This was me, last week.
A jamboree of writers and musicians hanging out on a gorgeous Sunday, beans and rice bubbling out front, saying hi to acquaintances and 2/3 of lmnl and relishing the creative offerings.
Poetry makes me feel dumb sometimes, but then suddenly it makes me feel, and that moment is everything.
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| lmnl |
Once again, times are tough and it’s hard to know how worried to be.
No one believes anything about the election that is already underway (the polls are wrong, the media is lying) or wait, no, everyone believes everything being spewed out, the conspiracy theories and the bots flooding everything we see and hear.
It’s exhausting and I suppose that too is by design.
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A dear family member is two chemo treatments into a six-treatment regimen and the side effects are already dangerous, nearly life-threatening. They’re hanging in there but the news has been so relentlessly bad. It’s worrisome and exhausting. We spend time on Zoom each week just to see one another and joke around. I keep a private journal and screenshot everything and wonder who I’m writing it all down for? Future me?
It’s not like fiction where I relish not knowing the ending.
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I fell the other day, out of nowhere. Twisted the old ankle and down I went into a patch of grass. The dog I was walking whined in surprise, then stood next to me cronching the treats that had fallen out of my pocket. Stay here, I breathed, willing my legs to stop shaking so I could stand up.
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Where is there respite?
Part of me wants to bear witness, to be in community, but much of me wishes to go to sleep and wake up in February 2025 to a healed world. I just know we won’t get there by accident.
It’s been a fertile week conversationally. Circumstances and an overflowing psyche forced me to abandon my usually rigorous schedule of writing 2 hours each morning into finding scraps of time when I can. And suddenly creativity abounds, I’m nourishing ideas and projects to keep me busy for actual literal years.
What we found in my great-grandmother’s things, 20 years afterher passing.
A deeper dive into the aftermath of the arson murders at the Up Stairs Lounge. A pal and I attended the fiftieth anniversary last year, and can’t stop talking about it.
Inappropriate therapists. I’ve had ‘em. You’ve had ‘em. I have a lot to sort through.
--the weed guy
--the boring one
--the needy one
--the BFF
And, this series of tweets. Got almost no attention (understandably, as Helene bore down and the VP debate bubbled and fizzled). But it’s on my mind. The ole inside baseball of literary fiction, success for thee (the chosen, the moneyed) but not for me.
I still have a day job, 2 volunteer jobs and a part-time commitment to dog walking for an ailing neighbor. So, more to come.
