Category Archives: Arts

Just like that, it’s December

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I’m not sure how December happened. My last post here seems to have happened at the end of May. Where have I been?

I guess I’ve been exactly where everyone else in the United States was—or should have been: at home. Or, if you prefer, nowhere. Those days have dragged and dragged, and yet here it is December. And what have I to show for it all? So much and so little.

I have a giant raised garden that yielded towering tomato plants, though not quite enough fruits on them, plus lettuce, carrots, chard, kale and kale sprouts, and so much basil that everyone I know will be receiving pesto for the holidays. Just this weekend, I was surprised to find a late crop of lettuce volunteers and delicious carrots, weeks after the first frost. My gardening books tell me that December is a month to slow down, and the garden definitely has done that, but it hasn’t yet gone into hibernation. Some of the carrots became part of a chicken cottage pie on Saturday night, and there are more waiting to be harvested.

I’ve also started teaching myself to bake bread. I started with a fairly simple oat-corn bread, made a sweet Swedish cardamom bread as gifts for local family at Thanksgiving, and just this past weekend baked my first loaves of Swedish Limpa bread. Limpa is part of my customary Christmas, but my Swedish bakery has gone out of business. I’m delighted that I can now begin making my own. I haven’t yet found quite the right spice combination, but I’ll keep experimenting.

I’ve spent a good portion of the last six months ill-focused (anxious) and unable to read books. Poetry has pulled me through for the most part, although for a few days around November 3 even poetry seemed daunting, and I started reading cookbooks instead. If you like to cook and are having trouble focusing on reading, try it sometime. It was a brilliant solution—and started me down the path of bread making.

I’ve also been sending a lot of postcards, and have started making my own cards as a kind of art therapy. Paper crafts seem to relax me (along with cookbook reading). The banner photo up top is from one of my postcards. Here are a few others:

I’m looking forward to making more, possibly some holiday-themed ones during December. I like the creation, and connecting with friends, and supporting the U.S. Post is a bonus.

Between the primary and general elections, I wrote about 1,000 postcards to help get out the vote in Wisconsin and Michigan. That’s an accomplishment that gives me pride. I’ve also been posting a poem a day on a chalkboard on my front porch (and on social media for friends) every day since June, inspired by a friend who was doing the same. I’ve found myself largely unable to write anything long during the pandemic—witness my absence from this blog. Sometimes just a three-line poem has daunted me. But I’ve kept at it, and sometimes I think it’s what’s keeping me sane.



I have managed to have a few poems published since the start of the pandemic, though. Two actually were products of the pandemic, both of which found homes on Headline Poetry & Press. I wrote Pi Day at the very start of the pandemic, when we had just gone into lockdown and the world seemed scary but I still had lots of hope. What I Fear Most came later and has lots more angst. More recently, Back Patio Press featured two very different poems by me: RIP Munchkin, and I Like My Life, but It’s Unexpected.

Writing all this down, I feel more like I’ve accomplished something during this pandemic. Hooray!

Whoring on Mother’s Day

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I call this tulip a whore every year. It grows up tall and elegant in the garden, willowy and waving gently in a breeze. Then I bring one inside, and eventually it splays itself wide open for all the world to see what it’s got.

I love this tulip.

I don’t recall its name, but every year it adds graceful beauty to my outdoor garden and then puts on a garish, boastful display indoors. That’s this year’s picture above. Here’s last year’s:

I’m pretty sure if I looked back further in my photo archive I’d find something similar for the past 10 years, or for however long it has been since I ordered these bulbs and put them in the ground.

These guys are nearing the end of their bloom time this year, and the lilacs are chasing close behind them. Come to think of it, lilacs are equally boastful in their own way, bathing themselves in a perfume you can smell down the block. Nothing subtle, but ecstasy to inhale.

Today on Mother’s Day, I celebrate the whores of my garden.

Good from sadness

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Most people I know are having mood swings in this pandemic. On top of feeling isolated and penned in, there’s much to fear—for ourselves, our loved ones, our nations, and for humanity.

Reading poetry can help me when I’m in a funk, as can sunlight and the outdoors. I don’t think I can write my way out of a funk, but sometimes I’m able to put pen to page despite low spirits. There’s a chicken-egg conundrum to this; I’m not clear what comes first—whether writing helps me get away from the gloom, or I’m already on my way out and that allows me to give voice to my feelings. But they do often seem to go hand in hand.

Today, a poem I wrote near the darkest point of my recent funk—during a two- to three-day period starting on Holy Thursday of Easter week—made its way into the wide universe. “What I Fear Most” is published now on Headline Poetry and Press, and the editor who accepted it made my day by telling me it had struck home personally with them, voicing what they considered a common experience.

It’s gratifying and comforting to know that something positive can come from sadness. I’d rather not have gone through (or put my husband through) that 1 1/2-week funk. But having done so, I’m glad to think I might help someone else muddle through as well.

I intended this blog to serve as something of a social distancing diary when I started writing daily posts with the institution of shelter-in-place orders. Clearly that plan has crumbled, given the nearly two-week gap. But sometimes it’s hard to write, and hard to share. I’m forgiving myself.

Photos of the day

I used most of yesterday’s good photos in yesterday’s blog post. Here are a couple taken while the sun was out one day during my funk. Dogs on the deck—a recipe for contentedness.

Baking therapy

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I believe I might have entered the baking stage of coping. When I made my Pi Day pie back on my first day of social distancing, I was carrying out an annual tradition unrelated to our current situation. I would have made that pie in normal times. Granted, my husband and I might not have eaten it all by ourselves, but…

A week or so ago, when I made chicken pot pie for dinner, that also didn’t count. That pie was just a normal dinner. I already had the filling in the freezer, waiting for a crust.

Even when I made cookies last week, they were a treat that didn’t feel like a pattern. Now, I think they might have been the beginning of one. Yesterday I made cheese scones. And with a birthday coming up in our household—and yes, we will have a party!—when I made the grocery list that included evaporated milk and coconut for German chocolate cake frosting, I told my husband at the last minute to get extra evaporated milk so I’d have the makings for macaroons.

There are two of us in this household, and I don’t think sharing baked goods with neighbors is an approved social distancing activity (though if you know the answer and it is, please let me know). So that’s a lot of baked goods needing to be consumed. And in my mind, I’m all ready to make more cheese scones the minute the current batch runs out.

This is either stress baking or sublimating. Or are those the same?

Goal setting

I didn’t actually write down goals yesterday, but I did have them in the back of my head throughout the day. I did alright—washed a bit of laundry, made those scones, wrote part of a blog post for Escape into Life—maybe most of one, but it doesn’t feel right yet, so I’m unsure. Also I determined that we don’t seem to have fishing line, which I want for a particular creative project, so now it’s on the same shopping list with the building supplies for the new raised garden bed I’ve been planning since last fall. Today’s goals include one for the husband: order those supplies. Mine look something like this:

  • Dog walk
  • Exercise walk
  • Poetry or other reading
  • Clean towels
  • Stretch goal: Finish that blog post
  • Photo a day, of course

Photo of the day

I’m a day behind in sharing, so here’s one from each of the last two days. In the first, I was focused on the doorway, which intrigued me because of the lighting; the cat was a bonus and maybe my favorite part of the picture.

This one shows Rolo’s newest habit: leaving the ball on the window ledge where she needs it in her mouth as a pacifier when she growls and shakes at other dogs. Apparently she’s grown tired of having to run through the house desperately looking for it when she sees a dog coming.

Ruminating on a peaceful morn

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Books and poetry and a long-ago vacation

Reading is a temporal affair, isn’t it? Temporal in the sense of time, not place. The reader’s mind connects with the writer’s and, as with conversation, time matters. What I think today will be different from what I think tomorrow; what interests me changes from moment to moment, even more so from day to day or month to month. So whether a book grabs me (or a poem or essay) is as much about my own mind space while reading as it is about the quality of the writing. Nick Hornby used to make that point regularly in his “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” columns; he wouldn’t write about books he put down or didn’t like because he knew that he was part of the reading equation and didn’t think it fair to criticize the author.

This morning I pulled two small books of William Blake poems out of my bookcase, books that I apparently picked up in a Bangor, Maine, book store on vacation years ago (maybe 10?). They must have really resonated with me at the time—I bought two, after all—but rereading Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience over my morning coffee today left me ready for something else. A couple of pieces resonated, but nothing that would have moved me to buy the book. (To be fair, I suspect it was Blake’s Selected Poems that moved me more in that Bangor bookstore. I’ll probably look through it later today to see how I respond.)

What did move me today was a piece shared on Escape into Life’s Facebook page: a therapist’s advice turned into poetry: “An Anarchist Quaker’s Prayer to Soothe Anxiety.” I’m also reading a lot of Billy Collins and Maya Angelou and Mary Oliver these days. Is anyone else having trouble settling into a novel or non-fiction book? I don’t seem to have the focus for even the best novel these days, probably a result of underlying anxiety that I’m not much noticing otherwise. Poetry generally seems to be where my head is right now.

RIP Bookmarc’s

Finding the bookmark from Maine made me look up the bookstore to see how it’s doing these days. I’m sorry to report that Bookmarc’s went out of business a couple years back when its owner (unsurprisingly named…Marc) decided to retire. Its website is gone, but the Bangor Daily News informs me that Marc was planning to set up a booth in a local antique market, so I’m hopeful his longtime patrons are still able to find him.

I’m always sad to see an independent bookstore close down. I’ve spent many joyful hours of discovery in small bookstores all over the country, and they are among my favorite places—right up there with libraries. I can peruse tables and shelves happily in any bookstore, but a shop whose owners and staff offer recommendations and favorites and mini-reviews is a special treasure. I’m pleased to report that my community has several independent bookstores, both large and small. I have a favorite, but you might find me in any of them.

On Memory Lane

That Bookmarc’s bookmark has me remembering that lovely trip to Maine—the only time I’ve been there, and believe me I want to go back. What I remember most are the lighthouses, the oddest little Airbnb we’ve ever stayed at (but absolutely enjoyed—it came with farm-fresh eggs stocked in our little refrigerator every day!), fresh air and family hikes, lobster and blueberry pie, and the discovery of blueberry beer. All happy memories, and I might be inspired to dig up some of the photos later today to share in a separate post.

First, though, my report on yesterday, with lots of photos.

Goals, photos of the day

Yesterday was almost a lost day for personal achievement. I was so very tired, worked a full day on two hours’ sleep, and probably came close to achieving none of my personal goals. I saved it, though, by deciding I needed at least a short walk before bed. Two miles later, I arrived back home after a trip through our local park that I realized I needed because it had been a couple of weeks since I was in any kind of green space. I had my camera with me, and photo-a-day turned into several shots I’m not embarrassed to share. The park was restorative, restful, beautiful, and just what I needed. My goals today:

  • Letter to a friend, not just a postcard
  • Create something
  • Cleaning and laundry
  • Photo a day
  • Dog walk, weather permitting
  • A nice dinner, ordered in, with my husband and maybe some friends (virtually, of course)

And here are those photos. It was wet in the park between rain showers, and the tree branches and buds and berries glistened in the light. I really can’t decide what shots I like best. (Bonus shot of Tank at the bottom.)