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…

This week was filled with medical appointments for Glenn and I—we’ve both been devilled by various (minor but annoying) health problems, because we’re too busy to have them right now, as is always the case. We’re finishing up our taxes and trying to navigate the proper paperwork for a flight these days with the TSA issues, etc.

Me in the shadow of a cherry tree

On the plus side, we got a break between appointments—and in the rain—long enough to spot a few cherry blossoms, hawks, and other signs of spring. It was nice to walk around a bit—even when it just hit 50°F, though the rest of the West is roasting hot—and get some fresh air. I think as a writer we feel the change in the seasons with our bodies and minds—for instance, I write more in spring, always have, and read (and watch movies) more in winter. We stretch and move more, we start opening windows and shaking the dust out of our metaphorical houses, we are friendlier (this is definitely true around Seattle—people are just nicer in the sunshine!)

Cat packed!

Going Back to Ohio

We’re getting ready to visit Ohio to see family. You can see Sylvia is anxious to join us! It’s a short trip but the longest distance I’ve travelled since Covid, believe it or not. I’m nervous because I usually get sick travelling to the Midwest—air quality? local allergens? I just generally don’t respond well to Ohio? But I am looking forward to spending important time with family, many of whom we don’t see often enough. I just wish that instead of airport hassles with the TSA and wheelchairs, I could just teleport.

Spring Rituals: What Makes You Happy?

Here in Seattle, though so far it’s been cold, I love to see the cherry blossoms and daffodils that are the first heralds of spring. Also, more birds popping up. I’m hoping I can make it back up to Skagit Valley some time in April though my schedule is packed with book clubs, the Poetry night at J. Bookwalter’s restarting with a feature with Kelli Russell Agodon and her delightful new book from Copper Canyon, Accidental Devotions, and more medical appointments that tend to come around in my birthday month for some reason. (Does this happen to you too?)

I really like celebrating National Poetry Month—it’s nice for the world (and myself) to put a little more attention on this mostly neglected art form. Do you look forward to cooking something in spring? I love the influx of fresh peas and asparagus, and I love the rituals of Palm Sunday and Easter, which always feels like a celebration of chocolate and pastels (even if you’re not particularly religious). The myths of rebirth are generally hopeful, aren’t they? April is also my birthday month—and though I am getting older, I am thankful that I am still here, even for the hard parts. I am trying to adjust to 1) surviving ’til I was 50 and 2) realizing I am, if you’ll forgive a pun, no longer a spring chicken. I am adjusting to the shift into elder mode—along with losing so many friends and family, which seems like a part of aging. I am actually physically in better shape and in less pain than I was ten years ago—food allergies sorted, out of my wheelchair thanks to my MS diagnosis and subsequent physical therapy focusing on balance, and better able to appreciate the smaller joys of life.

I hope you make something special to welcome the season—even something as simple as a salad or a new mocktail—and look up some new (to you) poetry.

Snow on pink hyacinth, my garden

Surprise Snow, Wind, and Sun

This has been a week for Seattle weather—we had a pretty powerful windstorm, which was predicted, and the next day we woke up to an unexpected snowstorm—not at all predicted—that grounded planes, knocked out power, and made it very hard to get out of the house for most people. Snow here—especially in March – is not common. It was also Friday the 13th. (Insert Twilight Zone music here.)

Glenn and I with forsythia and cherry blossoms, La Conner

Aimee Mann and Daffodils

The next day we woke up to more unexpected snow. We packed the car for a day trip up to Mt Vernon to see an Aimee Mann concert (we had bought tickets months before, so we decided to take a chance and go.)

Just as we left, the sun came out. We decided to take some time to visit the earliest blooms—some of them still holding on to a little snow. We also saw Trumpeter swans, several pairs of bald eagles, and a few seals. It was still chilly—in the forties—but the sun was a like a promise of better things to come.

The sunshine and activity helped my MS symptoms feel better—after being stuck in the house for a while with illness and bad weather—and the concert itself—a celebration of her Lost in Space album—was super fun—someone even gave me a free VIP tote that included a signed album, a comic book by Aimee Mann, and some other swag. Kindness of strangers. Glenn bought me a t-shirt! The last time I had a concert t-shirt was…a while ago. It was a lot of fun. And Aimee Mann being 65 is such an inspiration—an indie musician still doing her thing,

Social Media Musings

I started an interesting conversation on Facebook about social media—its value to us as writers, in selling books, in maintaining connections to others, or not.

Facebook, Twitter, Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, Substack…Which feel useful to you instead of like distractions, or worse, something that makes you feel worse, that drains you? I am contemplating this as I am trying to decide where to stay, which to cut, where to spend energy. As you can probably tell, I’ve been blogging for a long time, and I don’t really want to stop now. This is where I feel most comfortable.

I was thinking about how I follow writers, artists and musicians—like I learned about the Aimee Mann concert from a post of hers on Instagram and the last piece of art I got I learned about from an artist’s Instagram post as well. I hear about books from my writer friends mostly on Facebook—but books from authors I don’t know—it’s harder to pin down where I hear about them. The next time I have a new book, I’m not even sure what social media network will be working, not run by a supervillain, or where writers and readers congregate. I do know that I keep in touch with friends and family on various platforms—even LinkedIn sometimes (yes, I do have an old profile there). It shouldn’t be hard to cancel one social media or another, but somehow, I just keep hanging in there, posting once in a while.

Early cherry blossoms

Time Changes and Winter Blues (with Cherry Blossoms and Hummingbirds)

Daylight Savings Time started with sideways rain and chillier than average temperatures here in Seattle. I spent the last few days sneezing and coughing, mostly in bed. I managed to write a couple of poems, send out the book a couple of times, and watch the Netflix series (based on the book) Vladmir. I always am interested in how pop culture portrays women of a certain age (i.e. my age) in academia, particularly English professors, for some reason. Vladmir focuses on a sexed-up married professor who develops feelings (ahem) for a younger colleague, and how that plays out. I posted on Facebook about one of the funnier lines, where the protagonist (never named) complains of having writer’s block for 15 years, saying “I’ve tried everything! The Artist’s Way, microdosing ketamine…” Skipping from the Julia Cameron classic creativity handbook straight to hard drugs? Well, that’s not how I have managed my writer’s block in the past, but to each their own. The series also ends on a cheerier note than the book (no spoilers on specifics), and the actor who plays Vladmir is not really my type (looks a little too much like J.D. Vance for me), but Rachel Weisz is pretty funny in the role. There is also a discussion of a classic of gothic romance (although it’s not really about romance, it’s about ghosts and power and murder and money…). Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier which the protagonist’s students complain is misogynist. I did Rebecca in my winery book club and everyone loved it, so maybe this is a misread of the youth. There is a repeated phrase in the show about the sexual harassment case being brought against the protagonist’s husband: “it was a different time,” and I wonder if that’s really true. I never ever wanted to sleep with any of my professors (in the early nineties and later in the early 2000’s), and though I saw some questionable behavior by male professors towards female students (which even when they are over 21, I think can be very damaging) I never thought, “Well, gee, let’s give that a pass.” I always thought it was gross. I was also very married as a grad student. Maybe that made a difference? Anyway, you can watch it for yourself and see what you think. (Another quibble is: the main character is mid-fifties, but the author is only 45. It’s a generational difference that I think made some things read…somewhat off?)

All this time in bed with bad weather also gave me some opportunities to birdwatch, though the lighting was not perfect, I got a few shots of a hummingbird on our hummingbird swing and an immature eagle circling the house (the same one I saw a month or so ago, I think).

Despite the misleading cherry blossoms at the top of the post, we’re supposed to have cold rain AND snow this week, so spring seems like a false hope at this point, a thing which will never arrive. Winter Blues are a real thing for me in November, February, and yes, March. I wish for some dry warm days to shake up my physical miseries (colds never seem to be made better by cold wet weather, I notice). I missed AWP and saw all the happy pics on Facebook and sighed to myself. I don’t go every year—I don’t have the means, as a non-academic, to do it, even if I wanted to. But the news has also been so miserable, the weather, the fact that we’re planning a trip home to visit a very sick family member…it’s hard to just snap back to my usual cheerful self. I wrote a few poems about how I felt about America. Will these poems change anything? Probably not, but sometimes you need to write them anyway. We’re also doing taxes, which will do little to cheer anyone up. Well, here’s something to make you laugh, at least—one of the best SNL commercial parodies I have ever seen. “Are you allergic to Otezla? You may be the key!”

What do you all do to cheer yourselves up this time of year, especially is winter is lingering to ruin your dreams of planting your garden or walking outside much? And what about you all that went to AWP—any new news you want to share with those of us who had to stay home?

Early blooms of cherry, with nearly full moon

Spring on the Way

Well, like you, I woke up this morning to the news that Trump had, for some unknown reason (and without congressional approval) started a war with Iran. (Not than I’ve been a big fan of Iran’s hardline and repressive religious conservative government, but this move may put even worse people in charge, not to mention encourage more terrorism…I hope not.) Another reason to feel your country is out of control, in the hands of people too stupid to do their jobs? And didn’t Trump run on a “no foreign wars?” platform? And of course this rocks the stock market and boosts the price of gasoline. This is on top of skyrocketing inflation that Trump lied about not existing in his looong, meandering and completely false SOTU address.

But also, today, the sun was shining, some signs of spring, like these branches of cherry with the rising moon. Glenn and I went to the bookstore, walked on the water in Kirkland. I spent almost all day on Friday doing various tests for cancer in my thyroid, liver, testing my immune system problems, and it was tiring and discouraging, so I needed a whole day to recover before I could get out and about. One thing about chronic illness that people who are healthy may not know is the amount of time, energy and money is really takes. We had to prepay $500 for those tests, too, and we are not overflowing with money right now—which always makes me think about those who do NOT have good insurance. Are there always reasons for hope? Yes. Are there also days that feel like they drain all hope from you? Also yes.

Female Anna’s Hummingbird

Writing Through Hard Times

I have a few friends bringing out books soon, and they have told me how they struggle to continue to write, to even dare to post about their new books, or do readings, or any normal things.

I feel this pressure and anxiety as well—how do you write through the most stressful times I’ve ever experienced in my life? How relevant does poetry (or AWP, or a new book) feel in the face of women losing their rights to thier bodies, facing a new war, facing threats to our voting rights? Can women in particular be expected to just go about business as usual? How can we deal with personal crises on top of political stress?

February sunshine, me

I try to spend time noticing nature, spending time reading, trying to deal with each crisis as it comes and just do the best I can. Friends are also a huge support. And can poetry save a country, save women’s rights to vote or use birth control, help us heal our own bodies or those of our loved one? Writers are storytellers, and storytellers have an important roll to help people remember moments in lives, in history. If the American mythology seems to be teetering on the edge of insanity right now, how can we set that right? Can writing our own versions of mythology sound a note of hope, of justice, or reason? I hope so. I certainly don’t think it helps the world for artist to silence themselves in the face of so much uncertainty. Reading books about apocalypses helped me process the anxiety of the nuclear war threat of the eighties as a kid—perhaps something you’re writing right now will do the same for some other person? Speaking your truth—whatever that is—seems more important in a world where false information spreads like wildfire and hate tries to suppress everything kind, joyful, empowering. Is what you and I have to say about our daily lives, our work, our love lives, our disappointments and hopes important right now? I would argue, perhaps even more important than we know.

Alysa Liu jumping for joy and silver and bronze winning skaters clapping

Missing AWP? Me too. Celebrating Wins, New Glasses, and Quail

Look at this picture from the gold medal winner for women’s figure skating, and her celebratory leap in the air. And if you haven’t done it yet, watch Alysa Liu’s gold-medal winning skate—I promise even if you don’t like skating, it will inspire joy. If they don’t cut it, you can see how afterwards she curses as she celebrates, as well as hugging the bronze medalist and swinging her around in a spontaneous hug. It reminded me of the poetry world, how we need to celebrate our wins with this much joy, and the wins of our friends and colleagues.

On that note, AWP. I’m not going to be there this year, as I am instead taking a trip home to Cincinnati to visit my father, who is ill, and family. Which is not to say, I will not miss seeing my friends. But AWP can be a lot even for completely healthy young people, much less people with disabilities and illnesses that tend to flare up under stress. And right now, I have to prioritize family, and if I only have so much strength, energy, and money for travel, I’m going to choose home over a conference. If you’re going, I hope you have a wonderful time, and post lots of pictures.

Me with new glasses at Island Books

I did have good news from my yearly eye exam (a must for all folks with MS)—my optic nerve was looking less damaged than last year. I also got a replacement for my reading glasses which were snapped in half, and my regular glasses, which I had somehow gotten allergic to—polymers not a good match for me, apparently. (?)

I also had good news from my poet friend, Kelli Russell Agodon—she got her first poem in the March issue of Poetry, “Trying to Sext My Partner, Who Replies ‘I Can’t Get My Camera to Work.'” It’s not up on their web site yet, but I got my issue and so Charlotte the literary kitten and I had so much fun reading it.

Besides the women’s figure skating, I also enjoyed the US women’s hockey team win—five of them are Seattle Torrent hockey players!

I also had a visit from a whole covey of quail, one of my favorite birds.

Me at Roq La Rue with two paintings by Dewi Plass at their Spectacle du Petite show

Valentine’s Day and Artist Dates

Hello there my friends. I hope you had a good week. I am smiling in the picture at left but have felt heavy and a little melancholy all week. James Van Der Beek passed away from cancer, and that seemed strange, as he was four years younger than me, with a lot of little kids—didn’t seem fair, though I realize these days “fair” doesn’t go as far as it used to. I felt a little under the weather—MS acting up, sinus problems—and the whole “GOP wants to take away women’s voting rights”—and that the “Save America (from women)” act passed the House already, terrible betrayers of democracy.

So I didn’t have the highest hopes for Valentine’s Day, but we took the arduous trip downtown and back to attend the Spectacle du Petite show at Roq La Rue, which features a ton of wonderful artists including my current art crush, Dewi Plass, whose works Glenn photographed me with. Below are some of the pieces, including the fennec fox piece, for you to enjoy. However, I recommend a visit to the show! Glenn also took me to a downtown bookstore, so I could peruse lit mags and magazines not available to me on the East side. The whole thing wore me out, but I was happy I went. Glenn made duck and strawberry cupcakes, and we had dinner at home, which was lovely. (I also received two rejections—one book, one lit mag—on Valentine’s Day, which seems like a slap in the face. Not cool, places that reject on V-Day. It’s a hard day for a lot of people! Geeze!)

Birds in the Cold, AI, and more on Voting Rights

The depressing new reliance on AI—and how it’s using up water resources and making electricity more expensive for all of us and does very little good and a lot of ill—was perfectly captured in this cartoon.

Glenn was reading Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, which I hadn’t read in a long time (though I read the sequels more recently), and I was reminded of how women in that novel became property—first their voting rights revoked, then their access to their own bank accounts and credit cards. The “Save America” act will make it so women who have different names than their birth certificates cannot vote, legally. This includes me. It made me so mad I looked at changing my name back—but it involved a lot of paperwork. I have a passport, but most American women do not. That said, it’s time to get a passport if you don’t already have one, as it is still “acceptable” proof that women aren’t fake voters, apparently. Anyway, if they come for my bank account or credit cards, I’m out. I did find it funny that the Appalachian area was not part of the new fundamentalist, authoritarian government of Gilead, even in that book. Those are my people!

Below are some birds I caught in the brief sunshine when they came out to get a snack, we’re supposed to have four days of cold slushy snow/rain coming up, which is super fun, for both us and the birds. I’m so ready for spring to be here already—I even spent a few minutes gardening in the last week, getting it ready.

So how are you doing, my friends? I am feeling too discouraged to do much writing or submitting. I don’t think I’m processing the “family member with terminal cancer” as well as I think I should, too—feeling the pre-grief and trying to figure out how I’m going to get well enough to visit—Cincinnati is a rough trip, very few handicapped-friendly (and mold-unfriendly) places to stay, and I always get sick when I visit. I feel a little overwhelmed with my own health stuff (at least two biopsies in the near future for me, blech, which I keep putting off until I’m a little well-er, which seems to not be happening fast) to deal with bad news, Olympic controversies, governmental evil, maybe the need to escape the entire country…and a radical feminist and disability-activist book that doesn’t seem to be getting traction with the “right” publishers. If this isn’t the right time for this kind of art, I don’t know when it will be—when this awful government has not only cancelled the NEA but also all art? I don’t know, kids. I am holding on to small beauties—birds out my window, art on the walls and in my mind, books and poetry (mostly other people’s). What are you holding onto?

Glenn and I in sunshine in Woodinville

Superbowls and Sunshine

After last week’s relentless roll out of bad news, this week seemed a little better. Maybe because it was a little sunnier. Maybe because I was so consumed doing research for a family member who was laid off (employment law!) and another family member dealing with cancer, I didn’t turn on the news even one time. Maybe because I watched some Olympian kids doing amazing things on YouTube (I hate watching our network coverage, but I love being able to watch individuals and teams doing their breathtaking best at such things as snowboarding or doing quad jumps in ice skates). Maybe I went to a couple of things that helped my perspective, physically and mentally, and maybe because my team just won the Super Bowl (Go Hawks!)

The music at the Super Bowl I expected to like—Bad Bunny, Brandi Carlile, Green Day—but the game was so satisfying to watch it was hard to look away. All the touchdowns were in the last 12 minutes of the game! The Patriots didn’t score a point until the fourth quarter. Almost no one got badly hurt (I don’t like seeing kids get hurt, even when they’re getting paid big bucks. They’re so young!) I enjoyed watching the game more than the commercials, shocker.

I went to my yearly eye exam and had a pleasant surprise—my optic nerve appeared to have healed since the previous exam, which almost never happens with MS. Oh, my eyesight’s still terrible, and glasses cost way too much (sticker shock every time I buy glasses), but that was good news.

Afterwards, I stopped by Island Books (near my eye doctor on Mercer Island) and gawked at their amazing collection of typewriters, and we went for a walk in the park, where there was some kind of pickle ball tournament going on. Mercer Island is different from Woodinville. The dogs look more expensive, for one thing.

One good thing about exploring parts of town you don’t go to very often is it feels like everything is an adventure—new bookstores, new parks, etc! I really should do it more often. In February, Seattleites really have to take advantage of any sunny warm days—it was sixty degrees on this particular day, and so bright—it really did do my spirit and body good.

Witchy Poets

Me after a new haircut

I attended a talk on Sylvia Plath and Mysticism and Witches by someone who is publishing a book on the subject. Almost everyone in the Zoom room had a Dr. before their name (except me), but I felt so comfortable during the talk—after all, I’ve been studying Plath for over thirty years, before it was cool! The talk itself really inspired my thinking about witchy poets, too. And about whether or not I should go get that darn PhD, health issues be darned. I really could use more intellectual stimulation—after all, I might have limitations in my body, but my mind gets really bored with limitations.

How to Choose a Title?

This also caused me to take another look at the relative witchiness of the manuscript I’m currently circulating to publishers. Here’s a Wordcloud that indicates the main mood of the book.  I think at this time, in this country, it’s an appropriate mood. I did work with changing the manuscript’s title again. How do you land on your titles when you’re sending out your books? Do you fiddle with them, adjusting them to what you think a particular publisher might like, or do you just stick with one until it’s taken? I’m afraid I am a fiddler. But it is good to step back and look at a manuscript as a whole and ask—what story is this book telling? What characters are central? What are the general vibes? Are there too many books out there with a certain title already?

I like anything that puts my work in a different light, that helps me think of it in a different way. This week the only television I watched was the Super Bowl and snippets of the Olympics. I spent more time in natural light and walking around outside. I didn’t do much on social media. I did some self-care (if haircuts and eye doctors can be considered that.) I barely looked at e-mail. If you read those sentences, it might seem obvious to you that all those things might lighten one’s mood and help one’s mental health. But it’s one thing to talk about going outside when it’s freezing cold and raining (or snow-and-iced-in, like the East Coast) and another thing to do it—and again, one thing to talk about being only minimally on social media or watching television, and another to stay away from both. Even with serious problems—in one’s own life, in the world around them—we can’t be in control of everything. We sometimes can’t be in control of things we think we should be—our own jobs, our own bodies, our own families, our own countries. We need to care for our own souls and bodies the way we would a friend or family member’s, though it’s always easy to brush that off. Anyway, I’m wishing you all a better week, a new perspective, and good news from unexpected sources.

Snow Moon

Happy February! Snow Moons, Unusual Birds, Cancer Scares, and Big Birthdays

I hope you have a good February in front of you. The Snow Moon, unfortunately, brought a lot of snow to a lot of parts of the country—Nashville, Mississippi—that definitely were not prepared for it. Lots of power outages and downed trees. I remember 20 years ago these kinds of cold snaps were unusual for Virginia and DC, but with the strange climate changes, they’re no longer “once every 20 years” storms.

My little brother Mike and me

You might have noticed I didn’t post last week. I was a little down. Besides the dismal goings-on in Minnesota, a member of my family has been diagnosed with cancer. I myself have another cancer scare—should be old hat by now, and it’s just my thyroid this time—and another member of the family was laid off. It’s been cold and damp here—old-fashioned London winter weather, though it definitely is worse in other parts of the country so we can’t really complain. We have had a celebration or two as well—my little brother turned 50 (which means I must be older than 50 now? Dang!), and we’ve had several unusual bird visitors, probably due to the cold. A possible immature golden or bald eagle over the house, a couple of quail—and a small bird of prey—maybe a falcon or sharp-shinned hawk. Not perfect captures, but I hope they entertain you, anyway.

The Power of Community and More

This last couple of weeks has also reminded me of the power of community. In Minnesota, community protests have meant a little boy released from ICE detention, a change of leadership of ICE in town, and even friendly National Guardsmen handing out hot chocolate to cold members of the community. I hope this means that ICE will back down (Trump noticing his poll numbers shrinking, too, no doubt helps), and we’ll have no more horrendous human rights offenses or trying to take away Constitutional rights (freedom of speech and assembly, the right to due process for all on American ground, the right to bear arms, which the GOP is usually quite quick to defend, and birthright citizenship). People are making a lot of noise—and though sometimes it feels like nothing is being accomplished, if enough Americans make enough noise, occasionally we can change things for the better.

In my own life, a gathering of poets reminded me of the small, good things we can do for each other. I noticed that in encouraging each other, there is power—more success that seems to follow meeting together. That has been the case in my own writing life—and at least, things are more fun to celebrate (and commiserate) in a group. And the scary things of life don’t seem quite as scary.