What’s Holding You Back; or, sometimes the thing you are battling in the thing you need to embrace

At January 04, 2012
By Jeannine Gailey
In embracing the obstacles, soul-searching, trying for more
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I’ve been doing some soul-searching about what I really want out of life in 2012 and going forward and how to actually move towards those things. And I think that I’ve discovered that some things I thought were beyond me are actually within my grasp; I just have to take action.
If you read this blog regularly, you probably already know I’ve been struggling with different health problems for some time. My immune system is a bit wonky, so Christmas brought me a bout of flu, followed by another bout, this week, of strep throat. Just when I was feeling super productive I was knocked back into bed! I get, you know, angry about these health problems sometimes, because it feels like they’re standing in my way. If I didn’t have some neat rheumatogical joint problems, I’d be back to walking two miles a day, instead of about 400 feet max (with one or two stairs thrown in for practice.) If I didn’t have a wonky immune system, I might not catch every germ that went around. If I wasn’t hampered by health problems of various sorts, I’d be able to travel more, work a regular office job. I think of my life if I didn’t have health problems as a shiny, glowing one, filled with success, joy, productivity.
But wait. Maybe that’s a lie. Maybe the thing I think is standing in my way – my health stuff – just gives me a different way to approach life. Sure, this last year I couldn’t travel much – not back to see my family for holidays in the midwest, not to promote my book – and this chafed. I don’t like being told I can’t do things. Particularly by my own body.
But if my body was different, perhaps I wouldn’t have written as much as I have this last couple of years. Perhaps I would have written material that lacked…I don’t know, something. You can’t see what alternate-universe you might be writing, but if things had come easier for me, perhaps that would have increased a certain tendency towards, well, things like shallowness and selfishness. I almost certainly, in alternate-healthy-universe, would have taken my robust health for granted, because I did exactly that, back before I started having the problems. I didn’t feel grateful for the ability to run through a field, to hike a mountain or eat whatever I wanted or hop on a plane a handful of times a year without coming down with pneumonia. My husband’s endless generosity and support towards me and my writing – I might never have even noticed it.
So, perhaps, instead of seeing my health problems as some kind of insurmountable obstacle, some limitation, something always in my path, I can embrace it, actually figure out a way to attain all my goals, not in spite of my health stuff, but with it, beside it. Ditch fear and be realistic; hey, maybe I can’t eat wheat or hike a mountain these days, but I can try writing in other genres, be a bit more fearless in how and where I send out my work, read more adventurously and more widely. I can do all those things without a single change in my health.
I can stop whining about how hard it is to be a poet. It’s hard because we make it hard. I was just reading a memoir in which John Berryman complained about the lack of audience for poetry…in 1941. The complaints of poets don’t really change. He complained, how am I supposed to make a living? What do I do with these tiny unenthusiastic modern American poetry audiences? Things I bet you and I still say today. But really, instead of complaining, how can we expand our dreams and actually turn them into reality? How can we make money by writing? How can we expand the audience for poetry? If we are miserable, it is almost certain that some of it is our own fault, for giving up, for looking at daunting odds and saying: I can’t do that. I’m not healthy enough. I don’t live in New York City. No one buys poetry. I’m not in with the right crowd. I’m not a male. Etc.
But what if we embrace the exact circumstances we’re in, and just go like a whirling dervish at the things we are, the things we can do, as long as we can do them? That’s an attitude I’d like to have.

Goodbye to the old, Hello 2012!

2011 has been an interesting year to look back on. I’ve enjoyed being back in Seattle, where I have been happy to reconnect with my friends (and bookstores.) Having my second book of poetry come out with Kitsune Books was pretty wonderful even though I couldn’t travel much to promote it because of health stuff. Let me just say that technologies like Twitter and Facebook and the internet and e-books make a book launch a very different animal today than it was in 2006, the last time I did it.

And speaking of the e-book revolution – I have to say again how delighted I am to read poetry on my little e-reader while I got my hair done yesterday, how beautiful a job Kitsune Books did with She Returns to the Floating World and how it looks (and the new anthology, Fire On Her Tongue: an eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry, too!) I think I spent an hour yesterday downloading Jane Austen, Andrew Lang’s fairy books, Osamu Dazai, The Art of War…

2012 looks to be a year for moving on to new stages – perhaps a third book in the works, writing in new genres, maybe buying a house – all things that ground me, that put my ever-wanderlusty-roots into the chilly muddy ground of Seattle. (Hmmm, metaphorically speaking, my other big Christmas present besides the e-reader was a nice solid pair of flat black leather motorcycle boots. Very Seattle footwear. Does this mean something symbolically?) Would it be nice to stay in one place for a while? I have never really longed for that before, but I’m starting to say yes, that is it, a home, a regular place to stand and sit and dream and write from.

These are not resolutions, not goals, more like: projections, dreams, posted onto the blank screen of 2012, its ominous tones notwithstanding. (My local bookshop employee checked us out by saying “And enjoy the time left until the apocalypse!” I replied, “phhh, we have til December…”) Health, happiness, friends, a place to call home and a bit of writing luck.

Good luck and good health and happiness to all of you in 2012!

E-book anthologies, Best Book lists, and a wonderful find

Here are some reading resolutions for you for the new year:

You should check out Karen Weyant’s best poetry book list of 2011 – I’m honored to be included but the rest of the list is terrific as well!

You should also check out the wonderful e-book poetry anthology edited by Kelli R. Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, Fire On Her Tongue: an eBook Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry. I’ve got a few poems in it, as do wonderful Seattle poets like Martha Silano and Susan Rich, and superstars like Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux.

And, I am so grateful for finding this on my Kindle – one of my favorite Japanese writers, Osamu Dazai, put together a collection of fairy tales while he was alive in the 1930s. Now this collection is available in English (even on my Kindle!):
Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu (Translated)

Post Holiday Plans

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, that Santa brought you everything you wanted, and that you all ready to ring in 2012, which I am thinking of, surprisingly, not as an apocalyptic year, but a year of positive changes. I hope. You know, less asteroids, more realizing our potential and stuff.

We still haven’t taken down our Christmas decorations. We’re actually trying to extend Christmas this year, making a long holiday out of it – yesterday I went to a coffee shop downtown (the oldest one in Seattle – Cafe Allegro, which is a super cute find near the U of Washington, in case you’re looking for a good coffee shop in the area) to meet two out-of-town friends for back-to-back post-Christmas coffee dates. The barista asked me if it was my birthday, because he said people kept coming in with presents for me! Ha! Anyway, I had a wonderful time catching up with these friends, and reminding me again how important it is to spend time with the people you care about – it’s tremendously encouraging!

And as far as poetry news: If you’re at all interested in the Japanese form of haibun, go check out Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s excellent article on Poets.org:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22712
and here’s the whole haibun from me that she refers to in the article: http://haibuntoday.blogspot.com/2008/04/jeannine-hall-gailey-rescuing-seiryu.html

So what are your plans for 2012? Explosions and Atwood-style dystopia? Or a future so bright…?

Christmas Celebrations with Friends

I believe I have mentioned this is my Christmas of celebrating friends. Tuesday night I went down to the beautifully decorated Sorrento Hotel to see Kelli and enjoy the holiday atmosphere at the lovely fireside bar, where some lovely people were waiting in line to catch one of the comfy couches or tables and get a bite to eat and a cocktail. Friendly Seattleites? Yes! Especially when the sun shines so much during December. We had about three people offer to take our picture for us. Here is one of the results by the Sorrento’s Christmas tree!

Tonight my artist friend Michaela is coming over for dinner, so we’re really excited – Glenn is making osso bucco (which we decided after Thanksgiving will be our official holiday dinner dish!) I just really appreciate having wonderful friends to visit with. Feeling grateful grateful grateful! And hopefully I will squeeze in two more visits with farther-away friends before the end of the year.

And check this out: a lovely poem by Mary Agner about Ada Lovelace, dedicated to me! And it starts out with a robot scientist’s daughter! Love love love – here it is up at Stone Telling: Lovelace Noctures

Our presents have all arrived safely with our families in Ohio and Tennessee, thankfully, so I can stop worrying. Now we just have to rest and relax (and me, try to get over this pleurisy! Six weeks they said it can take! Stupid lung lining inflammations!) – well, I have to write a little on a new project I’m working on and do some editing for Eye to the Telescope, but mostly rest and relax. There is sun outside today – reminding us of longer days ahead – and something that smells delicious baking in the kitchen…Lots of things for me to be grateful for! So Merry Christmas so all who celebrate, also Merry Solstice, and Merry Chanukah! Merry days of cookies and television specials to all!