Two Week Post: a Bunch of Small Disasters, June-uary in Seattle, Hoping for Inspiration, Poem in The Shore, Plus Roses, Typewriters, and Cats

me with summer hair and pink and yellow peonies

A Two-Week Post: Bunch of Small Disasters, June-uary in Seattle

Sorry to miss you last week! Our home has been a source of small disasters and I had a lot of mostly bad on my plate: Glenn’s parents in the hospital last week after a dual fall, I broke a tooth and had to wait a week to get it repaired (oh, and did I mention, it ended up being four broken teeth? My jaw doesn’t know its own strength), I’ve been sick with a never-ending upper respiratory infection and got some troubling news from the immunologist after a ton of blood work, and the weather has truly been more like February than June, with temps in the fifties, thunderstorms, rain.

On top of this, my Apple watch—a gift from my husband that’s truly a safety measure (it does alert Glenn if I fall, for instance—and Glenn was actually contacted about his father’s fall this last week too)—dropped dead, as did my replacement computer (purchased just six months ago) to replace my randomly-restarting old computer, just before I have to do a recorded tutorial and leave town, because of course all the tech drops dead when you’re sick, stressed, and need it desperately.

When you feel like the chickadee, not the goldfinch

Besides this, I’ve been feeling disappointed and disillusioned with PoetryWorld in general. I haven’t been writing or submitting much. It feels like a stacked deck that after 30 years I’ve never truly cracked. My last book, Flare, Corona, which I had high hopes for (and hired a publicist for), just didn’t get much in the way of attention, reviews, prizes – and this after 25 years of doing poetry book reviews for others, which makes me feel a little…bitter? (Lesley Wheeler, who certainly deserves acclaim for her fiction, non-fiction and poetry, all of which she writes terrifically, says something similar, with less bitterness and more grace, on her blog this week.)  There have been scandals in the lit mag world, closings of MFA programs and journals, and people on social media lamenting this way and that, plus rage and accusation at different literary organizations for various sins that I don’t even know much about. It seems like a toxic stew out there of anger, grief, disappointment. And that’s just the poetry world—I’ve turned off the news in the last two weeks—I’m usually a Seattle Times, BBC news regular—as my stress level can’t handle more bad news, though I’m sure it’s out there.

I need to figure out my inspiration again, why I write what I do, the things that bring me joy about it. Right now, I can’t really remember, or worse, feel stupid for once loving it. I should have known it was a closed system 25 years ago. Or that’s what my bitter cynical side tells me. I try to ignore that voice.

A Poem in The Shore

But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up completely! I’m still publishing and working on my next book. Here’s proof—a Cassandra poem from a series I’m working on for the next book that was recently published at The Shore. 

Here’s a snippet graphic, plus a link to read the whole poem at The Shore:

Jeannine Hall Gailey “Cassandra Explains the Secrets of Survival, Plague Edition” — THE SHORE (theshorepoetry.org)

Roses, Typewriters, and Cats

I’ve been trying to get out whenever we get a sunbreak, because the flowers are still blooming like its June, even if it doesn’t really feel like it.

So here are some roses from around Woodinville:

And though it was raining, there was a flower and art cart outside of my hair place in Kirkland, which seemed like magic and Paris and all things cool and charming, and I got some gorgeous (and wonderful smelling) pink and yellow peonies, which made me feel like taking some pictures of typewriter and peonies, and my cats Sylvia and Charlotte decided to get into the game too. Well, they are named after literary characters, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised! Now these ladies are true stars! I hope this cheers you up as much as it does me.

The next time I post I will have been away at a writer’s retreat, hopefully feeling better health-wise and writing-inspiration-wise.

Oh, and the weird health news—I already knew I had a primary immune deficiency I was born with, but on top of that, they found a proliferation of B cells and lymphocytes, the B cells weren’t acting normally, and some of the news could indicate a kind of cancer. But the immunologist is leaning towards this diagnosis, which is very similar to what the singer Halsey was just diagnosed with, but with B cells instead of T cells. (But I have MS and not lupus on top of it.) I’m not totally out of the woods in terms of scariness, and it’s always stressful to find out new and exciting things are wrong with you (and lead to, for instance, not being able to fight off infections very well). But then again, new information can help you find new ways to treat your problems? I hope?

Here’s hoping that a little time away in the wilderness—where power and internet are not a given—will give me some much-needed perspective and a chance to spark new ideas and a new mindset. I truly am an optimistic person, so maybe this trip will reset me. Like my darn computer. (I wish I had a warrantee—I wish to speak to the manufacturer, please?)