My Slow Christmas

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I’ve mentioned before how much difficulty I’ve had getting into the spirit of the season. I know I’m not alone. And I have been “busy.” Aside from obsessing about politics (looking forward to having it all take a back seat–as David Brooks has promised), I have several different writing projects going.

And I’ve been acting “as if“: sending out a massive amount of Christmas cards, sneaking in some shopping and trying to organize gifts for my daughters to pick up at the house. I’ve been negotiating our Boxing Day Zoom for opening gifts (as our youngest daughter is working today and tomorrow). I’ve been hanging out with my old dog. I’ve kept up with my goal to walk 5 miles a day. On the Solstice, given torrential rain, and snow (!), I did almost the entire 5 miles inside the house. (Pabu and I did make it outside for a bit in the early evening–a Tibetan Terrier, he likes snow.)

But now it’s Christmas Eve, and I’m feeling that maybe an Ann Cleeves’s novel and some tea and shortbread are in order. Even if I can’t get the picture to shift.

One of the gifts I splurged on for myself recently was to sign up for BookFox’s “Master Your Writing Time” course. I’m dawdling my way through it, but finding–despite my best efforts, or the opposite–that it has helped. Some of the lessons are action tips, and adopting the Pomodoro method has worked beautifully for me. Sitting for very long makes me feel achy and stiff. But working for just 25 minutes, then spending 5 minutes moving around, doing a few chores (avoiding my phone & computer), has been pretty amazing.

Then I came to his lesson “Hasty Writing vs. Slow Writing.” As a huge fan of Louise DeSalvo, I was already primed for what Matthew Fox called a “mindset” lesson. It ended with a link to the blogpost below.

I’ll still find a way to walk my 5 miles today. But I wish us both a slow Christmas.

A Manifesto for Slow Writing

Fresh Ink

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I have no idea what just happened, but it kind of sums up my blogging year. (With the exception of April,when I did manage to post every day.) I wrote a whole post, and now it looks like I need to rewrite it. So here goes.

Earlier this year I decided to submit every poem, every essay, and every short story I had. Somewhere. With the result that, amid a hailstorm of rejections (ouch!) I also have a few very nice acceptances to brag about.

One is at Fresh Ink, an on-line journal that reprints short stories. They picked up my story, “Corinne, at Floodtime,” which had previously been published on-line by Calyx, when it was a runner-up for the Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing. Corinne is “live” just today, and I’d love it if you took a look.

Another publication is at One Sentence Poems. This on-line journal and their sister site (or parent?), Right Hand Pointing, first came to my attention when I read a book recommended to me by Christopher Howell: One for the Money: The Sentence as a Poetic Form. If you search my name or the poem title, “What She Memorized for the Test,” you’ll find me.

Finally, take a look at my last post to see my other recent publications. I should add, that my poetry books are also available from Edmonds Bookshop and Village Books.

If you have recommendations for where next we should be sending our work, please share in the comments!

 

What to buy your favorite writer…poet…new mom for Christmas

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I’m having a terrible time trying to get into the Christmas spirit. I think what I really want is for my three daughters to be youngsters again. I want to go out as a family and pick out a tree, then bring it home to decorate it, bake cookies, and watch Santa Claus Saves Earth from the Martians. 

Short of that, I want to meet a friend at a noisy restaurant and drink about four glasses of wine. Except the restaurants aren’t open, my best friends are all barricaded in their houses, and I appear to have quit drinking alcohol.

So what I’ll do instead is take a long walk, help my husband get the new dishwasher installed (grrr), and imagine in the most idle possible way putting up a Christmas tree all by my lonesome.

As Deepak Chopra says somewhere, when faith fails you, have faith in faith. Trust in trust.

If you haven’t yet decided what to buy those socially-distanced, masked-up loved ones on your list, here are my recommendations.

My poetry appeared in three anthologies over the last twelve months. Chrysanthemum’s 2020 Literary Anthology, Footbridge Above the Waterfall from Rose Alley Press, and Our Deepest Calling, which is an anthology of writings from my Wednesday writing group.

To find more about Footbridge, visit this site: https://www.rosealleypress.com/works/horowitz/footbridge/

The Chrysanthemum anthology is available from Amazon.

If you’d like a copy of Our Deepest Calling, they are available from private sellers only, but I could probably help you with that.

And for my final entry in the poetry department, there’s my friend Paul Marshall’s wonderful first book, which I helped edit: Stealing Foundation Stones. 

But, poetry aside (never) I have another new book to push.

December 11 my little essay, “You Are Very Upset” — which began life as a poem with numbered aphorisms about parenting, teaching, and writing — will be available from DLG Publishing Partners as a Kindle book. AND it’s only $.99.

If you know any newish moms who are also teaching, homeschooling, and trying to write, I’m happy to recommend it.

And now, for that walk.

Could we hear some poetry now, please?

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No matter how steep the climb, I’m so grateful today to be on this path with you. May the next four years, indeed, be “a time to heal.”

Meanwhile, there’s always poetry.

Joanna Klink has become a big favorite of mine, ever since reading an epigraph from her work in Holly Hughes’s Hold Fast. This poem is from Klink’s book, Excerpts from a Secret Prophecy. 

The photograph is mine, from yesterday’s walk on Big Gulch Trail, Mukilteo, something else that lifts my heart.

 

Processional

If there is a world, let me be in it.
Let fires arise and pass. The sky fill with evening air
then sink across the woodlots and porches,
the streams thinning to creeks.
In winter there will be creatures half-locked in ice,
storms blown through iron grates, a drug of whitest ardor.
Let the old hopes be made new.
Let stacks of clouds blacken if they have to
but never let the people in this town go hungry.
Never let them fear cold. If there is a world,
let it not be temporary, like these vague stars.
Let us die when we must. And spinelessness
not overtake us, and privation,
let rain bead across tangled lavender plants.
If there is a world where we feel very little,
let it not be our world. Let worth be worth
and energy action–let blood fly up to the surface skin.
If you are fierce, if you are cynical, halfhearted, pained–
I would sit with you awhile, or walk next to you,
and when we take leave of each other after so many years,
the oaks will toss their branches in wheels of wind
above us–as if it had mattered, all of it,
every second. If there is a world.