NOW PLAYING: “Strange Mercy” by St. Vincent

I tried to read The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden before the Book Review podcast aired their episode on it. (I don’t even have to mention the layered title, do I? Dear Reader, keep it in mind as you read. It’s perfect.)

Then I tried to read it before that episode disappeared behind a paywall.

Then I tried to read it before the Libby app yanked it away from me with the smug efficiency of a digital librarian who’s just following protocol.

None of that worked.

But I had made it just far enough into the novel that it had already cast its spell. Quietly, like a curtain slipping off a rod. I needed to finish it. So I marched myself to our local library and snapped up a hard copy.

Within two days, Word Raccoon and I drank it all. Gladly.

During those two days, I wrote little. But sometimes, the well needs to be refilled. And The Safekeep did just that.

Word Raccoon was there, of course. She’s been reading over my shoulder lately, wearing her pom-pom earrings, chewing the inside of her cheek like she’s trying not to shout spoilers. She offered no commentary this time, just raised one furry brow now and then as if to say “oh, we’re in it now.”

And we were.

Yael van der Wouden’s debut is set in the Dutch countryside, 1961. A woman named Isabel lives alone in her late mother’s house, seemingly removed from most things: community, intimacy, complication. Enter Eva, her brother’s new girlfriend. A guest, a disruptor, a question mark in red lipstick.

(Remind anyone of a particular raccoon??)

The novel is exquisitely detailed in a way that makes a writer jealous, freshly structured, and contains some of the most tender, conflicted moments of first love I’ve ever read.

The way it sweeps you up and along is truly amazing, and its length is perfect for summer reading, especially when (hand raised) you’ve been more poetry-writing focused than reading focused.

Van der Wouden writes tension like a seamstress: small stitches, perfectly placed. You feel it long before you realize what you’re feeling. You see her word dress and you think, Oh, that’s what you were sewing all along. It’s gorgeous.

The house itself feels like a closed mouth. There’s so much about control here emotional, historical, domestic. It’s about what we hide, what we inherit, what we hunger for even when it terrifies us. (Ah, control. Admirable, sometimes understandable, yet extremely frustrating in a person when it amounts to a tinman refusing to allow himself to be oiled. When he pretends not to have a heart, but the reader can hear it beating from across the room. Be patient and read on.)

There are echoes of WWII and generational guilt braided through, but never in a heavy-handed way. Just fragments. Shards. The kind of things you find when dusting what used to belong to someone else. (You’ll get that after you read it, too.)

Meanwhile, in the real world, I was eating watermelon sprinkled with Tajin this afternoon and wondering aloud (to no one in particular) whether the heat had scared off all the birbs and squirrels. We haven’t seen many the past few days. Maybe they’re hiding. Maybe they know something we don’t. Plenty of cats in the neighborhood, so maybe that explains it. Yikes!

On Friday, Barry had a minor, one-car accident. He’s fine. His vehicle? TBD. I delivered him safely to his gig uptown Friday evening where an appreciative crowd enjoyed The Strays while he subbed in on keys and acoustic guitar.

As for me, I’ll be on foot until we hear back from the body shop, which, if it weren’t for the heat and a full laptop bag, would be great. I’ve missed my walks. I’ve missed noticing things.

And The Safekeep? Well, that book reminded me to notice things, too.

As if I miss much. It’s a built-in Word Raccoon feature. Which is why it’s such a delight when an author can surprise and delight the reader. van der Wouden does just that.

Read The Safekeep before your app times out. Before the episode locks up. Before the heat melts your concentration. No matter how you access it, it’s a book well worth chasing down.

I’ve never been the type to need a lot of things.
I don’t collect lots of keepsakes. I don’t hoard tons of mementos.

I keep some of both, of course. I’m not a monster.

Usually, when my family divides up what’s left behind (too often in recent years), I say:
“As long as someone has it, that’s enough.”

Not this time.

This time, it’s a ceramic frog.

An ugly one. One made out of what seems like chalk and flat paint.

One that originally belonged to my grandmother.

It sat in the background for years, watching everything in my childhood home.

During a particularly tough time when I was a child, I wrote something on the underside.
A message.
A wish.

A hope.

I remember carving those letters on the bottom, hoping I wouldn’t get found out, wouldn’t get in trouble and doing it anyway, because I needed something solid. Something I could hold that would hold me back. As if people go around checking the bottoms of tchotchkes anyway.

Just a few words to tether myself to the world when it felt like it was disappearing.

No one knows they’re there.
Not even the person in the family who has now decided it’s important to them, too.

And I want to be fair.
I want to be generous.

I want to once again step aside.

But this frog has brought something fierce and primal out of me.
And I’ve finally realized why.

A few months ago, I remembered something I forgot as a child, and hold on because this sounds facile and all, like a second-grade teacher talking, and just know I’m flinching too:

My feelings matter.

They’re not shameful. They don’t need to be shrunk down or polished up to be allowed.

They’re not “too much.”
They’re mine.

More than they’re mine, they’re valuable, maybe the best thing I own. They’re powerful. They can make things. They can undo things. They can build. They can restore.

And sometimes feelings remind us we’re alive.

We can just look at them, stop shrinking from them, stop pushing them down and away and hating ourselves more than a little because what kind of person…

And sometimes?
We can even ask for what we want.

And when it matters?
We can go to the mattresses for it.

Put that frog in my hands.

I’ll kiss it.

Maybe he’ll become a prince.

He always was, to me.

He kept me safe.

Or maybe what I wrote on him kept me safe.

Maybe both.

Either way, that’s my goddamned frog.

Now Playing: “Lovefool” by The Cardigans

I woke up this morning and found Word Raccoon in my blue chair downstairs reading. 

“Hey,” I said. 

She waved a paw in which she was holding a protein bar. In her other, she clutched the novel we’d fallen asleep reading the night before. 

“Give me that,” I said, but she simply put down the protein bar wrapper and picked up a glass of something that looked suspiciously like Coke Zero. 

“You know you only get that when you’ve done all the things,” I said. 

She sucked from the straw while staring straight into my eyes, then went back to reading.

“Fine, but only for half an hour,” I said. I set a timer on my phone. She laughed and went back to reading. She was probably 70 pages from the end.

The timer might not do any good, but it was the only defense I had against her and the possible rain. 

“We are a poet. We are a novelist. We do not spend all day reading except when it’s scheduled.” 

She made a gesture at me. 

Rude, Raccoon! 

When the second timer went off, she was reading the acknowledgements. (As we do, because sometimes we know the people mentioned and it’s always fun to spot someone we know.) 

“It was a romance,” she said, as if the library label on the book didn’t say so. “We don’t usually read romances,” but she looked at me like maybe we should. 

“We read them when they’re as strange and funny and tender as this one,” I said. I wasn’t about to pretend I wasn’t as into the book as she was. 

“Now,” I said, “I let you read for a whole hour. Get off your dead ass and get ready to go do the things. And it’s hair washing day. No, don’t give me that look. I know you hate having wet hair indoors, but we are not spending time drying it. If the sun comes out, we’ll sit outside. If not, deal.”

Surprisingly, she got up. 

She put in her signature earrings, naturally and her bracelet from Rome. The string is getting weak on it, so she’d better consider restringing it soon. Although looking at it more closely today, I don’t see the Parthenon. Maybe I should repaint one of the tiles so it’s there. I don’t really need two pics of the Trevi fountain. Definitely not two of the Coliseum. That place has bad vibes. 

And her earrings? For some reason people ask to touch them. Which…okay? 

Word Raccoon says I need to be fair and tell you that she was busy yesterday. She claims she is hardworking. I’m not as impressed as she is, but whatever. 

I saw her sneak that novel to the gym yesterday. How hard are you working if you’re reading there? (Okay, maybe I’ll give her that for now if she’s showing up.)

We wrote two poems, “Knocking Stars Out of the Known Sky,” and “Alluding Perusing.” 

We revised them both and submitted them. (I know, I know. Let them mellow. But also, when you know, you know? Until I don’t again. I’m onto me and this cycle.) 

We took a stash of our poems that were all rolled together and created separate google docs for them. We added some to our master list that we had overlooked.

We put more themes to the poems on our master list. Miles to go, but we’ll get there and we will thank ourselves when we do. 

We discovered a poem that refused to be tamed or shaped and it won’t hear me that it’s really not a poem. It’s a drunken slurry of words. 

We rooted around and found some markets to investigate yesterday, too. I love it when I see one and think, “Yes, you’re my people.” But they have to agree. 

Do you know how long it takes to hear back, usually? Weeks. Months, even. 

That’s okay. I can be patient when it’s something I really want. 

Anyhow, would you like to know more about the book we finished reading on this rainy day that may or may not rain more? 

Serial Killer Games by Kate Posey (her debut novel!) is charming, adorable, and not at all what I expected. 

I got pulled in. Hard. Not in the way I expected, either. I’d picked up the book thinking it would scratch that dark thriller itch. You know the one, murders, twisted psychology, creepy office temp who might be a killer and might just be muy caliente.

Note: we don’t like knives or gore. In fact, I often have to give myself a pep talk before using my largest knives. And being in the presence of someone else using one? Even watching it on TV? Flinch city! 

But we do like trying to understand the mind of serial killers, especially when presented in a quirky way. 

But Posey so sneakily, so sweetly, drops you into a slow-burn romance that pretends it’s going to be all about murder, and instead gives you a cat-and-mouse flirtation that’s deliciously off-kilter. Definitely Word Raccoon fodder. 

Jake and Dodi (yes, Dolores dela Cruz, but Dodi to him) leave each other tiny, deranged gifts which are hilarious. I’d like that, but not the deranged part. Strange, sure. Just not that strange. 

Pebbles? Single flowers? A pinecone? Sure. 

I guess every couple has their unique love language. I don’t think Dr. Chapman has that one on his list, though: Gifts. But doll parts and… yeah I can’t tell you more because it would be a mild spoiler.

The pair speak in doublespeak, all while watching each other out of the corners of their eyes like people who are trying so hard not to fall. But we know it’s already too damn late. 

It’s weird. It’s cute. It’s a little unhinged in the best way. There are so many tiny heartbreaks along the way, but just as many true moments of connection, and you’re hoping all the way through that neither of them is it. 

Here’s one of those heartbreaks:

“The thing is,” I say, “I have a life.” 

She continues… “At the end of the day, when we’re done playing our stupid serial killer games at the office, I go home and my real life begins.”

“This could be real life,” he says. 

…It was self-defense, your honor. (Dodi imagines.)

This book was not what I expected, and I’m thrilled about that. And let’s just say the ending is not what you’d expect, either. 

Kinda like life sometimes. 

All in all, I’d say it’s a novel that leads to justifiable non-scheduled reading time. 

Then again, WR does not like schedules. Don’t tell her we are (sometimes) on one. 

Word Raccoon is out of the hammock and coming for the to-do list.

🎵 Now Playing: “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield

(It’s Word Raccoon’s Tuesday morning mood. And don’t give me any shizz about this feel-good song.)

Yes, it’s Tuesday. But don’t tell Word Raccoon that; it’s her Monday, and she’s got pages to devour. Poems to massage. A novel that’s giving her side-eye and she’s giving it right back. And oh, she is ready.

The long weekend was relaxing (with a pinch of Word Raccoon mischief). I cover it all below.

Barry practiced his keyboard set for subbing in at this coming Friday night’s The Strays gig in our lil’ ol’ town square. (I’ll be in the crowd promptly at 6:30 with my folding chair and fizzy drink, promise.) Locals, come join the fun oldies. And by that I mean the songs are oldies, not the guys.

While he practiced (and in days in between), I got down to some poetic meddling. I kept to my modest goal of five poems, and wrote a few more because who follows their own rules? I tried to stop, I really did.

Weekend stats:

• 📝 Wrote five (plus a few bonus) poems
• 🎤 Karaoke & a G&T
• 🔥 Grilled, toasted exactly one marshmallow
• 🎬 Walked out of a movie with an hour to go because Word Raccoon was bored (Word Raccoon has opinions. Ask her, she’ll tell you.)
• 📚 Finished Rick’s excellent short story collection. Review incoming
• 🎸 Watched a fab video on famous stolen guitars (some returned like prodigal sons! I love these musical works of art even if I can’t memorize model numbers to save my life. Anywho, watch it. You’ll enjoy it.)
• 🍫 Made the brownies
• 📺 Rewatched 6/10 episodes of Platonic. Before you judge, that’s only 3 hours.
• 📖 Raided the library and walked out with a book tower. I may have giggled. Out loud.

Library Book Theory (You heard it here first):

Library books go stale if you wait too long to read them. I read and drop ’em in the return box as soon as I’ve finished one. Today’s haul! I felt giddy over my choices — I had to sit down and relish my precious ones.

🍎 The Apple Poem Nobody Asked For

Because I had feelings about apples today. Of all things. Also, I own nothing Hello Kitty. But apparently my poem does. This poem is wonky; I own that. But I am also not going to do anything with it but share it here, because I know it’s a petty poem, so that’s fine.

To Eat an Apple While Brownies Bake?!
—after Robert Frost. Sort of.

Whose red undelicious apples these are
I think I know.
He didn’t eat his lunch, though.

He will not catch me standing here
Beside the stove with brownie cheer.

My Hello Kitty potholder
Gives a shake
To ask if there is some mistake:
To eat an inferior apple while brownies bake?

The oven hums, the batter sets.
(The goddamned gas station wine of apples, really?)
I bake regrets.

Red Delicious, my ass.

Poem Themes, Catalog in Progress

Listing themes with my poems really will help in answering calls for poems and deciding what the best homes are for them (please find homes, my little soul flares), though it is time consuming. It’s gonna take a minute, but I’ve got this.

In the meantime, here’s the current mood board of themes across my poems:

• Love & Desire
• Grief & Loss
• Family & Inheritance
• Aging & Time
• Illness & Decline
• Pop Culture & Media
• Gender & Sexuality
• Religion & Faith
• Power & Control
• Nature & Animals
• Domestic Life
• Identity & Selfhood
• Memory & Nostalgia
• Class & Labor
• Technology & Modernity
• Art & Creativity
• Humor & Satire
• Freedom & Confinement
• Loneliness & Connection
• Justice & Injustice
• Body & Embodiment
• Myth & Archetype

It’s going to be a big poem week. Word Raccoon is caffeinated and coming for her legacy. (Maybe just one more brownie first.)

But first, she’s only about a third of the way through that serial killer novel she found at the library today.

What, you didn’t know that would be the one she would start in on?

Oh, my dear reader…you’ve got a lot of catching up on Dremaness to do.

And that’s okay.

All in good time.

For years, I’ve counted Anne Tyler as one of the three living authors who’ve most shaped my writing, alongside Toni Morrison, who at the time was still with us, and Amy Tan.

When I listed those women on my grad school application as my greatest writing influences, I decided that if the program didn’t find that acceptable, then it wasn’t the place for me.

I also only applied to one program because it was the only one I wanted to attend. Apparently, they shared my literary taste, and they must have liked my writing, because I graduated from the program. (Yay.) I really wouldn’t recommend that strategy to most people; you have to be willing to walk away, and I was.

Though there are dozens of authors I adore, those three women remain central to who I am as a reader and writer, in part because they kept me reading and growing after I’d left any kind of reading or writing community and before I returned to university and then went to grad school. For years, they kept me thinking, feeling, and writing.

I was delighted, and honestly, surprised, recently to see our reclusive Anne Tyler giving interviews. For decades, she was famous for avoiding publicity, and while I don’t know what has brought her back, I’ve been thrilled to see her emerge. I’ve learned more about her in just a few interviews these past months than I ever knew before.

Now, at 83, she’s giving us a peek not only into her life at long last but also at her famous Blue Box of scribbled observations. She goes to it when she wants to write a book. Spoiler: it’s no longer blue; she outgrew her original recipe box. It’s now a black-and-white cardboard box labeled “Blue Box,” stuffed with index cards where she jots single words or snippets of conversation for future use.

Word Raccoon WANTS IT! But I’m sure she’d have to wait in a very long line to get it.

I adore so many of Tyler’s novels. They’re all quiet, with a magnifying glass on details others miss in ordinary life. She has an eye and ear for characters who are everyday people no one else has thought to write about, and she makes them special, important, when most would just ignore these people. I love her for that.

(A certain someone in my life says I collect “characters.” I think I do have a high threshold for unique people, but actually, introvert though I am, I think I just like people. Most days.)

The first book I read of Tyler’s was a random library grab. I picked up Ladder of Years from our local library to take with me on a trip to Ohio during a week away with my husband and our daughter. As my daughter swam, radiant and tireless, and my husband attended classes, I sat poolside wrestling with my own sense of motherhood. We were newly a family, and as Delia Grinstead drifted away from hers in the novel, I…felt things. How could I find my way when everything felt so uncharted?

When we returned home, I read all the Tyler novels the library owned. Then I saw the list of books she’d written inside one of her paperbacks, and I felt cheated because the library didn’t have them all. (I don’t know if I didn’t know about interlibrary loan yet or if I thought that was only for scholarly books. At any rate, I didn’t use it.)

This book-finding mission of mine was before Amazon or eBay. Instead, I searched secondhand bookstores and flea markets, finding her novels one by one until I had them all.

I’ll never forget grabbing hold of A Slipping-Down Life in its red paperback cover. It had been one of the more elusive titles, since it was first published in 1970. I remember scanning, scanning, titles among the overheated scent of yellowing paperbacks crowding the flea market tables, until my search was finally rewarded.

I think I paid two dollars and told the seller to keep the change — I would have paid ten times that. Since I wasn’t driving, I began reading it on the way home.

In A Slipping-Down Life, Evie Decker, a lonely teenager, carves the name of a musician into her forehead—a desperate act of longing to be seen, paralleling Delia from Ladder of Years in certain ways. Reading Evie’s story as a young adult reminded me that the search for identity starts early and never really goes away.

Revisiting both novels now, I see a conversation spanning the whole arc of my adult life. Delia and Evie are women I carry with me, reminders that identity is slippery, that reinvention is both frightening and necessary, and that it’s possible to come back to the surface even when you fear you’re drowning. Maybe especially when you think you’re drowning in what you see as your most important roles.

If Ladder of Years and A Slipping-Down Life helped me wrestle with identity, The Accidental Tourist may be Anne Tyler’s novel that most impacted me. I’ve read it at different points in my life, and each time it has offered a new mirror—one that reflects not just who I am, but how I move through love, grief, and the rituals of everyday survival.

In Tourist, Macon Leary is a man, a travel writer for those who want to travel but encounter as few changes to their daily routine as possible. His grief for his murdered son has frozen him into rigid routines that he then wants to perpetuate on other travelers. Sigh.

His life is almost stagnant until Muriel Pritchett, fierce and chaotic, blusters into his world with her dog-walking service. She teaches Macon that life doesn’t wait for you to be ready; sometimes it grabs you by the collar and makes you come along. Tyler shows, with her signature wit and compassion, that healing is messy, nonlinear, and often arrives disguised as inconvenience or even annoyance.

A pause: the rain has begun, and a breeze and its scent are coming in off the pavement and sidewalk, petrichor and ozone. Every muscle unkinks when I smell that. How fitting that it should happen when I’m writing about St. Anne on the sunporch. I really should consider closing the windows, but not yet. I’m not ready to let go of that marvelous scent.

Word Raccoon is reminding me that we haven’t finished this post yet and that until we do, she will not eat supper and she’s ready, ready, ready. What would I do without this little dear to help me? (She also says to tell you that she received notice her Coke Zero earrings are now in the process of being made! She will show pics when she has them!)

Okay, apparently supper awaits. We write on.

Not just singly, but collectively, Tyler’s beautiful, quiet prose lives together for me in a dense mesh of what it is to be alive, like the roots of a tree. I’m not always sure I can trace each novel back to its original story; it’s more the comprehensive impression they’ve left on me along with lines and characters.

Her latest novel, Three Days in June, is one of her shortest, yet no less compelling, novels. I read it mostly in one sitting, the best way to read if you can.

At 83, she’s still exploring the joys and heartbreaks of love, marriage, and family life with the same deep sensitivity she’s always brought to her work. Her protagonist in June, Gail, is so churlish you almost don’t want to root for her, yet somehow, you do.

Or maybe you find yourself voting for her ex, Max, a bumbling yet loving man.

I can’t remember every physical place I’ve read Tyler, but one stands out: I brought Clock Dance to Japan, and it was such a nice distraction because it was days before I slept more than a couple of hours. First of all, jetlag, but also, the beds were like baby crib mattresses, thin and full of springs. They were awful! At least I had Anne Tyler’s newest to keep me company. (I know that story is incredibly “first world problems,” but I swear, I could not wait to get home.)

There’s such fairness in Tyler’s writing gaze. She isn’t judging. She doesn’t tell you that this person is good and that one bad. There are no villains in her stories, just differing points of view. I love that, because isn’t that mostly the truth when it comes to life?

So many novels of hers to love, every one of them. But most of all, I want to offer Anne Tyler a thank you for her Blue Box, her quiet gaze, her unwavering faith in the beauty of everyday people. I’m grateful beyond words to have walked alongside her stories all these years.

Now Playing:“She Cleans Up” by Father John Misty

Okay, heat, now it’s personal. Word Raccoon and I have not been to the dunes once this summer, and we are pissed.

Well, mostly we’re pissed. Also, we’re hot.

Remember my post the other day saying I’m fine sitting in the heat? No, really, I’m fine.

I am officially not fine now. How dare you, heat? 

I sat outside writing for a couple of hours yesterday morning. Why? Because being indoors feels like leaving recess early. Nothing smells, sounds, or looks the same inside. It’s like I’m being punished by the weather, like my senses are forced to nap when they’re not tired.

I am devoted to writing outdoors, but even a devotee can get heatstroke. Even if Word Raccoon’s earrings did get her free refills from the nice man at the cafe today. 

Also, a patron there on a motorcycle offered me a job. Alas, I do not have the required expertise, but it was kind of him to ask. Word Raccoon was miffed that he did not offer her a ride on his motorcycle. (Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have let her get on.)

Tentative Weekend Plans

Earlier today, I was full-on spiraling about my writing. Looking back at my notes from then, I have to laugh. Drema, knock it off. It’s not that serious. 

Except in the moment, it always is. Word Raccoon just stared at me with her big loving eyes and offered me half a Benadryl. It made me thirsty and sleepy, but no more spiral for the moment. Don’t worry, I don’t do this often, but at least I didn’t fling my MacBook into the street. (Hyperbole, I promise.) 

Let’s say I did actually, totally suck at writing and everything I’d ever written deserved to be purged from the earth; even then, so what? I would still be a human worthy of love. (Most days I know this.)

I’m the only one ever feels this way about ye olde writing abilities? Cool, cool…cool. That’s not embarrassing.😂

In other news, there is a huge grill in our dining room. Barry spent hours putting it together, and we’re supposed to take it for a spin today; I’ll just be relieved to get it out of the house. That’s not the statement piece I want to decorate around, you know? 

Word Raccoon says it might make a nice bed for her. If I see her fluffing pillows in it, I’ll worry. Who would sleep at the foot of the bed and wake me with poems and songs if she slept in it instead? 

Anyhow, we have tentative holiday weekend plans that all hinge on energy and the heat. 

Lucky you, this is helping me refine my list.

* See the latest Mission Impossible. (At this point in a franchise, I don’t bother learning titles. But I do like an action movie on occasion.)

* Grill for the weekend. Cook once, eat for days.

* Attend the fireworks. If it’s not too hot. 

* Toast marshmallows in the backyard. Thoroughly. She likes them charred. 

* Read. It’s been too long since I finished a whole book; I have three going right now and am actively ignoring titles the Libby app tells me it has ready for me. Sorry, hon, thanks but no.

* Convince someone to start rewatching Platonic with me. Season two is coming in August! It’s soo good!

* Bake brownies really early or really late in the day to avoid the heat. Add walnuts. Obviously. 

Writing Goals, (Semi) Lightly Defined

I’m trying to stay fully present this weekend, so I’m keeping my writing plans minimal:

* Write no more than five poems. (I wrote about twelve micropoems the other night without meaning to; thankfully, I found a lit journal seeking poems under fifty words. Fingers crossed.) 

* Finish a blog post on Anne Tyler. She’s one of my favorite authors, and she’s giving interviews again after years of avoiding the spotlight. Yay!!! 

* Revise five poems. Prepping for submission shows just how rough some of my drafts are. Word Raccoon, please add some meat to those bones!

* Submit poems to five journals. This doubles as sneaky revision time: if a poem needs more than a quick tweak, it goes back into the folder until it’s ready. If it’s close, we revise on the go. Still relying on my ear; not sure how else to know. 

Also, I received a cool award for my novel Southern-Fried Woolf. Later, Word Raccoon. We will share that another day but we are very pleased. (She’s twirling her whisk earrings with joy!) 

Confession: Travel Anxiety

This is normally a dunes weekend for us, but HEAT!

While I miss the dunes, I’m also slightly worried about traveling or having people I care about travel. It’s a superstitious, PTSD-like feeling. When we went to Mackinac Island in May, my mother’s health, while already poor, declined rapidly while we were gone, and days after we returned, she passed away.

Now I’m a little afraid my loved ones will disappear if we travel, and I’m also afraid for them to travel. I know it’s irrational, but anxiety usually is. 

Don’t worry. It’s just a background buzz.

And the summer isn’t over. I’m sure we’ll squeeze in a weekend or two at the beach. 

Do you think the waves miss me as much as I miss them? 

Poems in Progress

Here are the only new poems I’m allowing myself to work on this weekend unless words start spontaneously coming to me (and they might): 

* He Would Nevuh** (I have three stanzas so far.)

* One about Frida Kahlo. The working title sounds scandalous, so I’m keeping it private for now.

* A poem about our original family cemetery in West Virginia.

* A vague concept. Nothing to see yet. Just trying to write the uncapturable? 

* Why Scrambled Eggs and Other Tasteless Things. The title says it all.

And btw, I just opened my notes app and discovered five ideas for poems I wrote there just yesterday. NOOOO!! I think I’ve discovered an extra sense: poetry detector. Actually, I love it. 

Housework and a Secret Plan

Barry’s best friend is coming over to discuss music stuff with him one day this weekend. I’m happy about it for a few reasons: he’s a welcome guest, it gives us a good excuse to tidy up, and I can sneak in more writing time. I’ll visit with them, maybe eat with them, then hurry back to the keyboard with Word Raccoon. Shh…

She’s got poems to write, and, when she’s feeling less mortified about it, a novel to backspace, blinking on it like nobody’s business. (What does that even mean, WR? Eh, the wind knows.)

Catch you on the other side of the marshmallow roast. Unlike Word Raccoon, they’re vanilla flavored. 

Now Playing: Latch (Acoustic version) — Sam Smith

Word Raccoon and I struck a deal today: if she would quit messing around and get ready for the café, I would let her choose our earrings. (As if I had a choice.)

She whined that it was too early, and that she had written on the porch until the lights went on. Past it, even. Wasn’t I happy the novel was getting its due?

Of course, silly raccoon, but also: goals.

Word Raccoon stumbled across this poem in my files and demanded I share it today.

Poetry was with me in Rome then, though neither of us knew it. Images don’t just disappear over the years; they metabolize into Wordsworth’s “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

I wouldn’t say WR is tranquil right now, but is she ever?  

You Know, You’ve Been to Rome

There you were

In the Pantheon

Floating down

Through the oculus

As I sat

In the pew

Being shushed

By the guard

In his useless, unholy

timed efforts

To hush the enthusiasm

Of the pilgrims

ruining my

rumination.

My eyes sought

What yours would’ve:

Both sight and sound.

Rich reds, mysteries

The drone of dozens

Wheeling round and

round.

The intrusive squeaks

of reverse anachronistic sneakers

You would’ve hated that.

The drains in the floor

not doing their job.

I was flooded with longing.

Raphael’s crypt there,

His spirit here, like yours.

Painting the walls

Of my soul.

I’ll see that they

Reserve a nook for you

Like I do.

Purple Prose Alert!!

Anyway, WR told me to tell you she re-read that dramatic scene between Rebecca and Bart I posted the other day and is hooting at how melodramatic it is. She says I should share a real scene instead of that nightmare.

If readers care about us, they’ll appreciate the vulnerability of an early revision or experiment (and that was both…I hadn’t tried that scene in third yet, which is what the rest of Rebecca’s section is in, let alone first. And that Delphi image/vision was a new idea. So chill, WR. Artists have to have room to make false starts or they can’t create. )

If readers don’t care, well, they probably won’t ever like our writing, and it doesn’t really matter. Either way, no one ever died of firsthand (or secondhand) embarrassment.

But if you insist, WR, here’s a more polished scene from another timeline in my novel, (because she will not let it go). James is one of my favorite characters. He becomes the first president of a university in Ohio in the 1930’s.

James’s Scene

James and his father sat on either side of the fireplace in the family’s rented-into-perpetuity farmhouse in Ohio. That is, as long as someone farmed the land, the family was allowed to stay in the house that felt as if it were theirs.

The fireplace was built of bricks formed onsite nearly a hundred years before by James’s grandfather, Harold Whitacre, who had also rented the land and built the farmhouse that would remain theirs only for the duration of their lease.

Today, the fire spread itself in the grate like a sleeping cat, and James found his eyelids shuttering where he sat beside his father in an oak rocking chair whose bottom his grandfather had caned to celebrate James’s birth nearly eighteen years before.

His father gently inserted a walnut into a wooden nutcracker and squeezed it with one hand, making a cracking sound, causing James’s eyes to open. His father placed the nutcracker on the wide-beamed mantle, then picked with one hand at the nut in the other, handing his son half of the meat before placing the rest in his own mouth and tossing the empty shell into the fire.

It occurred to James that so many things humans did to merely survive were violent, even when it didn’t involve living creatures.

James slowed his chair until it stopped rocking.

“Your mother keeps speaking of the young women at church who stare at you during the service. I can’t say I’ve noticed you returning their attention, but she thought it time I speak with you. James, if a man wants to take a wife, not that every man has to, and certainly not as young as you are, but if he does, he has to have some employment.

Now, while you’ve always been as helpful as can be around here, I reckon you don’t have much more natural ability at this than I do, though I can see that you love it. There’s always college for a smart boy like you.”

His father sipped from his mug long past there possibly being anything in it. The pause felt like an embrace to the teen.

“Yes sir. I was thinking that I might enter the academy.”

“Your mother and I thought you might. Everyone knows about your devotion to the church; even when you’re sick you never miss a service. You know more Bible verses, I believe, than our minister does, though you mustn’t tell him I said so. I’m sure our denomination would help sponsor your education. It will require some years of training to become a minister, of course. No one will fault you for that. And then after, it will take more time to settle into a congregation. No, son, there’s no rush at all to start a family. God has made us all different. Some of us he wants to devote more to the things of the church than to our personal lives. If you decide that’s who you are, I want you to know that we will accept that.”

James hung his head. It was true he’d kept his eyes off the young women seated on the opposite side of the church. From early on, his attention had been elsewhere: front and center, staring at the fair-haired minister with the light eyes, the man’s mouth with permanent white around it as if he wore a perpetual milk mustache, a smile that insisted on a return one.

A Word Raccoon’s Morning

Word Raccoon feels better now, because she’s proud of that section. (But is it a bit long?)

Let me tell you the rest of how our morning went.

This morning, she said she would sure be able to write better if I attempted space buns for real. I did a decent (okay, not so much) job but I at least know how to do it now except in my version, a half-inch strand was still hanging down in back, one side was thicker than the other, and let’s not even talk about the part.

Needless to say, I took them down.

I’m going to give it another go over the holiday weekend. (And hey, I’m supposed to be test driving some red, white, and blue nails to review, so why not? The last time I tried a set of nails we went out with friends that evening, and it was not fun with chopsticks for me.)

And don’t get me started on the eyelashes I tried the next week. Not. For. Me.

Anyway, WR chose jigsaw piece earrings this morning, and I pushed her into my van before she could stall again.

Before that, she put on both my flowered kimono and a flowered scarf. One coral based, one pink. Which would work, but it was too much. She glared at me as if daring me to complain, but I played innocent and caught her head turned and pulled the scarf off. She didn’t notice.

Obviously she has never heard of Coco Chanel’s rule about taking off one accessory before leaving the house. (I’m not into fashion rules but some days it just makes sense.)

So, to recap: space buns and possibly 4th of July themed fingernails coming this weekend (God, will I be able to type?), and don’t I have a patriotic duster somewhere? Hahaha…that may be a bit much.

Word Raccoon lowers her sunglasses. “Exactly,” she whispers. “I AM a bit much. You got a problem with that?”

Hmmm…and she tried to blame that purple prose on me. Who believes that for one minute?  

This morning I have spent time doing the bane of my existence: busy work. Administrative shit. You know, wrangling the poems—because apparently they can’t wrangle themselves.

Word Raccoon is not happy. We wrote a poem this morning, and she says writing about a clock’s tongue is way too engrossing to now be dealing with digital folders.

I remind her we have lunch plans with three friends in a bit and we must stay up a level anyway. Don’t you remember how that woman stared at us earlier when we were writing a poem? We must’ve looked a hot mess.

---

Why Organizing Poetry Matters

Here’s the issue with my darling poems: with over 200 of them (micro and otherwise) and apparently no end in sight, I HAVE to be able to know where they are.

Submission tracker? Check. I’ve had that for a while now, since I used a version of it when I was submitting short stories.

A certain someone asked me yesterday if I have an alphabetized masterlist of my poems. Actually, I do. At least up until last week. Word Raccoon wanted to stick her tongue out at him but she knew he meant well. What does he take us for, a rank amateur?

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The Struggle is Real

A couple of days ago, I was submitting to a themed call for pop culture poems and AFTER I had submitted my packet, I remembered one that would have been perfect—EXCEPT I HAD FORGOTTEN IT EXISTED.

The struggle is real. I also ran across a poem with three different titles. SMH. I need to be able to figure out which I’m keeping and which I’m 86’ing.

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My Messy Old Process

Here’s what I used to do (homebrewed in the worst of ways):

1. Create a poem in my notes app (the thumbs want what the thumbs want).
   
2. When a poem seems to have a spark, email it to myself.
   
3. From there, paste it into a Word doc so I could revise and submit.
   

Kinda messy, am I right?

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My New (Slightly Less Messy) System

This is what I’m hoping to do from now on:

• Steps one and two, same.
  
• Step three: Transfer the unrevised poem to Google Docs and place it in the In Progress folder.
• Step four: When it’s finished, put it in the “ready to submit” folder and any drafts of it go into “archive.” At least that’s the plan. Sigh. Word Raccoon DOES NOT like structure! She says that while Ralph Waldo Emerson (why does he get three names?) is not wrong when he says “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” that it would be more right if he said rigidity is the hobgoblin of little minds. She prickles at bean counters, at…breathe, raccoon.
• Psst…when she understands the value in it, she can be made to do what needs doing. And keeping track of these poems makes sense. So don’t worry too much about us — we’ve got this. (Maybe?)
  Chaos is a great muse, but sometimes she needs a leash. Not literally. Ugh.

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My Geeky Folder Breakdown

Oh, you want the geeky folder breakdown, do you?
(Caveat: this is just what I am currently trying. This could well change next week.)

IF I SHARE THESE FOLDER TITLES YOU HAVE TO NOT THINK I’M BEING GRANDIOSE, OK? OK??

• 📁 Chapbooks & Collections
  
• 📁 Archived and Abandoned
  
• 📁 Featured on My Blog (limits submission possibilities after, but sometimes I can’t help myself)
  
• 📁 In Progress
  
• 📁 Prompts & Fragments
  
• 📁 Published
  
• 📁 Ready to Submit
  
• 📁 Submission Materials & Templates
  
• 📁 Submitted
  
• 📁 To Organize (That one’s gonna get cluttered, but at least it’s a “Hey, stick it here until you’re feeling ambitious.”)
  

How did they do it before computers? I would have lost my will to write.

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My Masterlist Labels

As to my masterlist, these labels seem most useful to me:

• Poem
  
• Status
  
• Link to File
  
• First Line
  
• Theme
  
• Submitted
  
• Published
  
• Archived
  
• Notes
  

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The Ongoing Battle with Word Raccoon

Word Raccoon wants to strike a deal: she says she will write the poems if I will do the admin.

Thank you but no thank you. We will write them together, you little tyrant!

I’ve taken to a second evening session of writing most nights, just me and my lovely sun porch. It’s not as productive a time, because I’m usually tired, but it keeps me in the stream and keeps me from watching too much TV, which not only enervates but also irritates me.

I’m not out here looking to win a couch potato award. I value my time more than that. (Not saying some shows aren’t totally worth watching—and yes, when I can’t sleep I go hard on those YouTube shorts.)

Let’s Help Each Other

If you have other tips to organize poetry, please LMK. If you want to borrow these, please. Creatives should be helping one another. The less of this we have to figure out, the more time we have to create something beautiful.

Don’t you think we need more of that, especially right now?

Word Raccoon has other things she wants to say but wait a breath, girl. This is enough.