On a Good Day, Podcast News, Presidential Felonies, Peonies, and Chocolates

Glenn and I at Meydenbauer Bay Park

On a Good Day

You wouldn’t know it, because right now it is below 50°F and pouring rain, but we did actually get a couple of nice, normal May Spring days this week, and we got out to make the most of them. On one, we checked out a local park, Meydenbauer Bay Park in Bellevue, and stopped by a place I hadn’t been in person in years, Fran’s Chocolates (located in Old Town Bellevue). The sun felt good, I got to reminisce with one of the Fran’s employees about the old days when they made terrific burnt sugar ice cream and Fran wasn’t really famous yet, and I sat outside sipping hot chocolate and feeling the sun and feeling happy.

On Thursday, I had another terrific day—the sun came back out for us after a terrible wet cold May, got to talk with a cool podcast about a very cool poem, and then got a strawberry Frappuccino and gluten-free safe sweet potato fries (both rarities for me—food allergies make eating out at all a risk) And got an armful of peonies. Also, there was a guy convicted of a bunch of felonies which hopefully will lead to better people in our government overall (if you don’t do crimes, you’ll be better off, and we could use a less corrupt government right now, don’t you think?)

Now, for the rest of the week…I found out, in the same day, day my hairdresser of 20 years was leaving, my allergist was quitting (this is after losing an allergist of 20 years during the pandemic and getting this new one sigh) and going to the East Coast, and I also had some bad news about a family member, all while battling a fever, sniffles, and cold gloomy weather.

I have to remember that on a good day, my body isn’t failing at everything, people aren’t always leaving, the sun really does shine once in a while, and the right chocolate at the right time as well as an armful of pink peonies can really be magic.

And here are some pictures of birds:

Podcast News

Rufous hummingbird in flight

I learned a lot about podcasting this week as I was interviewed (can’t tell you which or why yet, it’s a secret, but I’ll tell you when it is supposed to be on) and got to chat with two of the podcast’s producers. For instance, did you know, for a fairly successful arts podcast, at least ten people work on it to get every episode, besides the person you hear talking? It takes a lot of work to make those things work.

I also thought about how podcasting poetry has maybe replaced what we used to think of as radio show poetry, like The Writer’s Almanac—now we might listen to The Slowdown or The Commonplace or podcasts of friends or the Poetry Foundation. There’s so much out there, and such a lot of voices, in some ways it’s overwhelming, but it also gives the feeling of a bigger, more inclusive community of poets.

Grumpy Great Blue Heron

I’m also reminded that the “news” that we get—whether from local newspapers, or television channels, or on Twitter or other social media—so much of it is so specific now, targeted in a way it didn’t used to be, that you have to really work to get outside the bubble of your own friends or region or party or whatever. People have talked about how depressing the news can be, which is true, but have you ever noticed some news sources are way more depressing than others? That some echo your own belief system more than others? I’m someone who studied journalism a bit in college, and getting what I can consider “unbiased” sources has become difficult, maybe impossible? Propaganda and “fake news” is everywhere, and most people, I’m afraid, will believe propaganda over truth if they never get a chance to see truth but their social media keeps showing them propaganda bots information.  But if that’s the case, then maybe this blog and its news about the birds and poetry and health—could be considered news, if only from on person’s very limited perspective? I’ll think about this some more. I mean, we tend to think of “news” as—I don’t know, crime waves or politics or wars. I remember the day the Iranian president went missing, someone I knew in Iran, as the “news” talked of Iran grieving, showed fireworks and people in the street dancing. What is the real news there? Is the official party line or is it one person’s street full of celebration? Which is more truthful? It’s why I think it’s important to travel, to read widely, to talk to people who might be different than us—different religions, races, countries, jobs, sexual orientations—because it’s too easy to only see our own point of view, or that of the dominant culture where we live. It’s like, we have the opportunity to think more widely than AI or algorithms might tell us we can, but sometimes, we have to take the time to look for those opportunities. It’s why I like to read people’s blogs, even now that some people consider them obsolete—because the personal take might look closely at just one area—say, the viewpoint of a librarian in Chicago or an academic in Virginia, or a clergyperson in North Carolina—but every take helps me understand the world from their eyes. Plus, I can only take so many reels about recipes or personal style before I go insane. I wish there were more videos of people’s home libraries instead. Hey, can we make that a trend?

This is your neighborhood poet reporting from Woodinville, Washington in the rain, and saying, be safe, happy June, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Japanese Gardens, Blood Draws, ThrowBacks, and Thinking About The Secret of NIMH and Children’s Culture

A Week of Blood Draws, Throwback, and a Visit to the Japanese Gardens

Hello my friends! It’s been a weird week here. A wonderful book club meeting at the J. Bookwalter Tasting Studio to talk about The Husbands: A Novel with great weather and a lovely sunset. The next day, downtown to the hospital to have about 75 (I’m exaggerating, but it really was 15!) tubes of blood drawn from about seven different doctors. My mother sent me a picture of myself when I was about 22 (she’s been going through her old pictures), which I’ll post somewhere below. But as I was recovering from the big blood draw, we also had terrible, cold February weather, and I was feeling weak and tired and grumpy, I watched a few of my old favorite childhood movies—namely, the Secret of NIMH and Dark Crystal. I’ll talk about that a bit later. Anyway, today still looked pretty dismal, but I wanted to see the Japanese Gardens in Seattle while the wisteria was still in bloom, so we did, and it was lovely—the water lilies, rhododendrons, and water iris all in bloom. Considering the gloomy weather, I was surprised at how crowded it was, mostly with large tourist families and a few students from the UW. People were in a kind mood, smiling at each other and helping take pictures. It definitely cheered me up. (In surprising health news, one thing the test showed was that I still haven’t had covid, and I still have immunity from my J&J shot in 21! Isn’t that crazy?)

Throwbacks, Secret of NIMH, and Children’s Culture Changes

Picture of me at about 22

My mother sent me this picture of myself at 22, when I first tried to go blonde. I ended up with a platinum pixie with asymmetrical bangs, so, you know, not for everyone. Check out the framed photograph! This was from one of my earliest apartments. Almost 30 years later, still trying to go blonde or pink or experimenting with my hair.

As I said, I was recovering from my blood draw (and it turned out from the blood work that I have been as sick as I thought, all sorts of stuff was out), so I got to watching old movies. Two children’s movies that had a great deal of impact on me as a young person were The Secret of NIMH and The Dark Crystal, both of which came out when I was nine years old, in 1982. (I posted something on Facebook about these two movies.)

Sunset after book club this week

I actually read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH as a book (which is science fiction, by the way, not fantasy, like the movie—there was no amulet or magic in the book) before I saw the movie. I still think about what I learned from reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and how it influenced me as I studied biology (and refused to experiment on rats as a result—I stuck to tomatoes!) and also my, um, healthy skepticism of government institutions. The Dark Crystal and my apparent resemblance as a child to the “gelfling”—my ears stuck out quite a bit as a kid and the other kids loved calling me gelfling—and its chilling message of darkness and light being quite closely related (if you remember the ending).

Glenn and I at the Japanese Garden

I wonder if children today get as close to the edge of too scary, too dark—in their movies as we did in the eighties. (Disney turned down Secret of NIMH because it was “too dark”—but it had a wonderful feminist message than a non-extraordinary mouse—a poor widow with four kids, no less—can be as powerful as lab-enhanced rat intelligence or human farmer’s plows.) People talk about the “toughness” of GenX—the latchkey kid thing, the riding bikes without helmets, the parents smoking in the car with the windows rolled up—but there was something in the kid’s lit and movies of the time, too—I’m thinking of books like Swiftly Tilting Planet and The Wizard Children of Finn about children saving the future and the past by themselves, with little parental oversight. I was thinking about how the culture both impacts and mirrors a generation.

This started a great conversation, people talking about the movies that frightened them when they were kids, what their own kids watch, fairy tales and the dark side of things. I also saw Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind when I was ten—it must have come out through Disney, which has that same combination of darkness and a young female hero—in this case, almost a Christ figure, who has to come between toxic animals and plants and humans who want to destroy them—involving the fallout of nuclear war, a common theme in Miyazaki movies. While many of children’s movies these days—I’m thinking of the Trolls or Minions movies, or eek, even Paw Patrol—movies so light they barely land in the psyche, my mother talked to me about the contrast in the darkness of teen lit right now, using The Hunger Games and its relations as examples of darkness without the hopefulness of the kinds of books I read as a kid. What do you think? How have children’s books and movies changed since you were a kid compared to now? If you have kids, what do you notice about how the consume media? Do they shelter young children too much with stories that are too light, and present a hopeless future to teens? I’d love to hear your thoughts on these musings of youth and movie experiences.

“Serendipity” on LitBowl, Hummingbirds, and Baby Bunnies

Rufous immature hummingbird

Hummingbirds and Baby Bunnies

Though spring and summer seem a little confused lately (Two days at over 80 degrees, then a fifty degree day with cold rain) I swear we are in the late spring/early summer phase, which means lots of birds, and the occasional baby: goslings, ducklings, ospreys learning to fly and baby bunnies.

This week was supposed to be full of medical appointments but was too sick, ironically, to attend, so I had time at home to take pictures and read some of the books that have been accumulating in my room. (Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, Brother and Sister Enter a Forest by Richard Mirabella, among others.)

Last week I was saying I didn’t feel much like a writer, but then I got an acceptance and a handful of rejections (editors clearing their desks for summer), wrote a few poems, and sent out one or two submissions, so I guess that didn’t last too long. That’s usually how it is—I might have a slow period where nothing happens, then I’ll get inspired by something and get going. This week at our Bookwalter’s Winery book club we’ll be discussing the fascinating book, The Husbands: a Novel by Holly Gramazio, which I really loved and am looking forward to seeing what other people thought about it!

A Poem from Flare, Corona featured on LitBowl

This week I was lucky enough to have a poem from Flare, Corona go mildly (?) viral on social media when it was featured by LitBowl, which puts up poems on Instagram and other social media. The poem was “Serendipity.” Here it is if you want to read it yourself. Things like this can help sell books, which is nice around the book’s one-year birthday. Thanks, LitBowl!

Life news has seemed even more apocalyptic than usual these days, so if you, like me, need a break, reading poetry and short stories can help.

If you decide you want a copy for yourself, you can order it here: Flare, Corona  

The Aurora (or FireFoxes in the Sky), Signs of Summer Already Here, and How Sometimes I Don’t Feel Like a Writer

The Aurora (or FireFoxes in the Sky)

Awe-inspiring? Yes? I finally understand the big deal about the Northern Lights! Why so many myths. The Ainu people of Japan believed a child conceived under the Northern Lights would have a particularly lucky life. One Finnish myth involves Firefoxes running so fast they left sparks in the sky. Vikings believed in the reflection of the shields of the Valkyrie. I understood, when I saw what looked like an opening in heaven with streams reaching down to earth, why people believe in aliens or gods, or like some of the Alaskan peoples, the spirits of whales and seals in the sky. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced just out on my back porch, watching all these lights move around, snapping pics with my cameras (our eyes are capable of seeing less of the color of the Northern lights than even a cellphone camera!) There were people out there walking on our street, all looking up at the sky and snapping pictures, and I felt that community, you know, the feeling of being together experiencing something beautiful.

Me and Glenn in Kirkland

Signs of Summer

The last couple days have been in the eighties and the wildfires have already started in Canada. Also, two sure harbingers of summertime here—my birds, the goldfinches and black-headed grosbeaks.

Unfortunately, along with the warm weather came some troubling health symptoms returning—unexplained fevers and hives, for instance. More MS symptoms, which is typical with the heat, I know to expect it. I am looking forward to working more on my next book manuscript in June at my writing retreat.

Ducklings

Sometimes I Don’t Feel Like a Writer

I’ll be honest. I haven’t been writing or submitting much lately. My latest book project is mostly done (I need to do some pruning…) and I haven’t had the inspiration to start a new one yet. If you go so many days without writing a poem or thinking about poetry, you can start to…not feel like a writer. I mean, I’ve been writing poems since grade school, I’ve been publishing stuff since I was a teenager, but even so, sometimes other things in my life—like being sick—take up all my time and energy, and all I have the mental energy to do is maybe watch a movie I’ve seen before or listen to an audiobook. I’ve also been doing some spring cleaning—eliminating things, mostly—which is exhausting. Is this MS, or midlife, or the fact that I’ve been sick for over a month with a mystery illness the doctors can’t seem to figure out or treat while I go to appointments and get blood drawn and get MRIs. Ugh. I have hope that the writing residency upcoming in June will give me a boost, but honestly, I’m just feeling disconnected from the writing world—which let’s face it, has had a lot of ugliness in it lately—and even from poetry. It’s been a while since I read a poetry book that I was like, “Wow!” about. Once again, sometimes it’s hard for me to distinguish what’s happening physically to my body (pain, hives, weakness, fatigue, etc) and what’s going on emotionally and mentally. Usually, like Taylor Swift sings, “I’m so productive…it’s an art” but not lately. I was trying to find paid work for a while (we still haven’t gotten our ADA bathroom remodel started due to lack of funds) which maybe was a bit dispiriting. I feel old and unwanted and like the current batch of editors at lit mags are not even interested in the kind of thing I write anyway, so why send anything out? This is not a pity party, but I wonder if anyone else is feeling this kind of disconnect from writing and the writing world? Is this part of getting older? Or part of being sick? I can’t tell!

Still, it’s exciting to see ducklings on my daily walk (when I’m up for one of those) or see something as spectacular as the Northern Lights. I still feel happy with most of my life, honestly, I just feel annoyed that my health problems take up so much time and money and energy, and keep me from doing anything I actually want to do. And the fact that summer—with its heat (and MS symptoms) and wildfires (allergy and asthma symptoms) is coming, I know it’s not my best season, despite the proliferation of summer flowers and blue skies.

What do you do when you don’t feel like a writer? Comments welcome!

May Arrives with Lilacs and Hummingbirds, Art Show Reports, Birthdays, and Down Days

May Arrives with Lilacs and Hummingbirds

May is here, and with it, hummingbirds and lilacs, though it still feels like winter—today we barely got up to fifty degrees, and a cold rain fell all day. I’m feeling a little down—I got sick with a stomach flu after my birthday, and the bad weather (along with the news) has increased my overall blues. I have said here before that I am a cautious optimist—but some days it’s harder than others. Still, despite the cold, the first black-headed grosbeak appeared on my back porch (no picture, sorry) and goslings and ducklings have appeared along the lakes and rivers. Also, Woodinville has had cougar sightings! Not in our yard, but nearby.

Me on my 51st birthday with flowers from Glenn

Birthdays and Down Days

For my birthday, we had a little gathering with just Glenn and my little brother Mike and his wife Loree, and we chatted and celebrated. We took some pictures and had gluten-free black forest cake and mostly talked about lighter subjects. The day was relaxing and nice—Glenn and I took advantage of a brief window of sunshine and walked around Woodinville, got a glass of rose at a winery, then home to dinner. But the next day I woke up with the worst stomach flu (including a fever, no one else got sick, so just a weird virus?) I’ve had in years. The next two days, I stayed mostly in bed, feeling down, and a little discouraged about—well, maybe this is a midlife birthday cliché—where I am, what I’ve accomplished (or not). I remember pretty well when my mother turned 51—she was still working 90-hour work weeks, traveling all the time—and when I think about what I thought I’d accomplish by the same age, I just don’t know if I measure up against my own expectations.

Anna’s hummingbird and coral bells

Maybe this is a problem of being chronically ill and disabled—neither of which I’ve had a choice about, of course—or also a problem of being labeled “gifted” at a young age, having high expectations about what you were expected to do with your life. Heck, even Barbie was President. I’d meant to go to med school, and when my health got in the way, I veered to corporate work—and when my health got in the way of that, I veered again, to writing full-time (among other ventures). And writing, though I’ve published six books (eight, if you count non-fiction books), has definitely felt like less than a triumphant path. Maybe it feels like that for everybody, although I know people who experienced a lot of wins early in their careers, so who knows? Sometimes I feel like a lab mouse in a very specific maze I haven’t quite figured out, but I keep getting shocks instead of treats. On the other hand, still alive? So, that’s a win.

Dewi Plass’ “Collecting Sunshine”

Art Gallery Reception Reports – “Spectacle du Petit” at Roq la Rue

I finally felt well enough to leave the house yesterday for the opening reception for “Spectacle du Petit”—a group show of tiny works by many artists I like, including Dewi Plass, Josie Morway, and John Brophy. It was fun, I got to meet a couple of the artists, and I always enjoy the people watching at Roq La Rue’s parties—you’ll inevitably get served “looks” that are very specifically Seattle. If you live around here, you should really catch the show too—a lot of the works are affordable because they’re smaller, which is great because most of us don’t live in huge houses anyway.

I feel lucky as a writer to have wonderful places to see art like Roq La Rue and have a little bit of inspiration, especially during a dreary week. Ghost dogs and red squirrels hugging hummingbirds for everyone!