Still Here

 2025 came and went and I never wrote a single blog entry. Fascinating. And yet, I did write. Poetry, journal entries, more reviews. I just didn't feel compelled to make public any details from my life as I have in the past. It does feel as though a public presence is not safe, these days, regardless of who you are, what you do, what you believe. I share my thoughts with my friends and family. That is enough right now. 

Long Time Gone Nowhere

I cannot believe it has been eight months since I wrote an entry in this blog. It's not an accurate representation of my writing life, however. I journal more or less daily, elsewhere, and I have written, and had published, a few reviews of books of poetry since the new year. I have even updated my "poet" blog more frequently than this site, although that's not saying much.

But I am, ironically, writing here now because I recently experienced a week of feeling like I wanted to cut myself off from all social activity (especially social media) contact, simply because my phone threw up a suggested article about a subject that D. and I had been discussing, but which I had not googled or otherwise searched for or entered in my phone or computer. My phone had "heard" our conversation - and between that, and what feels like the super-speedy development and abundance of AI applications, I was wanting to shut it all down and retreat. Everything felt too fast, too much. I entertained the idea of isolation.

And then I was asked if I would write a new review of a poetry book by someone who is very active in social media, and has a real presence (it seems) in the literary journal world. I was both attracted by the idea and daunted. He was, is, engaged. And to review his book would force me, too, to enter into an engagement that would require time and energy. Just as I was feeling I had too little of both. I had a choice: be apart from the world or be part of the conversation. I forced myself to sleep on it, and to try to ignore the flattery of being asked to write more (remembering in particular the gushing email of appreciation I received from the author of the last book I reviewed) and the impulse to please people who ask things of me by saying yes. But I knew, even as I was delaying my response to the editor, that I wanted to take on this challenge. Because I do want to connect with other writers. I do want to write. Even writing this, this morning, in between watching a 3-year old and 10-month old, and doing all the chorse on the property, has made me feel better. Writing is a balm. It's how I process. How I am, at some level, I suppose. And even though I could easily spiral about where AI is going - having read so many science fiction and dystopian books as a younger person - I also want to understand more about it.

There's a phenomenon in AI called "hallucinating," for example. And it's almost precisely the sort of thing that my mother-in-law is experiencing as a human being with dementia. The parallel intrigues me. And writing, although apart from nature, and using technology, is another way I can explore my connections to the natural world. To think them through. And so I said "yes" to the review, and am back here, and am looking ahead to preparing my poetry manuscript while writing a new review of a complex book and reading a book a day for the Sealey challenge. And caring for the grandsons. And caring for the mother-in-law. And the property. And working full time. A full life. A rich life. 

Mindful Scribbling

Elizabeth Herron, Sonoma County's current Poet Laureate, said this in a recent interview: "Some of us writers, we’re led first to writing to find something in ourselves we wouldn’t find any other way.”

This is what I've been feeling, lately, when I wonder why I do it. There are other ways one could spend one's time. Part of my drive is a love of language, and words. Sounds and meanings and everything they evoke in the body and brain. And another key reason I write is my desire to live the examined life, my search for understanding what I can of the world and my place in it. Not just looking at the surface of things - not just self-reflection, but a dive into what lies underneath and beyond. Beyond myself, beyond preoccupation with past and future. Writing puts me in the moment of writing, even if the subject matter and my imagination are far from the moment. The physical act of typing words on a screen is a very present-inhabited act.

Sitting

Today marks the 119th anniversary of my maternal grandmother's birth. I just finished my first guided meditation with the poet David Keplinger. What an amazing gift. Israel is preparing to invade Gaza, and there is so much pain and suffering in this world, but also so much beauty and love. The poem that Keplinger read and discussed was Milton’s Sonnet 19 “When I consider how my light is spent…” and David talked about a friend of his in her 90s who said to him of the troubles in the world something like, “At my age, what is one to do but know?” What can I do but know, and in some cases, just be. Just wait, as Milton suggests. I am self-propelled to act, always. Busy and productive. But the year is coming to a darker, colder time, when it is appropriate to be still. I will learn to pause my body, to allow my thoughts, to have a different relationship to my feelings. I am hobbled by an underlying shame and guilt that does not serve me. I suppose it could easily stem from a childhood where one parent encouraged choices that the other would have considered “wrong” or which society, and myself by extension, would have judged as shameful. November is coming, and with it Nanowrimo. Is there anything that warrants 50,000 words of writing in terms of my time and energy? A novel? A memoir? The sky is lightening and there is one bright star or planet (is it Jupiter? I must check - see? the push to act, always) high in the sky, and very big and bright, even as the silhouette of the trees that remain surfaces against the gray horizon. I believe I shall rise before 6 every morning and meditate. It will change my life. Let my efforts be in sitting, in being and experiencing a deeper understanding and compassion for myself and the world, rather than in doing. Always doing.

The Writer's Life

There's are parts of the myth about the writer's life that I can't shake - that I still, at some level, believe.

The writer spends days alone. Pounding on a keyboard. Staring out the window. Taking long walks. Staring out the window, into space, some more. Maybe a run. More stillness. Extracting stories from her grey matter for the purpose of - what? connecting with others? nothing more than the art of creation? I suppose it depends on the writer.

The parts of the myth that I don't buy into are the sleepless nights, the drinking or drugs, the smoking cigarettes and scraping by in a garret. That might work for some, but it's not my gig. I'm too vain about my health and appearance, too proud to be unable to pay my bills. 

The parts that I know are real but don't dwell on are the hustle, the push to write-to-deadline, to hone, to hawk, to market and publicize and travel and read and answer inane or inappropriate questions. Rinse, repeat. This is if one considers "success" to be a matter of money and/or recognition. Or if one considers "success" important to begin with. 

All I know is that I love language and words and that I think best and feel quite happily alive when stringing sentences together on screen or (sometimes) page. I don't think I'm speaking to anyone but myself, so perhaps this is narcissistic? Or an echo chamber? (Echo. Echo.) Except, writing pushes me to read and learn more. It expands my world rather than contracting it. In that way, the more I do, and the longer I do it, the more I might expect growth, even if it's slow and sometimes hard to detect.

The Sealey Challenge. Again.

As I did in August of 2020, I am taking on the Sealey Challenge this year: reading 31 books of poetry (chapbooks are acceptable) in 31 days.  

Back then, when I was younger and perhaps more insane, I also vowed to blog daily, tweet daily, and submit poetry daily in the month. I am older and busier and perhaps a bit lazier, and I don't know that I'll manage the submitting daily. I think I shall try, however. 

Still Here

  And, sometimes: Still. Here.

Have I ever gone an entire year without a blog post, before this, since starting? I would have to check, but regardless, I am still here, and have been - although the "here" has changed. In November, we left our cul-de-sac home of twenty-nine years for the long-longed-for home in the country. 

We're now on nearly three acres with a large shop for D. and an incredible view, and lots of room for me to garden. I received three swarms this spring, and have a lovely little apiary. We also purchased nine chickens of various varieties six weeks ago, and they are in that awkward stage of not looking like chicks or, really, like chickens. They've been living in a box in our sunroom and will move to a coop in a stable stall this coming weekend. 

The grand-toddler comes to stay at least one night per weekend, and there is a little brother on the way. We have aspirations of turning the 4-car garage into a home for the kids and their kids, but it will take a lot of work and time and money, the latter of which are a little scarce.

I changed jobs in August - a longer commute, but more pay. And in the end, far too much stress and anxiety for me personally than any amount of money would be worth. I reached a level of burnout and angst that I hadn't seen in many years, and self-demoted to a much less challenging job within the system - closer to home. In the interim I took a couple of weeks of sick leave and spent a month filling a role in yet another department that was delightful - very task-oriented, very detail oriented. I love productivity, even if it's a daily list of the same chores with different moving parts. (Sending books to libraries all over California, processing books coming to our patrons from all over California, and processing the returns.)

I just like physical work and working with books and helping people, and this new job has all those components. So between the house and the job and D. finishing his big 2-year-long projects and the kids doing well, I'm sitting here full enough of gratitude and "spoons" that I can write something in this blog, and in my poetry blog soon, too - especially since I'll be a featured reader in a month from now at the cafe, and will have to present a lot of material to a live audience. 

Here's the view from the stables half-way down the property, up to the house and the road beyond it, and the pines beyond that. The pump house and shop are the buildings in the fore-ground. The garage is to the right, and the little house is to the left. 

Cross-reference and re-direct

I am thinking I shall stick to blogging daily in my poetry blog, and keep this one for less frequent, and more general, scribbles. So invisible and non-existent reader, SEE: thepracticalpoet.blogspot.com for diurnal fare.

Thank you ever so much.

How to How to

 Today's poetry prompt was to write poem that is a "how to" about writing a poem. I had fun with it, using the metaphor of painting a room (stanza). 

Pushing past the little "I can't" voice is becoming a daily habit. Self-doubt and mini bouts of despair aren't lessening. And while having a deadline - such as tonight's zoom poetry critique group - sometimes helps, there are also times when it makes it worse. But overcoming that insecurity and those niggling shame-laden intrusive thoughts is not lessening, either. 

What really makes a difference? Coffee. (Or, what I like to call "the drug of optimism.") I have given up a lot of things in my diet. But coffee has, so far, been more helpful than hurtful. Coffee can stay.

How it Works

A patron wants to read an art magazine that we no longer carry, so I suggest we check our Overdrive/Libby digital magazine options - hundreds of titles - and I search by subject in their magazine catalog, but there is only 1 entry listed as having a subject "Art." So I click on it, and it's Y Wawr. Which is Welsh. Weird, right? Not if you're me. 

And already...

I see that it will behoove me to write in the morning, or at least in the evening before I have "shut down" for the day. Or I shall have to overcome this idea that I shut down at dark. Because the push to blog daily, when I am feeling heavy and dumb, takes the joy out of the act of composition.

I say that, and yet, even writing this, I am happy. And the days are longer. So many blessings. 

Speaking of which, I'm off to write in the other blog about language and the friends who show they understand you because they understand your love of it... 

Hello, April

 [This post can also be found in my poetry blog.]

This month may bring its cruelties, but I have plans. Not so much to overcome adversity, but to offset the darkness in the world with whatever tiny flicker of light I can bring to my spot on the globe. Even that sounds so chock full of hubris, I should be ashamed to write it.

I am pathologically optimistic - it's a coping mechanism that rides shot-gun to residual cynicism - and so I have these intentions: I intend to write a poem a day - or a draft of one, or a start. Even a few lines. Even a haiku. I hope to submit poetry to journals, at least once a week - which is a step back from the daily practice in previous Aprils. And I expect myself to blog, daily. While I'm at it, I'm eschewing processed food and meat and most dairy. Because why not set the bar so high I'll get a crick in my neck trying to see it? 

None of these things will make the world a better place. But they won't, I don't think, make it any worse. And there is something to be said for being present and having purpose, and it will take focus and reprioritization to accomplish these goals. What I'll have to drop are habits that fritter away my time and abuse my body. So there's that. Thanks for the read. 

A Blog Post Stolen from The Practical Poet

I see that in late October, I started a post in which I asked myself whether I would participate in Nanowrimo in 2021. I didn't publish the post, but I did write 50,000 words towards a memoir in November. 

And now, I've updated my poetry-related blog with a few tidbits of news and thought it would be a good idea to post that information here as well, just to keep this site a bit more current. 

I'm very excited to say that last month, I heard from Stephen Reichert of Smartish Pace that they'll be publishing a couple of my poems in their next issue. I'm so grateful to have these particular pieces in print, as they're especially meaningful for me and I'd wanted them to have a home. 

The news arrived on the afternoon of a day when I had spent an hour or so before work writing. I don't usually fit that much time in before 8am, but when I do, it seems that I am very often rewarded with some kind of gesture from the universe. A message (or at least, I'll take it that way) to carry on with this work that brings me so much happiness. 

Lately, I've been listening to Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald, and enjoying it even more than H is for Hawk. I love this book. It inspires me to want, almost desperately at moments, to be a writer of personal essays or of what I believe might be called creative non-fiction these days. A memoir that is in prose but with all the beauty and insight of the best poetry. 

I also just finished Travels in an Old Tongue, Pamela Petro's book about traveling the world as an American Welsh-learner, trying to speak only Welsh (or as much Welsh as possible) in every continent she visited. Everything she said about Wales and the Welsh language, culture, and people - wherever they were in the world - resonated with me profoundly. I've spent forty years keenly interested, if not obsessed, with Wales and Welsh, so to read her felt like meeting a kindred spirit. I just ordered and received her latest book, The Long Field, and I am looking forward to digging in to it as soon as I've finished the latest titles for our library's February book discussions.

Where I've Been

This month marks my second annual Sealey Challenge, which means that I have been blogging daily, but I've been doing so at thepracticalpoet.blogspot.com.

It's Friday. My plans for the day include yardwork, dog walking, yoga/HIIT training, a quick Costco trip, WRITING AND SUBMITTING POETRY, organizing/discarding paperwork, taking items to storage, picking up S. from work & taking her to Michael's to look for a shadow box for tarantula molts (as one does), and gathering with friends to toast a colleague who is moving to another branch. Two notes on all this: one, discarding paperwork is probably the most permanent way to organize it; and two, I had to shout at myself about writing and submitting poems because honestly, I don't seem to be listening to my better self otherwise. 

Reading Spencer Reece's The Clerk's Tale has inspired me, as reading any good poets does, to strive for something approaching that skill and applied talent. 

Finish Line, of Sorts

We've reached the end of April! And while I am still sitting in an office surrounded by stacks of books, paperwork and boxes, it no longer contains the xerox-paper box that once held my high School and College binders and pages of essays and notes and the "blue books" which were standard fare for tests in the 80s at Dominican (when it was a College, before it became a University). So it feels like a hair of progress.

I spent the morning at Coffee Katz with my friend E. drinking coffee and discussing our kids and the universe (multiverse, actually) and all sorts of things. If we saw each other more frequently, it wouldn't take three hours to catch up.

After a few errands, I made it home, did a work out, then left again for an hour-long walk with another friend. Our dogs love to hang-out together, and I only brought home (as far as I can tell) one tick on my person. I was so pleased to see how well Tango kept up. For a 12-year-old large-breed dog with bone cancer, he's doing very well indeed. 

Once I'd made dinner, I was ready for bed. But one more push: one more submission, and two more blog posts, and then I shall probably watch a little something, and then I shall sleep! 

Digging Out

Tomorrow, I pick up my shovel and find my way out of the piles of paperwork and books and half-finished tasks in my office. The more clutter I can remove, I believe, the clearer I shall think.

A house across the street and down the block is on the market, and I wish we could have ours ready to roll as well; it would be good to ride on the tailcoats of that sale. That house has just been gutted and revamped in a very standard style, fit to sell. Ours is nothing but character: wooden garage door, flowers everywhere in the front yard. I know which one I'd rather buy. Actually, I also know which one I want to sell. 

What I don't yet know is where our next home will be. This is me, trying to remember to trust in the process and know the timing will be right when it's right. 

Still: decluttering is on the books, after coffee with one friend and before a dog-walk with another.

Duty First, Pleasure Later

Each day this month I've spent at least two hours working on my poetry, almost all after having worked a full day. 

Every time, I tell myself that I can watch a movie or read a book as soon as I finish writing, editing and submitting poems, or posting blog entries, or both. But I am always so tired by the time I do those things, I have no time or energy left for relaxing. This sounds whiny, I know. And it's not as though writing is hard physical labor. But the sustained attention is something. I am looking forward to giving myself a little break and changing gears in May. 

End of Month in Sight

And the question arises: will I continue to post on an even slightly regular basis here? I expect so, and not only because it has become a habit. There will be news to report and thoughts on craft will arise.

I am currently listening to the fabulous Linda Gregerson read her poem, "When Nothing But Tree." She seems to be an excellent reader in addition to being a skilled poet.  

I've been told that I read my poems "dismissively," and don't treat them (via tone) as seriously as they deserve. Perhaps this is more true during a critique session with peers than it is at a reading or open mic, where I like to think I present more gravitas. But I am probably kidding myself about this. I shall try to remember Gregerson as a model, if the content warrants it. 

Reopening

Today we reopened the library branches in the county (aka my place of employment) for an "Express Service" - 2 one-hour slots during the day - 1 on Sunday - during which we can allow up to 47 members of the public to walk through our doors again.

It was a blissfully underwhelming roll-out, especially coming as it did of months of extreme angst on the part of some of my colleagues. Only a few people, all of whom were well-behaved. It will no doubt become busier and more challenging and we'll encounter difficult moments. But today at least, it was chill. One woman who brought in her five excited children actually cried, she was so grateful to be back in the library. The cockles of my heart are warmed. My hands are freezing cold, and I'm about to hunker down by the woodstove. By the my heart cockles are warm.

Liberal Arts Winnowing

On a slightly less poetic and more personal note, I wanted to say that this week, I am tossing all the work I did from four years of undergrad study. 

Well...this is a slight exaggeration, of course. I am only recycling about a dozen bulging binders and notebooks and thousands of pages of inked cursive notes, glancing through them as I go. It's the bulk of my undergrad work (Major: English Literature with a Writing Emphasis. Minor: Philosophy), but it's not the whole of it. The poems I wrote and the speculative fiction novella that was my thesis, for example, I still have printed out in a filing cabinet and in digital format (WordStart converted to text and then Word, I believe); and there are a few other things scattered here and there.

Years ago, I had thought that if I ever forgot all that I learned at college, I could re-read my notes and remind myself. Re-learn if necessary. But these notes were taken before the web existed as we know it. I'm getting rid of things like photocopied chapters from books and even some mimeograph pages, all full of information I could find again now either online or through the library. 

But more importantly, I believe that I also have been keeping these things as a sort of ego prop. Look what I did! Look at all those notes, and how neat my penmanship was, and how well I did on essays and tests! Really, it's as though I had these papers as a backup plan in case I needed to prove something to myself and to others. Even now, throwing them away, I called my younger daughter into the room witness all that effort going into recycle. Just so someone can see that I had a thorough liberal arts education, and that I was present for it. That I worked hard.

But now, I don't need those papers. I just don't. What I studied, whether I retained any of it or not (consciously or subconsciously), was a foundation for what I know now and helped shape who I am. I don't need paper work for that to be true. And if I need to know something about any of the many things I studied, I will find the answer online. Unless technology completely failed us, I would never have been finding answers by going through my old notes anyway. (Although I will say that if technology did fail us, there would be worse places to turn to than the works of Homer, Chaucer, Dante, and Shakespeare.) 

I may save a few things that seem, still, more important than all the others. But I'll be going from a heavy bankers box of binders to a folder or two. How much lighter I'll be! And how much less to move when the time comes.