A Blustery Week, Ferry Foibles, Visiting Friends and Family Over the Water

Glenn and I at Pumpkin Patch (McMurtrey’s Farm)

A Blustery Week

It’s been a blustery week – the Pacific Northwest hit with “bomb cyclone” weather patterns – right now, I’m typing as my power is flickering on and off. We tried to make the best of the brief mornings and afternoons of slightly better weather whenever we could.

Blustery weather cannot be a surprise to us in the Pacific Northwest – we often get a windstorm so fierce it blows down the leaves before they even get a chance to turn. The one good thing about cold wet weather is it keeps you inside, so you get more writing, editing, and submitting work done. I was, however, darting out whenever there was sun to plant bulbs, even visiting pumpkin farms and farmer’s stands during relatively calm warm intervals between rain, cold, and wind. The hummingbirds and woodpeckers are still as active as ever. We only got to see the fuzzy waning Harvest moon one night, as the others were too cloudy to see anything, but we can feel the time change coming, and the temperatures dropping, and the days getting shorter – yes, fall has definitely arrived. We are eating more than our share of the beautiful apples out here, as well – favorite varieties include Cosmic Crisp, Candytime, and Pazazz.

Glenn and I with little brother Mike and sister-in-law Loree at their back deck

Ferry Troubles and Visiting Friends and Family Over the Water

We did finally make it across the water for our visit to see friends and family, despite the ferry foibles (sickouts, vaccine protests, staffing problems, etc., cutting service down to one boat on all the usual ferry routes) it just took a little longer and felt a little more stressful.

It reminded me that living across the water, thought beautiful and more affordable, was so stressful for me because you are always at the mercy of the ferry (and sometimes bridge) schedules. Never could be sure you’d make a doctor’s appointment or a friend’s reading on time. You have to cultivate more Zen than I think I have in me to live out there permanently.

The trip, though hampered by the aforementioned foibles, was worth it! As with all great journeys, this one took some careful planning and plotting, but we had some grand adventures, too.

Kelli and I in the gazebo overlooking the Puget Sound

First, we got a chance to visit with my poet friends (and Two Sylvias Press editors) Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy, who came and met me at the ferry arrival area. We shared carrot apple ginger cupcakes in a gazebo overlooking the water and got caught up on writing news in the brisk outdoors. I also picked up a pack of the Two Sylvias Poet Tarot set. It was great seeing friends IN PERSON again. I forgot how great it is socializing in real life, especially with other writers!

Then we traveled on to see my little brother Mike and sister-in-law Loree at the new house they’re renting on the Hood Canal, stopping along the way at a local park to unpack a thermos of hot cider and snap a pic – only to see a sea lion fighting with seagulls right behind us. We had a good visit, sat out on their beautiful deck overlooking the Hood Canal, had a little dinner, then made the long trek back to Woodinville. Once again, great to see actual family in human form, instead of just over the phone or over a screen.

During our trek, we did see at least one heron, about ten otters, seals and sea lions, and lots of other things we don’t get as much of a chance to see in Woodinville, and mercifully, it was a little chilly out, but didn’t rain on us the whole trip! Some more pics from the trip, including the park where we saw the sea lion/seagull fight. I think if I lived where my brother does, I’d try to get out and paint that view of the water every day. It was so tranquil, except for the otters occasionally scurrying by. I was entranced by the cloud formations on the water. Anyway, a wonderful chance to see friends and family we haven’t gotten to see often enough over the past two years.

Me at Chateau Ste Michelle’s gates

Last Few Pictures of October in Seattle

So, before I go, a few more pictures of October around our neighborhood: wineries with fall decor, fairy tale mushrooms, and even more pumpkins. Those beautiful poisonous mushrooms were on the grounds of Columbia Winery, believe it or not. You never know when magical things will pop up around here. Fall can be a beautiful time here in the Northwest, if you know where to look (and don’t let the weather daunt you too much!)

A Week of Harvests (with Record Cold and Rain,) A Poem in Bellevue Literary Review, A Meditation on Boosters, Ferry Snafus and Shortages

Glenn and I at JB’s Pumpkin Farm, Redmond

A Week of Harvests (with Record Cold and Rain)

It’s been a dreary week with record cold days (with the records of cold going back to the 1800’s!) and record rain. To cheer ourselves up, we visited the local farm stands, so we had fresh corn to make salads with and sweet baby peppers and apples and squashes of all sorts. We made pear soup (don’t know if I’d recommend) and baked cranberry apple bread and generally tried to stay warm. Glenn also had a physical on Monday and his third Pfizer booster shot. By the end of the week, not just Pfizer, but all the boosters had been approved.

After our weekend plans to visit my little brother and a friend over the water were ruined by problems with the ferries, we decided to make the most of the warmer day and partial sunlight and visited a brand new but beautiful pumpkin farm near our house, JB’s Pumpkins in Redmond, and Kirkland’s Carillon Point to find roses on the water still blooming, and went grocery shopping in person (something we rarely do) at Metropolitan Market. Plentiful produce and flowers, but other shelves – frozen aisle, dry goods, paper goods – were empty. A little unnerving, like we were having a hurricane that we didn’t know about. But everyone was in a kind mood – even friendly – which seems like people responding to lowering covid levels and, of course, the nicer weather after a very dark cold week. Below is a trio of pics Glenn snapped of me frolicking in the Harvest scenery and sixty-degree day with pumpkin-colored hair and a pumpkin-hued dress. (I do not have a pumpkin-hued cane yet.)

Sylvia with Bellevue Literary review, a glass pumpkin, and a pink pillow

A New Poem, “Some Nerve: a Nocturne” in Bellevue Literary Review

Another piece of good news this week was receiving my contributor’s copy of Bellevue Literary Review’s 20th Anniversary Issue, which contained my poem about MS, “Some Nerve: A Nocturne.” This is a journal, like Image last week, that I have been sending to for over a dozen years, so the publication was definitely celebratory for me. You can see the whole issue here.

You can see a sneak peek of my poem here. (Click on it to enlarge.)

Pink mums from my yard

A Meditation on Boosters, Empty Shelves, and Ferry Troubles

So along with the wet, cold days this week, we had an onslaught of news about the vaccine boosters – which were approved, who was approved to get them, how long should we wait to get them. For Glenn, who already got his third Pfizer and his report (no big deal), it was easy. For me, it’s a little more complicated, with a bleeding disorder and a history of anaphylaxis from different kinds of shots, and since I got the J&J the first time, I’m going to have to hear from a couple of my specialists to help me decide what to do. The good news is we know I still have antibodies from my first dose of J&J, which makes it feel like less of an emergency. (None of my doctors expected me to even have antibodies this long after, so good news.) For Americans, it is a privilege to have access to third shots when people is some countries still don’t have their first one.

Wheelbarrow full of pumpkins – an image of abundance in the harvest

Since we’ve been shopping at Instacart and local farm stands, we’ve mostly missed what people have been telling us for a while: shelves are empty. Certain things that are pretty normal are in short supply, or just ungettable. My dentist cancelled my crown appointment because they couldn’t get their usual dental drugs at all. Americans are not used to doing without. The ugly scene of backed up shipping container ships is obvious if you get near Tacoma or downtown Seattle’s ports – which are strained to the point of failure. Not only that, the ferries are all understaffed, so four of the most common ferry runs – including the ones I’d used to get to my little brother or any of my Bainbridge, Kingston, or Hood Canal friends, the Bainbridge and Edmunds – were cut in half. That’s like blocking half the interstate for people who live over the water. We had been planning to visit, but Saturday morning, there were multiple hour backups on all the ferries we’d take. It was so frustrating after carefully making plans way in advance to see them ruined – but lots of people are feeling that this week, with cancelled flights, cancelled ferries, and other travel snafus. (Mercury is of course, still in Retrograde ’til tomorrow.)

Hot air balloons, October sky (rare sunshine)

It made me think about how isolated we could have been when we lived on Bainbridge or In Port Townsend – it’s the reason we don’t live there now. Because as beautiful (and more affordable) as those places were, if you can’t get to your specialist, or you want to visit friends or do some shopping off-island – it makes your quality of life less. I never liked being dependent on a drawbridge (Hood Canal) that could close at any time AND a ferry that might be unreliable even in better times. Shortages of workers – at the docks, at the ferries, at grocery stores – are visible. We don’t really go to restaurants, but I did notice a twenty-car line at our local McDonald’s for takeout and a huge “Help Wanted” poster wafting in front of the place. So the impacts of covid go beyond the deaths of people we know and love, wrecking the economy…now we’re seeing long-term problems with the supply chain, with employment, with the basics of how we used to do things. I say “used to” because clearly some things need to change. Workers are burned out and mostly underpaid. The “just-in-time” inventory models that worked pre-covid – show the dangers of running of margins of profit and supply. This really impacts people who take medicines that are hard to find – doctors in hospitals who can’t get their hands on common anti-nausea or pain drugs, and of course everyone who just can’t find their cereal/cat litter/cleanser/paper goods at the store.

On the poetry front, more literary magazines are closing for good (just heard from Foundry this week) and publishers are pushing back open submissions periods until 2022. (Oh yeah, books are also going to be in short supply – paper shortages, getting printings from overseas – all causing book supply chain problems.) And everything’s more expensive for publishers right now.

So things aren’t quite over yet. Will we need even more boosters before covid is officially considered “over?” How safe will the holidays be? Shipping container/warehouse/truck driver shortages according to the news may be backed up definitely until Christmas, and maybe for an entire year. When will I be able to get dental work or visit my brother? If you’re feeling stress and anxiety, you are probably not alone. Humans don’t operate that well with a ton of uncertainty. So I hope you’re doing your best to take care of yourselves and those around you. Get a pumpkin, take a walk on a sunny day, bake something with apples and ginger. If things are not going back to “normal” or as CNN put it  this week, “the before times” any time soon, we need to practice our deep breathing, make our plans flexible and appreciate any little joys we can find.

Book Announcement, Bad and Good Art Friends, a New Poem in Image, and a Rough Week (with Fall Colors!)

Pumpkins at McMurtrey’s Farm

A Book Announcement!!

Yes, finally, some good news! I’m happy to announce that my sixth poetry book, Fireproof, will be coming out next year with Alternating Current Press!

I’m nervous of course about setting up readings, since we still don’t know where things will be next year, but I’m hoping the pandemic will be on the wane and I can visit bookstores and see friends! I’ll post more information when I have it. It has been five years since Field Guide to the End of the World came out, so I am ready to have another book out there!

This has nothing to do with pumpkins, but I liked the cheery sunny mood of the pumpkin farm picture.

Glenn and I at the pumpkin farm

Good and Bad Art Friends

There was an article in the New York Times that had everyone buzzing, a mean-spirited article about writers being bad to each other. (If you want to read it, just google “bad art friend.” You’ll probably also get some hot takes on the article.)

But what I want to say is that in twenty years as a reviewer, volunteer, writer, editor, MFA student, and MFA instructor, I have experienced and witnessed so much kindness and generosity among writers. Maybe good art friends make for less scintillating reading, but I feel if you’re going to shine a light on a community in the art world, it should be on the wonderful, supportive, encouraging things they do for each other. I include artists and musicians in this because we all make so little money and work so hard but still what I’ve seen is artists helping each other, letting each other know about opportunities, writing blurbs, recommendations, giving each other advice…this, in my experience, has been more the norm than the opposite.

Are there mean, terrible, miserably-hearted people in the art world? Of course, like everywhere else. But I am so happy to say that most of the community supports each other. When a writer or artist gets sick, they send a care package or note; when they’re looking for work, people try to steer them towards open positions; when they’re feeling depressed about a rejection, they get encouragement; when they get good news, friends celebrate. Maybe I’m not cynical enough, or I’ve been surrounded by a lot of super-nice people by accident, but I think that good art friends are more the rule than bad art friends.

Field of sunflowers

A New Poem in Image Journal

I’m so happy to have a new poem in the latest issue 110 of Image Journal, “Rose Petals Burned”. The whole issue is terrific. I love the image they chose of the plague doctor mask at the top of the page.

Rose Petals Burned, Image Journal

Kubota Gardens, fall color

A Rough Week with Fall Colors

This week was kind of rough. I woke up sick on Sunday (lost six pounds in two days,) then woke up to identity fraud on Tuesday, which I had to report to the police and the small business association and all three credit reporting agencies, had to handle multiple problems with my cable (which provides my internet and phone too,) I also had a specialist appointment downtown and got stuck in an hour and a half of terrible traffic, missed the appointment because of the traffic, then ended up going with Glenn to a beautiful garden we never had a chance to visit before, Kubota Gardens, which is a sprawling, free Japanese garden near Renton which is open til 10 PM (a miracle in a town where everything closes early.)

We also stopped into a pumpkin farm in Redmond, called McMurtrey farm, and stopped by our favorite farm stand in Woodinville, Tonnemaker, to take in pumpkins and wildflowers.

So that’s how I deal with the bad days – I try to find the good to balance it. And sometimes that leads to new experiences that I would never have without the bad. I’m very thankful for a husband, family, and friends that try to cheer me up when I’m down. And I’m very grateful to be having a new book out soon, and for all my good art friends!

Fall Trips to the Arboretum and Open Books, Talking about Taboos: Money in Poetry, Poets and Self-Destruction, and the Importance of Community, and Submission Season

Me with fallen leaves

Fall Trips to the Arboretum and Open Books, and It’s Submission Season

I was feeling a little blue so we took advantage of one of the few non-raining afternoons this week to go out fall foliage hunting in the Seattle Arboretum (yes, they have “looking at trees!”) and also made a stop, in person, at my treasured bookstore, Open Books, and I came home with an armload of new reads, some of them inspired by the book I’ve just finished, The Equivalents.

When fall arrives here it’s easy to let the suddenly shorter days and lack of sun (we did need the rain) affect your mood, and I’m not immune to that. One thing my friends and I do to counteract a lack of motivation is give ourselves a month when we write a poem a day (um, not always great at that) and another month where we do a submission a day. It’s a reminder that summer is indeed over and writing season has begun, and always helps us actually get some work done. Those book deadlines can creep up on you if you don’t pay attention!

It is submission season, after all, that rare time when most poetry journals are open (and you’ll probably get some rejections you’ve been waiting a year for – and hopefully some acceptances as well!)

Sylvia poses with my Open Books haul plus The Equivalents

Talking About Taboos: Money in Poetry, Self-Destructive Tendencies and the Importance of Community

One thing I’ve been thinking about is something that is often taboo to talk about in the poetryworld: money. Here’s a quote from Maggie Doherty’s The Equivalents (which I finally finished) I posted on Facebook and Twitter that generated quite a bit of discussion:

Pumpkins on a fence at dusk, Woodinville

Some vehemently objected to Sexton’s quote, saying capitalism’s focus on money shouldn’t define success for poets, some talked about their own struggles with the lack of money as a marker of success, some defined success for themselves outside the realms of money. Some people rightly pointed out that in Sexton’s day there was more money and fewer poets. Some said it was a closed system – money is awarded by the privileged friends to privileged friends. It was very interesting.

I was very happy this week to see Don Mee Choi – whose work I truly have admired for years – win a MacArthur Genius grant – something that can truly alter the quality and nature of a poets’ life. Money, time, and a room of one’s own – as Virginia Woolf wrote a long time ago – go a long way towards making a writer’s life possible. But writers that are overlooked, denied grants, awards, prizes – what happens to them? How do they persevere, or even get in the public’s view? It is so easy to give up, to get lost.

Another two quotes I felt was worth putting up here was about poetry and women writer’s self-destruction and the importance of community, which is probably more true and less controversial.

From Adrienne Rich, in the book:

that the ‘room of one’s own’ is not enough; we must find community, collectivity…I believe profoundly that the woman artist, even if she can find the space and support herself in it, must not fall into the trap of working, or trying to work, in isolation. But even Woolf implies….that a female community must come into being.”

Here’s a longer quote (my hands don’t type as well as they used to…) about women writers and self-destruction from Adrienne Rich as well:

Mt Rainier at Sunset, October

So, when we think about success as poets, maybe money is a part of it, but also what we call our community, how we avoid self-destruction, how we help others. That we continue to write, to create as a kind of rebellion.

I encourage all of you to pick up The Equivalents and give it a read. It’s a fascinating account of a tiny community connected over the years, politics, art, friendship, feminism, failure, success.  I started reading it with my mom and could not put the book down. (I also got in on Audiobook so I could listen at night instead of watch tv – much better for my brain!) Sometimes it can feel hard to find a model of success we can follow without being born into money or privilege.

And remember, it’s still life during a plague, the changing seasons can be hard on people, so be extra kind to yourself. Give yourself time, seek out moments of joy where you can right now. It’s hard to build community when you can’t see each other in person, but we do have e-mail, the old-fashioned phone call, and yes, even social media.

Poems on the Rumpus and in Allium, and Trying to Bring Some Joy to Fall Days

Me with pumpkins and barn

Poems This Week in The Rumpus and Allium

This week I had some happy poetry news in the form of poems being published. The first was “Philomel at Midlife Confronts her Attacker” in The Rumpus, along with some other terrific poems in their Enough series.
Then I had two poems appear in the gorgeous new Allium, in their Fall 2021 issue, “Women on the Verge of an Atomic Breakdown” and “Spell for Conjuring a Better…: 

Follow the links to read the poems, and I will put a sneak peek at the poems at the end of the post as well.

It is officially fall. We’ve had our Harvest Moon and our Fall Equinox and Mercury is officially in retrograde. It is a little more melancholy than usual, what with our vaccinations maybe not being enough to keep us safe from every mutating versions of covid, waiting for information for those of us with crappy immune systems who didn’t get the Pfizer shot on when we can get the Boosters, and announcements of shortages (again) and mail slowdowns (again.) And the prospect of spending another set of holidays without being with family. I am trying, as you can see in the picture, to embrace the things I love about fall in the few sunny fall days the Seattle area offers. I am trying to bring as much joy as I can to life, which has been pretty depressing lately.

A field of Sunflowers in Woodinville

Trying to Bring Joy to Fall Days

So Glenn and I visited Bob’s Corn and Pumpkin Farm, we visited local farmer’s markets, we visited Molbak’s for their annual glass pumpkin display by the Tacoma Glassblowing Center. We have baskets of apples, corn, squashes of various sorts. We’re sipping hot cider like it’s going out of style.

Every bright and sunny day we’re making an effort to get outside. On the night of the Harvest Moon, we stayed outside as the moon rose, orange gold, above the trees. We don’t have many family fall rituals per se, but these activities might be as close as we get.

Hummer perched on planter

I think of the things that have kept me sane during the 21 months of pandemic: gardening, birdwatching, photography, reading and writing, reaching out to friends and family over the phone. Occasionally really good television and good books. I am reading (along with The Equivalents by Maggie Doherty, about midlife gifted artistic women in the sixties) Rita Dove’s Playlist for the Apocalypse, and watched an interview with her on PBS where she discusses her diagnoses of multiple sclerosis back in 1997. The book has a little nod to Joan Didion’s diagnosis with the same disease in one of the epigraphs at the last section. How little we see successful writers struggle in public, but might it be more helpful, more inspiring, for them to let us in on it? I certainly felt a certain reaffirmation of my love of Rita Dove’s work and feeling of kinship with her.

Anyway, here are the sneak peek poems I promised. I hope you enjoy them. The first poem, from The Rumpus, is pretty serious, and the last poem from Allium ends this blog note on a hopeful note.