September’s Here! A Respite, a Poet Party, and the Beginning of a New Season

September is here!

And with it, it seems, clearer skies, cooler temperatures, and an irresistible back-to-school vibe.

Yesterday was the first day in a long time (a month?) that I felt good enough to actually go and explore my beautiful neighborhood a bit. (My goal is to get downtown to some of the Seattle attractions I was too sick to visit for most of the summer.) We saw hot air balloons, two fields of sunflowers, went to the Chateau Ste Michelle winery and walked around their lake and had an encounter with a ton of ducks and about six deer. It was just sunny enough and about 70 degrees, and it felt so good to stretch my legs and get out of the house – it made an amazing difference in my mood.

Respite

There’s something so hopeful about September, isn’t there? Even though here in the Northwest it means the beginning of the rainy season is just ahead, the turning of leaves, the abundance of squash and apples at the farmer’s markets, and for me, a freedom from the heat and a nostalgia for the productivity of a new school season, even though I’m not teaching right now. For poets, it’s also submission season! I admit, when I wrote my last post, I was feeling a little more discouraged than usual, especially thinking about sending out my sixth book manuscript – hey, it happens to the best of us from time to time – and took a few days off from thinking about submitting, wrote a couple of poems. I was surprised by the outpouring of interest in the post and the dialogue it engendered. I’m afraid I didn’t totally solve the problem of ageism in poetry single-handed, though, talking a little about it might lead to positive changes, right? At least I hope so.

Purple!

Poet Party Today

If you’re on Twitter, today at 6 PM PST I’ll be hosting be the September submission #Poetparty, so bring your journal announcements and submission questions with you. I took a little hiatus over the summer, but as people get back into the regular routines, so will #poetparty.

This month I’ll be judging a poetry contest and editing a friend’s manuscript, as well as sending out my own stuff. I’m hoping my brain will be better in the cooler weather.

A New Hope

Yes, it’s a Star Wars joke. But beginning a new season does bring about a feeling of hope, doesn’t it? One of the moments that yesterday brought about a change in mood, I admit, was standing at the edge of the lake, the sun shining and the waxwings and goldfinches darting around, I thought about myself not as a sick person, or a science experiment, or about the pain I was experiencing, for ten minutes. Ten minutes. I’ve been having a minimum of three doctor appointments a week, complete with the rigamarole of testing, for the last month, and next week, sadly, will be no different. I hate feeling like a pincushion or a problem for others to solve. I’ve literally developed a permanent scar from having so many blood draws in my arm. Reading about MS research made me more depressed – failures of new treatments, complications with another. I’m anxious because my neurologist is encouraging me to start a new MS drug – and none of them are very good, and none of them are without serious side effects. I’ve been having anxiety dreams about working at AT&T and IBM again, feeling productive again – I miss feeling productive. Poetry, sadly, doesn’t pay the bills or give you much of a feeling of accomplishment (See my last post.)

Double balloon morning

Deer visitors

Being a “professional patient” robs me, sometimes, of my feelings of humanity, of being more than a broken, poorly functioning machine. But for those ten minutes I was feeling the world, not myself, if that makes sense. I didn’t worry about the news, or what I was getting done. There is something healing about taking a time out for nature, an unscheduled break, an extra day of weekend without worrying about chores or responsibility. There is something renewing about the transition of seasons. My husband jokes that I start celebrating spring and fall a month before they actually arrive, and Seattle doesn’t have the dramatic seasons of the northeast. But Seattle in September is this: cooler, still blue-skied days, perfect nights where you can see the stars, and sunflowers in the garden. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate that?