Happy Palm Sunday! A New Poem in the Shore, Under the Weather Reading Sylvia Plath (and Parents in the Hospital), and Finding a Way Forward

Me with cherry blossoms (possible new author photo?)

Happy Palm (Springs) Sunday!

Palm Sunday always had good connotations for, a truly celebratory religious holiday. (Here’s a poem I wrote about Palm Sunday and Palm Springs for the Los Angeles Review for extra fun.)

I wish I had been up for celebration, but I’ve been sick all week and injured my shoulder, plus my dad was back in the hospital for pneumonia. This picture on the left with our neighboring cherry tree was the last one I took before I got sick. Sadly, I haven’t been out exploring for new blooms, I’ve been stuck inside, stressed—and starting with a new physical therapist for spine issues.

And, in other news, my dad went into the hospital this week with pneumonia, so I’ve been super stressed out because he’s got COPD and he’s so far away. I do have a lot of experience with pneumonia myself (my dad and I share a crappy immune system) but who knows whether he even listens to my advice? It’s tough with parents.

Sylvia the kitten with Loving Sylvia Plath

Reading Loving Sylvia Plath with Sylvia the Cat

Fortunately, to take my mind off things, I got an ARC of Loving Sylvia Plath: a Reclamation by Emily Van Duyne. If you felt like maybe Red Comet left out some details, you’re right, it did! But this book explores more than unpublished letters and medical documents which Van Duyne carefully researched, it re-raises the idea of respecting Sylvia Plath’s work and reclaiming the reputation that was sullied not only by her husband, Ted Hughes, but also mountains of critics (who were mostly ex-boyfriends!) and just that feeling that you’re a silly, emotional girl for liking Plath’s work, which the new critics were out there saying for years. You’ve been gaslit, dear reader! And this book shows the exact path to how critics, terrible husbands, and so-called friends of Plath’s went about belittling Plath’s legacy and her fans.

If Plath made a terrible decision marrying Hughes and leaving America (and her support system) behind, this book made me realize just how few resources she had and how little people who could have helped her, did. It also made me value my friends and family more, because when you get yourself in a tight spot, it helps to know someone—as many someone’s as possible—have your back. This is not to belittle Plath’s mental illness, or explain how she was some kind of saint, but it does highlight the practical ways women still have to fight to be supported, to be taken seriously, to be heard.

Coral Camellia

Speaking of Survival, a New Poem in The Shore

And speaking of survival, I have a new poem, “Cassandra Shares the Secrets of Survival, Pandemic Edition,” in the latest issue of The Shore, which also has great poems by friends like Martha Silano, Kelli Russell Agodon, Ronda Broatch, and Donna Vorreyer. Here’s a sneak peek below:

Finding a Way Forward

First Rufous Hummingbird

I’ve been thinking, recently, about finding a way forward. After a terrible diagnosis, like cancer, or MS. After you’ve had a loss. After you’ve lost your way. How does one pick up the pieces, and find  a way forward? Did this happen to any of you during the pandemic? Are you feeling frozen in Spring of 2020?

I realized that a lot of me I had left back in 2016 when I was told I was going to die of terminal liver cancer. (We are still having to MRI those tumors every six months, but still breathing, if somewhat hampered by MS.) I just didn’t snap back from that. I left behind a lot of my ambitions. I left behind relationships of people who didn’t want to associate with me once they know I was sick. I left behind work, assuming I wouldn’t be able to contribute much. I gained some things—a renewed appreciation of the moment, a habit and hobby—photography and gardening—and some not good things, like PSTD and increased anxiety—but I realized that my vision of the future was still frozen back in 2016.

But I realized as I was frantically updating things I had forgotten about—resumes, work samples, career goals—that I not only was still a writer, I was a writer who could help contribute things to other writers. I am a pretty good editor, and not only that, I can help people promote their books in the same way I have from my first book back in 2006. I’ve decided to start offering those services on a limited basis—see this link—in the hopes of feeling like part of the writing community again for real, and feeling I am contributing to not just my family but to other writers. I think I’m a pretty good teacher and mentor too, especially for writers who feel that for some reason—money, disability, chronic illness—that the writing world is not for them. I could help them navigate some of that.

Anyway, these are my thoughts for now. And if you are struggling with feeling like you fit in, or to find your way forward, just know you are not alone.