Winter is kicking us in the teeth again. Of course it is. Spring always arrives in fits and starts, keeps us on our toes. It’ll be weeks before it’s safe to trust it up here in the Northeast. Like right now, for example. After a string of warm, sunny days, it’s been windy, frigid and snowy all week. And today? Slush and ice.
It’s a good day to stay inside and write, I suppose… except hiding out and writing is all I’ve been doing the last few months. That’s not a bad thing, but I am a little punch drunk from it.
I’ve been pushing hard since Christmas, and while it’s been fruitful in many ways — an assortment of new drafts, some good thinking on revisions — it feels very scattered. I can’t seem to direct my efforts and energy toward anything that looks like progress.
Ideas are expanding out instead of laser beaming themselves at a version 2.0 of the manuscript, which is what I’ve told myself I’m “supposed to” be doing. In fact, every edit I make seems to prove that version 1.0 is nothing more than a house of cards. Every gesture — the wild ones, the quiet ones — levels the whole thing.
And speaking of a house of cards, let’s talk about time, shall we? In the midst of all this writing and fretting, I found this photo from 2003. It marks the earliest weeks of my life as the mother of three boys. The baby, now nearly 6’7″, turns 21 this year. His brothers are 22 and 24. Where did all those days — thousands of them — go?
I started writing poetry “seriously” (i.e. regularly) and blogging a few months after the picture was taken. I also cut off all my hair and started running. I guess I was going through something. (Ya think?!)
When I shared the photo on Instagram (@carolee26), I wrote: “what a moment in time! found this 20-yr-old pic today & it’s such a reminder of joy & peace even in those wild early days of being mom to three wee ones all at once. sending lots of love to them & to me. i was out of my depths, but we made it. ❤️”
And I was out of my depths. More than I knew.
I’m still figuring it all out, honestly. Back then, I wrote as a way to survive. That’s less true now, but writing is still how I process everything. (Well, writing and therapy.)
So, I’ve been poeming seriously for a couple decades, and sometimes I get all twisted up about how little tangible “proof” there is that I’m even a writer.
No book (yet) to unbox. No readings to give. No workshops to teach. No fancy residencies. Of course, I have writing community (love you!) and this blog. I’m grateful for both. And most people who know me identify me, at least partly, by my passion for writing, including the time I continue to invest.
But mostly, for all of us, the parts of the writing life that define it are unseen. Invisible. Impossible to capture in a photo for The ‘Gram. In that way, it’s like mothering. Behind the soccer trophies, birthday cupcakes and bear hugs? A grind. Intense. Mundane. Exhausting.
Both writing and mothering have also, from time-to-time, left me wondering, What is this? How did I get here? What’s it all for?
It brings to mind a Rachel Zucker quote. In “Song of the Dark Room” (Sound Machine), she writes, “What do you want to emerge from this mothering with?” Part of the answer, for me, is that I want to emerge from all this writing and mothering with the ability to mother myself.
It’s a wish (a need) I didn’t recognize until very recently. In fact, I only learned it through working on my current manuscript, which has shown me that lots of what I’ve been doing as a parent and a writer is learning to mother myself. Thanks to both, I’ve grown into some power and wisdom I didn’t predict.
I’m starting to understand on a very practical level something I’d previously only been able to access in the abstract: I can ask myself (moment to moment!) what I need, and (within reason), I can give it to myself. In fact, I have an obligation to do so. Treating myself poorly (self talk included) is no longer OK with me.
Even though I still have so much to learn, it’s been transformative. Care and tending of the self isn’t something I have to save for when I have the time and luxury. It’s not about grand gestures, like scheduling a massage or booking a beach vacation. It’s more like paying attention. Noticing, then responding. To myself.
So basic. So revolutionary.
I’m practicing it in my writing life, too. For example, I’ve been able to honor some of my nagging fears (like the possibility of failure as a writer over 50). If I want to complain and stomp around for a bit, I do. Without judgement. But mostly what I do is stay in the room with the feelings and get back to the poems.
One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received comes from Sarah Freligh, who has always said that when we get jealous about what others are accomplishing or lamenting what we haven’t achieved yet, it’s a signal to get back to work. It’s the place where everything is possible. It’s the place that offers joy and satisfaction. More and more, I’m reminded of the power in writing, in conjuring something from thin air.
Remember my words for 2024? Sorcery and self care.
So what has staying in the room with the poems looked like since my last update in late December?
- The solitary work of manuscript revisions
- A weekly poetry workshop with Emily Mohn-Slate and the Madwomen
- Publishing a list of apocalypse poems
- Creating writing prompts for NaPoWriMo
- Prep for reviews of Dear Memphis (River River Books) and A Mollusk Without A Shell: Essays on Self-Care for Writers (University of Akron Press)
- A microfiction workshop taught by Sarah, where it’s become clear I have at least one more manuscript that’s asking to be written
- A DIY writing retreat in Downtown Schenectady, New York, with Sarah, where Jill was able to join us for a bit (we named it “The Copper Lantern Residency,” after a cocktail we had more than once: Prosecco, lime, orange and honey)
Of course I got more than a few new drafts out of the retreat. There was the restoration that comes from catching up with friends. And there was plenty of reassurance: the work I put in is visible, and not all writers get their debut collections published in their 20s or 30s. Sarah, for example, didn’t publish her first book ’til she was 57 or 58, and look at her go now.
Even the tea had timely messages for me! Sarah gave me the tag on the left during our time in Schenectady and sent me a photo of the one on the right after we got home.
As I’ve been working on this blog post, the snow has picked up. Our new flower bed is buried again. As we planted in the fall (crocuses, daffodils and tulips), I knew it would serve as a metaphor for the promise of brighter and warmer days. But it’s actually been a metaphor for much more.
For the last few weeks, our neighbors’ crocuses have been up. Not just the greenery but the flowers themselves. Blooming! Vibrant purple after months of brown and gray. In addition, the blades of our neighbors’ daffodils and tulips have grown several inches up from the ground.
And ours? Nothing. So we spent a fair amount of time worrying about them and Googling what we might have done wrong. But during the warm stretch last week, they started poking up.
On their own fucking timeline.
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