If I let myself talk I only depress myself. Maybe that’s why I like to wear another person’s mind through reading. Training a posture. A break from self.
There are so many books I want to finish writing but the inner heckler is revved up and I’m getting tired of the fight against rotten fruit and veggies. I have contempt for most of what I’ve written. I know that’s just a brain fritz effect not objectiveness. And I know I can edit each much more but when? I get a few hours of function against the backlog before I crash into another headache and/or brain fog.
At last at least it is teaching me to be selective about what I do. With a good side dose of can’t give a flying duck.
What matters more, process or product in poetry? People. People being heard, people hearing. The community outweighs poetry. Both are ephemeral.
Going though old photos it becomes more and more albums of the dead. It gives a certain wight to the logic of writing sci-fi, eyes faced ahead.
Summer Girl haiku journal returns soon.
Han VanderHart is on substack.
Anne Michaels has a blog which I’m trying very hard not to lose track of.
The Bee will be a new journal in Wales dedicated to the working class who are under-represented in publishing.
The Pontiac Journal article on Poetry in the Pontiac with my reading in a bar and grill is up.
I have another reading within a week and probably 2 more in June. This chapbook is getting more air time than some books did.
What do to next?
Always hemmed in with the priorities vs brain bouncing like a rubber ball.
I miss the obsessive focus capacities of my thirties when I could just flat out work for 30 to 40 hours straight and sleep when I was done.
What I want to do is in part watch the few DVDs I have stored up, and watch a few shows for a week, and read a thick ole novel cover to cover while someone drops food into my mouth periodically. (Any volunteers?)
I have to set new rules for myself of what and who I allow in. Energy drains were fine when I had the luxury of more leeway. This isn’t a subtweet at anyone in particular. My time is reshuffled since my regular volunteer place is closed for renovations. I have 3 weeks with this extra longer-blocks of time. It makes me question my best practice of time use.
How do people keep their lives running? I’m swamped. Finding clothes in the morning uses all the neurons some days. Drinking a cup of tea in one go? Try four tries over a day or two. Finding the book which I know I own, but what Pooh-Bear did you do with it? Mercy me. And the instructions for my embroidery. Gone like the wind.
Parts keep breaking, which doesn’t help. The washing machine is toast. The DVD drive died. The kitchen counter needs replacing. Need to get around to buying new sheets and bras. Incidentally wikipedia on bras vindicated my 14-year-old self who told the fitter that my cup goes up and down by a size over the month. She cod-eyed me and rolled her eyes and said that’s not a thing. Ha! 20% change for some people over a month.
The garden gives cheer. Our pear tree is blossoming for the first year. I think it’s 5 years old. Our garden yielded asparagus. I’ve got book mail headed my way. Some tokens for the glad game. There is chocolate in the house. I get to see people I like soon. Unfortunately it means going by car. However I don’t squeal and turn rigour mortis on braking and turning like I did for a few years. It’s still disproportionately tiring to expect death more particualrly than everyday rate.
A photo taken outside shows my hair had the audacity to go silver grey. Not a bit, entirely. I visited my aunt whose hair is brown. Dyed but still. She walks fluidly and here I am creaking, stumbling and groaning. Bah.
The siding which we just repainted last year is peeling again and the deck boards, under 7 years old have gone punky in places. Give me a whackload of money and I’ll hire people to replace it all with stone siding that won’t peel and rot.
So much takes so much concentration to do so little. I fixed my glasses. I made a sign for the fair, with hinges so it stands up as I’ve been meaning to do for a decade. I finally made a haiku section for the website but can find no digital trace of the trifold I had published. When to even look? Things I just did are apparently 6 years ago. I finish some books but others I’ve been poking away at for 2 or 3 years, including time mislaid and set aside.
Enough grousing yes?
First Frost awards. Good haiku there.
Visual echoes in storytelling: motif, colour, composition. Using patterns and rhythms, repeating elements for harmony.
And in case you missed it, an unboxing of my chapbook.
Life is kind. I’m living in the best place I ever have for landscape, for neighbours, and am in a good place. My body hating me, giving me light-headedness and anxiety is frustrating. I’m able to catch myself earlier than ever. But still worry is a time-suck and energy suck. It means it’s hard to eat and hard to sleep and hard to key into tasks. I know when I’m peak I can slap though weeks of work for a day or two. But I’m not there. I’m in the sloggy boggy bit where everything is hard. Anyway. Lunch time calls. Did you know clock comes from bell?
