Under the Influence

Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief, by Jeanie Tomanek, from
Artists and Poets Respond to the Pandemic, an online exhibition.

In these hazy days, I’m feeling the fatigue of feeling.

Empaths call it absorption, when the mind is a sponge taking in every drop. And it’s mental too, this sifting and sorting of every new thing done, said, reported, refuted. More than ever, we need retreat. The best mental and emotional rest, I’m finding, is reading.

Under the influence of words that feed, fuel and nurture, I feel fine. Feel good doesn’t mean “comfort read” or “easy read” but more of a feed-the-mind read. Here, a few of my latest favorites:

1.
I’ve learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being.

 — Anna Kamienska
A Nest of Quet: A Notebook

2.
That such a bright and layered woman had fallen for Emerson — a mediocrity in search of an admiration society — was a cosmic vote for pessimism.

— Tom Rachman
The Rise & Fall of Great Powers: A Novel

3.
Between isolation and harmony, there is not always a vast distance. Sometimes it is a distance that can be traversed in a moment, by choosing to focus on the essence of what is occurring, rather than on its exterior: its difficulty or beauty, its demands or joy, peace or grief, passion or humor. This is not a matter of courage or discipline or will; it is a receptive condition.

— Andre Dubus
Making Sandwiches for My Daughters
God is Love: Essays from Portland Magazine

4.
One-Star Yelp Reviews of Heaven (an excerpt)

Not sure about all the positive reviews on here.
I’ve been here twice now and it was awful both times.
Over-excite, tepidly deliver. The results are un-inspired
because of a fairly bland approach.

— Shawnte Orion
Gravity & Spectacle, a photo-poem collaboration
by Jia Oak Baker and Shawnte Orion

5.
Social Safety Net (an excerpt)

I work in a nursing home
I get gloves, a mask I wear

all day. No gown.

My wife and family . . . We are
scared.

About almost everything.

— Maureen E. Doallas
Artists and Poets Respond to the Pandemic
an online exhibition featuring 22 artists and 18 poets

And you, what’s feeding your mind?

---

You know the gnaw

Are you making — making something, making it through?

I’m still writing through the pandemic, this season of outer quiet and inner scream. Some days the words rush in and I am arms open, catching rain. Other days, words — like me — are sluggish and stumped.

So I hunt through magazines, novels, recipes and mail, finding words that call, then stringing the misfits together to make new sense. This is the cut-up, or collage, poem — one of my favorite ways to plumb the mysteries of meaning. It tenders comfort, discovery, and great relief.

Tell me, what do you do when you can’t find the words? Do you have tricks or prayers or special potions to summon the creative rush?

Threading my arm through yours

I’m trying to stay cracked

open because you can’t

go wrong with tenderness

I’m finding something new to want

because you know meanings

inside of meanings

You are calculating

the weight of plums

the myth of marigolds

the changing weather

You know the gnaw

of things we

can’t understand

What we feel now, is it

a memory of remembering?

— Drew Myron

More Notes (on a pandemic)

1. 
I am angry everywhere. 

A friend snaps at me, I snap at my husband, he snaps back. Mouths shut tight, a thousand bees buzzing in us, together and apart, stung. 

2.
Because frustration is cousin to anger, I take a walk to notice all the red things and suddenly the world is alive: red leaves on a tall tree, red berries on small hedge, red candy wrapper. 

With attention, red turns more alluring than angry. 

3. 
After all these years, I haven't matched the beautiful names — snowberry, blue blossom, fiddle fern, red alder, camelia, hyacinth, goldenfleece — to all the beautiful things, and don't know if I ever will. 

Is it enough to call it beauty and make it real, make it mine? 

4. 
When death is a number, we don't feel the loss. 

One hundred confirmed cases. Three deaths today. 

When it is a name and a life —your mother, neighbor, friend — that's what makes it real. Beauty, life, loss, needs a name. 

5. 
Every choice is fear or love, a friend once told me. 

I took his truth and examined my life: work, love, my sadness, my joy. Love or fear, to every thing a division. But now it seems too easy and too hard. Life isn't this or that. Aren't there more choices? 

Lately, everything I say is a question I don't want to answer. 

6.
I'm trying to be real but it costs too much.

— Ocean Vuong, from Not Even This

7. 
At the nursing home where I work, it's been months since I've held a hand, or talked soft, or laughed close. I wave down a long hall but the gesture is lost in the long space between.  

In the distance today, a thin voice wobbles in song: 

. . . little ones to him belong

they are weak but he is strong . . . 

And I am broke open, again. 

It's not true that our choice is only love or fear, or that sadness is anger turned inward. Or maybe it’s all true — love and sadness, fear and uncertainty, endlessness and urgency — all of it true.

In my anger, sadness makes a nest. In my sadness, anger rises. 

In this, a voice.

---

In Restlessness & Rush

Dear D, 

My mind is skittish, racing from one unfinished idea to the next. Unsettled, flighty, fractured. 

It's not that I don't have Things To Do. Even in this uncertainty, there are things to make, produce, achieve. As always, structure and order get me through, but when endlessness is at the top of every day what does one do? 

I can't stop seeking the last iteration, of every news story, email, and social media post. I am  searching, scrolling, seeking: what happened? what happened?  

I am hungry to know, but dulled with the knowing.  

___

Good grief, why is everyone Zooming? 

For years I've lived away from the people I most know and love, and carried each one in letters and my heart — letters, that beautiful and enigmatic exchange. I don't need to see you, especially in bad lighting and distorted angles. Let’s keep those distortions hidden, private, perfectly intact.  

___

 The other day I laughed, hard and unexpected.  

As good laughs tend to go, this one was brought on by nothing especially funny. One of those throw-away remarks that hit at just the right time and right place so that the laugh travels through the body and fills the room with relief. 

___

I'm writing more than ever. It's a welcome compulsion, this drive to record, though I imagine the poems are mostly process. 

Purists insist poetry is not therapy. They get huffy, as if insulted to both write and feel. Yes, poetry is discipline, study and craft, but it's also therapeutic in the way that a walk restores physical and emotional health.  

Do we have to argue everything? 

Anyway, I'm writing a lot, mostly pandemic poems. They likely won't hold up over time (and that’s okay). In three months, six months, a year . . . when we have put the pandemic on a shelf and looked away (as we tend to do), we'll not want to revisit these difficult days.  

And yet, there is a restlessness and a rush, a desire to notice and note. In all this, writing is lifting me up and carrying me through.

Well, writing, tortilla chips — and you.

With love,
Drew

Postscript:

• An excellent book of letters is Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker.

• Letters have souls, is not from the Hints from Heloise homemaker but rather the French love-torn nun.

• An anonymous writer keeps a beautiful blog of letters, here.

• Are you writing through this, too? Write to me.

---

Write Through This

Doctors Say, by Drew Myron

Oh, these heavy days.

Daily death counts. Isolation. Vigilance against every cough, sneeze, touch. And today, John Prine died.

The gloom hangs. I don’t need to tell you, of course. We’re all in this. Together, apart, staying home, hanging on.

And yet, I can’t stop telling. It’s both bliss and grief, this rush of words. Balm and barricade. And I’m not alone (well, I am, but y’know, not lonely). Writers are rising up and writing through.

Here a few of my latest favorites:

• Sarah Sloat has built a ship of solitude.

• Instagram, the sorta less evil social media site, offers a trove of pretty pictures and unobtainable aspirations and it’s a great forum for poets.

• Artist Jason Kartez is on Instagram, sharing a compelling account of working at a Los Angeles homeless shelter during the pandemic. The bite-size from-the-field missives are made more powerful with his simple and stark handwritten descriptions.

• Kelli Agodon and Melissa Studdard are collaborating on pandemic poems that you can find on Instagram at #dailywave.

• Rob Walker produces The Art of Noticing, an excellent weekly newsletter — free — packed with suggestions and inspiration “for building your attention muscles.” And, really, isn’t noticing the top requirement for our job as writers? I mean, other than curiosity and coffee? Sign up here.

• And lastly, to celebrate National Poetry Month, I’ll leave you with this gem:

Bliss and Grief

No one

is here

right now.

— Marie Ponsot

---

Thankful Thursday: Because, Despite, Still

Resolutions for the Day, an erasure poem by Drew Myron.

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. Why give thanks? Because joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude, and these difficult days call for peace and joy.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for postal workers, books, magazines, movies, scientists, food banks, sunshine, that one magnolia tree in full and glorious bloom, wine, sunshine, strong legs, strong arms, naps, email, bike rides, my husband’s shoulders, empathy, grocery store workers, sleep, tortilla chips, apples, a good cry, gin, sunshine, walking, quiet, my journal, the dog that stopped barking, the neighbor who waves, youtube, text messages from faraway friends, family, volunteers, work, genuine smiles, fried chicken, health insurance, good cheer, poems, poets, social media, journalists, online newspapers that don’t charge, news worth paying for, doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, kitchen crews, people who clean, hairdressers who help you believe you’re a natural blonde, artists, musicians, writers, vision, hope, my lungs, my lungs, my lungs.

What are you thankful for today?

---

Five Good Books + suggestions

Always and again, books come to the rescue and reading is getting me through. In these trying days, reading is comfort and companion.

And because the slog* has lifted, I’m (finally!) enjoying a rush of really good books.

Here are a few of my recent favorites:

Say Say Say
by Lila Savage

A beautiful and evocative novel on the largely unexplored topic of caregivers.

Love this line:

For a moment, she would be fully present in this sadness, porous in her empathy. It was almost unbearable, but at the same time, it seemed like a gift, to feel so much.

Brontosaurus
by Leanne Grabel

Subtitled as a “memoir of a sex life,” this straightforward book takes on rape, telling the story and holding the fallout with clarity, heart, and humor.

If you like this, try:

• Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery by Patricia Weaver Francisco

• Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson

• Bastard Out of Carolina, a novel by Dorothy Allison

Uncanny Valley
by Anna Wiener

A surprisingly gripping page-turner of a memoir about working in Silicon Valley. With an outsider perspective, Wiener is an excellent writer producing page after page of killer lines, like these:

He wore jeans so tight I felt as if I already knew him.

. . . the patron saint of mislaid sympathies.

He seemed like someone who would have opinions about fonts.

What was it like to be fun, I wondered — what was it like to feel you’d earned this?

If you like this, try:

• Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons

Writers & Lovers
by Lily King

A tale of small triumphs for an aspriring writer. This novel will likely appeal to a unique niche of women-writers-who-waitress-while-waiting-for-life-to-make-sense (yes, I saw myself in nearly every page).

Love this line:

I don’t write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don’t, everything feels even worse.

If you like this, try:

• Father of the Rain, a novel by Lily King

• The Anthologist, a novel by Nicholson Baker

• Bird by Bird, a memoir-guidebook by Anne Lamott

My Dark Vanessa
by Kate Elizabeth Russell

This sometimes claustrophobic novel is dark, disturbing and compelling, and offers a refreshingly nuanced perspective on sexual abuse.

Love this line:

Sometimes I feel like that’s what he’s doing to me —

breaking me apart, putting me back together as someone new.

If you like this, try:

• My Education, a novel by Susan Choi

• Blue Angel, a novel by Francine Prose

• You Deserve Nothing, a novel by Alexander Maksik

* BOOK SLOG is that dreadful trudge through a swamp of so-so books that make you question your self, your choices, your ability to enjoy a rich and full literary life. Thank god, my slog is over!

---

Notes on a pandemic

1. 
How are you doing?

We call from windows and sidewalks, from half-closed doors. From three feet, five feet, six, and more. From phone and email, from laptop and letter. From every distance, we reach out.

How are you is greeting and worry, is wish and prayer. 

2.
Curled in and against, I nearly miss spring, arriving fresh-faced and eager with sunshine, blue sky and sparrow glee. Beyond my inward self, the world breaks open with dogwood, magnolia, and cherries in bloom. 

Dogs are barking, lawn mowers revving, a car rumbles to a start. 

Even in this global crisis, life goes abundantly on and on.  

3.
Remember when people died of natural causes? 

What, really, is natural? 

4. 
Make something, is the inner urge and outer order. And so artists paint, bakers bake, singers sing, and poets write.

Ruth, a respected teacher and poet, lives in a care facility in Oregon, where visitors have been banned to ensure the protection of the vulnerable residents. She keeps writing on, writing through:

Twenty-twenty Vision

These days, weeks, months curl in parentheses

closed off from the whitewater current

even from the peaceful stream. No dailyness

to rely on, no boulders to hop from this to the next—

No next.

And not much then.  Past seems irrelevant,

shifting, unstable . . .

Take my hand.

Today rely on this grip.

We have our now.

Breathe.

— Ruth Harrison 

5. 
Is this the reset? 

Months from now, will we savor a meal at our favorite place, our faces close, hands clasped tight? Will we share dessert, our forks next-to-next, and not think twice about what has touched, with who, and how? 

And at the house, will our friends gather? Will we shake hands, pat backs, and hug hello? Will I embrace my father without fear, and offer more than a distant wave to the kind neighbor passing?

Tell me, will we kiss again, reckless and sure?  

---

Write through this

In times of crisis, I wish my better self to rise to action, to solution, to do something.

Instead, I can’t stop sifting through news at a battering speed. I can’t stop scrolling facebook and feeling jittered with frustration.

And so it is with great relief I found the first poems of the pandemic:

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a machine of beautiful work.

Kelli Russell Agodon and Melissa Studdard are sharing daily poems on Instagram under #DailyWave.

“Our goal,” writes Kelli, “is to document through poems these uncertain times, and also to keep our minds off the #coronapocalypse.”

Write on! Uncertain times bring me to my knees, but also to pen, paper, and poems.

What’s going to get you through?

---

Love in the time of distance

Already it’s happened. “An abundance of caution” has replaced “thoughts and prayers.”

We don’t know what to say, so we say the same sentiment again and again.

• • • 

As we live in “social distances” — we’ll return, again, to the Letter. In times of sickness and sadness, of grief and uncertainty, pen and paper are revived. A note, a letter, a scratch, a handwritten scrawl.

Wish you were here. Thinking of you. With love.

At the nursing home where I work, visitors have been banned to protect the vulnerable population from catching the coronavirus. Instead of face-to-face visits, we’re encouraging phone calls, text, skype, facetime, and my favorite, old-fashioned mail.

I’m reminded of my grandma, a tireless penpal. When I was a child, in the hospital for months at a time, my grandma sent letters and cards, each in her perfect penmanship, with a stick of gum taped inside.

Write me a letter — it’s infection-free, gluten-free, hypo-allergenic.

Send love with a stamp.

• • • 

We write poems.

We’ll fill this new dark space with fresh words that guide us through the lonely places.

Tucking In My Daughter In The Time of Coronoa Virus

And because she is wise

in the ways the young are,

my daughter, frightened and weeping,

asked between sobs

for a happy story.

There are times when a story

is the best remedy—

not because it takes us away

from the truth but because

it leads us closer in.

I told her the story of her birth,

and we laughed until

it was my turn to cry as I realized

no matter how scary the world,

what a miracle, the birth of a child.

Then, as fear made a sneaky return,

we whispered a list of things we

were grateful for, falling asleep with these

words on our breaths: cats, books, rivers,

home, family, soft blankets, music.

— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

• • • 

Blogs are back!

Blogs had a heyday, 10 years past, when writers were fast & fevered. Post every week, we were told. Every day! Every hour! Post everything!

Then social media arrived, and the party fizzled. The writers slithered away to facebook and twitter, crafting pithy banter in 100 words or less. We got cute, clever, clipped. We got snarky and barky. Introvert was out, telling was in. We shared, shared, shared. We took photos, mostly of ourselves. We lost interest in the long read, the slow reveal.

But now, we’re hunkered at home. Time moves slower. The news scroll wears us down. We’ll want more. There, in our need, the lowly blog will emerge, like the high school friend with whom you fell out of touch, then reconnected and discovered a renewed appreciation. She’s so loyal, you’ll think, so thoughtful and kind. So ordinary.

But now, like staplers and sneakers, ordinary will feel just right.

I’m ordinary too. Stick with me. Established in 2008, this blog and me — we’re here for the duration.

---

Thankful Thursday: You

The Seasons, an erasure poem by Drew Myron

The Seasons

When shadows fall

When a big wind blows

I took shelter in

the canopy of

you.

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. Some weeks are tougher than others, but every week offers some small thing that redeems and heals. 

What are you thankful for today?

---

Finding Words

Play with words, I urge the writers gathered around the table. Eyes wander and pens hang listless from hands not yet gripped with drive. Attention puddles.

We’ve hit a rough patch at the nursing home. For two years, our motley group of elders has gathered to read, write, laugh and share. Before joining the group, most had not written much beyond shopping lists and infrequent letters, and yet they show up here eager and engaged as they read poems, share memories, and try new things.

But today, we’re not ourselves. We’re stuck in a rut.

It’s inevitable, really. It happens to every writer. You grow tired of your words, your self. You need shaken and stirred.

For many writers, daily life wears too familiar, and so nothing feels fresh. But for this group of seniors in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, who are grappling with various stages of dementia and numerous physical and mental challenges, writing at all is a terrific feat.

I have the words here, Betty says, flustered, all up here in my head, but they won't come out. 

So we ease the pressure. We get crafty. Elbow deep in magazines, markers, scissors, and glue, we create cut-up poems. And collage poems. Found poems and declarations. We’re mining splashy headlines and glossy photos. We’re conjuring mess and meaning, finding the words that escape us. 

Does it make sense? Does it matter? Is this poetry?

Yes, no, and sometimes. When we stop making sense, we allow fresh ideas to emerge and new paths to form. We are finding words beneath words, meaning beyond meaning.

That was fun, says Betty, buoyant after a slow start. I really liked that.

I nod, reminded once again of every writer’s wrangle: we are coaxing the words out of our minds and onto the page. With every jumble and confusion, we are stretching our understanding and expressing ourselves. In playing with words, we are claiming our creative lives.

A few days after our writing session, I find Betty visiting with a friend. She inches slow and deliberate along the hall. This one’s mine, she says, pride swelling as she shows her visitor the poem she made.

* Names and identifiers have been changed to protect privacy.

---

Love this line!

“How well do you really know your old high school friends?

I’m finding out now my old buddy is a creature of strange habits. Twice a day, Rausch does eighty push-ups and eighty sit-ups. He wears extremely tight, silky t-shirts. He picks his teeth with a pocketknife after meals and cleans his toes while he watches TV. He never seems to fully exhale. I imagine he has oxygen in his lungs from 1990.”

— Jess Walter
We Live in Water, a collection of stories

Has this happened to you — you read an excellent book, then race to find everything the author has written?

It’s a thrill, really, to find a book that you enjoy so much you don’t want it to end but also enjoy it so much you dash through with a fever of appreciation. Several years ago, I sped through Beautiful Ruins, a novel by Jess Walter, then proceeded to read through his others. In my fervor, I somehow missed We Live in Water, a 2013 gem of short stories set mostly in Spokane, Washington (the author’s hometown) and packed with struggling Pacific Northwest characters.

As usual, Walter’s prose shines with authentic people with real voice, giving each moment equal measures of wit, grit, grace and understanding.

I’ve done this with other writers — read one of their books and then promptly raced out to read their whole collection — including Carol Shields, Jean Thompson, Francine Prose, Sue Miller, Gail Godwin, Junot Díaz, Kaui Hart Hemmings, Jeffrey Eugenides . . .

How about you? What writers do you savor and can’t wait to read more?

* Note: Love this line is technically Love this passage, but I lean toward alliteration and rarely let truth get in the way of snap, crackle, pop.

---

Thankful Thursday: Scrawl

What fortune — It’s Thankful Thursday and National Handwriting Day!

Yes, it’s a thing. Established in 1977 by the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association, the occasion may have roots in self-interest  but it’s still a day that celebrates my favorite tools: pen and paper.

Early on, my literary life was formed with pen to paper: writing in loose looping curves across pages of my school-girl diary, then writing sloppy and free in college journals, and later as a fevered reporter recording every word in my own scrappy shorthand.

It’s handwriting that has always connected me to mind, body and heart.

Sure, laptops and phone notes are the modern tools. But it’s handwriting that has the power to capture and reveal the self, my self.

Natalie Goldberg says handwriting is crucial to creativity:

“A writing practice is simply picking up a pen — a fast-writing pen, preferably, since the mind is faster than the hand — and doing timed writing exercises. The idea is to keep your hand moving for, say, ten minutes, and don’t cross anything out, because that makes space for your inner editor to come in.” 

Handwriting brings my mother back, in a hurried scrawl of a recipe.

Handwriting provides lively tales of my grandmother’s life on a Washington wheat farm nearly 100 years ago.

Handwriting reminds me of my constant shopping list of chicken, cream, and gin.

In meetings, I am the only one taking notes. How do they retain important information, I wonder. That was always my trick; in college my study drill was to write and rewrite key information. Even now, when preparing for poetry reading or public speaking, I write and rewrite every single word.

Every day I write a to-do list and revel in the scratch-off.

Handwriting allows long letters to friends. In the slow-down of penmanship, however sloppy, I ease into the languid pace of contemplation.

Again and again, my refrain: How do I know what I feel until I write it out?

So yes, you bet, I celebrate National Handwriting Day. Today I wrote, by hand and heart, a dozen thank you notes. It was the best thing I did all day.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for the art and grace of handwriting. Write on!

---

Fragment, Tangle, Hold

1.
I wake with a question:

Is this sadness or defeat?

And then:

What’s the difference?

2.
I remember imperfectly.

Sometimes you remember everything as it happens: a soft voice, rain pattering the night, how you squeezed me so hard I couldn’t breathe and wished to stay this way — breathless and held.

You swear it to memory, as if ordering a meal: I’ll take this and this and this.

But the mind is a faulty photograph. The image wears, blurs, goes away.

3.
Caught in a tangle of photos I am suddenly crying for a life I don’t remember living. And yet, there I am, a toddler, on a bicycle, in a field. Here, the farm, the trailer, in my mother’s arms, my sister’s gaze.

I am nostalgic for what I did not know and now hold with a vague but fierce tenderness. With a hand of protection, I am both guarding and letting go.

4.
Nostalgia says, I didn’t try. I didn’t try hard enough. I could have loved more, loved better. Nostalgia hums with fondness and with guilt, leaves you doubled over what was lost, but even worse, taunts with what you didn’t know you had.

5.
Once, I made a rule:

Don’t give in to nostalgia, I said, It’ll only strangle you.

I was young. I willed away wanting. I would not long for what I did not have. I would not want.

But now, years later, the photos I hold are thin and fading. Hopeful faces, holding in, holding on. With an examiner’s eye I see happiness, and my heart makes a declaration: This is how it was. This is truth.

6.
Is this sorrow
or a relapse of calm?

the body a loneliness     walking 

mirror of survival 

7.

Holding

I could imitate the thrash and flutter,

how you touched me like an error. I am pleading

my case and you are in the distance singing. 

There's something in the collage of resistance, 

how you finally let it move through. Please, I beg,

give me a way of moving, let my limbs know lyric. 

Make it rejoice, you say, 

       to hold a burden is the terror.

— Drew Myron

---

Good Books of 2019

Presents have been opened, rejoiced or returned, and the tree is now needles all over the floor. It’s time to look back at the year-in-books.

Frankly, I haven’t had a stellar year. Though I’m always reading, few books engaged my head & heart. I quit many (without guilt) and realized that, as with jeans, to get a good fit one must try, try, and try again. *

The upside is that my book malaise spurred me to explore. I reached beyond my routine of contemporary fiction and dabbled in mystery, fantasy, memoir and more. Some were thinkers, others sinkers, but I felt nicely stretched nonetheless.

Here, a few of the good books I read in 2019:

FICTION

The Middlesteins
by Jami Attenberg

Don’t judge a book by its cover (as I did, quickly dismissing this as adolescent drivel). This novel is original, funny, sad, sweet, with a spot-on grasp of family dynamics.

Chairs in the Rafters
by Julia Glass

A little-know novella by the bestselling author of Three Junes. As always, Glass delivers evocative prose with complex characters.

Educated
by Tara Westover

Yes, yes, everyone and their neighbor read, raved or loathed this memoir. This was such a page-turner I read it in one full swoop, glued to the couch for an entire day.

The Dry
by Jane Harper

This gripping mystery thriller is thick with atmosphere. An easy read, it was the ideal who-done-it to take me out of my head.

NON-FICTION

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
by Claudia Rankine

Published in the George W era, this multi-genre inquiry is as politically and emotionally relevant as ever. Smart and incisive, with a seamless blend of poetry and prose, Rankine dives deep into culture, race, terrorism, depression, medication and media.

Stranger on a Train
by Jenny Diski

With wry and incisive prose, this travel memoir is less about landscape and more about people. In search of solitude, the British writer traverses the U.S. by train and finds herself drawn into the complex lives of ordinary strangers.

How the Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice
by Pat Schneider

A warm and interior look into the motivations and circulations of the writing life. With her signature grace, Schneider invites readers to contemplate their lives and deepest questions through writing.

POETRY

If the House
by Molly Spencer

Layered, textured, rich and deep, this debut collection of poems is stunning. Poet David Biespiel sums it best: “Her portrait of life’s silences is fundamental and mysterious. Here is a riveting, deeply moving book of marriage and its dissolutions—between husband and wife, between a woman and her home, between dream and memory.”

The End of the West
by Michael Dickman

Dark, violent, conversational, essential, enigmatic — and beautiful.

Irksome Particulars
by Matt Cook

A pocket-size collection of irreverent prose poems, each no longer than a page and most just a few lines long, from the former poet laureate of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

FAVORITE BOOKSTORES

Where are you shopping? This year I was excited to discover and revisit these independent book shops:

Bart’s Books
Ojai, California

I stumbled (literally, I was on a walk and was looking for exercise, not books) when I found an outdoor bookstore. Open since 1964, Bart’s is the largest independently owned and operated outdoor bookstore in the U.S. With a selection of nearly one million new and used books, Bart’s is quirky, kooky and wonderfully bookish.

Klindt’s Booksellers
The Dalles, Oregon

Open since 1870, Klindt’s is the oldest bookstore in Oregon. With its original hardwood floors, cabinets and bookshelves, the narrow shop oozes history while packing in plenty of contemporary treasures. 

Powell’s City of Books
Portland, Oregon

Filling an entire city block in downtown Portland, since 1971 this is both mecca and disneyland for readers and writers. Not to see Powell’s is not to see Portland.

* I’m still searching for the perfect jeans.

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Thankful Thursday: Brightly Shining

The Week in Review 

I wore soft sweaters. Ate too many cookies. Meandered through days without demand.

An old woman who rarely speaks, stared, and asked: Do you like me?

Yes, I replied quickly, I love you. And felt the relief of a truth.

A leaden sky blurred time. I fought a sadness that did not take root.

Caught in holiday softening, I forgave grievances and felt goodwill.

Fall on your knees became my new refrain.

I was reminded of the real work ahead.

The Work of Christmas

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

 — Howard Thurman

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. Some weeks are tougher than others, but every week offers some small thing that redeems and heals. What are you thankful for today?

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Grocery & Gift Lists

I carry a perpetual grocery list that gathers like a nest in every crevice of my life. Every week it’s a scratch of urgent needs: chicken, tonic, wine. Write, buy, repeat.

And in my head, I carry a gratitude list: a jumble of small, pressing appreciations.

Because attention attracts gratitude and gratitude expands joy, it's time for Thankful Thursday. This week I am thankful for:

Cuties
You know the sales pitch: small, sweet and easy to eat. Also, adorable in scale. These miniature oranges (technically mandarins) get me through these long winter days. Admittedly, they have a sordid backstory, and out of guilt I did take a long break. But here it is, holiday season, and I’m back on the Cuties.

Also: I’m thankful for this publication. Superb research, writing, and design.

Book Gifts
I’m not a great gift-giver. I labor over gift guides and scan every conversation for hints on what to buy that says, “How did you know?”

But I never know.

Because I love books, I assume everyone loves books, and that’s why each year I give books, books, books to family, friends, neighbors, strangers . . . But I’ve come to my senses (begrudgingly) and realized one person’s treasure is another’s homework assignment. My family groans silently with every literary gift.

Still, every lid has a pot and every book a reader. I can’t stop matching books to people. This year I’ve cut back on book gifts — but I did find an exact right match with this book and this book and this book.

Also, I’ll include this caveat: You don’t like the book? Pass it on. Re-gifting is allowed and encouraged.

Grandma, the movie
The best movies are the ones you don’t even know you want to see. This week I stumbled into a gem: Grandma, a dramedy with sharp writing and great acting from Lily Tomlin and Julia Garner. Released in 2015, it’s now on Amazon.

A friend sends a poem
This week a friend sent me this poem. A poem is a gentle ‘thinking of you’, and isn’t that the best gift of all?

Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today

I read a Korean poem

with the line “Today you are the youngest

you will ever be.” Today I am the oldest

I have been. Today we drink

buckwheat tea. Today I have heat

in my apartment. Today I think

about the word chada in Korean.

It means cold. It means to be filled with.

It means to kick. To wear. Today we’re worn.

Today you wear the cold. Your chilled skin.

My heart kicks on my skin. Someone said

winter has broken his windows. The heat inside

and the cold outside sent lightning across glass.

Today my heart wears you like curtains. Today

it fills with you. The window in my room

is full of leaves ready to fall. Chada, you say. It’s tea.

We drink. It is cold outside.

— Emily Jungmin Yoon

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, poems, and more. What are you thankful for today?

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Love this line (and entire book)!

“If you write the truth, you will change the world.

If you write privately, you change your own inner world,

and that changes the outer world.

If you write publicly, you give voice to what is,

and that assists what is becoming.

If you help someone else to write the truth,

you may not live long enough to know it,

but you will have changed the world.”

— an excerpt from How The Light Gets In: Writing As A Spiritual Practice by Pat Schneider

Over the years I’ve read a great many “how-to” books on writing and the creative process. I devour the really good ones and press them eagerly into your hands: Writing Down the Bones and Poemcrazy and In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop.

But this one has worked another sort of magic that feels both affirming ( I do that!) and inspiring (I feel that too!). This dense treasure is not new nor flashy. Instead, it’s a deep and thoughtful reflection of writing and the writing life, penned by the poet who pioneered Amherst Writers, a writing workshop method that believes every person is a writer, and every writer deserves a safe environment in which to experiment (I agree!).

In reading and re-reading How the Light Gets In, I feel seen, understood, and a little less alone in the writing life. If I could press this book into your hands, I would, I would, I would.

Waving: A Day of Veterans

God bless America, says the elderly man sitting beside me.

And for a moment, I feel what he might mean. A wash of nostalgia, sentimentality and weight. Is this how patriotism feels?

I’m conflicted about war memorials, Love it or Leave It bumper stickers, and the red, white & blue. Even the holidays— Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veteran’s Day — make me uneasy. Too much macho, testosterone, blow-‘em-up-and-boast-about-it.

I’m a pacifist. A lover, not a fighter. I want to make art, not war. I could be a Quaker.

Yes, yes, I’m happy to live in the land of the free. I’m not ungrateful. I recognize sacrifice. I married a veteran, and yet, I bristle at these glorifications masked as honor.

But here I am, on a bus in a parade, filled with elderly men who have served in the Navy, Army, Marines. The street is lined with people of all ages, smiling, holding flags, and waving at us. As we drive past, a woman puts her hand to her heart. A man mouths thank you. A group of children hold a banner they made: We love you, Veterans!

The heart swells. Who wouldn’t like this?

***

People say, Thank you for your service. I can’t say what I don’t fully grasp, and instead I ask: What was it like?

It was fun, says John.

My heart sinks. Surely I misheard. I’m expecting honor, duty, sacrifice. He’s 90, he didn’t mean it, he misunderstood. It’s not suppose to be adrenaline and exuberance. But war, like life, is rarely lived in black and white. Fun could mean camaraderie, could mean purpose, could mean belonging. Fun could mean young.

***

Inside the bus, the radio plays Anchors Away and we are lifted in an easy joy. Our group, in their 70s, 80s and 90s, is all smiles.

Look, I say, the children are waving to you. And John, his spine bent in such a severe curve he can hardly look up, even he is waving.

Isn’t that something, he says, as his frail hand rises to acknowledge the praise, waving and waving. All these people out here for us.

***

Photographing the Suddenly Dead (an excerpt)

We no longer have to name
the sins that we are guilty of.
The evidence for every crime
exists. What one
must always answer for
is not what has been done, but
for the weight of what remains
as residue—every effort
must be made to scrub away
the stain we’ve made on time.

— Kevin Powers
from Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting 

* Names and identifiers have been changed to protect privacy.

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