When Wishes Come True, Holiday Celebrations with Friends, and Looking to 2020

Kelli Russell Agodon and I

Holiday Celebrations with Poet Friends

The holidays are here, and we have started celebrating early. My poet friend Kelli and her husband Rose came over for an early Christmas celebration, and we got a chance to catch up. I think writer friendships are very important so even though we live about two hours apart (give or take a ferry,) and my health sometimes throws a wrench in our plans, we try to see each other to catch up a couple of times a year.

My brother and his wife are coming over this Sunday for an early Christmas as well. So we’ll be really tired of the holiday once the real day rolls around. Just kidding! I mean, seriously, I could do a party every day in December. Which is good, because there’s another party around the corner! This is the reason I have so many sparkly things in my closet – you never know when you’re going to need to throw on a fancy dress and look presentable in public during the holiday season.

Glenn, me, Kelli, and Rose

Magic in Gathering

There’s a little bit of magic in gathering with friends, isn’t there? It isn’t just the wine and cupcakes and sparkles (though those don’t hurt,) it’s the sharing of dreams and disappointments, hopes and doubts.

Kelli brought me a lovely ornament – a white fox in a white forest, in a little light-up snow globe. Foxes have been my favorite animal since I was very little, because, I think, they also have a little magic to them. I had a fox kit come up to me when I was a very young kid, in a field, and make extended eye contact, close enough to touch the tip of its nose. I’ve had other fox encounters since then, and they always seem to presage something good.

Even better than the ornament, Kelli took the time to look over my newest manuscript and make thoughtful suggestions. That is a real gift!

Glenn and I at the Fireside Lounge, Willows Lodge, Celebrating

Celebrating Wishes Come True

So, in last week’s post I was talking about wishing. And interestingly, some of the wishes had to do with poetry. Even more interestingly, though I am still shopping around my two poetry manuscripts to various publishers, I had really good news from two separate “dream” journals taking my work. The first, which I can share because I have signed the contract, was an e-mail from one of my poetry heroes, Tracy K. Smith, who took a poem of mine for an upcoming issue of Ploughshares. I have been submitting to Ploughshares, my records say, since 2003. Pretty exciting!

And then the second, is almost shockingly good, a place that is my top “dream” journal that published the likes of Sylvia Plath and T.S. Eliot, that I am deliriously happy about, took two poems. This is a journal I have been submitting to since the age of 19 – that is, 26 years! (I will share the name as soon as I am able.) Glenn and I went out that night to celebrate, because taking the time to celebrate wishes come true seems important. I want to feel grateful right now.

One thing I was noticing in the history of Hans Christian Anderson I was reading and in Sylvia Plath’s letters, is in all their ambition and well-placed confidence in their talents, they almost never felt satisfied with any individual prize, or publication. Nothing was ever good enough. Driven, ambitious people tend to be more successful, but also, perhaps, more unhappy. I wanted to be sure to try to feel the happiness in the moment, to put off the worries or discouragements that almost always follow good news for at least a little bit. And besides the holidays, the solstice is coming, which brings its own energy, and deserves to be noted and celebrated.

And speaking of good magic…Another thing I like to do this time of year is give things away. Giving to charity, giving to friends, even writing cards to loved ones all these things increase, I don’t know, what I think of as good magic energy. This time of year can be tough for so many for different reasons, so anything we can do to cheer up our fellow human beings, even if it’s just looking someone in the eye when they’re talking to you or asking someone when we’re checking out at the coffee shop how they’re doing, it’s probably a good idea. It can be easy to focus on yourself and your problems, and for me, it’s definitely something I struggle with – how to keep myself looking outward as well as inward.

Wishing you all a great 2020! Cheers!

Looking to 2020

So what are you looking forward to next year? It can be so easy to see the bleak, bad news, the disasters and the flaws in the foundations. When I think of the next year, I know there will be things I cannot control, hard things, but that I can also set an intention towards positive things.

For me, I want to spend more time in the coming year on things that build peace, like photographing nature, and writing, and hopefully less time in doctors and dentists offices. I hope to continue to improve my health as much as I can, to find wonderful homes for my two books, for my husband and family to remain healthy. I can’t believe we’re entering a new decade.

I was born in 1973, right before the impeachment proceedings of President Nixon. There was a lot of anxiety the year of my birth, about how America would be going forward, about ending the Vietnam war, about oil prices and alternative energy sources, about scary environmental challenges like acid rain or nuclear pollution. And this next year will have so many parallels – a President again under investigation, anxiety about the environment, about how people can live together, not just in our country but all over the world,  with peace and love and tolerance.

I’m hoping 2020 is a year of more kindness, of more peace, of more people valuing empathy and trees than war and profit. Eh, I’m a poet, I’m allowed to have big, unrealistic dreams, right?  Here’s wishing us all a better 2020! May all your wishes come true and may you all see a little magic!