Now Playing: “Into the Mystic,” Van Morrison.

My to-do list leading up to Mom’s service on Saturday is shrinking. Finally. (I should say this is just my portion of the list. Other family members have done as much and more.)

Mom’s obituary? Published.

Poem written for the memorial cards? Check.
Notifying family and friends? Done.
Trying to overlook the pettiness of people who are hurting? Ongoing…

Picture board of my branch of the family? Complete.

(Upside down and with sparkle. It makes sense if you see it. It’s more collage than not; if you know me, that tracks.)

I had no idea it would wreck me to make it, going back through picture albums, choosing, piecing together memories, some half remembered. Crying over the one where my mom and dad look so happy on a random afternoon on their living room couch, the one with my kiddos with them, my son at nine squished against my mom, beaming while Mia, our eldest, smiles at my dad. Wishing I had even more choices.

I listened to Comfort Eagle in my AirPods the whole time as my heart ached over so many things. This time, there was a good ache in there, too. Thankfulness.

Tomorrow is house cleaning day. Not glamorous, but necessary. It’s fine. No, really. As long as someone else does the dishes. And the laundry. And maybe cleans the bathrooms.

I’m joking, of course. Barry and I will likely divide the chores like a thoroughly modern couple. Unless oops, I sleep in and the chores magically do themselves? Wink.
(He’s taking his remaining bereavement days late in the week to help prep for visitors since the funeral is on Saturday.)

What will I do in the meantime? Like, today? Unclear. It’s not even 5 am yet here I am, at the page.

It’s a strange, liminal time. I want to write but do I really want to?

(Sorry/not sorry for practically live blogging. This is hows we drains the pain, lovelies.)

Wind gusts may drive me indoors today at the cafe, dang it. But I’ll still be…what? At my laptop, hoping for inspiration, for ?

I’m saying it might not matter because I’m not gonna exactly be a productivity czar.

I was there yesterday, and one of the employees who knows my niece came up and hugged me. She had heard. I barely know this young woman and yet I felt myself leaning into her. There’s something to being able to draw strength from others after all.

Another employee who did not know, but a sweetie, had newly learned I was an author (idk how she heard that) and was telling me she had ordered one of my books.
I thanked her, of course, and she asked me if that’s what I do when I’m at the café, write novels?

Sometimes, friend. Sometimes.

Sometimes I’m doing other work.

Sometimes I’m automatic-writing poetry that I never remember to let cool long enough to polish. (I’m gonna fix that. It deserves more time and attention.)

Sometimes I’m blogging, which is another word for flinging your soul like Mardi Grad beads and hoping they land with the right person. (It? Which is the referent? See, I don’t even know right now and don’t care enough to figure it out. It’s 4:50 AM, HERBERT. DON’T GIVE ME ANY PERFECTIONISTIC SHIT. Except now I do care, but I’ve mentioned Herbert and I like to leave in mentions of that cranky SOB.) STET.

Where is Word Raccoon? I don’t feel her yet this morning. Please tell me she didn’t come and go with my mother’s illness and passing? I like my writing friend!

Regardless, I’m not feeling poetic today, although doubtless a few stubs will pop up, attempt to sprout. Time will tell. Not really interested in my novel right now. The comic book has proven a nonstarter at this point. The humorous essay is…not what I’m feeling. Screenplay I mentioned yesterday? Not a serious contender. Too much formatting, am I right?

Maybe I’ll bring the James novel with me, flip through that author’s preface again as if I’m on a fainting couch.

Maybe I’ll sit in a straight-backed chair, iced coffee in hand, and see what ghosts show up.

What am I saying? This isn’t Hamlet.

And I’m not sipping from anyone’s chalice without knowing what’s in it.

This grief is real, but so is my creative fire. Just banked over for now. Waiting. Gathering heat.

This just in: Word Raccoon is out of the shower and indicated the bathroom mirror where she has written the following…something??

Oh, Word Raccoon. Proceed.


Not really writing just means
The icicles have built up on the roof
Snow has matted and sagged the top of the house.

Grab a ladder, a shovel,
And get to work.


What if
I took my prose tools and crafted
Poetry with them?

Possible?
Would it mean more about prose
Or less about poetry?

Is there a different peg board layout

In the garage

For the two genres’ tools?

Has anyone talked about the margin?

I understand that’s a factor.
Not margarine.
(But maybe I should make toast.
With butter. Not that other. Gross.)

Is word play even poetry?

Is sound? Image? Narrative?
Navel gazing?

A collision of ideas too hot, too disorienting, for prose?

Maybe it boils down to Who owns the mineral rights.

And dammit, I said I wasn’t going to
Poem today.

Not really sure I have, though.


Word Raccoon, that, my darling word gobbler, is a word grab bag, not a poem, but it’s a start.

NOTE: WR spat out like three more prose poems today that are so rough and so improbable and so huh that IDK what to do with them. Maybe NOTHING. I think I’m gonna start a “don’t you dare let this horror show see the light of day” file once my mind is clearer.

The one about elote and a certain animated series? Oh WR, am I to be left with no dignity? WHAT IS WRONG WITH WRITING ABOUT PEONIES, MAYBE? THEY’RE GORGEOUS RIGHT NOW. MANET PAINTED THEM – ARE YOU BETTER THAN MANET, MY LITTLE JABBING WRITER FRIEND?

It’s late in the afternoon. I went to the café. I read James’s Author’s Preface in Portrait of a Lady again. It took two hours. I want to read it again soon. It’s a nourishing meal after days of dry cookies.  It’s dense, but not that dense – my brain is just wandering that much, and I thought it deserve a thorough reading.

At the café, lovely people extended their condolences. The man with the dog named the same as my maternal grandmother came around the corner and mentioned the weather. That’s a midwestern “I’m sorry” if I’ve ever heard one, so soft and tender you almost wonder if you are right, but you know you are because when someone does something out of character after they have heard people talking with you about your loss, it’s not nothing.

People in doorways said sorry, people from the street. Nods that mean almost as much as a card.

You’re grateful for it all.

And you’re not sorry that you spent time with James. In fact, he mentioned other authors you adore, too, and now you have a summer reading list.

It was like sitting in his living room and relaxing on the sofa. I am fascinated with how he dissects the architecture of his book. (I LOVE looking at a book’s architecture, stripping it down to the bones. The bones are maybe the most interesting part. Is that weird to say?)

James seems like that rare person you’d just as soon listen to as talk at, or someone you’d be just as happy to sit quietly with.  Yes, I can see me sitting with him some more in the coming days.

P.S. If the posts slow down a bit, assume I’ve either a) found a quiet pocket of peace or b) been buried alive under a pile of photo albums, prose and poetry fragments, and metaphorical toast. But that’s a big if.