From Bliss to Blah

My new year's goal was supposed to be such a simple one: BLISS, NOT DREAD. That wasn't too much to ask, was it? Just a daily dose of bliss, preferably from writing something brilliant and beautiful?

But then my husband died... and I got a devastating book rejection that made me think maybe my career as a writer is over, and maybe I'm okay with that, except not really okay... and COVID lingered and lingered, and winter lingered and lingered. 

I did find joy in launching my online graduate Ethics and Children's Literature course at Hollins University, where teaching is the closest thing the academy offers to a total love fest. I enjoyed working with three aspiring authors through the mentorship program sponsored by our local chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. And I adored taking part in poet Molly Fisk's Poem-a-Day Facebook group, where I did succeed in writing a poem from one of her tantalizing prompts every single day for the whole month. So hooray for that.

Still, my life has more "blah" than "bliss" in it right now, and I'm not in the mood to make heroic efforts to do something about this. I'm too tired. I'm too sad. I know I'd perk up considerably if my agent sold the rejected book somewhere else, but that's something outside my control, so I'm trying not to check my email more than every five minutes to see if there is good news on that front. I'd also perk up considerably if I bought myself a ticket to Paris for a post-COVID jaunt (and I do get my first dose of the vaccine tomorrow). But it feels like tempting fate to expect the world to open up to accommodate my travel plans.

So I'm just going to - well, not embrace blah, but accept it for now. There are worse things than blah. I know that as well as anyone.

Here, as my farewell to February, three poems from this month's harvest, one silly and two sad. Maybe a month in which I wrote twenty-eight poems in the company of wonderful fellow poets wasn't such a blah month after all.

The Tunnel’s Lament

Few slow down

to linger by me,

feelin’ groovy.

When times are rough,

I am not their chosen refuge

from troubled waters.

Hart Crane ignored me,

effusive though he was

on certain other subjects

I prefer not to mention.

Those traveling to Terabithia

look elsewhere

for their means of passage.

I can go to nowhere, too,

you know.

I can occasion sighs.

I’ve been crawled through,

collapsed in to.

When will I be loved? 

Self-Pity

 I think of her in the third person,
my younger self. There she is,
 
in girls’ chorus, singing her heart out
for a boy who will never love her back.
 
“More than the greatest love the world has known….”
“Love, look away….”  “Softly, as I leave you.”
 
And I think, she doesn’t know, she has no idea,
that she’ll someday marry someone else,
 
and the marriage will be so hard, so hard,
but she’ll stick it out somehow to the end,
 
to the part where he dies alone
in a nursing home in the midst of a pandemic,
 
and she’ll try to make peace with her grief
by listening over and over again
 
to a You Tube video of Eydie Gorme
singing “Softly, As I Leave You.”
 
And I feel so sorry for that girl,
my heart breaking with pity for her,
 
and maybe a little bit
of pity for me, too.

On This Last Day of February, Almost Two Months Since Your Passing

 

Despite everything, I got out of bed this morning.

Instead of merely making the bed, I yanked

off the covers for laundering, and they are

tumbling in the dryer now. I walked the dog

for half an hour, putting on his sweater

as I do in freezing weather, for warmth

as well as for added adorableness.

After tidying the kitchen, I scrambled myself

two eggs with cheese and sauteed onions

and peppers and let the dog gobble up

what I left behind on my plate. Soon

I’ll take that plate and fork downstairs

for washing, too. Today is another hard

day. But maybe tomorrow will be better,

this new month with its vernal equinox,

the coming of spring, crocuses budding

beneath the snow, sap rising in the trees,

new life stirring somewhere, etcetera, etcetera,

and if not this month, maybe the next one,

or maybe the month after that.

Cured by Poetry?

 The philosopher John Stuart Mill, the most brilliant of all the utilitarians, wrote in his autobiography about what he called "A Crisis in My Mental History." Raised to be a crusading reformer, dedicated to the goal of increasing happiness in all its forms, he reached a point where this goal lost its meaning for him. In a state of deep depression, he wrote,

it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: “Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?” And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, “No!” At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for.

The only cure he found for this sense of bleak hopelessness was in  . . . poetry. In particular, immersing himself in the poetry of Wordsworth. Wordsworth's poems were 

a medicine for my state of mind. . .they expressed, not mere outward beauty, but states of feeling, and of thought coloured by feeling, under the excitement of beauty. They seemed to be the very culture of the feelings, which I was in quest of.. . . From them I seemed to learn what would be the perennial sources of happiness, when all the greater evils of life shall have been removed. And I felt myself at once better and happier as I came under their influence.

Mill was cured by poetry.

I've been in my own bleak midwinter for the past month, not only grieving the recent loss of my husband but also reeling from a devastating, and unexpected, rejection of a book for which I had cherished the highest hopes. Writing has always been my source of bliss. Writing was supposed to be how I would recover from the grief of this family loss. If writing was taken away, to quote Mill, I seemed to have nothing left to live for.

Well, nothing except for poetry.

I rejoined an online poetry group of a dozen or so poets facilitated by the wondrous poet and teacher Molly Fisk. On each morning of the month that the group meets, Molly posts a prompt for us: a striking photo paired with her own evocative caption. Then, if so moved, we write poems in response to this prompt and share them in a private Facebook group. Reactions from the others are welcome, with one crucial caveat: no criticism! not even any helpful "suggestions" for improvement! Just "likes" or "loves" or the occasion "ha-ha" or "WOW!" or a comment lifting up an especially pleasing line or image. 

Now I DO have something to live for, or at least a reason to get out of bed in the morning. What will Molly's prompt be for today??!! I love pondering the prompt  - playing with it - poking around for an idea for what poem I might offer in response. It's fascinating to see what my fellow poets do with that same stimulus, and dazzling to see what some of them produce. 

I have to admit I can get a teensy bit sad that my pitiful little poem isn't as good as some of the others. I'm puzzled - but also intrigued - that some of my poems get more "loves" and comments than others of mine - why? But mainly I try to give up all thought of critique and evaluation and just luxuriate in the joy of creativity and generativity.

It's February 8th today. I have written seven poems so far this month! And I plan to write another one today! Today's prompt is a photo of a wrecked, partially submerged ship that has lush greenery growing up from it (credit: Conor Moore, Australian shipwreck).

 Molly captioned it, "Sometimes shipwrecks turn into islands."

Ooh!

And sometimes despair can turn into a harvest of seven (soon to be eight!) new, not-very-good-but-also-in-some-ways-very-wonderful poems.

What will my poem be today?

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Molly hosts these Poem-a-Month gatherings several times a year, and you can join for a nominal fee. She is hosting the next one in April.

 

Starting the New Year Over Again on February 1

I've always loved beginnings: New Year's Day, Mondays, early mornings before sunrise. The first day of the month is another perennial favorite. I've formed the practice of starting an entire "new life" each month, with plans to rise earlier, work harder, accomplish more on every dimension of my existence. This time, I vow to myself, I truly will "run faster and stretch out [my] arms farther." Or at least I'll do so for a few days, until the new life inevitably peters out, and I wait for the next month's new life to offer its endless possibilities.

This year my new life for January didn't just "peter out"; it imploded altogether with a heart-rending family loss, and I spent the month grieving. Grief obeys no prescribed timetable, of course, so I'll probably spend the rest of my days grieving in some sense. The death of a loved one leaves a hole in one's heart that will never be filled. 

But it's the first of February now, and I have actual work that needs to be done, and done by me. It also happens to be work I love to do. So I'm going to start doing it. A past episode of deep depression a long time ago taught me that it helps a lot to have something you actually HAVE to do. My beloved Spanish philosopher/theologian Miguel de Unamuno wrote,"Work is the only practical consolation for having been born."

So today, on this first morning of this new month, I replied to the last of the condolence cards. I started building the Moodle site for my online graduate course on Ethics and Children's Literature for Hollins University, which begins on February 10. I plan to write a poem for the Poem-a-Day group I joined with fabulous poet Molly Fisk. I'm writing this blog post right now. This afternoon I'm taking a walk with a friend down by beautiful Clear Creek in Golden. 

My (doomed) goal for 2021 was "Bliss, not Dread." My new goal for 2021 doesn't have a catchy slogan. It's just to keep on going, placing one foot in front of another, making slow quiet progress toward doing whatever I need to do. I will rely on what I call my "four pillars of happiness": writing, reading, walking, and friendship. A day is a good one if I write something, read something, walk somewhere, and spend some time with friends (email, phone calls, and ZOOM count, but in-person contact counts most - hence, the plan to walk outdoors, masked and distanced, with a dear friend today). 

If your new year is off to a rocky start, and your best-laid plans have gone agley, you can join me in starting the year over again today. Do at least something to follow through on the old plans, or make some new plans, or toss out plans altogether and just find a bit of happiness where you can. 

Your new life is waiting.