Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

 With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run

From “To Autumn,” – John Keats

More on Keats another time…

Word Raccoon has seen students waiting at the bus stop the past few days. She noticed when I forgot (again) my sweater at home and shivered on the cafe porch this morning. (It warmed up pretty quickly.) 

In short, she knows fall is coming. 

After all this heat, she’s not sorry. But she asked me what this means for our writing.

First of all, WR, don’t take credit for my writing. Ok, fine, you may take some. 

This fall, let’s call my writing life a garden I can (I hope) grow, since I don’t have a green thumb. 

Not the tidy kind where every weed is pulled (because uh, that’s not my style. At all.), but the real kind: lush, a little overgrown, and forever surprising me with volunteer plants. 

Dormant bulbs begin to make their way upwards, eagerly awaiting spring, at last. (That’s probably not how it works, but give me a break, I just said I don’t have a green thumb. LOL. It’s a crooked metaphor, Herbert.)

I did plant some crocuses, finally, around the lamppost. I kept missing them since I couldn’t take the long walks to drink them in that I used to, so I planted some and crossed my fingers. 

They came up. It took a year, but they showed up just when I was feeling mopey about them. John Gardner had mentioned them in a book and I wanted to study them to see what he meant by his comment, because I hadn’t observed them that way.

When I spotted some on a walk just after reading his comments, the family who had them in the front yard must have thought I was strange, the way I stared at them, took pictures, not seeing them the way he did but trying desperately to.

I decided at last that maybe his were a different variety, or were somehow taller. Or, this is just occurring to me, being a novelist, maybe he took creative license.  

Better to have my own to peer into, and at.

There are worse reasons to grow flowers, I suppose. And now I have another small spring delight just outside the window.

But we were talking about fall, weren’t we? 

Here’s how I’m plotting my autumn (and early winter) “writing garden.”

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🌱 Poems = Perennials

They pop up nearly daily, sometimes uninvited, persistently, often inconveniently. 

Occasionally I will force one because I worry if I haven’t written one, afraid they will go away, but those seldom have much to offer more than the reinforcing of the discipline of writing. 

Some will be cut for the vase (literary journals), some will be gathered into chapbooks (here’s hoping), and some will just delight me when I read them. 

Even the funny, misshapen ones. (Because it’s always me trying to get at the truth of something, no matter the outcome. Plenty of photos come out blurry; why shouldn’t some poems? And sometimes they capture something you weren’t even aiming for.) 

Fall practice: write poems as they come to me; revise or submit a few each week. Hmm.. “few” is vague. Let’s say 2 packets? Packets, as you may know, vary in size. Some journals want 3 poems, some 5, some no more than ten pages…

I have a solid 30 poems that are ready, in my estimation, anyway. Several have been moved to the “published” category, which is gratifying on several levels, none of which is outstripped by the fire, joy, and release of writing them to begin with. 

There are two, maybe three, poems that I feel like will find their home. I hope soon, because they are super special to me. If they don’t find a home soon enough to suit, I will just share them here. Win/win.

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🌻 Journals = Flower Market

The poems that travel out into the world are in this planter. Sending them to journals feels like handing bouquets to strangers and friends; Word Raccoon has volunteered to be the one to hand them out. Please do, WR!

Fall practice: keep 8–12 polished poems circulating. Replace with others that have been revised by then. Repeat. (Is this the way to do it? Just guessing.) 

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🌿 Chapbooks = Test Gardens

Smaller clusters of themed poems, my experiments will likely land in chapbooks. Love, grief, and other “Drema things” that I don’t know how to classify. 

Thoughts/fears/questions/philosophical musings fall in this category. (Of which I have MANY.) 

Fall practice: submit Waxing the Parasitical Muse to fall competitions/ select publishers. Definitely needs some revising. Those two a.m. poems are face melters! I don’t know how many of those we need. 

And while I’m at it, I’m thinking those little stubs need to be either further developed or put away. No one wants amuse-bouche instead of poems. Though wait, mini-poems are a thing. So??

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🍎 Full-Length Collection = Legacy Orchard

This is where the trees grow: Look, I Built a Cathedral and, eventually, other full-length manuscripts. These will take patience, pruning, and vision.

Fall practice: shape the manuscript, consider weaving in newer poems. (Actually, I’m pretty happy with Cathedral as it is. But I might plant a new one behind it.)

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🌾 The Novel = Grain Field

The big crop of the year. I have 80K+ words drafted, but the field needs re-seeding and reshaping. It’s my primary harvest for fall: revising and preparing a first real draft for winter rest.

(Word Raccoon just peeked at the novel and says it actually stands at 85K, thank you very much. But so many miles to go…)

Fall practice: novel blocks 2–3 times a week; aim for a revised roadmap  and draft by year’s end.

Novels want fall, don’t they? They want quiet and a hint of cool. They want leaves turning color but still clinging. They want chili with saltines and the sound of outdoor sports. They want sweaters and long novels to read, too.

They want nostalgia: for the past and for the things that aren’t fully here yet. They want intrigue and drama, but also peace and just sitting in silence. 

They want trays displaying the prettiest leaves on the dining room table and mugs of tea for puzzling over passages.

They do not want pumpkin spice, dearest. (Pumpkin? Yes. NOTHING CLOVE. EVER. LOL.)

They want to watch the dapper dans and dressy bessies parading in their fall best. 

They want their eyes and ears so full of all of the things they love the most so that, first of all, they can feast. Secondly, so they can share that feast with others by creating art from it.  

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♻️ Compost = Rest & Craft

Abandoned drafts, fragments, and the books I’m reading (Nine Gates, Gilead, all the rest) all go into the compost pile. They’ll feed next season’s growth. If I can keep Word Raccoon out of it, that trash panda. 

Fall practice: let things sit until I need some fertilizer.

Maybe it sounds a little much to write all this out, but I needed to see it. To know that all of this matters, and that I don’t have to do it all at once.

If you have any suggestions, you know I value your advice. 

I long for eyes to see, heart to read, some of these things. I know that’s the opposite of what I once felt for my writing, but it is what it is. 

Creating is its own reward, foremost. I haven’t lost sight of that. But I must admit, when I write something and blush, it makes me wonder what others would think of it. 

Word Raccoon says she wants to read the novel, see where we’re at. I warned her it’s probably not her kind of story. She raised one eyebrow and said, “Sure, Jan.”

She’s so damn sassy. 

I finished reading Gilead today. Exquisitely written. Dear Reader, I think you’d adore it. 

Psst…this is not a poem. This is a mosaic of thoughts designed to make me feel as if I’ve earned creative writing points today, good for cash and prizes. 

The poems I attempted are mostly fragments. A couplet struts around in its ruffled underwear, convinced it’s a full poem. It won’t let me wash its face or put a dress on it. It insists it WILL kiss someone in the town square. 

Gorl, please. I would tell Word Raccoon to go fetch her, but WR is on her side. 

I started out with reading Nine Gates for half an hour. Still good, so good, and I made notes like crazy, but also? Sometimes Hirshfield sprouts a sentence and I can’t help but think either I am not reading carefully, or this sentence is impenetrable. Maybe that’s where the trouble started this morning. (It’s me, not her. I swear.) 

And so much talk of form. Fine for everyone else, admirable, even, but form is not for me. 

Well, stanzas. We need those, right? (But that’s not form. Or is it?)

People at the café are talking too loudly, flinging their hands like conductors.

Speaking of…

Schubert keeps time to my mind at first, until I wonder why I didn’t choose Mozart. 

Mozart, now. Better. Still busy, but better.

I’m trying to write about La Sagrada Familia.
I’m trying to write a poem.
I’m trying to write something.

I’m bouncing between phone calls, texts, and the grocery app where I’m attempting to remember Super Glue. 

I received a business email I’ve been waiting on.
Checked it.
Skimmed it.
Saved it for “later,” whatever that means.

I’ve tried to write four poems today.
One because I was frustrated.
Three because I couldn’t not try.
And still: nothing landed.

I have had paragraphs of conversations in my head with various folks who walked by. I have had actual conversations with patrons, some I know, some I don’t. 

I wish I had the ability to call squirrels to me.
I watch them far too often when I should be writing.

Do you suppose they are hoping I will write about them?

I scare the neighborhood cats away from them like I’m a squirrel bodyguard.

Not on my watch, cats. Not on my watch. 

The only thing about Mozart:
His music can sound melancholy, if you let it.
(Don’t let it.)

I can’t write to the other, fun stuff today. My brain will not stay still as it is. Pop would be disastrous for my writing ambitions. 

The leaves on the Japanese maple tree in front of the cafe are browning in several spots and I’m feeling it. 

Transience. That’s what I was reading about in Nine Gates. 

I don’t believe in the apocalypse, except the soft kind. (My thanks to Emma Swift for the phrase.) 

Calm down, Word Raccoon, they’re only leaves. They’ll come back again.

I haven’t seen the sun yet today.
My brain is solar powered, I swear.

By extension…

Though I’ve been told it looks as if I’m wearing it. (I’m wearing a very bright netted coverup. Because apparently Word Raccoon thought we were going to the beach.)

(She throws color at a gray day.)

And I did see a good facsimile of the sun, if I’m not mistaken. Which is always welcome. More than.  

So many beautiful moments, really.
But I’ve poked a hole in my bag somewhere, 

and they keep slipping through. 

Let’s see if I can sew it up.

There’s always this evening. 

Also, I miss cheese. And butter. My god. 

Be patient, WR. Be patient. 

I think she just needs to be scooped up and rocked and for someone to say, “I know.” 

Near the gym this afternoon, Word Raccoon made a beeline for a glorious pine cone. Now my hands smell like sap and the holidays. 

I’m not complaining.

The pine cone is sitting with me on the porch, and I’m trying not to go back for the rest. 

The white stuff on it is just resin.

Don’t tell me what happens to those that remain behind. I’d rather not know, unless it’s something nice.

It’s later now and LOOK! The sun came out after all! 

I ended up submitting two batches of poems, and I have bookmarked a couple of places to send my collection out to. 

I really want to write my poems on cocktail napkins and slide them down the bar and say HERE, LOL.

WR insisted I record that poem I mentioned yesterday on video, so I did, and it didn’t kill me. 

WR is now flipping through our photo albums, looking at our favorite ones, one of her after-writing pastimes. 

“This is a good one, isn’t it?” 

Well, which one isn’t? 

Word Raccoon finds a photo where one of her bestest squirrels looks soft, relaxed, unguarded. She’s jealous. Of course she is.

What did you expect, WR? Your whole vibe is wired. Chill.

Go to bed, WR. Get some sleep. 

That’s where the dreams are. 

And you know what they say about the sun and tomorrow.

WR just left the porch shaking her head in disgust.

I don’t blame her. I deserved that.

(Shh…we’ve almost forgotten that the “t” word from above, from Nine Gates, spooked us. That’s no small word.)

“One breath taken completely; one poem, fully written, fully read – in such a moment, anything can happen.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

I sorted the magazine basket over the weekend. There’s that glamorous “writer’s life.”  Who even has a magazine basket anymore? Apparently I do, and it’s been slowly overfilling itself, whispering, “Hello?” every time I walk by.

Toni Morrison, my beloved author (see what I did there?), stared out from the front of a recent P & W, so I definitely wasn’t getting rid of that one.

The rest, I went through and pulled out articles I want to read or pass along.

I found a copy of a Poets & Writers with the paid ad for my second novel, Southern-Fried Woolf lurking in the basket. It’s still exciting to see it there. (A reader wrote me a sweet message about that novel just today.) 

Nowadays, I’m actually paying attention to the poetry section of the, get this P & W, magazine. For the longest time I didn’t even consider the “Poets” in the title. 

I discovered a piece in one by Jane Hirshfield, whose book Nine Gates I’ve been reading lately. The overlap made me smile, because to be honest, I wouldn’t have recognized her name before this. 

Though I’ve subscribed to it for years now, initially I found the magazine intimidating. I was still figuring out what it meant to be a writer, to be in an MFA program. 

At one point someone mentioned in passing that I was earning a terminal degree, and I froze. Terminal? It sounded like an illness. But that was followed by relief. Why had no one told me this at the beginning? That was incredibly reassuring, that I was on THE PATH for writing, yet it took someone not in my program to tell me. Hmmm…

And here’s the truth: I didn’t even want to publish, not at first. I just wanted to write. I even went to school thinking I was simply going to learn how to be a better writer, period. 

When my first story was accepted, I cried the night I agreed to let it be published. My apologies to those I contacted that night, freaking out, wondering if I’d just sold my soul, if I was going to end up with a portrait of myself in some attic that aged while I did not. 

And yet I also knew it was an honor, and people around me kept saying This is the writing circle completing itself. You write, someone reads.

It wasn’t so much others reading it as the feeling that I was asking art to have an audience, as if it weren’t enough by itself.

It felt like asking my bestie to hand wash my dishes when I hadn’t seen them in months. (Too vivid? Dear Reader, I should give you the password to my blog so you can edit it to taste. LOL.)

WR is peering over her sunglasses, reminding me that’s the opposite of what we do with our writing. She’s about to begin yelling at Herbert when he’s not even here.

Wait, is she calling me Herbert, our very own literary curmudgeon? Oh god.

When I began really paying attention to the literary magazines, I was shocked by the depth of thought in these articles. I was mesmerized by this contemporary reckoning with language: people who revere it as much as I do while also teasing apart, on the page, how the magic happens, and somehow not diluting it. That’s a minor miracle.

But the question that surfaced most as I sorted those magazines on Sunday: Do I keep subscribing? 

In the past, I’ve tossed them in a bag and read them at the beach to circle and dissect. This has not been a very “beachy” summer, what with the heat and everything that happened at the beginning of the season, hence the piling up. 

(Christ! What a summer. In bad ways, yes, but also good, very good.) 

Now, I’m able to read most of the magazines I’m interested in for free through our library’s Libby app. That makes it harder to justify subscribing when you’re on a budget. (Writers are always on a budget, Love, am I right?)

Word Raccoon, of course, had opinions about the whole thing. She perched on the rim of the basket like a judgmental aunt, paws crossed, muttering about how even she can’t keep up with all the contest deadlines and fees. 

She squeaked at me until I tore out the Hirshfield article as well as all the writing prompts. Since when, WR? We HATE being told what to write, but I listened to her, and then she tried to drag the entire basket under the couch like it was a shiny treasure hoard.

(Side note: poetry prompts are different. They carry a higher charge and I think because the time investment is so minimal, I’ll sometimes give them a whirl. Or, more likely, I’ll get an idea from their idea which springs an idea and off I go.) 

But sorting forced me to decide. What to keep. What to pass along. Isn’t that the writer’s job in miniature? To curate. To revise. To make peace with what remains.

The magazines I kept are stacked neatly now, waiting. They’re the ones I can’t let go of, the pieces that feel less like issues and more like treasures. The rest I can release, but these? These stay, because some things are too woven into me. 

Word Raccoon says it’s just paper. She knows she’s wrong. Some paper hums.

And every so often, I think that maybe I’ve only been sorting words the way I sorted that basket, keeping what sings, letting go of the rest. The things that stay? They don’t just stay. They belong.

And if you’re very lucky, they look back at you as if to say: you belong too.

Today’s writerly activities (as of lunchtime): When the storms cleared, I sat on the porch wrapped in my flowered robe and wrote three poems: “Spoiling Squirrels,” “OK, Flowers,” and “Patchwork,” the last written while I watched men patch the neighbor’s roof. One of them slipped but caught himself. Whew. That was a scary moment.

I also submitted two sets of poems to journals.

Update: I have now written three poems, one inspired by Hirshfield. That book!

Not that the poem is about this, but who knew “pillow words” were a thing! Not me. Now there’s a ready-made writing prompt. I’ll prepare my red pencil for any drafts sent my way. (Who are we kidding, Word Raccoon has a glitter pen and she puts hearts around everything instead of underlining it.)

I wasn’t feeling the video poem submission today (rough start to the morning, but the porch, the robe, and a surprise gift certificate for coffee slipped into the mail slot by a friend all brightened the day; WR is, after all, affected by the weather). 

Tomorrow will bring another chance, and I think she’ll drag me to the mic whether I like it or not.

A breeze brought me the most gawky, adorably dorky poem. It landed in my lap all crooked and earnest, and I’ve been smiling ever since I wrote it down.

I want to sit beside it on a pillow and pluck at its sleeve as it reads so I can watch it crane its neck when it’s thinking so I can quit imitating it. I’m definitely enamored of the poem.

And tonight (Monday), dinner was a bowl of the most stunning red and brown new potatoes and chicken thighs all seasoned and baked together. No elaborate sauces, no big gestures, just the simplest food made between poem making. 

What I really want right now is to sit on my porch swing and read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, a book I started almost by accident. 

It plunges right into important terrain, and it does so with openness, tenderness and with such precision I was pulled in from the get-go. 

Like A Death in the Family but first person, epistolary style. It’s truly gorgeous. (I’m only a few pages in, but still.) 

Word Raccoon doesn’t care that my heart is set on soft, she is bossing me around again. This time she says I have to record a video for a poetry submission. Me. On camera. Reading.

I told her no. She said she wrote the poem to be performed, and besides, the ants will be disappointed if I don’t. The ants in the poem. She’s threatening me with insect guilt. I suppose I’ll give it a chance. But I am not thrilled. 

And I’ll keep Nine Gates by Jane Hirshfield close at hand, the craft book whose essay on, of all things, translation, has me entranced.

Word Raccoon, for her part, is still running amok. She made the Amazon delivery guy burst out laughing earlier with an offhand remark. I scolded her, but too late. She thrives on an audience. 

We wrote two more poems last night. One called Lost Amid Translation, after reading that mind-melting essay on translation in Hirshfield’s book. Another called The One With the Interview, but that one is still staggering around the page. 

An update on the town siren: it’s broken, not decommissioned. Sources say it will be fixed. Sometime. I’m choosing to believe it.

And this week, WR and I are setting our writing goals for fall. Among them? Finishing novel number three. 

Pardon me, though. I have a poem I wrote this morning to obsess over. 

Now Playing: “In the Ghetto,” Elvis Presley 

Word Raccoon thinks she’s my personal trainer now. Spoiler: she tried to bribe me with a bagel I couldn’t even dress with butter or cream cheese. This is how low we’ve sunk, friends.

On Friday, I floated across a parking lot. I was back at the gym: recumbent bike, a few minutes on the elliptical, plus the leg machines for good measure. By the end of the day I felt blissful, grounded, and honestly a little tearful at how good it felt to be moving easily again.

And then came Saturday.

I woke up a little stiff but brushed it off. Took an ibuprofen, drifted back to sleep, and didn’t think much of it. The ache didn’t really hit until later at our local specialty market. I had a cart to lean on, but after chatting too long with a former coworker, I felt it creeping back.

The steroids have officially worn off. 

I did not take this well. At all. 

I still have that appointment with a specialist coming up this week, so possibly I will find out at last what’s going on. 

At least I was able to feel like myself again for a time, which was a beautiful gift, short as it was. And I have been reminded that I push too hard, which is basically my life story, but likely did not help.

A call from another former coworker pulled me a bit out of my mollygrubs. She is dealing with so much more than I am. By comparison, I have nothing to complain about.

And yet.

Word Raccoon usually knows when to step in, and she slid her hand into mine and suggested a short yoga session.

If I haven’t made it clear, I am the most casual yogi in the world. I only do it for mobility. I respect those who make it a discipline, but that’s not my vibe. (So I am not at all a yogi. I just wanted to write it. Because Yogi Bear. I know…)

I resisted because I wanted to read instead. But sometimes the raccoon knows what I need when I don’t.

Except Airplay wasn’t working on my TV. I tried several times, because often it takes several tries. This time? Nope. I took a break. Word Raccoon grabbed the remote from me just in case I got any ideas. As if. 

I told her I was giving up, that I didn’t want to do it anyway, that it wasn’t going to help.

Then we passed through the kitchen.

To add insult to injury, I’m on a two-week self-prescribed dairy elimination diet to see if it helps. Most chocolate is out. Which sucks. I may have to make my own. Sounds fancy, but is actually way easy. 

But it wasn’t chocolate WR spied. She caught a whiff of cinnamon raisin bagels.

“You can have one if you do some yoga,” she coaxed.

First of all, I let her have it. We are no longer part of diet culture. We don’t have to earn food. We are not sea otters at a zoo.

But sometimes we do respond to bribes.

I had even squinted at the label in the store to be sure those bagels were dairy free. So yes, they were legal. But no butter allowed. No cream cheese. Peanut butter it is. 

Back in the living room, I pulled the workout video up on my phone, propped it on some books, and survived. Ten minutes. It was over before I’d barely started. 

How did my hip feel after?

Not perfect, but a little better. I’ll take better, even if I want perfect. I know perfection when I see it, and I can’t help but reach for it.

What did that pesky raccoon have the temerity to offer me afterward? Not the cinnamon raisin bagel she had waved under my nose earlier. No, she smugly handed me a banana instead, as if potassium was the prize I was after.

I mean, it worked. I sighed and just gave in. But still.

And then, because WR is never content, she made me sit down and write. Two poems, though my eyes were tired and my brain too sleepy to revise.

One was about Billy Joel (still needs zhuzhing). He’s back on that oyster boat. Told you I’d put him there. 

The other was “Siren.” Title 100% a place holder. 

The summer that Elvis passed away, my family hopped a Trailways bus from our home in West Virginia to visit my aunt in Indiana. I was seven. (My dad came on the weekend to pick us up when he was off work.) 

Everywhere we went, there was Elvis. On the TV in the bus station. Music on the bus itself. On every radio. Every conversation. 

I knew who Elvis was, for sure. My parents owned the Aloha From Hawaii album, as well as various 45’s, and sometimes there’d be an Elvis movie on during the weekend. My favorite, though, was “In the Ghetto.” A story song. Of course. 

My aunt Bonnie was a huge fan. She talked about him at her pink formica table with the chrome trim in her tiny apartment over the shoe shop on Main Street in the tiny town where she lived. Cigarette between thumb and finger, nails red, black hair up in pink rollers, skin tan. Glamorous as ever.

The town siren blared, startling me.

“That’s just the noon whistle,” she said. “Your uncle will be here soon.” She slid the cigarette into an aluminum McDonald’s ashtray, humming along to “Love Me Tender” as she opened a can of StarKist.

It was my first visit to the town I would one day call home, though obviously I didn’t know that at the time. And one of the things I remember most vividly was that siren.

So imagine my surprise not too long ago when I checked the time at the cafe and realized it was past noon and I hadn’t heard it. Someone there swore it still sounded, but the next day I listened closely. No noon siren.

Sometimes it has been a pain, yes, but now it’s just…gone. 

Word Raccoon, filing her nails, insists she had nothing to do with it. I don’t believe her.

Who could have guessed that the town I first saw at seven years old would become my own home? At the time I thought I was only visiting, but it rooted itself in me. The people have, too. 

Sometimes I slip on my aunt’s colorful bead necklaces or earrings I inherited, and for a moment she’s at that formica table again, cigarette poised, pointing for emphasis, humming Elvis, and I’m that seven-year-old girl looking out that apartment window onto Main Street, agog that someone could live above a business. Where I lived, we couldn’t even see our nearest neighbor. 

Word Raccoon isn’t impressed with my story. She wants me to write something else. Rude.

I rolled my eyes and told her that sometimes the best part of the day is what you don’t write about. 

But fine, you fuzzy darling. I’ll write while you go watch traffic. No wait, that’s my job. You never know who or what might present itself and ask to become a poem. Which it is my heart’s delight to create.

Some sirens don’t sound, though they do unmistakably whistle on by. But if you’re listening carefully, you’ll catch them. 

Now Playing (with cheesecake crumbs on the buttons):
“Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen

“Did you know he was a Jersey boy, William Carlos Williams?”

That was Word Raccoon’s opener yesterday. She strutted into my brain like she owned the place (which, let’s be honest, she kinda does).

I hadn’t known it. But apparently WR decided I must know it right then. 

“That explains a lot,” I murmured. 

“He practiced medicine in New Jersey his entire life,” she whispered, as though she’d uncovered a secret mafia tie, “Equal parts grit and tender poet.” 

“The Red Wheelbarrow” wafts into her mind at random times. It is one of her favorite poems. And mine, ever since it was slipped into my pocket like a meditation.

We came late to it. While visiting Thomas Hardy’s birthplace, I told a poet friend how much it lingered with me. He blinked and said, “You know that’s a very famous poem. People have written dissertations on it.”

Well, no, I hadn’t known. I just knew I couldn’t quit thinking about it after I was introduced to it in a creative writing class. I can still picture that rain-slicked wheelbarrow (probably) tipped upside down, white chickens (probably) trying to shelter beneath it.

There’s a patch of rust on the wheelbarrow, and it kinda looks like a big, discolored shovel, in my mind. (Although I think the word “discolor” is suspect. Why can’t we just trust the color to become what it wants to be over time? We’re such control freaks. Sometimes things are more beautiful with age.) 

The rest of my feelings on the matter are in one of the poems. Oh wait, you don’t know about those yet. Let me fix that.

WR emerged from her research (which was supposed to be merely reviewing the poem but there she went down the raccoon, err…rabbit hole), writing two poems: one called “So Much” (placeholder title, she insists) and another called “Modernist Unmarriage” (she is oddly proud of that title).

Meanwhile, I am sorting through 31 journals I’ve saved to Messenger to see if we’re a literary match. WR thinks lists are for accountants, not poets. 

This morning, I tend to agree. 

She also nibbled at a John Green line from a YouTube video: “Good morning, Hank, it’s Tuesday on a Monday afternoon.” WR says that is a poem and refuses to be convinced otherwise, even when I replayed it to show there was verbal punctuation between Tuesday and on. She simply does not care. She’s going to poem it. Sorry, John.

She also tried to launch a melodramatic poem called Listening from the Womb, but even she admits that may be peak raccoon ridiculousness and not my style at all. 

 WR note: I never admit defeat. I simply pause for snacks. And I proposed we call it in utero, but Drema said I was being pretentious. Is being precise pretentious? I think not. She thinks not, too. She just needs a Coke Zero. No one tell her they changed the name to Coke Zero Sugar a while back. She knows. She just refuses to acknowledge it or write it all out. See, Drema, I know things, too.

Oh, and apparently I wrote a poem called Who Wants to Have Dinner? Forgot about that. WR says she would rather split an idea than a dessert but, make no mistake, she will take your cheesecake.

 WR: Cheesecake is not optional. And yes, it made an appearance in the poem.

She scowled when I submitted some micropoems. “Little snapshots with nothing but words to recommend them,” she scoffed. But then she ate a few of them anyway. Raccoons are like that.

And what exactly else should they have in them, WR? Cinnamon?

WR: Cinnamon and edible glitter. Always glitter.

I’ve also been reading Jane Hirshfield’s Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. It is one of those books you know you will have to read again. Every page feels like one of the solar lanterns on my porch that flickers on just before the main lights click in, leaving you wondering if you really had caught the epiphanic glimpse you thought you had.

(You did, though.)

WR: Epiphanic?? Have you ever used that word in your life?

Sorry for the back and forth with my raccoon, but WR, you know I had to look epiphanic up. But I do use epiphany on the regular, thank you very much, you hairy striped monster.

Yesterday’s chapter was so dense I had to reread sections three times. I’m sure passages I read will drip into posts eventually. But anything I say about the book will feel anemic compared to what it deserves. 

I set a timer to keep myself on task and just started reading, sunglasses on. My brain works in funny ways. I can really want to read something, but sometimes I have to pin my monkey mind down. Other times, you cannot pull me from my reading with a crowbar. 

Ah, the funhouse of a creative mind.

WR swore I looked chic in the sunglasses. I thought I looked like a raccoon pretending to start a band. My eyes are sensitive to whatever is in the air right now, and the sunglasses help. Necessary if I want to stay outdoors. I do. As long as possible. 

Hmm…do they make battery-powered heaters? Maybe I could bring one with me to the café when it gets colder to lengthen the season. I’ve already claimed a heater I will be putting on my porch at home when the time comes. 

While I prefer temperatures warm enough that I can sit outdoors, my heart also goes ticky tac for the leaf dance, the day when a big wind comes and whooshes away the leaves and you’re sad to see them go, but the ballet is stunning. And also, you get to see the bones of the trees then. I like knowing everything. Call me nosy or just inquisitive. When I’m interested, no tidbit is too small. But also, I can wait for the tree to reveal itself to me. 

WR: Ticky tac? Fine. But only if it’s keeping time with Queen.

(Word Raccoon and I have been watching with disapproval as some of our favorite trees around town get felled for “progress.” Bastards. I have to keep an eye on Word Raccoon because she’s been threatening to chain herself to one. ) 

Anyhow, the chapter in Nine Gates was so good I even started sending screenshots to some of my arty ppl. Hirshfield makes you want to underline everything, though WR claims she prefers highlighting cheesecake menus.

Of course she does.

Now she’s pawing at the cheesecake jukebox, ready to press play again.

I, for one, am ready to write something creative. 

But what?

Now Playing: “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”  Pat Benatar

Word Raccoon nearly had a showdown at the café yesterday morning.

By some miracle (or questionable decision-making), WR was at her post on the café porch before 8 a.m., sprawling across the mosaic-tiled table nearest the door. Prime spot for maximum nosiness. Breakfast half-eaten, poetry craft book open, solar charger sunbathing; it was a scene.

A couple of hours in, a woman of my acquaintance appeared, gave a hello, and then peered at my table.

“I was just seeing if this is all just you,” she said.

“Oh, I sprawl,” I said.

“There are four of us meeting here today,” she announced.

I almost offered her the chair holding my computer bag, but something about the tone, as if she had more right to my space than I did, irked me.

Word Raccoon fired a whole silent, thank god, monologue at her: “Look, hon: people have suggested they should put a memorial plaque on this porch for me. Has anyone told you the town feels ‘right’ when you’re writing here and not when you’re not? No? Then perhaps find yourself another chair, love. My bag is comfy where it is.”

Reader, there were plenty of tables and chairs indoors and out. She’s just used to getting her way. And I’ve seen groups of four happily use the corner table instead of mine.

She started scooting chairs around, irritation in the air, when one of her meeting companions arrived, a man I know who’s since moved out of town. I jumped up to hug him, share condolences on his recent loss, and fill him in on my writing. She looked sour, as if I were hijacking her meeting.

Which meant I found more I just had to share with him.

“I’m just gonna steal him for another minute,” I said. Word Raccoon in action.

When he went inside for coffee, I asked the woman if she was all set for the meeting at the corner table.
“I’ll let him decide,” she said, still prickly.

I shrugged, put my AirPods back in, and returned to work, telling Word Raccoon to keep her teeth to herself, though she had already formed half a retort involving chair legs, duct tape, and the phrase ‘porch royalty.’

And before you think I’m a porch prima donna, wherever I write, I tell the staff to shoo me if things get busy. I’ve given up tables mid-session for strangers, offered a chair at my table, allowed them to sit with me when asked and struck up lovely conversations as a result at times. I try to be thoughtful.

There were a couple of guys from Europe a few years back who used to love having their coffee on the porch every afternoon while they were working in the States. One day I noticed them go in and not come back out. I went inside and insisted they come take my table. (In part because I so enjoyed watching how much they savored their tiny cups of espresso. I mean…)

But this? This was pure entitlement. And no, she didn’t actually need the chair.

If she’s reading this, (she’s not) be grateful I kept WR on a leash. She’s in a mood from too much admin and says if I don’t let her create something fun soon, she’s going to chew my laptop cord plumb through, princess of petty that she is today.

We don’t want that.

P.S. You know I would never deny you a seat, right? All you have to do is ask nicely. Okay YOU I might not even make ask. Just move the bag. You might want to bring the raccoon a bribe, though. Preferably chocolate.

Now Playing: Been Caught Stealing – Jane’s Addiction

Grocery pickup is a marvel for most items. Cereal? Perfect. Pasta sauce? No problem. Cleaning supplies? Absolutely.

But produce? Every time I hand it over to pickup, I regret it. Not because the pickers are bad people, they’re just moving too fast to have standards. And I have standards. The peaches arrive like billiard balls or like they’ve been through a minor car accident. The avocado is either a fossil or an alien crash scene. Bananas? Green when they arrive, brown by breakfast.

You can imagine what Word Raccoon does with those. It’s not pretty. 

Produce is tactile. You can’t just glance at it. You have to hold it, feel its weight, notice its balance. I am an unofficial produce whisperer. I have the sense that this pineapple will ripen beautifully on my counter while that one will sulk until it collapses in on itself. I can’t explain how I know, and I don’t really think I could explain what I’m looking for, but at least those apps could let me try. 

That’s why grocery pickup should have a “produce notes” section. Let me tell them:

• “Avocados for guacamole tomorrow night.”
  
• “Peaches to eat Wednesday morning.”
  
• “Spinach that’s party-ready on Saturday, not retirement-home-ready today.”
  

Give me a ripeness scale, a “use-by” slider or anything so I’m not eating salsa made from avocados that feel like they’ve been cryogenically stored.

Word Raccoon is offering to help them develop the language for it. Should we let her? 

---

Packaging Crimes

Don’t get me started on bags of mini cucumbers. I’ve received bags where one shady cucumber is tucked in the middle like he’s under witness protection, shielded by perfect little saints. But cucumbers are easily led astray; soon they all cave to his soft, spotted ways. I open the bag two days later and find they’ve all gone down together, a tiny green scandal in my crisper drawer.

Things bought in a clamshell are automatically suspect, too, but often unavoidable. If they’re encased in anything, I’m going to deduct at least 30% from their flavor profile. (I mean, do we like to consume anything that comes wrapped?)

---

Distance & Disappointment

The farther away an item comes, deduct an appropriate percentage. Basically, at any given time we are eating memories more than food when it comes to produce anyway; there’s a countdown built in. We’re eating the ideal versus what’s right in front of us, and we’re making the best of it.

Tomatoes are my jam and my heartbreak. They should smell of soil and be ripened honestly, in the sun. You have to know when you’re going to use them: if it’s today or tomorrow, they should give gently to a squeeze. If further out, they can be a bit firmer. 

(Okay, yes, I’m contradicting myself — they can ripen a bit off the vine. Fine. But unless you’re making fried green tomatoes, they should have at least that first blush or they’ll be flavorless.) Just a personal preference. What, me have opinions on tomatoes? Let’s not even talk about varieties. LOL.

Grocery store tomatoes, for the most part, are the nostalgic equivalent of what tomatoes used to taste like. You’re just slicing memories.

Or, it’s like you’re getting potential taste not played out, which is pretty frustrating. Why bother to grow them? Why waste the seed, the water, the soil? Come on. 

If I were a tomato, I’d be damn pissed to be grown, tossed into a plastic clamshell, and transported hundreds of miles or whatever to languish first in a grocery store, then on a counter or…shudder…IN THE FRIDGE!

Loves, you aren’t putting your tomatoes in the refrigerator, are you? If you learn nothing else, hear this: if you’re going to put them in the fridge, just go ahead and toss them in the damn trash can instead. 

Seriously. 

Bananas? There’s no middleman. You can’t grow them here, and they’re all basically the same species now, right? So you find a store that occasionally sells flavorful ones and try to repeat the miracle. But mostly, you’re stuck with fruit that’s too big, too mushy, too nothing, or too green. Still, sliced into a bowl of raisin bran with almond milk? Worth the search. And peanut butter + banana snacks? Non-negotiable. I’ve given up complaining about them.

---

Instincts & Preferences

These are all just preferences. But I know what I enjoy. Like yellow squash. I adore it, but only the young, tender ones. Miss me with those ridiculously bowling-pin sized versions. Worthless. They should be the pale yellow of a delicate moon and their skin should be the thickness of a butterfly’s wing or less They’re a different breed from their overgrown siblings.

Carrots? Oh, God. Do NOT hand me those bagged nightmares called “baby carrots.” They are not baby carrots. They are whittled down from full-sized ones and bagged in water, which is GROSS, Word Raccoon says. If she wanted damp sticks with no flavor, she would chew on the legs of the porch chairs.

---

When It’s Right

Sometimes, though, it’s worth the hunt. Asparagus from the farmers market, roasted with olive oil and sea salt? Bliss. Don’t try it any other way, duckies. Pears? Is there anything better than a ripe Bartlett? And yet they can slide from “Hey baby, wanna rock?” to “Oh, too late, I just texted ‘U Up?’ to someone else” in the span of an afternoon.

Farmers markets aren’t perfect either. Sometimes you arrive late and all that’s left are limp herbs and apples with mysterious soft spots. But at least it’s my choice. I get to weigh the melon in my hands and decide if it deserves to come home with me.

Though TBH, I do still order some produce for grocery pickup. To quote Robbie in Dirty Dancing, “That’s okay, Baby, I went slummin’ too.” Because how the hell else are you supposed to make a salad in February? (No, I don’t garden. That’s not my thing. You’re going to laugh, but I don’t have a green thumb and I get sad when I see plants die when I’m supposed to be the one keeping them going.)

Until grocery pickup apps give us a produce notes box, most weeks Word Raccoon will be the one in the aisle or at the farmers market, tapping and squeezing like it’s her side hustle, because good produce isn’t just about taste. It’s about choosing it yourself. Especially that gorgeously ripe tomato that all but leans in and whispers “Pick me.”

Silly Word Raccoon, tomatoes can’t talk.

Now Playing: “Do I Do,” Stevie Wonder

Revised and sent off the poetry collection to a publisher this week. Cue the confetti! Fingers crossed…

While there are still a couple of poems that won’t behave in the book, I was pleased with how others shaped up. 

One of the poems, “Holy Floaties,” (shortened title), came to me while I was sitting at the cafe. It just landed on my shoulders. 

The first line was wry, a little pissed, a little amused, a lottle yearning. Then the rest came tearing out.

I finished it, had to stand, had to pace, couldn’t quit shaking.

I know that sounds dramatic, but the poem was. It is. It’s possessive, dictatorial, unrelenting, and demanding. So, not the usual me. 

I felt sick. Gutted. I wanted to run. (I make it a rule to sit with discomfort if at all possible when it comes to art; your muse won’t ask something of you that you can’t do. Or that’s my belief. Doesn’t mean it’s always easy.) 

I wrote the rest of it.

Oddly, no matter how many revisions I make to it, something still sounds off. Maybe that’s just the way it’s shaped. 

Ok, and this is really weird but I can only read it in this other voice I hear in my head, the same voice I heard when I first wrote it. (Don’t ask me to describe it, and also, I suspect the reason I heard it in another voice is that it’s an intense little poem. Hmmm…what if it’s WR’s voice? I just asked and she squeaked not her. I’m not saying I’m hearing voices, just an alternate narrator for this one, LOL. Spoiler: I suspect art is the narrator.) 

The other poem that is giving me fits is an expansion of one that decided to turn… unexpected.

Oh geesh…

I almost took it out of the collection, but then I reminded myself: I am a whole human being, not just my restless mind. Some parts of me speak in a different register, with a different light. It would be dishonest to pretend they don’t exist.

Also, Word Raccoon whistled at the title and said it is staying. 

Well, okay then. 

I suspect I will end up shifting the order of the poems before all is said and done. (Is there a special word for that? I really should break those poetry books out that are stacked on my desk. WR started clearing those porch shelves this morning so I think we really are going to end up with them there. Which makes me ridiculously happy.) 

Also, I’ve been listening to more audiobooks than I meant to: two finished, on my third. (Taylor Jenkins Reid’s latest was a whole Atmosphere, Ashley Flowers’ The Missing Half had me engrossed with its Indiana locations not too far from where I live, and the third? Too good not to talk about later, so stay tuned. You hear me?)

I don’t usually “read” with my ears, but when I’m doing poetry admin, it makes sense. Not my favorite way to take in a book, but it works. 

I also made cold tuna pasta salad for supper because we all need permission to make low-effort meals in this heat. Stay hydrated and take care of yourselves, duckies. 

Word Raccoon almost refused to go to the gym today but when I reminded her the hip is doing better she decided to take it for a spin. She was low-key impressed. Slow but steady. 

This may sound silly to brag about, but I put my right sock on just like my left today without having to contort my body. I was clapping happy! Here’s hoping it stays this way. Specialist appointment next week. (I know, right?) 

I tried to remember who taught me to put on socks to start with as a child, and all I remember is my little pink socks with white ruffles.

Now, about this Coke Zero situation. I’ve been trying to wean WR off her habit by ordering the store brand version. But somehow, when the groceries arrived, there were four bottles of Coke Zero instead. She swears this was divine intervention. I’m side-eyeing the universe, because this feels like a setup. Either way, the weaning plan is postponed, and the raccoon is now strutting around the kitchen like she’s won the championship, sparkling clogs and all.

WR’s little coffeehouse cameo earlier this week was… lively. She was so happy in those clogs there she nearly broke into a clog, the “you’d better be watching” kind, but decided to keep a little mystery instead. Mornings aren’t supposed to sparkle like that… Word Raccoon says it must have been the company.

As we were writing at the cafe, Word Raccoon swears she saw a gust of wind no bigger than the wave of a hand to relieve the heat, and yet it was enough to get her back to the page; she’s been replaying it, convinced it was her cue to smile back at the universe. 

You tell me what she means by that; sometimes she’s incomprehensible to me. 

As for writing, I have a list of poem ideas untouched at the moment. It’s only been a couple of days, maybe three, since I’ve written more than a nub of one but a tiny part of me is panicking but it’s kind of how Saturday night I tried to revise those poems in my collection and I just couldn’t because I have this “Wait, wait” mechanism in me which told me it wasn’t time and the next after it was “Okay, now.” 

Made the book deadline anyway, so whew. 

I kept reminding myself that art is not widget making, as inconvenient as that might be. 

When you show up, all kinds of good things happen. Makes the day brighter, too.

Or that’s my take, Babe. What’s yours?