I should never have mentioned that very popular pop star. It led to frustrating exchanges until I took the post down. Today began with positive covid tests. I am not in the mood.
GOOD & BAD
covid-19
BARGAINING IRL
Years ago I taught a short story by Michael Cunningham in which a teenager runs through a sliding glass door during a party. (This was before building codes required tempered glass in such doors—a change triggered by a real life incident of a child bleeding out from cuts sustained by running through such a door.) In the story, the boy stands in the middle of broken glass and pulls a shard of glass from his neck. Moments later he bleeds out in the arms of his girlfriend. Every year students would bargain with that: What if he hadn’t pulled out the glass? What if someone had put more pressure on the wound? What if…? Just as in real life, we sometimes bargain with outcomes we cannot bear. Even in fiction.
DISTANCE
Sometimes I lie to myself. For example, I promised myself a short run yesterday morning. I held out a single-mile run like a carrot. When I began running north, I was running straight into a 40mph wind and it was cold. The tide was going out and I repeated, “Just one mile.” I didn’t need to run all the way to what we term the Turnaround Rock, 1.5 miles north. I could stop at the metal stairs near my one-mile marker, turn, and walk a mile home. I was thinking there was a good chance that when I turned toward home the wind would be swinging around and I would still face a headwind. That happens sometimes as the sun rises. So I told myself: You can stop running after a mile.
I ran three miles.*
SUBMIT
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.
PANDEMIC
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
SIDE TRIPS
I’m not sure what I meant to write today. There have been several ideas, none of which made it to this page before becoming sidetracked. We have been exploring, balancing our checkbook, and spending almost half the week in Portland. Sunrises. Pedicures (not mine). Travel (not me either).
POETS RESPOND
RATTLE is a poetry journal that emails poetry each morning, including a weekly response to a current event. Today, I received a form poem that made me sit up and feel. What follows is the mother’s explanation of where her words were birthed and a link to the poem.
Continue readingEVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
We’ve been busy hustling back and forth, walking our 25 miles a week (and me running a few of those), working on our second home, and admiring everything we see.
Continue readingWHY WE STAYED HOME
Today is my high school reunion, the 50th delayed to year 51, and it is also my elder son’s 41st birthday. I will be baking a vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free cake later today. Our family is coming. They’ve had good reason to stay safe, isolated, and healthy. So that is the best reason for staying home. But there’s also the pandemic, which is the real reason.
my COVID report is LOST
This is peculiar. I only noticed today because I wanted to add to it that my page about Covid-19 is entirely gone. Since early last year I kept a diary of deaths and impressions, news stories, recommendations, and quotations concerning Covid-19. During the chaos that ensued when I tried to update my “theme” this entire page went missing. It was a huge page, and it was important to me. I also discovered that both my “home” pages led to a menu, a literal restaurant menu. (Gone now.) There was a third “home” page which I deleted during the initial chaos. I suspect that was my “Covid Diary.”
&PRIDE Press 