I said I’d mention when a post went up about haiku community. It took me a week-long minute. But that’s up to the plasticity of time, isn’t it?
I’m doing very well on my to-do lists, measured by the one of mid-May. June, well, progressing.
I think of spring, but also summer. The sheer amount of birdsong is stunning. Last night fireflies all across the grass. If you think Mother Earth is scorched earth, try not weeding a garden. It rebounds.
Summer gives a different quality of pause than winter. Winter feels heavy and tight-lipped. Summer doesn’t try to kill you. Unless you’re in the UK or France at the moment.
Summer you can just be and not do do do to stay warm.
I had to restart my computer which was grinding to a half with all the apps and all the windows open. Alas, I was using all of those, in a longitudinal sense.
I’ll have to backtrack and figure out what was open. Also marked up pdfs of books being reviewed were not saved. I had to reread anyway. Small annoyance.
I’m remaking the chapbooks, in a small way, reprinting a page where I mis-pasted attribution of a poem.
I reprint, re-trim, refold, and reinsert. (Thank goodness I stapled and not sewed.)
Not too many went out yet, and from demand, looks like another print run anyway so not Done-done. e-copy sent to Library and Archive Canada. I’ll send ones out to contests.
All day I feel tired then the lights go out and I’m finally wired awake, more clear and alert than all day.
In order to sleep, I count things sometimes. Sometimes if I’ve seen a movie, I count iterations of something. Say, how many cars, or horses, or hats, or whatever and try to find one instance only of a hat, and two instances of horses, etc.
The other night I tried to bore myself to sleep with composing haiku and doing editing cycles. Another night, an abecedarian list of things in the room, moving outwards away from the bed. Listing fruit alphabetically in French.
One night I listed things I volunteer at. The number of things has crept back up. I’m not director, or president or main organizer of any organization any more. I don’t organize workshop series any more. I don’t host a radio show nor am a treasurer or on a board. I don’t do a cooking column anymore, nor do I maintain a dozen daily blogs. (It’s basically 3 and, some not even so much as weekly.)
It’s a sign of concussion recovery that I can read, write, edit, move and do more. It’s a second chance at life. I didn’t expect recovery. I accepted, this is me now I guess. These are my limits. And there on the far side of the parking lot is the chalk line I drew of all the things I want.
Over at Instagram KJ Dorman said,
“you’ve spent years thinking in short distances…and now you get to ask a new question. what do I do with all this future?”
I have spent lifetimes waiting for Armageddon. Literally going to bed since grade 4 expecting the 2nd Coming before I wake. Wake to normal and expect it before noon. Not afternoon, maybe at supper. And so on. Continue for a decade. Or so.
Fast-forward. Transition towards agnosticism, then atheism but still the waiting for the other shoe to disastrously drop and lose everything and everyone. (While being both depressed and pessimist and optimist all in different corridors of my brain. And mind-zipping around at over-sugared, overpressured and probably ADHDed)
Waiting to be abandoned. Turned out of home. If not by people, then by natural disasters. To be killed in traffic. Practicing ambidextrousness because I was sure I’d lose, or lose use of, an arm. The game of relying only on my ears for when I lose my eyes, On my eyes for when I lose my hearing. Hyper-vigilance that won’t step down. Panic attacks. Migraines. Exhaustion. Brittle cheer.
Assuming everyone was living the same in parallel so be kind to everyone because anyone is liable to nuclear meltdown at any minute. Kind of like when little girl in Amelie movie believing she was causing traffic accidents because the mean old man said it was all her doing.
Because extended family that I saw was rather high in the dysfunction level. It was healthy to be on alert. It was safe. There were a lot of hot heads, bullies and predators. I got out of that god-foraken place as quickly as I was capable. I did what I could. For the body to understand it is safe takes time.
Even with rife evidence that I am not in danger, my body has its habits of stance. The sense of security was mistaken in the past; danger would jump out at any innocuous moment. I learned, wisely, not to trust anyone to have my back, for then. But this is now.
When that relented, when I wasn’t under constant pressure of survival, it was easier to assess danger, and gradients, and options, and feel on equal footing.
I shed people consciously, twenty years ago, who did not respect me or my boundaries or enjoy my company. I made a list, spreadsheets, graphs. Okay, maybe not that much but I was clearly critical of outcomes and input. I twigged that I may have agency and maybe be feeding cycles. I learned to talk and walk differently. To take the floor, to not cede proactively.
I learned to signal I am not a good mark to steal from, use, take advantage of. I am not infinitely patient and a sucker. The people wandered off looking for easier targets. A little willingness to be right backatcha is good. I don’t have to sponge any overflow of stress of people. I can set boundaries. I can let things flow off, around. I can walk. I don’t have to be sorry to earn not being blamed.
Community is made by people who are happy to see you and who you are happy to see. Then there are incidental people who are attached to core community.
I want to build a world that connects, supports, helps each become the best person they may become.
Changing the rules I give myself, I have the spoons to listen better. To see patterns dispassionately. To choose rather than be carried downstream, reactive and melting down into the whitewater.
To return to that quote. If I could do anything, and if I can, what do I want? What have I turned down before I could be refused? What did I not dare want or expect? What have I settled for when actually I could have x instead?
I have traditionally wanted only to be helper, to facilitate, to be background support, to keep things running, to be anonymous. Part of that is internalized vestiges of Christianity that if you get any credit on earth that is deducted from possibly heavenly rewards. You have to do good secretly or it’s like a demerit. No praise, less that attract hated or jealously or pride. Some of these sub-routines are still running unchecked within me.
If I am allowed to want things, big things, beyond the next meal, or a good rest, what would I want? What is in my control? What can I go after?
I do like to pitch in. I volunteer at Rupert Treasures, sorting donated clothes, while the charity shop is closed. I like the small number of people, the hands-on work, the comedy and tragedy of what people donate, the stories is generates.
At the library at front desk on an irregular pattern. I like being around books.
I volunteer as one of the moderators on FB of Ottawa poets and writers. I say I don’t do event photography anymore, but I do tend to log the odd event now and then and promote upcoming things. As a review editor at ShorÅyan and at Haiku Canada Review. I’m a first reader at Arc Poetry Magazine. I am a publisher at phafours. I like to promote, encourage, and assist writers.
I blog here, obviously and at Substack and occasionally Patreon and at other venues. I like to think.
I tweet for Haiku Canada. I coordinate the Betty Drevniok contest. I do book reviews for various places. I guess since I lose money at it, I can say I volunteer to write poetry? I am on hand at the gliding club as a runner, making myself useful running wing, or the golf cart, or doing flight sheets, or providing tours or dessert. I like to unite people. I like to connect people, introduce people to people or information or ideas to people who seek that information. I like to work with words, obviously, that’s a constant. And by computers more than in person. I like quiet. I like making.
It might collectively suggest how I don’t get the big writing projects pursued to the nth degree.
is writing books what I want or is that a route to what I want? Which would be what? Which is means? Which is ends? What would purposeful look like? How would worthwhile be measured?
Too big of questions to chew at once. But asking them is a start. There’s a depth to explore.
