No Single Thing

This year wasn’t a devastation to me. I didn’t lose my job. I didn’t get sick, nor did I lose anyone I love to Covid. The losses I suffered were different, smaller–my favorite restaurant, trips to Lake Michigan, a chance to see my in-laws in Norway, my dog of 15 years (very sad but very normal and expected). My daughter went through an excruciating ACL reconstruction surgery for the second damn time and afterwards I helped her purge her room of all things soccer (posters, cleats, jerseys, shin guards–enough stuff to fill two garbage bags) when she decided to retire from her beloved sport. I watched her spend her senior year in virtual isolation, only setting foot in her high school once to take the SAT, hardly seeing friends and certainly not doing all the things one would expect during their last year of high school.

This year expectations lived above board. They were there, in plain view–that I would watch my daughter play her final flute recital, that I could cheer on my son at his cross-country meets, that we could rent an airbnb on the beach in Michigan, that we would visit Chicago, that we would have friends over for dinner, and that I would (of course) write and publish some more poems. All knocked down like trees in the straightline wind of the Covid virus. Not a one left standing, save for walking and hiking. We still did that.

I recently discovered a poet that I really love. After watching a YouTube video of them* reading a poem, I looked them up. It appears as though I may be one of the last in the English-speaking world to discover them, since they’ve won nearly every British accolade there is to win. I’ve been watching lots of their videos, but this one resonates especially. And it seems like the mantra I need as I move forward into 2021:

(They have recently changed their name to Kae and use they/them pronouns.)

Hold your own, friends. See you in 2021.

This year the festival was virtual of course, so our readings were pre-recorded and posted on YouTube. You can see mine here. I’m about 7 minutes in.

Our local Poet Laureate, Will Reger, and the Urbana Arts and Culture Program, created an opportunity for local poets to write poems to accompany 4 murals (also by local artists) that the city commissioned a few years ago. My poem “At the Iron Post” was selected to be displayed in downtown Urbana under the tremendous mural entitled “Portrait of Chip McNeill” by Christopher Evans. Yesterday we had the ribbon cutting ceremony and I just can’t even say how cool this feels for me.

Clifford Brooks, Jr. is the editor of the Blue Mountain Review and founder of the Southern Collective Experience. He’s a pretty amazing guy. I got acquainted with him through email after I won 2nd place in the Women of Resilience Chapbook contest. The tone of his correspondence was the virtual equivalent of a warm smile and a huge hug from a person that really means it. So when he asked me if he could interview me for his other endeavor, an NPR radio show called Dante’s Old South, I couldn’t say no. And even though I was pretty nervous going into it, he put me at ease right out of the gates. You can hear the interview on the 18th episode of the show, at about the 17 minute mark or so. Anyway, cheers to Clifford Brooks for encouraging me and for giving me a place to tell about my journey as a writer. It felt great. Also interviewed are the third place winner, Angela Dribben, and the first place winner, Laura Ingram, both remarkable women with interesting stories. You can listen to all three of us here.

Some outsiders insist that this part of the country has it’s charm, but I figure they’re just being polite. No one comes to visit. Our guest room is kind of a joke. Who wants to spend a day of their precious vacation time visiting East Central Illinois, when you could be in the mountains or near the ocean or in an enormous forest? But for the last couple of weeks we–the people of Urbana–have been posting pictures of this sunflower field on the east side of town and dare I say it? It’s stunning.

And it’s not lost on us. Each night enough people head out to Stone Creek Boulevard that it’s tricky to park. You see fancy clothes, selfie sticks, professional photographers, wheelchairs being wheeled off the sidewalks, mediation rugs, tai chi practitioners and children squealing as they run in the tall stalks. It’s quite a spectacle. And just the thing for a community so starved for delight. With no pools open, no Sweetcorn Festival and no County Fair, it’s been a bleak summer. This field was a timely gift, a beautiful surprise and one that will be well-remembered in photos.

I’m working on a poem about it. I know it’s strange, but I find it much easier to write about hard things than I do writing about something so plainly lovely. It’s so easy to fall into cliche or to write something saccharine and forgettable. But I’m not giving up! Until then, I just offer this picture I took of the field at sunset. Isn’t it something?

It’s been a tough year at our house. Our particular issues are unique–but who isn’t struggling right now?

A friend said recently to me, “It’s been the kind of year that turns your lights out.” And isn’t that it? Yes. That’s it, right there, for me anyway. I’m trying to write a poem worthy of that line, but for now I’ll just put this picture I took of a sunset in northern Germany. If you can’t keep the light on in your life, you have to try to hang on to its memory. That’s the best I cant think to do, anyway.

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I have a thing for doors. I found this one in Germany last year. I may write a poem about it, but maybe it’s a poem unto itself…

I was very taken by this powerful poem. I hope you will take the time to listen to it.

One year ago my husband gave me the gift of a week-long stay at Christ in the Wilderness in JoDaviess County, Illinois. Both my brother and my mom had done silent retreats there. The place is just a few miles from the family farms of both my mother’s parents. It is also where my mother grew up and where I lived for about 4 years of my childhood. I feel deeply connected to this beautiful part of Illinois, also known as the Driftless Area. Unlike much of the rest of the state, it is forested, with hills and bluffs and river valleys and rock formations. Yes, there are also farms with red barns and pastured cows and cornfields, but it feels decidedly different from most of the rest of Illinois which was scraped flat by glaciers.

When I arrived, the nun that runs the place hoisted my things into the back of her ATV and drove me through a meadow and then over a steep, washed out, rocky road into the woods until we saw the view you can see from this picture. I stood in the threshold of my little hermitage and tried to hold off crying until she was gone. It was such a gift to have all that uninterrupted time and solitude in such a beautiful place.

I was so eager for some uninterrupted time to focus on writing–to read, to write, to revise and to put together a chapbook manuscript. I organized my files, typed up poems I had in notebooks, assembled a draft of a manuscript on the twin bed. I read The Poet’s Companion and Ordinary Genius by Kim Addonizio and A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver as well as plenty of books of poetry I had brought along. In the between times, I cooked small meals for myself or took naps. I also spent a lot of time on the screen porch, watching wildlife parade by, lost in thought. I went for long walks in the woods. I filled a notebook that would have taken me months to fill at home. I was alone–more alone than I had maybe ever been in my life. Sometimes I even felt a little too alone and too isolated. One night when it stormed and I couldn’t go outside for my evening walk, I felt a surprising sense of cabin fever. I didn’t imagine that a week would feel so long! But a week in one place with no other people was quite a shock to my system after years of living with a husband and kids and a dog and a full time job. Also, I really wanted to leave the door unlocked and the windows open at night but I just couldn’t do it–I couldn’t shake my city sense that there was danger after dark. But overall, I felt so much peace and a very uncomplicated joy I hadn’t felt in many years.

It was not too long after this experience that I published my first poem. And then my second and third and fourth. This retreat was my chrysalis–I climbed in not knowing what to expect and I emerged a week later feeling quite changed. I’m so grateful for the experience.

Since this picture was taken, my kids have faced some pretty tough things in their personal lives. Now they are also navigating the momentous changes brought about by COVID 19, not to mention the ever-present backdrop of climate and social justice crises that worry them so.

It’s a hard time to be anything right now, but I’d say the thing I’m struggling the most with is being a mom. Assuring kids that there is a bright future waiting for them when they hear so much evidence to the contrary is a tough job. And sometimes I feel like a snake oil salesman when I do.

This poem by Maggie Smith has been such a comfort to me over the last few years, but never more so than it is now.