Sharing a Little Good News, The First Reading of 2020, and Learning to Balance with MS

First Rainbow of New Year

Some Good News, Finally, in 2020

Hello my friends! After a very rough beginning to the new year, the metaphoric rainbow has appeared (and also the first real rainbow!)

This week I can finally share with you a little good poetry news, and I had a wonderful time catching up with poetry friends and has my first reading of 2020 – in fact, the first reading I’ve done since last year’s AWP in Portland.

Poetry Magazine

Two Poems in an Upcoming Issue of Poetry Magazine

Remember that good news I vaguely referred to last month? This is really exciting to me, because I remember sending out my first poetry submissions at nineteen, and Poetry Magazine was one of them. I even think the editor sent back a sweet encouraging rejection note. Now, at 46, my first acceptance – and two poems! I am over the moon. And my mother-in-law bought me a new subscription to Poetry Magazine. Isn’t that sweet?

On the way to the Feminist Speculative Reading at Open Books, goofing with Glenn with the camera

Speculative Feminist Poets at Open Books

January, usually a dismal month here (we have a week of snow coming up in the forecast, odd for us) was also the Seattle’s MLA Conference, and so I got the chance to visit with long-time friend (but seldom seen, as she lives in Virginia) Lesley Wheeler. We hung out and caught up at the Bookstore Bar at the Alexis (after being turned away from the Sorrento’s Fireplace Room because of “silent reading night.” That’s fine! We’ve got multiple great meeting places for writers in this time. But I will hold a grudge!) Then tonight we got together with another local speculative poet, Jessica Rae Bergamino, to do a Feminist Speculative Poetry night at the lovely local bookstore Open Books. (I came home with three books on top of Jessica’s terrific Unmanned – and I’m really looking forward to Lesley’s new book due out in two months.) I was worried people would stay away because of the unwelcoming weather, but we had a great crowd, not only a good sized crowd but a warm and appreciative crowd, and listening to Lesley and Jessica read was a real pleasure. There were poems about space, robots, foxes, Nancy Drew, apoclaypses, Princess Leia, David Bowie…let’s just say this was not your grandmother’s poetry night.

Learning to Balance with MS

One thing the beginning of 2020 is bringing home to me that I need to learn to balance my life with my MS. When my dad was in the hospital and my grandfather passed away, I hated that I couldn’t just jump on a plane to be with my mom in Missouri or my dad in Ohio. Unfortunately, with MS (and I had the flu and was awaiting an emergency root canal), I’m just not able to do the kind of spontaneous last minute travel – or the caretaking – that I used to be able to do. I would have to book an accessible flight, accessible rooms at hotels, which is not always easy at the last minute. And I’ve learned if I push myself when I’m sick, MS will raise it’s ugly head in unexpected ways, and I can end up in the hospital. So I don’t want to live an overly limited life but I also have to learn where my limits are.

It’s the same with readings – I don’t do as many as I used to because asking my brain to stand, read, and breathe at the same time is asking a lot. Within a few minutes, I start to shake, my breath is hard to catch, and every word sounds a little wobbly. That didn’t used to be the case. I still love to do readings, but I have to limit them to when I have the physical energy to do them, and I have to take a down day before and after just to be able to do that. It kind of sucks. I still love seeing other people read, and enjoy sharing my work, but I just don’t have confidence the way I used to. On the other hand, visiting with friends one on one, even in a crowded area, is still fine, as long as I put my whole focus on my friend and not the surroundings. So, yay to the things I can still do pretty well!

So I’ve lost the ability to travel easily, or appear effortless at readings. I have to plan things in advance, and literally put “rest” on the schedule. It’s an adjustment, still, even two years after my diagnosis. I still walk with a cane, and wobble if I try to walk across the room without it. Lack of balance is a well-known MS symptom and it’s also a metaphorical problem – how do you balance a “normal” life with MS? I had a friend at the reading who told me it was helpful to read my writing about these things, because it’s hard to understand MS and it hits everyone differently. So I hope this has been helpful! I hope the rest of 2020 is kinder to us all.