one of my poems is finally going to appear on Poetry Daily, this Thursday the 25th! I will of course put up a link here when it is up. I am so thankful for this little break and hope it leads to more people discovering Flare, Corona and reading it!

Here is the link live on the site today: On Being Told You’re Dying, but Not Quite Believing It – Poetry Daily (poems.com)

I also recommend listening to the Slowdown podcast this week and you might hear one of Kelli Russell Agodon’s poems there.

We had a crazy heat wave this week which made my MS symptoms worse, which meant a week of me out of commission. (Wake up! Your legs won’t work! Also, you can’t sleep but you’re so tired all the time! Also, dizzy and nauseous!) But I got one night cool enough to get to the lavender garden at sunset, enjoyed some daisies, and got to see this hot air balloon from my bedroom window one morning.

Full Moons and Sunsets, plus a New Democratic Candidate

A lot of stuff in the news today, but also an amazing sky. A very orange sun at sunset, and a very orange full Buck moon. Can’t tell whether it’s the late July bend of light or air pollution from fires, but it was really beautiful.

Politics has been moving at a head-spinning rate, but I was a supporter of Kamala Harris when she first ran for President, so I’m definitely a supporter now. I hope we can get our first woman President. I worry about America’s sexism and racism, I do, but I’m hoping that Americans do the right thing this time. In the meantime, I’m trying to fight off politics-laden anxiety attacks. Watching the moon rise can help.

30th Anniversaries, Birthday Celebrations, Small Beauties, Losses, and American Troubles

30th Anniversaries, Birthday Celebrations, Small Beauties

This was a big week for us

my husband Glenn’s 53rd birthday, and our 30th wedding anniversary, which I found out was the Pearl anniversary. It was super-hot for our holidays, so we mostly hid indoors and ate homemade cherry frozen yogurt, but we went to the Willows Lodge for our anniversary (blessedly well-air-conditioned) and had cocktails and salads (too hot for anything but that and ice cream!) We walked in the small garden only after it got dark, checking out the blooms and visiting their cute pair of pot-bellied pigs.

Glenn’s birthday, lavender field

For Glenn’s birthday, he wanted to go out for cheeseburgers, so we went to a gluten-safe outdoor place in Kirkland and then went to the lavender farm to see how the lavender was growing and the wildflowers were faring. It was still hot at 8 PM (over 80!) but we still managed to have fun, and I marveled at the Instagrammers bending into uncomfortable poses (I still haven’t mastered that Instagram habit of posing in a totally unnatural and uncomfortable way that seems most fetching?)  We were very thankful for the small beauties all around us – sweet potato fries (gluten free!) at the cheeseburger place, lavender honey ice cream on a hot day, flowers that show up unexpectedly in your garden (this year, giant hot-pink lilies, though our dahlias were eaten by slugs.) We were also thankful not to have on the news most of the time this week, because of our celebrations.

Losses and American Troubles

Red sunflower in our garden

We lost so many people in a week Shelley Duval, Dr. Ruth, Richard Simmons, and (exactly Glenn’s age) Shannen Doherty. Then the shooting at a Trump rally. I am old enough to remember the attempt on Ronald Reagen’s life—I was eight at the time—and know the Brady Bill that was passed eventually because of it. Perhaps something like that will happen again—a fire captain lost his life, after all, and people will recognize the need for more gun safety. We can hope, anyway.

Before the shooting incident, there were a lot of calls from Democrats for Biden to retire or stop running and step down. Some of the comments rubbed me the wrong way, not just the agism, but the ablism inherent in the criticisms. (I legitimately do have a neurological condition, and it doesn’t make me stupid or incompetent. And I have to take a cognitive test—two hours’ worth—every year because of my MS.)  I like Kamala Harris quite a bit as a candidate, but I still didn’t like the comments people were making or the tone they were taking.

Hummingbird and verbena

I don’t usually do much political blogging here—I try to stick to the writing life and living with disability and chronic illness, as well as pictures of my (mostly Pacific Northwest) surroundings. I can understand how people feel confusion, anger, frustration, and disenfranchisement with America and its systems right now. I try not to give into despair even in seemingly endless lists of end-times events.

Perhaps focusing on small beauties in the best thing to do. Not to squeeze our eyes and ears shut, but to open them wider – to the wider world around us, not just the news that social media and television scream at us in increasingly alarming tones. To the person who lives across from us, to the birds and flowers, to the cherries at the farm stand or the friend who needs a visit who’s been in the hospital, or the relative across the country who’s been fighting with cancer.  Because we are not powerless, though at times we can feel that way. We can do small kindnesses, donate to charities we believe in, treat each other with understanding. Hug our cats and our loved ones. Tomorrow is not guaranteed to any of us, but in the waiting, we get to decide what we focus on, what we spend our energy on, what we place into timelines or gardens.

 

July 4, Lavender Farms, Heatwaves and Midsummer Realizations

July 4, Lavender Farms, and Heatwaves

Mt Rainier with Lavender Farm

I hope you had a good July 4th. We were still in recovery from last week’s illness, so we skipped the July 4 celebrations this year (I’m not a huge fireworks person anyway—what with asthma and PSTD) but I did look up some cool Wonder Woman fighting Nazis artwork that used to be up on my blog for the occasion.

And I finally got to visit the lavender farm (briefly) despite the extreme heat (90 almost every day!) and the colors of the different lavenders were unfolding beautifully in front of a Mt Rainier sunset, so it was really gorgeous. I am very lucky to have this place within walking distance of my house. It smelled as beautiful as it looks, by the way.

Midsummer Realizations

Me and Glenn and lavender and Mt Rainier to the left with sunset

As I was recovering, I was watching a lot of television and ended up watching a lot of the show Lottery Dream Home. It got me thinking about what I would do if I won the lottery, would I want a new dream home? Our home isn’t perfect (hence the ADA bath remodel in the works), but it works pretty well for us. I like our neighbors and our local farm stands and wineries (though I don’t drink much wine) and the house is a little small for entertaining, and I don’t love having an HOA, but basically it fills our needs, and I wouldn’t trade it. It might be nice to have a second home somewhere warmer and sunnier in winter but it’s definitely not a necessity, and I’d probably be more likely to spend money on home improvements (more built-in bookshelves?) or starting a scholarship or charity for writers with disabilities than another home. It also strangely made me feel more okay about my life in general. Of course, more money would be great—or more poetry-world success—but are those things really that important? More health would be really, really helpful, of course. (I’m working on it, with a team of doctors, of course.) But ultimately, I’m pretty…dare I say it…okay with my life right now. Of course, I have anxieties about the normal things—especially about how my parents are aging many miles away—am I doing enough good in the world, etc.—but not feeling as panic-stricken as I did, say a month ago or so. Not sure why the shift, but a week away in a beautiful remote rugged island and then another week in a hospital WILL give you perspective.

So, the next week is my 30th anniversary and Glenn’s birthday, and so we need to think about and give some space to celebration, and hopefully, we’ll be caught up enough from our health crises and trips to be able to do that. (It is supposed to be 93°F with bad air on our anniversary, sadly, so we will have to put off any outdoor fun ’til after that…)

 

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeannine Hall Gailey
Jeannine Hall Gailey is a writer with MS who served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and is the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize, Field Guide to the End of the World, and the upcoming Flare, Corona from BOA Editions. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Ploughshares.

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