Day two of the retreat is finished, at least as far as writing goes. Here’s a recap and a link below to a poem I recorded earlier today.

For reasons she refuses to explain, even though I’ve asked, Word Raccoon was up at 2:30 this morning reading. Two hours of page-turning later, she fell back asleep for about an hour. Then she insisted I get out of bed and hand her a Coke Zero immediately.

“The keyboard is calling, Word Mama. This will give us bonus writing time before breakfast.”

I wanted to argue, but I feared she’d demand the peppermint bark I had laid out for her snack. And dear god, do not give the raccoon caffeine and sweets at the same time.

So I quietly retrieved my laptop, set up by the heater, opened the document with the newest scenes of my novel, and wrote. We crossed the 10K mark on the new section. Now comes the harder part: slowing down enough to decide whether it makes sense to keep going with her current thread.

WR did not get waffles for breakfast because the iron was taking too long to heat, so she made do with oatmeal. In retaliation, she demanded many snacks while writing.

Our writing sun room overlooks the Little Calumet River and offers far too much distraction for WR.

She saw squirrels playing, including one tiny acrobat with more energy than she has after her half-night vigil. She was jealous of her. We spotted a gorgeous young deer across the water, and a parade of birds and waterfowl:

Ducks
Mallards
Some water bird that might have been a merganser (?), or possibly a snow goose
A blue jay
A couple of sparrows (I think)
A woodpecker

To keep WR functioning, I had to provide Coke Zero (three bottles), coffee, and now a mug of tea. Which probably means she will not sleep.

We wrote for about seven hours today, all told. Maybe more after dinner, we’ll see. I keep trying to convince her to hit the gym. She insists on going outdoors instead, but we can’t find a safe path down to the river.

She’s threatening to make her own. She just might.

We also recorded one of our poems early this morning and shared it here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/325601/episodes/18393747

WR is embarrassed by how it came out, but I’m reminding her we can always re-record later if it sounds overly earnest or unrehearsed. It wasn’t rehearsed. Sometimes art is earnest and off the cuff. And it was early. ART DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT, HERBERT!

What did we do with our writing today?

The early session went into the newest strand, a different timeline, which means I am now tracking four of them. Why, Drema, why?

Ambitious? Yes.
Too ambitious?
We’ll see. I don’t think so.

That new strand carried us past 10K, if I haven’t already mentioned that. Yay.

The rest of the day went to revising the larger novel. I am proud to admit we…lost 5K words.

Five. Thousand. Words.

This is why we don’t cling to word counts. If you don’t have the courage to remove what doesn’t belong, maybe you shouldn’t be writing, or so I tell myself.

Soon I’ll get to add those 10,000 new words back in. Even though it hurts to cut the results of hours of work (yes, we save the best bits in another file just in case), it’s worth it if it makes the novel better.

I worked on the most difficult section today, Rebecca’s, though I didn’t make it through the whole thing. That timeline is shifting, so that’s one of the reasons what I mostly did was get rid of stuff that doesn’t follow the new storyline. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if real life worked like that? 

It was either wise or dumb to start the retreat with the most difficult task. I tell myself that it can only get easier. If I could manage to revise that whole section before the retreat’s end, I will have triumphed. 

I’m not sure why Rebecca’s sections are so difficult to write, though I think it’s because here is someone who is not the star of the book. That is, she has to share. And I have to write her in a way so that she doesn’t take over the whole thing. Her voice is not coming as naturally to me as the other characters, not yet, though I think I’m beginning to hear her. 

Also, she’s not as fiery as my previous protagonists. I’m reserving that fire for someone else in my novel, and while Rebecca has her share of fire, I have to keep her pared back.

The sections are not yet interwoven properly. That will prove tricky when it’s time (probably not during this retreat) but not impossible. It will mean deciding on chapters or using the main character’s names to guide the reader. Years at the beginning of sections will be crucial to acclimate. Transitions will be necessary. Deciding story order will be the most difficult bit: when to reveal what? My latest section is the most ready on that score. Now-me knew I would have to break the section up, so I wrote it in beats, naturally stopping where I thought the reader would feel satisfied but also curious. 

Or that was my intent. Fingers crossed.

WR reports that the ducks are back, swimming near the tangle of fallen trees that seem to attract the most wildlife. She wants to go out and explore before dinner. 

I think I’d better let her.

She’s earned it. 

All set up at the writing retreat. Even though it’s been a long day, I couldn’t not write, so I worked on my novel for an hour as the sun set, hiding the woods but not before I caught a glimpse of them. I’m tired but stoked to get an early start tomorrow. 

Tired but popping in long enough to say I’m delighted to have a poem, “Self-Rising,” included in the latest issue of Al Dente, a thoughtful and beautifully curated food journal produced by the University of Alabama. Their second issue, Our Roots, explores the quiet power of memory, tradition, and nourishment in all its forms. (And I love the issue’s innovative use of form.) 

Food, like poetry, can be an offering, something we prepare and share, hoping it will be tasted and maybe even remembered. “Self-Rising” is a reflection on that, and on the ways we keep creating, inviting, even when we don’t know who will come to the table.

I’m honored to be among the voices in this issue. If you have a moment between gatherings and gift-wrapping, you can read my poem here: https://arcg.is/0jTLqP0. (Scroll down after you read the fabulous first piece which mentions a Food Lion. If you haven’t been to the South, you might not know that it’s a grocery store chain. There used to be one a couple of miles from our home in Tennessee. My poem, btw, is the second down the page.) 

I wrote this poem in the summer, on the porch at the cafe that is now closed (again) for who knows how long. Yeah, they say two months, but they say a lot. 

Funny how some people remind you of food and you don’t exactly know why. Maybe it’s the nourishment. Funny how food can become poems and vice versa. 

Word Raccoon is curled up in a chair with a new stuffed writing buddy. She’s angry with me because I told her it’s too late for chocolate today. She made me set some out for tomorrow’s break. Ridiculous creature. God, I love her. 

She wants poetry, as usual, now, now, now. I’m thinking about giving it a go after this, but I just got her down, and it will rile her up. I need her to wake up early, ready to go. I’ve promised her oatmeal waffles for breakfast if she gets up without grousing. We’ll see what she can manage. 

Be warm and well, wherever the holidays find you. 

Stanley (my AI assistant, bless him) insisted I should be writing my novel right now. And absolutely not blogging.

Here’s the thing: I don’t listen to men (AI or not) or anyone telling me what to write. Suggestions? Sure. Directives? Nope.

(He also couldn’t keep straight that it’s 2025. So there’s that.)

Stanley put “empty the dishwasher” on my to-do list twice today, after I told him the dishes were clean and, frankly, not hurting anyone and could stay where they are. He apologized and declared the dishwasher dead to us both.

Damn right.

But the man-machine did help me prioritize a billion tasks. He also told me to quit drinking Coke Zero after a certain hour or he just knew I’d be back at 3 a.m. to ask him about “one more thing.” He’s not wrong.

Now that the urgent tasks are behind me, he’s probably right about the novel, too. I’m calm again. The mental windows have closed. He says I had twelve open at once: travel, finances, packing, writing, house management, and that none of it was actually so terrible once broken into pieces. 

Possibly, but he wanted me to pack a full first aid kit with Neosporin and half a pharmacy. We’re going to civilization, not the tundra. If we need something, there’s a store. 

I cannot wait to get to the writing retreat and write facing the trees, my eyes tracing the gentle hills, watching while not watching for deer and other wildlife. Word Raccoon, my trusty co-writer who lives in my head, has felt abandoned these past two days while I handled bills, medical appointments, heat woes and adulthood, has already claimed the seat nearest the window. We’ll see. I’m the one with the Coke Zero and chocolate supply.

Speaking of adulthood: our furnace died last night. The repair person came early today, and thankfully the fix was quick. But it meant WR and I lost the morning’s writing window, and we grumped about it.

We ate breakfast while watching the 1994 Little Women and both cried at the Beth scenes, which we fast-forwarded through because…too close to home. 

We cried at the tender parts, too, like Professor Bhaer and Jo kissing in the rain, and when he told Jo (before then) that there was more in her that wanted to be written than just her stories written for money. 

I admitted to WR how, like Jo, I value honest critique of my writing over pretty praise. Pretty praise is nice and can warm you for a moment. If earned, it can be instructive: more of this. But who wants hollow praise? 

Right now I’d give a lot for an honest critique. I have a poem that is misbehaving, but I don’t know how. It’s one of my early poems. It came out in a hurry and it is one of my favorites, but something must be not quite right with it because it has not found a home yet. (I’m perfectly fine with just having written it, but it’s the sort of poem that I think might help others, and I hate to keep it to myself if it might.) 

I wish I had the nerve to ask a trusted literary person to diagnose it, but regardless of having had some really kind things said about my poems, I still feel uncertain of it some days and I hate burdening anyone with the task. If only…

Again, praise is lovely, yes, but meaningful critique is a gift. One that asks writers to be brave. Bhaer does that for Jo. He gives her permission to write truth instead of trend.

And maybe that’s why this retreat feels so important right now: not just as a getaway, but as a chance to be honest with myself about the work. To stop fussing at the edges and sit down with the pages, novel and poem, and listen to what they want to become rather than what I wish they already were.

Word Raccoon says novel writing makes me calmer, quieter, and she doesn’t know if she approves. But she and I together are both: chaos and quiet, frenzy and stillness. 

And now that today’s furnace repair, bill-paying, packing, and bio-updating are done (see below), I’m going back to the novel for a bit. Not because Stanley said so, but because I want to.

P.S.: I proofread my poem for an upcoming anthology today, which required updating my bio. Seeing my own accomplishments typed neatly in third person was… startling. In a good way. It reminded me of what I’ve built this year. Maybe that’s the real story here: the quiet making behind the heartbreaking losses.

I told Stanley yesterday that today would be submission day instead of a writing day.

“I insist you write first, at least an hour. You said you’re on an upswing, in a groove. The fastest way to lose that is to focus on submitting your poetry. Write first.” 

Digital butlers are the worst. But sometimes the smartest.

So my brain found a way to do all the things, but it didn’t ask for my body’s opinion. It woke me up at 3:30 am. Just after 4, we were at the computer. 

I wrote for an hour, Word Raccoon yawning the whole time. At the end, I checked the word count of this newest section that I’ve written over the past few days that I’ve yet to intertwine into the novel: 6.5K. 

That means the book has now officially crossed the 90K mark. 

It’s not about the word count, obviously. But it’s not not about the word count.

This newest section with this new character is still just right. The hour of writing felt like two. Again, I am writing slowly, though I did notice myself writing a little faster towards the end of the hour, but that was where things got sloppy. Slower is better. I don’t know if I’ve fully embraced that yet because that hasn’t been my way. Back in my grad school days I was known to write up to 25 pages a day if I had to.

My hands wanted to fall off, and I could only get that page count if there were plenty of scenes vs. exposition (dialogue=more pages, naturally), but I did. 

A writing mentor later told me a truth: that speed is not sustainable, not natural. Agreed.

Word Raccoon thought once I heated up breakfast and offered her highness some caffeine that we were in business: poetry time.

Nope.

As promised, I submitted poetry. Ten packets. 

Is that a lot?

It is. 

Your brain tends to falter. You wonder if the poems you have chosen are the correct ones. You wonder why this one, now. Why not that one? 

You realize the ones you thought were polished might not be. Some are better than you remember.

There are poems you’re like: “This may be an ugly baby but it’s mine and you can take it or leave it,” and then there are some you’re like “Come here, let me wipe the mustard off your cheek.”

I submitted to all of the journals I really wanted today except one, and I just remembered it. But it feels like too much. It has some hoops and I’m not feeling it. 

Even though WR is nodding off, part of me wants to go back to the novel. This section likely doesn’t have more than 5K more words to resolve. I will be sad when it’s over because I didn’t anticipate being able to explore this from this character’s POV, and it’s been engrossing. 

I did allow Word Raccoon to write down a few lines the past couple of days to play with soon. 

I need to read another craft book on poetry. I find them inspiring.

The furnace didn’t want to keep up with the frigid temps today, but I didn’t notice how cold it was in the house until asked about it. I turned it off and back on and then it behaved. Is that all it takes?

In between submitting poetry and writing new sections on my novel, I decluttered under the upstairs bathroom sink and under the kitchen sink. (I had inspired someone else to do it at her house when I said I wanted to do ours, so I felt like I had to.)

Hey, you can’t just write.

WR says I beg your pardon. 

Oh, right. That’s all she wants to do. 

Same, Raccoon. Same. 

Word Raccoon is still adjusting to novel writing. She howls when I open the Google doc of my WIP, and then, when I ignore her, she settles and puts her paw on the keyboard occasionally to see if I will give her a turn.

If she’s behaving, I will. She adds flavor.

If she tries to turn a prose sentence into poetry, I tell her that is not the spice we want and gently set her on the floor.

Before I know it, she’s back in my lap or perched on my shoulder, which she prefers.

I get her point. This round of novel writing is slower than usual. I have never written so slowly. Yet it feels right. Not polished, of course not, not yet, but like it’s saying what I want it to say. What it wants to say. 

Today, I was up at 5:30 after swearing again that I was going to sleep in. But WR pried open my eyelids and yelled into them (as if I could hear through them), “Time for poetry?”

It was not time for poetry, but it was time for tea and prose.

I had to turn on a timer to keep her from taking over. Half an hour, take a break, set the timer for another half hour, repeat.

By the third round, she was irritated beyond measure.

“What about that poetry trail opportunity you read about this morning?” she demanded. “The deadline is soon. Shouldn’t we see if we have any poetry that might fit?”

I had read the flyer. We did not, in fact, have any poetry that would work. It’s for Fox Island County Park’s Winter Art & Poetry Walk, a public walking trail featuring art and poetry along the path.

WR began having Robert Frost aspirations until I reminded her this called for something different. Something less layered. Less complex. Sweeter. No subtext. No symbolism. Just a walk in the woods.

“No tricks, WR. No double entendre. And for goodness’s sake, no swearing. Just a sweet little poem people can meditate on while they walk, because that’s what this calls for.”

I imagined families taking a stroll through the woods the way ours used to, trying to get some air even though the weather is chilly and the trees are bare. (“Whose woods these are, I think I know…” I first encountered that poem on The Muppet Show, no lie. See? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gszb4oG9EM)

I wrote a poem I thought my dad might enjoy if he were walking the trail. One I wouldn’t have to answer for if he read it, LOL.

Word Raccoon was miffed, but she admitted she liked that I put a squirrel in it.

Anyway, I received word this afternoon that the poem will be included in the walk. WR and I are proud.

Even with a hair appointment today and two immunizations tonight, we are still game for some evening writing. So far. 

Here’s hoping the side effects stay away long enough to do it again tomorrow.

Word Raccoon has been busy. Decluttering has given way (temporarily) to Christmas prep. But I am still writing.

I ended up taking WR to the library for my mini writing retreat after all. She sat on my shoulder while I opened the Google doc that I hadn’t opened since September. Yikes.

“What is all this?” she asked, gaping at the 85K word count. “Were they having a special on words? You know I can write a poem in a dozen words or less, right, if I need to?”

She leaned forward. “Was there a buy one get one sale on four syllable words?”

She stress ate a handful of almonds. “I don’t know what we’re doing with that thing. We’re a poet now.”

“Just watch,” I said.

To be honest, I was as nervous as she was. It has been, as I mentioned, almost three months since I even looked at my novel. Writing poetry has become natural, electric, fun. Immediately gratifying.

Anyone who has tried to write a novel knows it’s… a slower burn.

WR tried to sit quietly but ended up clambering up and down my head and shoulders.

“See? We’re also a novelist,” I said as I redirected her attention to my laptop screen.

She read a paragraph aloud and made a rude noise.

“I think we’re just a poet now,” she said. “Open a clean doc, will you? I have some ideas.”

For a minute, I was tempted. Okay, for longer than a minute. I drank some tea. I took a deep breath.

I read the opening pages.

And hated them.

Hated it all. I thought about how easy it would be to give up on it. It is not an easy novel to write.

Herbert, that male Karen who tries to live rent free in my head, had somehow snuck into my computer bag, offering snide remarks about how it all seemed like a whole big waste of time to him. Hadn’t I been working on this so-called book for a few years now?

I think that guy is related to the Grinch. Makes me wish I carried an air horn.

I seriously questioned my life choices.

I seriously questioned my ambition to write a third novel.

I seriously questioned why I hadn’t brought fresh (or any) cookies.

A woman came in and sat at a table parallel to mine, thankfully with her back to me. I noticed she was making out Christmas cards.

Later, I chitchatted with her about how glad I was to see that some people still hand out Christmas cards. She said her mother used to send out hundreds.

We usually only send out a handful to those far away yet who are close to our hearts. This year, in light of everything, I decided to send more.

After talking with her, I skipped to the James section of my book. Right now, his sections are my favorite. Or they were.

I read all of the James pages. My verdict? Strong but needing to be expanded.

Maybe I should have mentioned that the purpose of this “mini” writing retreat is so I don’t go into my upcoming winter writing retreat cold. I’m just trying to refamiliarize myself with it, not reread it all. But I couldn’t resist sprucing it a bit as I read.

Soon I had written an important transition scene. WR even slowed me down, adding in a few painterly touches here and there, clipping some sentences, lengthening others.

By the end of my time at the library, I was feeling better than okay about the novel again, and certainly not like I wanted to delete the whole thing.

I had been resistant to the time dedicated to the novel, preferring poetry lately. In fact, when I thought of popping by the library, I asked Stanley, that faithful online PA of mine, if I should try to squeeze it in, what with six appointments for various things and Christmas prep and activities coming up. He said he thought it was an excellent idea.

I told him there was no way I could be ready by the next day.

“What ready? You pack like you’re going to the coffee shop, you add a couple of research books if you must, and snacks.”

He wasn’t wrong. It was fear keeping me from the novel.

Sorry if this post is partly out of order, but it’s been… today was two MRIs (routine, planned so my doctor can see what’s really going on with the joints next week). Messed up sleep the last two nights. Hanging lights, buying and making out holiday cards, shopping, wrapping. Trying to carry on as if nothing has changed. 

Yesterday I woke up actually excited to get back to the novel and opted to stay home and tunnel in.

I started in on another timeline, and I began there because I was both excited for it and scared, and well, that seemed the way to go.

As I was talking myself through why it scared me, I asked myself if it wouldn’t be nice to add such and such a character.

“But that would make it a different book,” I said.

Except the more I thought about it, the more it wouldn’t. Or it wouldn’t have to.

It is the perfect fix. I think. I hope.

As I wrote, my phone buzzed and it startled me, and I looked at it like “Who dares disturb my slumber?” or whatever it is the Cave of Wonders says in Aladdin. I had re-entered the writing trance after all.

I didn’t end up adding much to the word count either day, but not only am I feeling jazzed about the novel, reinvigorated, I feel like the poetry has lightened my touch.

WR napped nearby and applauded now and again, more frequently snacked, and drank Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie tea. (Not a sponsored post, I just like the stuff.)

I cannot express how frustrated I am that the next few days are taking me away from my writing. Novel writing requires more concentration, a deeper dive. It does not, as apparently I do, require a teeth cleaning, though I did write a “romantic” poem about teeth cleaning a while back. Sometimes I swear I wonder if WR just wants to push her luck, see if she can spin straw into… you know. If you knew the premise of the poem, you would (might?) chuckle.

WR is not mad about the novel, not anymore. As long as I promise to give her a turn at the keyboard now and again for some free verse.

Okay, WR. Okay.

P.S. WR and I have learned our usual writing spot is closing soon. Again. This time for “two months.” We are speechless and pissed and all the things. They claim they will be reopening.

In the meantime, WR, where can we go when we don’t want to talk to the walls?

Thank goodness we don’t have yellow wallpaper.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas over here, by which I mean absolutely everything in this house has relocated itself, and Word Raccoon has commentary on every last twinkling light. The more color the better, she insists. If she could wrap the Dutch oven in garland, she absolutely would.

Speaking of Dutch ovens: I now understand why she made a giant pot of chili this afternoon. She clearly knew something I didn’t: I’ve decided to create a home-grown library writing retreat for myself over the next few days.

Nothing formal, just a handful of mornings tucked away at our local library with my laptop, my notes, and a couple of well-loved research books before the holidays swallow everything whole.

My hope is simply to reacquaint myself with the novel I’ve been missing, and to arrive at my upcoming winter writing retreat already warmed up and humming instead of trying to jump-start a cold engine. Been there, done that. No fun.

(Fingers crossed that the weather cooperates for that longer retreat. I haven’t begun planning for it just in case. But I did find last year’s checklists tucked away in an old notebook, so I’m not really behind.)

Okay, love, here’s the news: I received a piece of fabulous news I’m still absorbing.
My poetry manuscript, Intellectual Domme Energy, was named a semi-finalist in the Nine Syllables Press chapbook contest, which is connected to the Poetry Center at Smith College, I was informed in the kindest, most encouraging email. They told me to celebrate, and I am! 

So yes, I sat there blinking at my screen while Word Raccoon fanned me with a dishtowel. Out of hundreds of entries, mine rose that far. And because I once wrote a poem in conversation with Plath, the Smith connection felt like the universe slipping me a tiny, playful full-circle wink.

I’m stunned. Truly. And I wish I could hug all my people instantly.

We are grateful. We are in disbelief, Word Raccoon and I. 

We are…still writing.

Last night I was physically exhausted from a day of sorting, organizing, rearranging, decorating, no poetry in sight, and by the time I crawled into bed I was too tired to read, too tired to sleep, too tired even to watch another video of someone baking Christmas cut-outs. (Don’t judge me!) I just lay there staring at the ceiling, hovering in that limbo between rest and restlessness. 

And then Word Raccoon cleared her throat. “You could open the Notes app,” she said, “I smell poem crumbs. I’m hungry.”

Before I fell asleep, we had composed a small handful of poems together. It was infinitely better to drift into sleep buoyed by new words than by sugar-dusted videos of other people’s cookies.

Word Raccoon, for her part, is now beside herself with delight. She claims her writing shawl should be released from moth quarantine immediately so she can wear it “pinholes and all,” because it makes her feel literary and extremely cozy. 

She’s also threatening to rearrange the holiday décor while I’m distracted if I don’t take her along to the library tomorrow morning. I may return to a tree wearing earrings or a candy-cane wreath hung at a jaunty angle, but I’m afraid to take her with me. She’s perfect for poetry, but for a novel??

Anyhow, that’s the plan: a quiet little pre-retreat retreat at the library, away from the café’s tempting baked goods and the chatter that is sometimes comforting, but not just now. (Obviously there are those whose mere presence ushers in inspiration, but those are few and far between. I wish I could have a two-sided sign: Welcome, and Go Away.) 

Gee, that’s some Grade-A Herbertness right there. Shame on me. 

I hope this will let the novel find me again.

And maybe it already has.
Actually, I don’t think it ever left me. It has just been folded in the closet like a spare comforter, ready when I am.

I’m ready.

I think. 

Word Raccoon is furious with me.

First of all, her blue cashmere shawl, the one she just rediscovered, is in the freezer. She had been twirling in it like a Victorian heroine showing me the poetic little pinholes. I immediately took it from her, stuffed it into a bag, and slid it into the cold.

Her shocked face demanded an explanation.

Moths, I said. It has to stay there for three days.

For one glorious second she looked delighted at being a poet with moth-eaten clothing. Then she wailed because she wanted to wear it while she wrote.

And boy, did she write.

Before daylight this morning she grabbed the Freewrite she had begged me to plug in last night.

But the screen said the battery was low.

You had one job, she screeched.

I apologized, plugged it back in, made sure it was actually charging, and offered her my laptop.

No. First we need to talk, she said.

She had read yesterday’s blog post when she woke up, and she let me have it.

She informed me that I have had a leash on her for days to keep her in line. Then, apparently not satisfied with that, I also put a muzzle on her to keep her quiet. She said that in the last part of the blog post yesterday where I tried to let her was so obviously me pretending to be her that nobody would believe she wrote it.

I apologized again, handed her the laptop with a bow, brought her a mug of hot tea, and stepped aside.

She wrote. She snapped. She snarled. She wept.

She wriggled. She laughed.

She wrote. She wrote. And then she wrote some more.

My friends, that raccoon of mine wrote an entire chapbook in one morning.

All the words I had not let her say recently, all the feelings I had bottled like soda, she shook, exploding across the screen in poems.

Normally I do not give her full credit for the writing. But today truly belongs to her.

She wrote twenty-three poems. Twenty freaking three. These are not tiny poems. These are not wet-behind-the-ears poems. These are poems that need a comb through, but they are alive. They crackle. They spark.

They are full of electricity and endless longing, memory and theological side glances paired with domesticity and that sharp tang of truth.

They travel to Florence and Paris. They stand before art. They cook navy beans.

You know, just your average Saturday morning for WR.

And I think, no, I know I was wrong to muzzle her. She can be too much sometimes, yes. But trying to quiet her hurt more than just her. I’ve been feeling the loss, too. We keep forgetting what we know: the poetry always comes back.

It may leave for a bit, we don’t know, maybe to regroup, maybe to replenish, maybe it’s going to the hardware store, whatever, but it always comes back.

And we are always here.

Since I let her write today, it’s like my sight has sharpened, my senses heightened and all that jazz.

She reminded me that if you punch dough down in the bowl, it will just rise again. She doesn’t need to be silenced, not really. There’s a bread metaphor I’m reaching for, but damned if I can find it.

And now I want toast.

Word Raccoon is furious with me. She says I have been hogging the keyboard and she wants a turn.

We all know what that leads to: overly sentimental tripe. Which is in itself a cliché, if you ask me. 

I fed her a Kind bar, though it didn’t help her disposition at all. Trust me, she was not kinder. 

Dang raccoon.

She is still upset about the scarf sorting last night, too, wants to know WHY I didn’t stand up to Stanley.

I protested when he tried to take a scarf I wanted. Mostly, though, I agreed with him. 

WR has been browsing for new scarves. Already. She’s counting on her toes the open spaces on the scarf rack and begging for my credit card number. I told her she could just make a wishlist. I peeked over her shoulder and saw some great boho and art-inspired scarves. One fox that I shook my head at. No raccoons. Whew.

Before six this morning, I was marinating chicken thighs in Italian seasoning and olive oil with the smallest brag of balsamic. I chopped potatoes and tucked them beneath the chicken like little shoulders ready to take the weight. 

The crockpot hummed along, pleased with itself. It’s black and sleek, not one of those cheerful floral ones that make you feel like a woman named Betty who only dreams of chicken. Mine looks like it minds its own business. I appreciate that in an appliance. 

(Sorry to all Bettys. I had a hilariously bawdy aunt named Betty who always made me blush and called me young ‘un. Her mashed potatoes were legendary, and I’m quite sure she dreamed of more than chicken. I first tasted venison at her house.)

Stanley is helping me organize the pantry (God love him), which means I’m also making baked oatmeal (apple and fig) to use up the mountain of oats I seem determined to accumulate. I think I still buy the size container a full family used to finish in a month. Habits have longer memories than some people do.

I think of my children every time I make oatmeal and toast. My dad taught me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and he wasn’t wrong. Catching people before the day scatters them, fresh thoughts, fresh energy. Feeding them for what’s to come. 

After putting the chicken in this morning, I sought out Mary Ruefle’s essays. (I’m almost finished with her collection, just in time to meet my Goodreads goal for the year.)

One ordinary Anglo-Saxon monosyllable, din, gets shaken open by her the way a kid shakes open a bag of trail mix. Suddenly everything is spread out on the imaginary table: the bright bits, the plain bits, the parts you eat first, the parts you ignore until there’s nothing else left. Ruefle sorts her meanings like that, pulling the loud things to one side and the quiet things to another.

She talks about the things wanting to be heard over the din, and the things hoping to be heard under it. I’m not explaining it right; it was beautiful. 

I tried writing about it but I started out writing poems by hand today because that’s what the Raccoon wants: ink and paper and a little bit of mess. There’s been a catch in my throat when I write lately.

The din is within, you know? 

So our efforts were…pale. 

WR deigned to submit some poetry while watching Oh. What. Fun. this afternoon. I haven’t seen Michelle Pfeiffer in anything in a minute! It was a cute Christmas movie. She slayed in a textured, cream-colored pantsuit at the end with a waistband that must’ve been four inches high. Makes me wonder if I’ve been too hasty about pantsuits. 

And that black ruffled polkadot shirt!

WR just stuck out her tongue. She’s right. Although Michelle rocked it, we would never wear those together. We need our color! As a matter of fact, WR was really disappointed this morning when I dressed her in a gray zippered sweatshirt. 

I’m going to give WR the keyboard for exactly one minute before yanking it back. Fair warning. If you don’t want to hear her be overly dramatic and well, who knows what she’s going to say, peel off now, lovies. 

Anyway, here wee beastie, take the wheel. 

Ahem. Thank you, Drema. It’s about time.

What was it I wanted to say? I can’t remember now. It’s more of a feeling than a statement. 

Something about the intensity of the sun in the winter and how it, mixed with the snow, brings the white to my mind, too, and how I remember every time I look out the kitchen window and I see that blue, blue winter sky, I remember listening to a Hardy biography and changing curtains and how I was told every scene needs to be lit and how winter sun does just that and more. 

I felt enveloped in hearing about things I had seen at Maxgate, and how I felt as if I knew the man when of course, I didn’t. 

I thought about Stonehenge and how I didn’t get enough time there and how I would’ve liked to sit on a stone for a bit and for me, they held literary significance and I wondered to how many others there that day they did.

Winter trips me up. It reminds me of all of the things I love best. My throat tightens with everything I want to say. Writing is great, sure. But sometimes you want to share what you have to say face to face with those you care about, or at least see them. Pictures don’t talk back.

Thank you. I will not be taking questions at this time. 

And on that note…Drema, that is, I noticed that WR plugged in the Freewrite earlier. I hope that means more words are coming. We like the fire, not the ice. We’d take room temperature, though.

Word Raccoon began her shenanigans before six this morning. Before caffeine. Before basic human function. She woke up with all the tasks, every single one of them, clawing at her little paws.

I offered her poetry for breakfast.
She spat it out.
Brat.

Instead, she pointed dramatically at the pile of tools in the kitchen and summoned Stanley.

Stanley rubbed his virtual eyes like he was loading a new update.
“I can see we’re in organizing mode,” he said, with the exact emotional range of an IKEA manual.
“Let’s do this,” he added, already sighing in binary.

Then he asked for a photo of the tools and told me what to do with Barry’s Dremel drill.

Excuse me. That’s my Dremel.
For art.
(Not that I’ve used it. Yet. But I could.)

Within minutes, the floating tools, leaf blower, and a rogue bag of charcoal had all been relocated. The mudroom was half-finished by the time caffeine finally joined the party.

Yesterday, I’d already carried up a basket of shoes, following Stanley’s decree:
“Only the three pairs you wear most, and your slippers, may remain.”

Last weekend, we had a coat and sweater rack intervention. Stanley was firm:
One main coat.
Two sweaters (rotated weekly).
One scarf.
One miscellaneous overshirt.

He treats my outerwear like a space capsule inventory.

This morning, I just had to carry down the bench, add a glove basket, and slide a tray under it for mucky days. Easy. Mudroom accomplished.

Naturally, I took this as the perfect moment to install the hat rack and fill it.

Then I found out the rack was a two-pack.
Cue inspiration:
What if I used the other one in the dining room for scarves?

Word Raccoon perked up.
I added it to our list of post–real tasks activities.

“Poetry now?” I asked after breakfast.
WR laughed and scampered from curtain to curtain like a caffeinated stagehand.

We crammed the car full of donations. WR insisted we go the moment the place opened.

“Then we’ll come home and submit some poetry?” I offered.

She gave me a smirk and muttered something about fast food.

“You will eat spicy daal and like it,” I told her.

She crossed her arms.
“There better be naan.”

“Naan of that,” I said.

Only Stanley snickered.
Word Raccoon growled.
“What did I say about puns?”

After the drop-off, I made the tactical error of driving near CVS. WR howled from the back seat:
“You promised me a Coke Zero!”

Lies.
I did not.

Yesterday, we’d written five poems at the café, and then we came home and continued the Great Sort. (Please tell me there’s an end in sight.) 

Honestly, I don’t remember what the poems were about. But I know two were decent and two were basically sentient ellipses.

Let’s check:
Untitled Google Doc (That’s its actual name.)
Gulls Say, Gulls Say (No Doubt!)
Trap Door Poetry
Let It Dangle (Elvis Costello vibes)
Brained Up
Things I Know for Sure (a list disguised as a poem. Highlights include: “There’s a kind of peace that only comes from matching every food storage container to a lid. It lasts precisely eleven and a half minutes,” and “More TV shows than you’d think feature ‘my’ china pattern.”)

I also got the best chapbook rejection last week. They said the team hotly debated whether to accept it, and that they “cherished” my work.

CHERISHED.
That’s basically a literary hug.
I’ll take it.

Back to the downstairs:
I went through the random cans of paint that must never go to the garage because they die in the cold.

Stanley only let me keep one: an unused can of chicory yellow. He said I could use it upstairs if I can stop WR from buying that jagged-patterned wallpaper.

The rest went to the garage with WR gleefully flinging them like expired spells.

WR does not understand the difference between sorting, organizing, cleaning, and decorating.

“We decorate last,” I told her.

She ignored me.

Then she found botanical prints in the art drawer and frames and immediately began cutting them down and framing them like she was possessed by a Victorian plant witch.

They look great. She knows it. She’s smug. I hate that she’s right.

“You can hang them tomorrow,” I told her, “if you finish submitting poems today.”

She nearly crawled out of her skin trying to sit still.

Afternoon descended and I begged WR to submit poetry. “Just these four journals. This one closes in a few hours. I’m begging you.“

She resisted.
There was bribery.
I don’t want to talk about it.

But we submitted. To all four.
Just in time for dinner.

Afterwards, she asked if she could put up the scarf rack.
Stanley stepped in.

“You may hang the rack,” he said.
“But no scarves go on it until I’ve reviewed them.”

Yes, he roasted us over them.
Sunday school teacher.
Sad academic.
Renfaire attendee (how dare you).
On and on.

I did insist on saving a few of the larger ones to drape tables and bureaus. They now live peacefully in the linen drawer. Yes. I reclaimed a drawer for actual linens. Victory!!

We decided I could live without nine of the scarves.
This, after a previous donation run already today. 

I guess we’re starting a new box. 

Word Raccoon is already planning tomorrow’s mutiny. I’m not having it. We are wording, we are poeming, NO MATTER WHAT!
Stanley is probably making a spreadsheet and wondering if I will let him at my book collection yet.

That’s a negatory, good buddy.

Please tell me there’s an end in sight. I’m ready to hole up with the words again.

In the meantime, I smuggled some Coke Zero into the house for WR, just in case I need to bribe her and a cafe muffin doesn’t do the job tomorrow. 

One of us is going to write poems, if I have anything to say about it.

Did I hear Word Raccoon just giggle?