Month: October 2021

SUBMIT

/ janpriddyoregon / 17 Comments

I submitted my “Butterfly Fontanelle” novella to a literary press a couple of days ago. It has remained untouched since January. I had hopes for it when I began four years ago, but then lost faith. Today I reread the beginning of a letter responding to that novella. One of my favorite writers wrote: “I really do love this story! The imagery throughout is gorgeous, and your conception of the Daughters, every detail of their lives, their behavior and appearance, their singing—all of it—feels startlingly original. Amazing, really.” That’s right at the beginning of her comments, and I cannot say how startling it was to read that, to find such words of praise. I knew if I continued to read the letter, I would find her suggestions and questions. I did revise in response, and revise yet again in a further draft. And again. I even tried changing the title. I submitted. Rejection without comment. There is no knowing if I improved the piece and evidence I didn’t, but I think it’s better even if I failed to take it where it needed to go. I did try.

Anyway, I sent it off, my first submission in ten months. I hadn’t intended to submit anywhere ever again. I posted that notice on my publications page and have only been writing here, in my blog, and a few scraps of poetry, or what might become poetry if I had stuck to the page. I haven’t. [“Seat in chair.”]

A lot has happened.

This is one of my favorite photographs I’ve ever taken. In recent years I have used photographs for my winter cards and had them professionally printed, but for a couple of decades before that I designed, drew, and made cards, cutting linoleum blocks or illustrating family dreams for the New Year in pen and ink. Mimi wrote that some of those old cards are part of Janice Gould’s library collection. It fair took my breath. I had only just noticed that of all the art hung in our new condo, there was nothing from me. This year, perhaps I will return to that old custom. Gary thinks so.
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PANDEMIC

/ janpriddyoregon / 4 Comments 
Pandemic
   by Lynn Ungar

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath —
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love —
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.


[Used without permission, and apologies to the author, who lives in Vancouver, Washington. I found this 2020 poem on the OSU website. It went viral last year, but I missed it until now. You can buy her chapbook These Days with this poem on her website via the link.]

But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief. 

― Franz Kafka

GARY’S 3rd DEER

/ janpriddyoregon / 10 Comments

This is not a sad story, so bear with me. No one dies in this story. A car is injured, but we’re over that.

My husband has an unfortunate relationship, or anyway some unfortunate experiences with wild animals. He worked at Woodland Park Zoo and got on well with the wolf and the birds, but did suffer an injury from a frightened elephant that resulted in surgery many years later. He was not the one who frightened the elephant and he never blamed the elephant for his injury. He loves animals. There was also the time he pulled over to the side of the road because of the herd of elk, and while he sat in our nearly-new Honda wagon on the shoulder the elk ran into the car. The elk were fine, but the car almost died.

Ruby a couple years before she announced: “I’m not a baby, I’m a little girl” when she was three.

But today’s story is about the deer.

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FORGIVEN

/ janpriddyoregon / 8 Comments

The package contained only the book and the note. It’s true that my classroom Bible had vanished, a New International Version, but that would have been at least six years ago before I retired from teaching full time and had to clear my classroom book shelves. I usually kept a Qur’an on my shelves too. I am interested in scripture. I am respectful of sacred text.

Left to right: the carpet on the painted floor, and on the table is the returned NIV Bible, the note quoting a blog post, the postcard from Toni with a bit of Dorothy West showing, and my current journal with a pen.
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