Reading with Kelli in Shoreline, Goldfinches, Hummingbirds, Woodpeckers, and Losing Things

Kelli Russell Agodon and me

Reading with Kelli in Shoreline, WA

I had the pleasure yesterday of being of the opening reader for Kelli in Shoreline at the new Ridgecrest Books, which kindly sold my Flare, Corona alongside Kelli’s brand-new Accidental Devotions. The bookstore folks and the larger than expected crowd (they ran out of chairs! Hadn’t seen that happen since an Open Books reading in Wallingford!) were very welcoming. And they bought books! I also saw some old friends I hadn’t seen in years, which was nice. One of them noted “You’re not in a wheelchair anymore!” which made me wonder when they had seen me last—six years maybe? Anyway, Kelli did a great job, it felt like a great night of really nice people. It almost, somehow, felt like a pre-Covid reading.

Goldfinch in fountain with flowers

Backyard Birds and Managing Loss

I was a little down physically this week treating a bad tooth and a hurt rib, but I got a great show from my goldfinches, hummingbirds, and woodpeckers. And, I sent out my book manuscript to a few new places I hadn’t tried before.

Even in the middle of family drama and my body being a little broken-down, I try to be aware of the little beauties around me, the cherry tree that rustles with little squirrels throwing cherries and chittering at me, the woodpecker and goldfinch that are no longer afraid to land next to me outside.

We had some family stuff that happened that reminded me that life is not steady, that change is the only constant, and sometimes, those changes are not the changes we’d choose. Parents getting older, our worrying about them, and my own body, struggling with what can be several debilitating problems at once, realizing we don’t have forever, and neither do those we love. It can push us into depression or push us to try to make the best of every day we have. It’s also realizing that although right now is hard, we’re not having as bad a time as we had in the past—reading from Flare, Corona always reminds me that I had some of the worst news and the worst health of my life when I wrote that book, and I survived a terminal cancer diagnosis and an MS diagnosis and severe flare almost a decade ago now. We lose things in life—our memories, our ability to run or walk, our balance, money, security, loved ones—and we have a choice, to continue on or to stay in mourning or lament our inability to trust and secure our lives exactly the way we want them to be. Sure, the world can feel like it’s in constant apocalypse right now. But we have a choice in what we do every day with that. What do you do with your last day on earth? Why, write another poem, of course.