It’s Labor Day weekend, planned over here as a thrifty “staycation.” Word Raccoon insists we have done plenty of the staying but almost none of the “cationing.” She got her orchard trip, but the rest of the weekend has been all work. She is furious and says she might not even go along to the movies tomorrow. Which would be a shame, and makes no sense because she’d enjoy the movie.

Eleven submission packets one day, five or six hours wrangling a chapbook the next…I don’t blame her. The chapbook that began as Waxing the Parasitical Muse has now, through Word Raccoon’s mischief, become Intellectual Domme Energy, after one of my poems. She says she renamed it as payback. I believe her.

(Actually, the name was chosen for an “edgier” press submission and once I named it that, it kinda grew on me, even though I don’t wear heels anymore. But my poetry sometimes does.) 

This morning she staged another coup. “It’s Monday,” she said, “and you know that on Mondays we write poetry at the café.” I argued: “It’s Labor Day, surely they are closed.” 

She reminded me the owner lives across the street from us and that all I had to do was spy on his car or call. I called. They were open. She demanded we go. I demanded she change out of her pj’s.

So we packed up Nine Gates, read a heady, inspirational chapter once there, and took notes. We will not say copious, because that sounds stale, but okay, copious notes. (That’s another post, for sure. That chapter!)

Hirschfield’s essays are so universally focused that I honestly do not know a blessed thing about her personally. Usually I need to know something about a person to trust their craft advice. But with her, it works. They are full-bodied scripture for writers.

Still, every now and then she writes a sentence that stops me cold and I just think, No. Absolutely not. That surprises me, too. And obviously, it’s just my opinion, and a beginner’s opinion, at that. I admit it. And now I feel embarrassed for having said anything at all.

Word Raccoon does not. She rarely feels embarrassed about anything. Silly raccoon.

I cannot fully explain how Hirschfield’s essays affects me. But they do. One chapter to go.

WR and I drafted a couple of poem ideas, and were delighted by an unexpected coffee date, one who bought a t-shirt and never got to read his book at all, alas, for my Nine Gates jabbering.

Later, we visited the cemetery. My mom’s death date is now carved into the bench she shares with my dad. The graves are leveled, tidier, less raw, still sad. It felt so real, seeing that. So final.

But I saw a picture of her yesterday on my phone and smiled and my heart didn’t ache as much. 

Word Raccoon said I deserved a Coke Zero after all that. I agreed. (What? It’s a holiday weekend. Hopeless, our fizzy lifting drink addiction, isn’t it? Well, she and I like what we like. And trust me, we like it, but not as much as we like our Muse. WR, stop flirting!! 😉)

And in the middle of it all today, an acceptance for my poem “Casting Spells on Scarecrows.” More info to follow. Proof that even when WR sulks, the work is worth it. We had only just tweaked and sent it yesterday. Yesterday! That thrill is double. Published or not, it is always worth it.

Someone called my poems metamodern, saying “You don’t ironize to escape feeling, and you don’t bare your feelings without irony. You let the two spin around each other, like a double helix.”

I hope that’s true. Do you think so? (Does it sound like I’m bragging? I’m questioning and delighting in it too. Because that sounds like me, I think?? Also, can I get that on a t-shirt?) 

Either way, I’ll take it.
Maybe I am a metamodernist with a raccoon for a sidekick? A hungry, demanding, funny, loving and lovable (most days) Word Raccoon. And right now, she’s reminding me that we skipped lunch. 

Happy holiday, Word Raccoon, and everyone else. I hope you had a good one, even if you had to work. Which sucks.