Hugo House Reading Report, Starting a Book Club in Woodinville Wine Country, Inching Towards Normalcy

Swallowtail butterfly on pink lilac

Hugo House In-Person Reading Report

Well, I survived my first live reading in two and a half years, and really enjoyed listening to the other readers. Thanks to Lesley and Hugo House for making it happen!

It was great to hang out with other poets and the audience on a summer afternoon (thank goodness for air conditioning) and it was nice to have a Q&A afterwards to talk about poetry. I had a hard time navigating Hugo House’s stage (which has three steep steps and no hand railing – heads up for disabled poets reading there) but no trouble with the mike or the reading itself, which was a relief (I worried I had forgotten how to read in person!)

Lesley and I in Woodinville

Below is a shot Glenn took of all the readers post-reading (keep in mind we had masks on all night and the light was weird) and a shot of the books for sale. Martha and Lesley are always a pleasure to hear, and I think this might have been the first time I’d heard Rena, our current WA State Poet Laureate, read, and it was delightful. And it made me feel like a real writer again. And it’s good practice for next year’s book launch!

And I was lucky enough that I got to have a little pre-reading time earlier in the week with Lesley and her charming husband and daughter in Woodinville for some wine-tasting and catching up. Unfortunately the lavender farm didn’t open up in time to take them on a tour, but hopefully it will open next week? I always love showing out-of-town writers Woodinville – it really is a beautiful part of town, a little out of way of the usual tourist attractions.

Immature goldfinch with sunflower

Starting a Book Club in Woodinville Wine Country (and Inching Towards Normalcy)

So I’m meeting with a winery person tonight to talk about starting a book club that will meet there on a regular basis – along with a quarterly open mike. (I’m thinking: literary/art-oriented mystery, speculative novel, poetry book, open mike as the rotation.) I have been lamenting the lack of literary culture in Woodinville, so maybe this is at least a part of what I’ve been looking for – and a way to ease into socialization (again, in real life – I never stopped talking to folks on the phone or on Zoom) again.

I had a writer’s group I attended on Bainbridge Island for over a dozen years – which was wonderful for my writing and that feeling of isolation you can get as a writer – and I’ve missed it since it dissolved a few years before the pandemic. I know there must be other book people on the East side – or even beyond – that would enjoy talking about books and trying out writer-and-book themed wines and an occasional open mike reading.

I’m also thinking about looking for work again – I don’t know health-wise how much I can take on, so I’ve been trying some freelance and volunteer projects to gauge how I do with deadlines these days.

Hot Air Balloon, Yellow, afternoon light

You can tell that I’m taking baby steps towards post-pandemic normalcy, though our covid numbers here are high and I’m still hyper-aware of the risks as an immune-suppressed person. (Had my first PCR test in a while right after the poetry reading, just being extra careful.) Just like the hot air balloons that have suddenly started appearing in our skies again, I’m trying out things – poetry readings, the symphony last week, and making in-person dates with friends – that hopefully herald better times ahead. Maybe things are finally looking up?

By the way, if you’d be interested in this book club thing at a winery in Woodinville, please leave a comment or contact me. We’d love to have you!

New Poems in Redactions, an Upcoming Reading at Hugo House, Symphonies, Supermoons and Sunsets

Two Poems in the New Issue of Redactions

Thank you to Redactions for publishing two new poems of mine, one of which will be in my upcoming book from BOA Editions! As you can see, all the cool cats are talking about the new issue!

Here’s a sneak peek at one of the poems, “When I Try to Write an Elegy:”

From Redactions

Immature Anna’s hummingbird, perched, with charm

Upcoming Reading and Conversation at Hugo House on July 20th

My first reading since February 2020 – and it will be with a group of terrific poets. We’re going to talk about the importance of poetry in navigating our lives and then read a few poems. Here’s a flyer – fancy, right?

I hope I remember how to dress, speak in public, and talk about poetry with reasonable intelligence. It’s been so long! It will not be zoomed or recorded (because the WA State Poet Laureate will be there – some clause in their contract?) but it is free and it will be fun!

Pileated Woodpecker in flight

Symphonies, Sunsets, and Supermoons

It’s been a busy week! Glenn had a birthday, we visited with my little brother Mike, Glenn tore his rotator cuff, we’re getting ready to visit with friends from out of town tomorrow, and we were gifted with tickets to the symphony – something we haven’t gone to since way before the pandemic – this one was a Harry Potter themed Symphony! It was nerve-wracking (everyone was masked, but hadn’t been indoors with that many people in a long while) but the audience was enthusiastic and full of people dressed in costumes and children so it was pretty uplifting (and a female conductor, which was pretty cool!) We had expensive orchestra seats (once again, we were gifted these – unfortunately, because someone who had bought the tickets caught covid) and we got dressed up, which will mean that’s the second time this month I had to put on real clothes, makeup, and real shoes (not slippers!) I mean, that’s a lot of socializing for someone who’s pretty much been hermiting for two and a half years.

We also had our first dry week in a long time, and already my grass (less of it than there used to be, but still) is crunchy and I’m trying to keep the birds watered with three separate bird baths and fountains. The sun stays up late, the sunsets have been beautiful and we had a clear night to see the brightest supermoon of the year. The garden is still blooming – roses, sunflowers, lilacs (again?), lavender and lots of pollinator-friendly little plants. So here are a few pictures of just how beautiful it is in the Pacific Northwest when summer finally arrives.

Anniversaries, Snoqualmie Falls, Upcoming Poetry Events – and Continued Uncertainty

Glenn and I at Snoqualmie Falls

Anniversaries and Snoqualmie Falls

Glenn and I celebrated our 28th anniversary today and spent the day at Snoqualmie Falls and Ollalie State Park. It’s a wonderful thing on a warm sunny day to drive into the somewhat cooler mountains, watching the skyline turn into massive rocky cliffs and forests. We stopped by a lavender farm – not open til next week to purchase lavender, but still beautiful – on the way up, and there was a farm stand selling a quart of cherries for $3. Which is a much better deal than you’ll get at, say Whole Foods, and they taste better. On the drive up, we noticed the wildflowers – foxgloves or lupines – that grew along the sides of the mountains.

My Twin Peaks-esque shot of today’s view of the falls

The larger falls were mobbed with tourists but Ollalie’s smaller falls had only one other person, a teen throwing rocks into Snoqualmie river. I bought some local honey – I’m always tempted by the Twin Peaks stuff (Salish Lodge, where we stay, is in the credits of the opening of Twin Peaks, and a lot of the town staples.) I didn’t turn on the television once the whole day, and I’m only now sitting down at the computer.

This whole week has been lovely, mostly sunny and in the seventies, and we’ve visited two wineries and been enjoying our birds and our garden. We are really like old people, aren’t we? Glenn’s birthday is coming up next week so we plan to do a low-key celebration of that. It got me thinking about my own 50th birthday next year. Will it be safe to have a real party?

Me with summer white rose bower

Upcoming Poetry Events at Hugo House

My friend Lesley Wheeler is coming into town and I’ll be doing a reading and discussion with her and several other poets at Hugo House on July 20. This is the first in-person poetry event I’ve done since February 2020 – which, ironically, was also with Lesley, at Open Books!

Lesley’s promoting her excellent book of poetry criticism/memoir, Poetry’s Possible Worlds, which I continue to recommend to everyone. I’m looking forward to it/feeling anxious about it – covid is still a threat, I’m on the approved list to get Evushield (a preventitive monoclonal antibody treatment for vulnerable individuals who have allergies to the MRNA shots, among others) but haven’t been able to receive it yet – but I miss human interaction, and that is the truth, especially other writers. And because this is a discussion and reading, it’ll be a little more relaxed and conversational than just a reading alone which is a nice way to slide back into public readings. Because, after all, my new book will be out before you know it – next spring is not that far away anymore. I keep wondering – will covid still be a threat? Will things in America be better or worse? The song says, “Que Sera, Sera”…but I find it hard to be that sanguine. Anyway I hope to see some of your friendly faces soon!

Finding a Way to Destress and Refocus in a Time of Chaos, Independence Day (But Not for Women, Apparently) and Looking at Living in a New Country

Glenn and I at Apple Farms wineries with roses and lavender

Finding a Way to Destress and Refocus in a Time of Chaos

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been struggling with the destruction of women’s rights, the environment, and the elevation of guns over lives by the Supreme Court, as well as a pandemic that hasn’t slowed down and a coming recession. Personally, I’ve also been fighting with health challenges, feeling discouraged about being a poet in general, stressing about my upcoming book and the larger issue of how to spend my upcoming years – where to live, how to work, and how to balance life’s stressors.

Today and yesterday, we did spend some time outdoors in the sun, the weather was perfect and mellow, and we just walked among the beautiful blooms around Woodinville. We stopped in for a wine tasting today and noticed that there’s a new lavender farm opening up just down the street from our house in two weeks. Being so down, it’s been an effort for me even to garden or do my photography, which are two of my usual stress-reducers. So, I’m trying to remind myself not just of the beauty around me, but trying to care for the animal self – the self that runs on too much cortisol in a fight-or-flight state all the time. I’m reading novels, and I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once, a comedy-sci-fi-martial-arts movie that’s really about an older woman’s ability to understand her place in the universe, her family, and her work. It really resonated with me, especially since I’d just finished Diane Johnson’s Lorna Mott Comes Home, which deals with similar issues in a less multiverse-centric way. Here are a few pictures I managed to snap this week.

Goldfinch looks askance at fountain

Independence Day (But Not for Women, Apparently) and Looking at Living in Another Country

Like a lot of American women, I am not feeling especially enthusiastic about celebrating independence day, given that America just took the rights to our bodies away from us – affecting everything from my friends no longer being able to get medicine for rheumatoid arthritis (because it might affect a fetus) to people no longer wanting to stay in the states they’ve been living in because they, like I, have a health condition that might kill them if they got pregnant. Now, even before this ruling, pregnant women and babies have the highest death rates in America of any developed nation- showing that America does not actually care about life, just about controlling women’s bodies. This is not a joke – to many of us, this is life or death. There are women’s strikes and protests going on in many cities on July 4.

Female hummingbird drinking from fountain

I looked at women’s rights in countries around the world, and found that most of them, including some you wouldn’t guess, are more progressive towards women than the US. Adding to the out-of-control mass shootings with no signs of stopping and the fact that you can barely get an American to read anything, much less read poetry (sorry for the generalization – but it seems awfully true these days) – I’m wondering if this is where I want to spend the rest of my life. I started researching three cities in particular – Dublin, Ireland, Paris, France, and Montreal, Canada. All three are significantly cheaper to live in than Seattle, which was a surprise, and all have good PhD program possibilities and Microsoft offices for Glenn to work from. All definitely have better, cheaper health care, especially for long-term health issues. It felt empowering to remember I am not trapped here, and no one can force me to stay in a country so hostile to women. I have actual Irish and French heritage, as well as interests in Irish and French mythologies and folklore, so that helps.

Now, moving countries is a big deal, expensive, and disruptive. I wouldn’t do it without a lot of thought. But quality of life is important, and we sometimes have to make changes to improve our quality of life. I did it twenty years ago when I moved to Seattle for a job, and I love the Pacific Northwest still. Money, culture, art, education, health care, air quality, natural beauty, access to work – all these things are going into the decision. But since 2016, I’ve just felt more and more that I don’t belong here, and America’s oppressive conservatism, as well as its lack of affordable health care and culture, are tipping the balance for me. It doesn’t help that many of my friends have moved away and many of my beloved specialists have recently quit for good. The tethers to this area are getting more tenuous…If you were a woman and a poet, where would you go right now?

America Goes Backwards 50 Years, Karyna McGlynn’s Terrific New Book, and Spending Time with Flowers When You Want to Burn It All Down

Towhee is outraged

America Goes Backwards 50 Years

This was a terrifying and terrible week for women in America. Not only did this activist awful Supreme Court turn back a gun law that had been on the books in New York State for over 100 years, as they swore they would not when they were approved by congress, they overturned Roe v Wade. As someone who uses contraceptive pills to live (literally – would not have survived without the birth control pill to control the bleeding from my heritable bleeding disorder – and getting pregnant would kill me and the baby, so that’s a big no) it makes me so angry that so many people I did not elect are controlling my medical decisions and those of half of the population. If it was about children, conservatives would pass things to feed children, educate children, keep pregnant women and babies alive (we have the worst death rate of babies and pregnant woman of any developed country), or literally anything to make sure children are taken care. Instead, they scream “life” when they are literally condemning some women and children to death, whether fast (like me, or any woman with a bleeding disorder – or a woman with an ectopic pregnancy, like many friends of mine who would have died without sacrificing the implanted cells) or slow, with no health or child-care support for women in poverty or crisis. This is no joke. It has made me consider moving to a better, more progressive country, like Ireland or France. I’m sure I’m not the only woman considering this. By the way, these laws also put the kibosh on IVF. And the Supreme Court seems likely to continue its terrible path. Am I mad? Am I protesting? But what else can I do?

purple alliums

Spending Time with Flowers (When You Want to Burn It All Down)

I’ve been so down this week. It’s also turned from freezing cold spring to blazing hot summer, in the nineties now where it was in the sixties last week. It’s horrible for anyone with MS to deal with heat and these extreme weather changes.  I can usually find some solace with flowers and birds, in nature, but it has been hard, honestly. I went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens when it was cool enough in the evening but today it’s too hot to go anywhere. It’s pretty miserable to go from supercold and wet to superhot and dry but that’s been the pattern on the West Coast the last few years. Meanwhile, in the background like radiation ticking, people are still dying of covid, and monkeypox is spreading and the CDC does not have it under control – they’re not even testing adequately. Like they’ve learned nothing from the last pandemic. It’s shocking, and also, not shocking at all.

I thought about things we can do. We can donate money to the right causes. We can ask congress and the President to do something to stop the runaway evil train that is the Supreme Court and do things like pass sensible gun laws (some gun laws were passed this week, but pretty weak) and pass a national protection for women and doctors to make the choices about their health and bodies. These seem like reasonable things to me – and with a Democrat President and Congress you’d think we’d be able to do it, but Trump did so much damage during his Presidency that we may never be able to fix it – and the Jan 6th hearings have shown there are still people willing to kill the police they pledged to support to get their way, even if the Democratic vote says otherwise. We should be worried. But what can we do, practically? I mean, we can leave if we have the means, the health and the job flexibility. but what else?

Sylvia poses with Karyna McGlynn’s new book

Karyna McGlynn’s Got a Great New Book Out

Another coping mechanism of mine during stress is reading, and I had a wonderful new book to enjoy this week, pictured to the left. My literary cat Sylvia poses with Karyna McGlynn‘s new book from Sarabande, 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse, which is a fun, flinty, 90s-nostalgic Kate Bush love letter with terrific titles like “I Wake Up in the Underworld of My Own Dirty Purse,” which starts:

My stage name is Persephone./ I perform nightly for a smattering/ of ill-informed Tic Tacs.

And oh, any girl who went through an all-male barrage of poetry professors when they were young will immediately understand and identify with “How to Stop Raping the Muse,” with lines like

in workshop suggested/ my poems had Teeth but no Tenderness…my lines were called sharks and shameless/ hussies.

Anyway, get this book from Sarabande, terrific for a summer night read with a little rose. And maybe a cat and a typewriter. Will this solve all of our problems? No, but it will take your mind off of them for a little while.