Shelter-in-Place, Day 153

Tonight was the first night of the Democratic National Convention. I missed it, as I have missed all such events on media or television. I hope it went well. I hope that November brings some positive changes.

Instead of following tonight's events, I worked on poetry. Edited poems. Sent out poems. Read As One Fire Consumes Another by John Sibley Williams. Astonishing work. All of the poets I have been reading seem to be giving me the same message: see this? this is poetry. up your game.  

Shelter-in-Place, Day 152

There was such a massive lightning storm this morning, starting around 4:30, we got up and went out to the shed to try to prop up covering from inside in case the roof, with it's thinning tarp, started to leak. I stayed awake for over an hour after that, watching the show.  

(photo not my own, but from public domain...)

It is supposed to pick up again tomorrow morning, after having been dry and muggy all day. It felt like Hawaii. D. put another tarp over the shed roof, so we won't have that worry. But the wind and lightning cause anxiety about fires. Quelle année!

Shelter-in-Place, Day 151

 Swelteringly hot again today, and there is more talk of rolling blackouts in California. Residents are asked to conserve energy. I worry about our usage and am making sure we keep lights turned off when not needed, etc. We don't have air conditioning; just two gamers (on the TV screen & a computer), and me with my blog posts for an audience of one and tweets that fall into the abyss of social media. 

Although, having said that, a tweet about reading Leila Chatti's book from Copper Canyon Press has now had 1,680 views and a couple of shares. Which is a little odd, and a little exciting, and really, in the world of social media, means nothing. (Okay, admittedly, part of me thinks social media in general means nothing. No offense to those 1,680 people.)

Tomorrow I will have a one-day weekend before a change in schedule puts me back at work. I am not sure how I'll squeeze two days of weekend into one, but I'm sure whatever outdoor work I might do will have to happen before 10am. More time indoors to read and write and perhaps watch a movie and clean out paperwork. I know what you're thinking, gentle reader: what an exhilarating life she leads!

Shelter-in-Place, Day 150

I'm having a very difficult time staying awake enough to post anything, and in fact, fell asleep a few poems shy of finishing today's Sealey Challenge book. But I woke again long enough to check all those little items off the list. Tweet. Post. Earlier I submitted poems.

It was over 102 degrees today and is still in the 70s at nearly 11pm. Rolling blackouts from PG&E in Rohnert Park, power outages in Santa Rosa, apparently.

D. says we've become a 3rd world country: blackouts, police brutality, corrupt government. 

I think yes and no. Yes, it's worse. But then I remember Deaf Republic, and think maybe this is a 1st-world kind of 3rd-world-ness. My most immediate problem at the moment is the army of rats that roam our backyard in the dark and eat the tomatoes just as they're turning. Tonight I enclosed the plants in wire mesh (hardware cloth) as though they're living reliquaries. Get through that, rodents.  

Shelter-in-Place, Day 149

I understand there is a need for Unions, and I truly appreciate everything that our Union provides for library employees. SEIU is an important organization, and our reps are really great people.

But I do not know whether I can stomach many more zoom union meetings. There are a few especially vocal members who are so very aggrieved and indignant and disgruntled. About almost everything. Almost all of the time. Sort of as a way-of-existing in this world. Please, God, keep me from being so sour and toxic. Except: how sour and toxic of me to write this/! Argh! Struck down again by my own hypocrisy!

Shelter-in-Place Day 148

Every day, I wonder how I'll fit it all in. And every day I do it. Perhaps it's because I forego binging on Netflix or PBS videos. But I don't need that kind of thing, with a steady diet of great poetry to devour instead. I feel as though my ability to read poems is improving with every new collection, so it's easier. Not quicker, and not more superficial. In fact, I think I appreciate the good poems that much more.

And, as promised, here's a chipper little diverting video instead of just "Words, words, words." (Shakespeare™)

Yesterday, Mr. Darcy (he has Fitzwilliam's elegance and Bingley's simple-minded charm) decided that Tango, the Dog of Eternal Patience, was good for a moment of entertainment:

Shelter-in-Place Day 147

On the home front: N. is feeling much better after a full night's sleep and did not get tested after all, my little sister is now 52 (!), and I made it through another day of working from home while tackling The Sealey Challenge and my self-imposed ("let's-add-more-pressure!") submitting & blogging daily goal.

In local news, Sonoma County has reached 50 deaths and 3,753 cases. On a zoom call with friends today, we talked about what feels like the inevitability of contracting the virus before a vaccine is available.

Nationally, Biden has named Kamela Harris as his running-mate.
Over 5 million cases, more than 164,000 deaths.

Internationally, Beirut may not recover for years from last week's horrible explosion, and the Russians have some kind of rushed vaccine that other nations distrust because of the rapidity of rollout.

I feel like I'm channeling a washed-down, nearly-bed-time version of a New York Times briefing. Lite. Perhaps I'll have something wittier and more uplifting to say tomorrow. With inspirational pictures. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 146

The meeting of tonight's poetry critique group meant a later-than-lately start to submissions, reading and blogging. But I did manage to send out a few things, making a total of 85 pieces in a "pending" status. Again, many are duplicates. But it helps me sustain disbelief, because that's 85 pieces that haven't been rejected yet.

On the COVID-19 front, we've reached 20,000,000 + cases worldwide. N. texted tonight to say she has fever, chills and nausea and that she'll be tested tomorrow. No lung issues, which is good. But it's very hard not to be very worried indeed, especially when she is on the other side of the map. I'm hoping and praying it's a bug, but not that bug, and that she'll feel better soon. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 145

 It was truly a day off, today. It's fine to have a day now and then to indulge in as much as I want of reading/audiobook listening, weeding, exercising, napping and eating sweets. Not necessarily in that order. Tomorrow, I'll do more of the same (sans sugar) and work on paperwork and more poetry, as well. 

So I suppose this is another "tea with the Smiths" entry. Ah, well. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 144

 Another day where I wasn't sure how I would push through and do "all the things," and yet, I have worked my 8 hours and submitted poems, I have blogged and read a full-length collection of poetry (see The Practical Poet blog for more details). I have tweeted and I have revised poems and I have continued work on a new poem. And it's not even 9:30. 

So now I must decide whether to read more, listen to an audiobook, chill in front of some British show on Netflix or Amazon or watch one of the many DVDs I've brought home or some or all or none of the above...

Shelter-in-Place Day 143

 It is Friday, but really more like Thursday, because I work tomorrow. I look forward to gardening (read: weeding) and going through file cabinet drawers (read:weeding) on Saturday and Sunday. And I greatly look forward to the possibility of sleeping past 7:15 Sunday. 

These are inane things to write, but once again, I find myself quite tired, and having spent most of my evening researching literary journals for my poems and reading a chapbook for The Sealey Challenge, I find I have little more to say. For now. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 142

 Having reached 11pm on the evening before what will undoubtedly be a very busy day at work, I am cheating a little and copying my Practical Poet blog entry here. Day 6 of the Sealey Challenge. A 95 page collection.

 

I'd heard Morgan Parker interviewed on Commonplace, and I think because of that, I felt like I could hear her voice especially clearly in these poems. A very smart voice with a unique way of using language, but most importantly, so bold and clear and passionate. I wish I hadn't had to read this in one day for the challenge. It would be better savored, a little at a time - and I hope to do that with this book, after the challenge is over.

Shelter-in-Place Day 141

I suppose it's time for another note regarding the latest COVID-19 numbers.

Global Cases: 18,752,917

Global Deaths: 706,761

US Deaths: 158,249

California Deaths: 9,808

Sonoma County Deaths: 42

While I am well and my family is well, as are the people I know (friends, coworkers, relatives), people I know are one step removed from people with the coronavirus. And last week, my work schedule was shuffled as two different teams had to step away from work pending results - although HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) acts as a gag order for supervisors and management alike, so no one can really talk about anything and we're left to speculate and draw conclusions and piece things together from diplomatic hints.

I am back to making the absolute most of every day, as I did in April with the poetry submissions and blogging. The Sealey Challenge has helped. Today's book: Crow Mind by Tobey Hiller. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 140

I had thought I would be too tired to post. I was up until after 12:30 this morning doing what I love most - genealogical research. I have paid the price today, and the lack of sleep and hot weather had such a soporific effect on me. Still, I made it through without napping, worked from home all day, sent out poems, read more for The Sealey Challenge (Pith & Piffle by Jim Gronvold), wrote, and did my yoga workout. Now I'm going to go collapse and sleep at least eight hours. Lord willing, and the creeks don't rise. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 139

Today I was able to spend a day at home, alone, listening to Commonplace podcasts while I watered, weeded, and folded laundry.

I also opened a filing cabinet drawer and started to look at the paperwork inside, to see what I might discard.

It was a revelatory experience. 

I can see now, as though reading the biography of someone I used to hear about, or knew by reputation, somewhere in my memory, that for many years, I was a writer. That is to say, I wrote short stories and snippets and scenes and poems and drafts of novellas and novels. I attended classes and workshops and readings. I was apparently serious enough about all of this that I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages, and kept the drafts and the feedback for decades.

Seeing all that paperwork - much of it printed on still-attached perforated pages recycled from computer-generated reports in the early nineties - has given rise to such a mix of strong emotions, I am compelled to try to articulate them somewhere. And this blog seems as good as place as any. It's quicker than a journal, anyway. Quicker to type than to write something longhand. 

Here are some of the things I'm feeling:

• What happened? Where did that earnest (oh, so earnest) writer go? Because although I now have an MFA in poetry and have been writing poetry, to have created so much prose content points to an ambition that seems alien now. So I'm disappointed that I let it all drop so completely. As though I abandoned a dream that had, at one point, been primary.
• What's with my memory? It's not just the ambition I don't remember. I'd forgotten about fifty percent of the stories. A few I don't remember even after skimming them, although clearly they're my creation. Fascinating. 
• I wrote a lot of crap. I mean, it was really young, naive, clever but superficial work. Nothing with much staying power, and I can see from my current perspective - thanks to, what? age? lived experience? - that most of what I wrote was tidy but avoided emotional honesty. Or only dealt with the trappings of an emotional sincerity. Perhaps it's a little bit of Jo March pre-Professor. So I'm embarrassed for my past-self, embarrassed and maybe even a little ashamed that she thought what she was doing was good enough to submit to top publications. I was just too young.
• But I was not only young, I was stunted. I'm writing this now with as much self-love as possible, but I can see that I was not available emotionally to myself or, I believe, to other people. I was not living in the moment at all. I was high-strung, intense, even driven. Or I was almost melodramatically dreamy and reflective. Untethered, either way. Broken. It's almost as though I had an early childhood self, who was bright and happy and energetic, judging from family lore and photos and home movies. And then I was a mostly neurotic idealistic stinted and blinkered self for two or three decades. Decades. And then, what? Life, I guess. Life and some major life events, and the blessing of influence from some people, all helped work a transformation that, if continued, represents a completely different self, and perhaps my only opportunity to write anything real. Anything worth keeping. Or, even if I don't write at all, represents a self worth being. 

At any rate, those are my current thoughts on the subject. Having spent the rest of the day working on a submission, attending a poetry reading and part of the Library Commission meeting, reading Dan Bellm's Practice, doing yoga and cleaning the house - not necessarily in that order - I'm just about ready to throw in the towel. It will be tomorrow soon!

Shelter-in-Place Day 138

Day two of August. Walked the dog as usual, then met a friend at an East Bay Regional Park and walked around for a while, catching up. Then came back home and tore down most of a tool shed (of sorts) next to a larger shed (S's writing studio, at the moment). The demolition took a couple of hours, even with help from D., but now the space is less likely to be the hideout for rats that it has been for years. We also threw a lot of junk away. Yay, us!

In the evening, D. and I drove to the next town north to look at an area where a house is on the market. Just to look and keep the dream alive. I made ratatouille with garden veggies for dinner but didn't feel like eating it. I'm feeling beat, but I did manage to read my second book in The Sealey Challenge, and I did submit poems to another journal, and blog. So yay, me! 

That is all. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 137. Welcome to August

As is evident, I did not blog for a month. 

I worked in the branch and from home. I weeded, saw a few friends in a socially-distant way, wrote drafts of poems, critiqued other's poems, practiced yoga, walked the dog, cleaned the house. Rinse. Repeat.

But August 1st is a good day to start something new, and I've decided to try what's known as The Sealey Challenge, an idea first floated by the poet Nicole Sealey to read 31 books of poetry in 31 days. It's a more do-able challenge because they can be, and often are, chapbooks. 

More about the concept can be found in this Lithub article. I also plan to submit poetry again daily in August, blog daily in August, and (since I started, I'll probably continue) even tweet - heaven forfend! - the titles I read.

I am sure I have bitten off more than I can easily chew. But I shall endeavor to succeed in my goals, regardless. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 104

More than two weeks ago, my father-in-law died. I can't quite believe I haven't blogged since then, but there it is. 

It was a Saturday night, the 13th, the day which would have been my mother's 84th birthday. My father-in-law would have been 90 next month. This has colored the last couple of weeks, of course. Even though by all accounts he died peacefully, and because of dementia, we felt in some ways that we had lost him years ago, it is still very sad, and the end of an era, and we say goodbye to a remarkable man. 

Here's what I wrote in a social media post about him, just after a post about a poem I'd had published:

I need to share that Saturday night, my father-in-law passed away. The publication of a poem is swell, but really, all I can think about is the man who was like a (disciplined, French-speaking) father to me for 37 years. My heart is with his children, his family and friends, and the loving staff at the memory care facility where he'd been living. I will always be inspired by his daring escape as a teenager from communist Romania to pursue a dream of living in the United States. He worked and studied tirelessly for decades, and in some ways, he was one of the most serious people I've ever met. But he was also amazingly gregarious, and his Santa-like laughter at his own "dad" jokes will never leave my memory. Rest in peace, beau-père.

Grief can't be scheduled. It side-swipes you. It makes you tired, makes you forget to breathe normally. D's sister is making most of the arrangements (such as can be arranged right now), and the two of them have been talking about everything. Apart from driving D. to the memory care facility the night of his father's death, late at night, to meet his sister there, I have tried to stay out of the picture. My sister-in-law's hurtful accusations in a surprise email, years ago, claiming we were stealing their father's money - entirely untrue, and never apologized for - has kept me very cautious in terms of any contact with her. I can't trust her not to go suffer some other sudden delusions at some point. I'm wary. 

He'll be cremated once they process the death certificate, but they're behind by 3 weeks in the county. Then he'd wanted to have his ashes scattered off of the side of the WWII ship for which he'd volunteered, but that won't be happening any time soon. It's okay. I know from experience that cremains keep. It took my siblings and me five years to get together to scatter my own father's ashes, along with his mother's. 

These are pictures that capture the best of my F-I-L's spirit:

 

In pandemic news, Dr. Fauci spoke the other day during the first press conference of the Corona Virus White House Task Force team in moths: "...we are all in it together. And the only way we’re going to end it is by ending it together." The reported death toll from covid19 for the world just passed 504,000, and in the US, in many states, the numbers continue to rise. There are over 10 million reported cases worldwide. But in Arizona and Florida and Texas and parts of California, people gather to eat and drink and shop without masks or social distancing. It really is as though many people have just decided they're tired of staying home, of wearing masks, of considering how their actions combined with the common asymptomatic nature of the virus might affect those people around them who might be at risk.

The president continues to say stupid things and continues to fail to provide any real leadership. It's one debacle after another. I just hope things change for the better with the next election. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 85

Today makes the end of a second abbreviated work week: 3 x 8.5 hours in the library building, fielding inquiries and helping satisfy requests for curbside pickups. It's nice to feel as though I'm doing something helpful again, and although it's somehow tiring to wear a mask all day and wash one's hands that often, the most challenging aspect to this experience has been seeing among a colleague or two a much more lax attitude regarding PPE. Put your mask on! Keep it on! 

That is all.

I've felt twinges of guilt and a sense of unfinished business having abandoned this blog for nine days. But I am also aware that more than anything, I am writing these entries for a non-existent audience, and that means, fortunately, no one will be disappointed by my lack of contributions.

Shelter-in-Place orders are still, sort of, in effect. But there are some restrictions that have, at the moment, been loosened. Hair salons can open. Bookstores. Nurseries. Restaurants, I think, if seating is separate enough. 

But I do not intend to visit a hair salon or restaurant or bookstore, anyway. I am wary. There is still too little we now abut this virus.  And I just looked at the count for the first time in days: we've just topped 2,000,000 cases in the US, over 7,360,000 cases world-wide. 416,201 deaths. Dr. Anthony Fauci (hero for many) warns that this isn't over yet. 

In the streets, in cities in every state in this country, people are protesting the racism that is still with us - still! - and a culture of brutality, especially racists brutality, in law enforcement. There are calls to dismantle entire police departments. Will it be enough to make real, lasting changes happen? I think of Rodney King. Those protests didn't do enough, if we're here, still. Again and still. 

I am a white woman writing from within a place of privilege. I am not a racist. But am I sufficiently anti-racist? That's the more pertinent question. 

Shelter-in-Place Day 76

Is it a coincidence that I went back to work today and had my first glass of wine in weeks tonight? 

Maybe not.

And it's clear I probably shouldn't have gone there, because after drinking that one and only glass, when the neighbors who lived behind us started up with their daily foul-mouthed abuse of their kids and dogs, which includes the sounds of the dogs yelping as though they're being hurt, and whining, and curses ("Get your f*cking ass out there and pick up the f*cking dog sh*t!") - and tonight the added bonus of something being thrown - I found myself slamming the screen door into our own backyard, knocking sharply on the door to the shed where S. was hanging out, loudly asking her if she was okay (so the neighbors could hear the question), then throwing, on my own part, a plastic watering can across our yard before slamming the screen door again on my way back in. I'm a bit ashamed of my own temper tantrum, which alarmed both S. and D. - but I think the message got across/through the fence because I could then hear the very unconvincing sound of the man of the house saying, "bad dog, bad dog" in a reasonable tone and volume, no doubt for my benefit. I've already called CPS about the situation once in the past. And this is, I think, the third set of dogs they've gone through in the last four years. (I don't know what happened to the others.) It's kind of exhausting, and apparently something I just am not willing to tolerate gracefully when I've had an alcohol.

It might also have been a contributing factor that at that moment in a live video stream on my screen, the Sonoma County Library Commission was rather genially approving a 2020-2021 budget that would include excessive cuts to staffing while maintaining most of the services and outreach. Not sure who they'll have providing those services and outreach if we're that short-staffed. And I'm sure the Union will put up a fight. Again, exhausting. And all this after a day when curbside pickup was rolled out at five branches with a big marketing campaign (emails, newspapers, website) before we'd had a chance to do a small trial run. Over 225 requests before 3pm today for our branch alone, and 9 people to satisfy them while the phones rang off the hook. 

Tomorrow, as they say, will be better. And I have warned myself away from the pinot. It actually doesn't help anything.