Self-Care for Writers, and the Anxiety of Turning Fifty—a New Poem in Rogue Agent, and Anxiety and Its Antidotes

A Mollusk Without a Shell with Charlotte

Self-Care for Writers

This anthology, A Mollusk Without a Shell: Essays on Self-Care for Writers, from University of Akron Press came out at a great time, no? I’m so proud and happy to have an essay in the collection, along with many friends like Kelli Russell Agodon, Charles Jensen, Lee Ann Roripaugh, and many others. (Thanks to Mary Biddinger and Julie Brooks Barbour.) Topics range from the distractions of social media and AWP hazing to dealing with issues like cancer and death of a family member. And with AWP, Valentine’s Day, the Superbowl, and Lunar New Year all happening in the same week, what do writers need more than a reminder about self-care? Charlotte (above) poses with a copy of the new book.

A lot of the anthology contributors are Gen X, who might have some unique knowledge about self-care, having been brought up as latch-key kids, the forgotten generation, the first generation to do financially less well than their parents, the sandwich generation (taking care of children and aging parents at the same time these days), and raised on teen apocalypse literature before it was cool. As a kid as young as 10, I was up before daybreak, walked a mile along a highway to the junior high to take a transfer bus to my school with my little brother, made my own breakfast and lunch and sometimes dinner, and then spent two hours after school at various activities (often finding my own ride home among friends and other people’s parents). I went to unchaperoned parties where yes, sex and drinking and drugs existed. I ran away from policemen (once with a friend on crutches), sketchy characters on motorcycles (after an ill-advised TP-ing sleepover activity), and a crotchety parent (of a house party he was not aware he was hosting, thanks to his son) with a shotgun. I was told I wouldn’t be able to have children when I was 19. On the cusp of a long weekend away, a doctor told me a year later, “You either have AIDs, lupus, or cancer, have a good weekend!” Since that cheery experience, I’ve been diagnosed with multiple life-threatening illness. Are these good qualifications for someone to give advice about self-care? You be the judge!

A New Poem in the Latest Issue of Rogue Agent

I’m also happy to say I have a poem in the latest issue of Rogue Agent, about the anxiety of turning 50. (Which seems like it was just yesterday, but how is it almost a whole year ago?)

Here’s a link to the poem and issue online: Jeannine Hall Gailey—Rogue Agent (rogueagentjournal.com)
This is a sneak peek:

Anxiety and Its Antidotes

Have you been feeling anxious? I’ve been having anxiety dreams almost every night, and (probably related) trouble sleeping at all, staying up ’til 4 AM. I haven’t been writing as much poetry as I’d like—too busy doing paperwork and web forms—and I’m going to be going to a residency that requires a plane flight, something I haven’t done since way before the pandemic. I’m worried about the state of the world, the state of America. I worry about my family members and friends. I worry about the pandemic, the fact that it’s not over, and we still don’t have that many good treatments for it. I worry about God and justice, my place in the world, if I’m doing the right things with my life. The poem above is all about anxiety, and I admit, many of them haven’t changed. I just did my part of the taxes, and that never leaves me feeling good about my choices in life (see: not making enough money to cover your student loans, that old saw, another thing we X-ers pioneered). My computer’s been constantly crashing, which means a switch to a new one will be coming soon. Another doctor retired, so I’ll have to train another specialist replacement. Are all of these things equally important? No, they are not.

So, what are your good antidotes for anxiety? Reading a relaxing book (murder mysteries are usually my go-to relaxation type of book). I’ve been listening to music at night before I go to bed. I also tried watching old movies, mostly comedies. I’m trying to get outside during our brief moments of sunshine and get outside when I can. I spend time with my two cuddly cats. I’m trying to eat healthy (for me, more protein, and more iron and B12, less sugar) and get back to my regular pre-winter-illness levels of physical activity, which cliché or no, does help, I know. Spending time with sunrises and sunsets. I’m looking forward to spring, to being able to be out in my garden a bit more, going to farmer’s markets again, at least. I’m hoping this level of anxiety won’t last another month, another year. Wishing you an anxiety-free day, week, month, year.

Celebrating with Writers, New Hair, Vision Boards and Book Promotion, and Getting Back to “Normal” (?)

Celebrating with Writer Friends

This week I got together with Kelli Russell Agodon to celebrate her birthday (a bit late.) We talked new year’s writing goals, our next books, and of course there was sparkling rose and cupcakes (and a real brunch made by Glenn, not just junk food, I swear!) It was great to get back to socializing with Kelli and her husband Rose and feel like a real human again. I even went and got my hair done this week—something I hadn’t been well enough to do for a while!

Kelli took this fantastic shot of Sylvia (hiding in the linens as usual when we have visitors) and Flare, Corona on my pink typewriter. I do feel that I’ve been a bit lax in promoting my book lately, with the holidays and the long illness, so I’m going to try to schedule some promotion. It’s been nine months—believe it or not—since Flare, Corona came out. AWP is just around the corner, although I won’t be going this year but maybe next time in LA? Part of me wishes I was going, part of me is relieved that I can just have some down time.

Vision Boards and Getting Back to Normal(ish)

New hair—a little lighter and brighter

What does it mean, anyway, for a writer to “get back to normal?” Well, I’ve been writing new work, editing my next book, submitting, and finally getting to my vision board for 2024 (clearly, I’m winning no awards for my collage making, but hey, I was sick!) The headlines for 2024 haven’t exactly been the stuff of cheer and light—this year of the dragon has already been called, for instance, the fourth year of the pandemic, the year of the solar eclipse (again, which makes me book cover super relevant lol), the year of the cicada (two different swarms coming out at the same time for the first time in 200 years!) or, of course, the election year, which brings up different emotions for me that run from anxiety to disappointment…and two wars.

So, I’ve decided to brand my 2024 as the year of “restoration” after last year’s flurry of book launch events, AWP, a milestone birthday, big family visits, and generally being busy. Good busy, but not a sustainable busy. So I’m going on my first residency in a while next month, where I hope to work seriously on my next book, but also enjoy a change of scenery (the desert!) and just have some down time to think and devote some time to my health—physical therapy and catching up on my required tests, among other things. With MS, you don’t really know when the next “flare” happens, or when a remission goes kaput.

The thing is, despite the headlines, and the vision board, we can’t really know what the year ahead lies. We can hope and wish for good things—for better health, for book awards, for health for our families and our friends, for a better America, for a better future for us all. And I do!

Hope, manifesting, positive thinking—it seems time for a dose of something strong. Something that we can look forward to. I am wishing us all a magic we can’t imagine, a seed of something good planted at the right time. The fairy tale we live in seems to be mired down in the dark forest right now, the struggle, the part of the journey where we lose our shoes and have to walk in the snow and survive off the nuts and berries the birds bring us. The part where we’re abandoned, no fairy godmother in sight. But let us look to the light, to the mysterious and strange part of the story that gives us survival against the odds, that gives us the strength to stand up, to not give up.

Cold Snaps, Planning Ahead, and SolarPunk and MythPunk

Painting of Fennec Fox by Dewi Plass

Cold Snaps, and Lots of Sleep (and Movies and Books)

Well, as in much of the country, we spent the last two weeks shivering through a very cold, cold snap—we even had snow and ice enough to close down schools and roads for a couple of days. We had to cancel our winery book club on Wednesday because the roads were too dangerous. Glenn has been sick, so we haven’t been up to much here. We’re just now starting to clean up from the holidays, if you can believe it.

Seattle Snow with fox

Needless to say, this means I watched a ton of movies. I particularly enjoyed The Marvels—space cats! Beastie Boys “Integalactic!” Rap Battles! Space Jump Rope!—but I went into it having watched Ms. Marvel—which is a delight, if you haven’t seen it—and WandaVision—more serious, but also great—I laughed so much through the whole movie! I also watched Killers of the Flower Moon, whose main actress, Lily Gladstone, is phenomenal in her role, but I also bought the book by Linda Hogan about the same story called Mean Spirit. It’s a fascinating story of evil and murder in the Osage tribe in Oklahoma. I also watched Oppenheimer, which you would think was perfect from the number of nominations it got, but I know the story pretty well and thought it was too long, too talky, and didn’t focus enough on the destructive force of the nuclear tests and the dropping of bombs on Japan. (For instance, the Trinity site test killed a bunch of teen girls who were out camping and got caught in the fallout—but no mention of that! But sooo much boring politics!) A lot of great blink-and-you-miss-them cameos from really great actors in that movie, though.

In terms of reading, I also finished my re-read of Isak Dinesen’s Winter’s Tales and am starting a re-read of Wit’s End by Karen Joy Fowler for book club next month.

Towhee on bird fountain

Filling Out Paperwork and SolarPunk and MythPunk

So, one fun thing to look forward to is a brief writer’s residency in the Palm Desert—I’ve already started packing mini-sunscreens! In the unfun time before that, though, I’m applying for some unfun medical stuff, doing my taxes, and applying for the NEA Grant. The medical stuff is discouraging, and taxes are never fun, but doing the NEA prep work actually led me to an interesting discovery of new genre descriptions.

So, while I was working on my project description, I came upon a discussion that some of you might find interesting. There is a term that describe science fiction that has an optimistic outlook on both social and environmental issues called SolarPunk, and a type of science fiction that looks through the lens of mythological characters called MythPunk, My next manuscript, besides having poems on plagues and disability, actually has both SolarPunk and MythPunk aspects. I’m tired of writing futuristic dystopias that come true (see: Field Guide to the End of the World, published in 2016, and see how many things I uncannily described in advance! Eerie!) The next manuscript does deal with difficult issues—like disability, and our four-year plague, and the environmental crises—I’m not into denial, but more thinking about how the path to better things happens.

Dewi Plass winter scene with snow leopard cub

Anyway, I’m trying to pick ten poems for the NEA sample, always so difficult (as I haven’t won an NEA grant yet, I’m apparently not great at picking out poems for their readers!) I’m looking forward to having a writer-friend date this week, getting back into normal routines (it seems like 2024 has had an inauspicious beginning so far, but hopefully it gets better), and hopefully I’ll get enough done on the grant application and taxes to not feel guilty taking a week to focus just on my work.

But I’m going to set my intentions for 2024 as being a year to restore—my health, my relationships, and my hope, even in the midst of war and chaos. More joy, less handwringing over things I can’t control. Less fear, more taking steps to live life as well as I can while I can.

I included these two paintings from artist Dewi Plass because the first reflects this time of hibernation (sleeping Fennec fox on book about dragons) and the other an abundance of winter wildlife, arctic owls, ermine, and snow leopards. I am wishing you lots of good hibernation times, hopeful dreams, connecting to nature, and also to our levels of hope for the future.

Wintering: The New Year So Far, Honoring the Season, and the Choices We Make

Bunnies with Ornament: Woodinville

Wintering, Or the New Year So Far

Well, it’s been a tough 2024 so far – Glenn got my evil virus on New Year’s Eve and has been sick since, and I have still not recovered from the original bug that hit me over a month ago. It seems so many Facebook friends are sick that I shouldn’t be complaining. At least it’s not covid I guess?

I have been deep in my wintering activities—watching a lot of movies I missed during the year, reading (right now, for the Bookwalter Wine Book Club, re-reading Isak Dinesan’s Winter’s Tales, full of odd spirituality and Denmark and melancholia) as well as Julie Cameron’s memoir. Glenn and I finally have the ornaments off the large Christmas tree, but the lights are still up all over Woodinville, including our strange bunny statues with pink ornament. It’s been cold and gray, with ice-rain, very dreary, even my birds aren’t showing up regularly. Every time I step outside, no matter how I’m dressed, I regret it.

Towhee in January

I haven’t been writing much—not enough mental energy—but I do think about the idea of “wintering,” or that we need to sort of make our way through winter gingerly, at least making some awareness of the need for warmth and hibernation. I’ve been sleeping at off hours—awake at 3 in the morning, asleep at 5 pm—which means I’m only watching weird stuff on television and reading in stray catches of awake time. “Winter just wasn’t my season,” as the song “Breathe (2 AM)” says.

I woke up today wondering how soon it would be spring, envying my friends and relatives taking vacations to sunny climates. How nice it would be for my cough and sinus stuff to have hot dry air for a change? Even though I’m allergic to the sun and MS hates heat. LOL.

My garden looks very bare right now, except for a few shoots in some containers, and we’re trying to keep a little lemon tree a neighbor gave us as a gift alive despite a lack of sunlight and freezing temperatures outside. We also bought a small Christmas tree we’re trying to keep alive on the back porch. Can’t ever plant enough trees, I say, even as I struggle to keep them alive. We try to keep our hummingbirds and towhees alive with feeders and birdbaths.

Is it hard for you to keep up your spirits and health in January? Maybe it shouldn’t be treated as a disorder, but a sign of our bodies’ alignment to the seasons. Wrap yourself in blankets, drink hot tea, read some somewhat mystifying short stories from a brilliant but strange writer of another age. Take a couple of sick days. I hate the late-night commercials for diet pills and exercise machines in a month that makes most of us long to eat more carbs and stay under the covers an extra 20 minutes. And maybe that’s actually the right medicine for this time of year. Why do we struggle against what even the plants and animals know how to do? I have a bright red vase of tulips above my desk right now, a sign of life in the otherwise foggy gray landscape. I think of all the writers that died in England of TB in the 1800’s, think about how the weather here in Seattle is so similar to London, all cold wind and rain but rarely snow or ice. It feels like ice and snow might be seen as celebratory next to the drab rain.

Along this vein of melancholy, I was thinking of two great writers we recently lost, Louise Gluck and Colleen McElroy, how both had disabilities they rarely talked about (Gluck had epilepsy, Colleen had RA), both were fiercely devoted to their work. Gluck was born into a lot of privilege; Colleen had to struggle more against a world less friendly to women, especially women of color, as a young person. I feel Colleen didn’t get enough recognition for her gifts as a teacher and writer and was the kind of person you instantly trusted—she radiated energy and warmth. Gluck wasn’t warm—even her obituaries seem prickly. I wonder about the value of our writing and our personhood after we pass away—how will we be remembered? Will time be kinder to one than the other? I wonder about the value of work versus the value of relationships, how often women are forced to choose in a way men are not. I am lucky I had a husband who was just as supportive when I was working ninety-hour weeks at Microsoft as when I now spend hours submitting poems to journals that don’t pay enough to cover the cost of submission. I never had to choose between a marriage and work, or a child and work (since I couldn’t have kids in the first place). As I get older, in the cold January months, I think harder about the choices I’ve made in my life. It will be later in life that I’ll be able to see if I made the right ones.

Well, on that note, my friends, honor the season. Stay in, light a fire, read a book off your shelf that has sat there for a few years. Sending you thoughts for restful wintering.

Happy New Year! What About 2024? Recovering from Christmas, and Planning on a Restorative Year

Happy New Year! What About 2024?

Happy New Year my friends and family! Wishing you all health, hope and happiness in 2024!

(Image at left from VartaCrafts on etsy.)

But seriously, what are you looking forward to in the new year? As I recover from the meanest throat/sinus/lung infection I’ve had in years, I’ve had plenty of time to sleep, dream, watch all the shows I meant to catch up on, and of course, have anxiety about the year ahead.

I don’t like that it’s an election year. I’m nervous about the several wars going on in the background of our newreels. I don’t have much on the calendar yet, which might be okay – just a residency, possible start of a new immune system treatment, and the somewhat scary bathroom-accessibility renovation.

Haven’t had the mental/emotional energy to set intentions or do my usual vision board yet, but I know I will eventually feel a little better and will be able to think clearly enough to do that stuff.

Family Christmas pic, with Dad, Glenn, me, mom, Mike, and Loree

Recovering from Christmas and Planning for a Restorative Year

So I’m recovering from the evil Christmas illness – my first Christmas illness in a while – and big family visit. It was really good to see everyone but I was so miserable and worried about getting others sick it wasn’t ideal. After the folks left, I caught up on my movie viewing – saw Oppenheimer, Saltburn, a great Christmas classic dark comedy movie called We’re No Angels among others – but didn’t catch up on as much reading as I wanted. Glenn finally caught this bug as well (we did check him for covid as well) so now the whole house is sick except for the cats!

I’m hoping the coming year will offer more peace and rest for us after the hectic flurry of last year’s AWP, book launch readings, and several large family visits. I want to focus again on my writing and photography, and tend more closely to my health. I may start IVIG treatments this year, which is scary but also possibly hopeful, giving my immune system more of a boost so I don’t get sick (and stay sick) as easily.

A lot of the things I’m anxious about (war, election, my health problems, etc) I don’t have a lot of control over. I want to build in more restorative activities to my year. I read something that I really liked – thinking about what makes you happy, and putting more of that into your life. We are more than what we weigh, or what we earn, or what we get done. We worry so much about being productive, but how much do we actually think about the activities and people that make us happy or give us joy? So that’s my modest goal for 2024 – trying to focus on the things that bring joy, and less on everything else.

Wishing you joy in 2024!