What Does it Mean to Succeed as a Poet, and a Little Recipe ("50 First Weeks")

Bright sunshine here again, 20 degrees...

In retrospect, last week's "50 First Weeks" post feels a bit like a metrical filler--somewhat unnecessary words added to a poem to make it rhyme or scan. With the clocks having gone forward yesterday for the new beginning of a premature spring, I want to make today's post an earnest "50 First Weeks" effort, in keeping with the spirit of the original idea that every week could represent a renewal.

So, I'm going to share some thoughts about success as a poet, and one tiny little recipe inspired by this glaresomely bright day.

Success as a Poet
In our "resolve to write" event in January, I said that I wanted to be recognizable as a poet, to myself and to everyone, and that I would do everything I could to put my work out there. Now, I've had a poem win second place in the Statewide contest. On Saturday night, I had the odd experience of performing that poem over speakerphone as part of the reading by the winners up in Fairbanks!

But is this small and sweet success more significant than the fact that that same poem may have inspired a friend in one of my writers' groups to write about a difficult but important topic she hadn't previously been able to find her way into? Is it more significant than the fact that another friend has been finding solace from another of my poems during some difficult times in her life? And what about the poem I wrote for my friends whose son just died, and the consolation it offered them?

Superficially, winning contests and chalking up publications are the markers of progress, recognition, success, "making it." But I confess that lately, especially with my own tendency to doubt my worth or even my deserving of air and space, these personal responses, these graces that have come about through those poems, have filled me with gratitude and--yes--validation, deeply and touchingly.

Of course, I want both! I've been way too busy to submit more poems, and I'm highly motivated to work that process back into my schedule. But with these personal and profound responses, I'm finding that this motivation is as much about hoping to reach more people and create more personal connections than it is about my own recognition.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to renew this commitment to putting my work out there, and to have the feeling that it is, at least in part, an act of service.

A tiny little recipe
This tiny little recipe has no calories and won't make you a meal, but it will refresh. It's a tribute to the juxtaposition of bright sunshine coloring the photo and all the snow in the glass.

Refreshing rose cooler
1 cup mineral water (e.g. San Pellegrino)
1 cup of snow (use crushed ice if you're not in AK!)
1/8 tsp stevia powder (or a few drops of stevia liquid)
1 tsp rosewater
Simply mix all together.

I scooped the snow out of a tall snowbank, digging down carefully to avoid flung grit from the path. But there was still a residue of sand at the bottom of the glass! Thankfully, it didn't affect the taste at all.

What does success as a writer mean to you?

"50 First Weeks:" The Unmilked Cow and Simple Soup

It continues to snow here....

I was reflecting, as I hiked home from our writers' group tonight, that this is our fifth month of snowfall. It's the biggest snow year since the early '90s, apparently. I greatly appreciate the beauty of the snow-pack--so much more pristinely beautiful than periods of thaw when the snow-bleached stalks of last year's annuals tumble and languish under the grit from plow trucks...However, with the mercilessly returning light, lighter every morning, daylight savings already springing forward earlier than spring next weekend, I'm feeling some disturbance in the force.

Part of this off-kilter feeling comes from within my own mercurial self. I've been too busy, not writing enough poetry, and to pull out my own cliche, I'm feeling like an unmilked cow. If I was alone, I'd be staying up nights, which would take care of the need to write but escalate some other aspects of the craziness. So I'm grudgingly grateful to Phil for insisting I come to bed.

Before I sign off here and go do some writing already, I want to share a super-simple and super-light recipe.
I've mentioned before that I've been eating lighter and lighter dinners and feeling better for it; also that my tummy's been somewhat fussy lately. So I've been putting slippery elm powder in practically everything. It's a wonderful demulcent--relaxes the intestinal lining and coats it--lots of soluble fiber and mucilaginous polysaccharides. And to me, it tastes really good--subtle, almost a little sweet. I was raised with slippery elm as a tummy soother, so perhaps it's that lifelong association that makes it taste good to me. It has very little caloric value but is somehow nutritious nonetheless: people in starvation situations have lived off of slippery elm "porridge" at times.

So, I've been saving the ends of carrots and onions and all that kind of stuff, and making veggie broth. Half a cup of warm veggie broth,
with a teaspoon of slippery elm stirred in,
with maybe a quarter cup of thawed peas,
and a few chopped pieces of thawed okra,
maybe a splash of nut milk of some kind
and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast over the top...

...with a carrot on the side, there's dinner--and tummy soothing too. If you want it thicker, you could add some psyllium as well, or flax meal. If you want it creamier, a little extra virgin coconut oil, or coconut cream powder, or nut cream, would be delicious I'm sure.

Have you tried slippery elm?
Off to write...

"The Written Gateway"

I was going to share an energy bar recipe tonight that sustained me for our harvesting trip but the 'energy' isn't right for that tonight. It's ready to go tomorrow or the next day, though--promise!

Here are some of the year's first potatoes from the garden... They're from two different plants, that butterball in the back isn't a freak...

In a briefer, more contemplative vein, I want to share the idea of writing as a gateway to spoken expression.

This came up in a facebook group discussion with some of my new cohorts. I spent much of today working on a poem that deals with issues I find hard to talk about: thought this would be both a brave and a responsible move toward being the best "best" I can be as a writer. One of my friends mentioned that she needs to write about difficult things before she can talk about them: that that's why she's a writer at all (and a pretty good reason it is)!

I realize that the same is true for me, in the confessional and yet relatively anonymous format of the blog at least: I definitely write about things on here that I wouldn't be comfortable talking about with most people. Moving this into my art and creativity feels scary but it also feels like being blown open--blowing myself open, merging my 'personal' discomforts and preoccupations, potentially, with a much more universal mind. Allowing them simply to be experience, shared as art, shared. Part of my 'pulling head out of the sand,' for sure. The connectedness is pleasing.

Some tricks: having tended to get all my paid work and chores done before focusing on my writing, I did the reverse today. And felt a huge pressure for my writing to be 'really good,' to justify the fact that I wasn't doing x y and z else. Fortunately, there was so much else to think about with the poem that this pressure got pushed into a corner. As well as engaging some 'hard stuff,' I was writing it as a sestina, wondering right up to the last minute whether this was even possible. Of course, getting all the words to fit together still only gets you a first draft, but a first draft is a kind of closure. At least I can set it aside tomorrow and then look to see if it sucks.

I'm excited for this process. It feels like surrender.

How do you handle making time for your creative work when there's chores and work to do? Do you feel guilty blowing them off?

April Fool Pics and Announcement--Na Po Wri Mo: A Challenge and Commitment

Before I get into the content of this post, here's my favorite April Fool. Don't his eyes look so much better?

 Maybe we'll get round to a haircut sometime soon...

 Happy "April Fools' Day," everyone! Or, as I saw it on a calendar at the laundromat today, "All Fools Day."

Many of the blogs that I enjoy periodically take on and feature a theme or challenge for a certain period of time. Often, it's some sort of culinary challenge like blogging one's way through a particular recipe book, or a fitness challenge like a marathon, bodyrock, or PG90X. I even joined up for Tina's 'Thirty Days of Self Love' last September. A blog is a great accountability tool and means to share insights and goals, setbacks and achievements. There's that feeling of camaraderie, especially if it's a group challenge, and of having an audience, a virtual safety-net as you ride the high wire.

Although I'm definitely doing my best to get in shape for hiking (and generally manic-summer) season, I haven't felt drawn to taking on a 'fitness challenge' in public: partly because it's not the locus of my main passion. And since I'm no kind of recipe follower, passionate foodie/nutritionalist though I am, blogging through a recipe book hasn't yet appealed to me (perhaps one day I'll be blogging my way through writing my own recipe book)!

I am ready for a challenge, though, and a slightly different direction also. Although I knew that April was National Poetry Month and had some plans of my own for that already, I hadn't even heard of Na Po Wri Mo--a counterpart to the more famous NaNoWriMo (I don't love those truncated not-quite-acronyms) until Erin mentioned it earlier this week. The challenge is to write a poem every day of the month, or at least create a new draft of one. You can share them on your blog, or just leave them in the notebook, or carved in rock...

beach boulder with its own native artwork

I'm in! I'm part-thrilled, part-daunted, as I'm already facing a full plate this month. Erin suggested that a benefit she gained from doing the challenge last year was that being required to create a new draft every day mandated thinking outside of the box and encouraged fresh, striking, new ways of thinking. This consideration was a major enticement for me to throw in my lot, although perhaps the fact that I wanted to do it as soon as I heard about it (the way some people feel about running races or climbing challenging rockfaces) is a good index of where my passions lie. I will say that although it's definitely true that generating drafts is a very energetic, thrilling part of the process, I have come to learn that when I'm several drafts into a poem and have really been working with it for some time, that is often the most exciting and compelling, lie-awake-at-night phase of all. So the best dividends may come after April, when the challenge is over and I can start revising!

I'm not going to blog every day, but will stay with my usual rhythm of three-to-four posts per week. I am going to write a poem every day, but I'm not going to post it on here in its entirety (or maybe at all). I don't think it would be fair either to me or to you: getting a draft polished usually takes me more than a single day!

And I will still write about food! Two poems that I'm currently working on are both about aspects of food, and it's been enjoyable to start writing poetically about something I so often write about prosaically.

These julienned beets are an ode to spring coming! I hadn't had beets for months, had almost forgotten how good they are. And they grow so well here. I feel invited to look forward to growing season.

 Together with mashed parsnips with a little miso, coconut, curry powder, with peas stirred in, they have been making life colorful and delicious around here.

What challenge are you taking on this month?
Have a great weekend!

My Good News and Humbug Tummy

I am joining the many people who are experiencing transition, life-change, movement into closer alignment with their highest goals.

My good news: I've been accepted into the Low-Residency MFA (Master of Fine Arts) program at Pacific Lutheran University: The Rainer Writers Workshop! This was the only program I'd applied to thus far and, for various reasons, it was my top choice. So I can be done with the applications process and move on to the celebration, and to the acceptance and acknowledgment that I'm being invited to do exactly what I'd been wishing for: to take myself seriously as a poet and to put much of my energy into it.

I didn't finish my Phd dissertation (although I am writing that book) because I didn't think I wanted to become a professor of Classical Literature as my life path: I was too concerned with practical environmental issues, nutritional research, and the distillation of beauty and hideousness into words. (Yes, it's possible for some people to be both and do both, but I turn out not to have that level of energy that is necessary and that I used to think I had.) But getting my book of poetry ably critiqued, joining a milieu of current writers, writing more books of poems...this is my dream come true! Lots of work to be done, and for most of it I can stay right here and continue doing my thing. And then every summer for three years, a residency: melting pot of wonderful writers, both faculty and students, all coming together to inspire and be inspired, in Tacoma, WA! It will also be an opportunity to explore Seattle and Tacoma, which I haven't yet, and maybe do some more hiking around Mt Rainier, which I have.

I'm going to be a poet! Or, I am already. And now to find a way to build something of beauty and utility on my writing practice, my nutrition research, cheffing flair, and concern and care for environmental issues. Watch this space.

So, much to celebrate and also an injunction from my ND to break my food rules on a regular basis, and a regular chocolate factory in my kitchen, and my tummy is saying 'bah humbug!'

Even this gorgeous fudge isn't appealing to me

...nor the hazelnut-amaretto-cherry cups I made

...they whet everyone else's appetite. Do they whet yours?

(More pictures to come soon from the chocolate factory ;) )

So, I guess I need to head out into the spectacular light we have here and find other ways to enjoy and celebrate my wonderful news, since my tummy's saying 'humbug...'

much love

Reflections on Self-Love - PASSION; Co-Op Visit, First Photos from the Farm

Hope everyone's midweek is going well. This is the penultimate day of reflections on self-love! It has flown by, even with going on this trip, and I sincerely hope that its energy will endure well past the 30-day period.

So many treats at the farm - I try not to think about the fact that we can't grow this stuff up where we live:

Gorgeous heirloom tomatoes - they are just delectable. Ordinarily, I don't think I do that well with tomatoes, but these are just wonderful, and no better time to enjoy them. Some little tomatillos in that bowl - I adore those too.

Here's a box of filberts that have been through the cracker (picture to come) and are ready for us to sort through and dry for preservation:

More tomatoes, some grapes, some beans (both green beans and 'orca beans.' In the steel bowl were some cherry tomatoes, but I think we ate them all! Loads more out in the fields...

Just a little memory trip - this is the last salad I made up in AK - so green! So many different good greens, (and I could easily grow lettuce and herbs here too) but quite a color contrast.

Today, I came to work at the Natural Foods Co-Op. There's no natural foods store in Homer, so it's so nice to come to it. And its wifi is faster than the one at Fred Meyers yesterday! I've never had the photos upload to blogger so fast! I didn't even need hardly to multitask while waiting on them going up! It says something very complimentary about Corvallis that this co-op actually has two branches in the town.

I was a little disappointed by how few raw products they had: I was sort of looking forward to treating myself to trying something I don't usually get access to. Maybe when I take a trip to Portland...

But they do have kombucha starter kits (never seen one of those in a store before!)

And an amazing bulk section - all kinds of grains, beans, trail mixes, candy, nuts, seeds, but also olives, pesto, nut butters sauerkraut, etc, refrigerated

And a whole bank of liquids, oils and syrups. And they even have frozen berries and veggies in bulk.

I also love that they have reused plastic and glass containers for people to put their bulk buys in. I brought one of those amazing tomatoes from the farm and an avocado to have for lunch, but I'm probably going to have to buy some of their kim chee to have with it, and maybe get some of their very-well-priced bulk raw tahini also.

OK - Tina's reflection on self-love today is about PASSION - what an awesome topic! I've long paid lip-service to the idea that the universe wants us to be at our best (which means, doing what we love and have most affinity for), because that makes the universe its best too. Lip-service, but for a long time I've also not really lived that in my life. I feel like I'm just starting to learn how to make it real in my life. And self-love is absolutely key to that. NOt living my passion is about not loving myself enough to be my best.  Tina asks, "What things are you most passionate about? How do they affect your life?"

Thank you for this question: I think it's good to ponder this question very regularly, to check in and make sure that you are in fact making the time in your life to do that which really inspires and impassions you.
What lights me on fire? Well, as this post so far shows, I'm passionate about growing and harvesting beautiful food and sharing its beauty with others. That was the bulk of what I was doing when I lived in Hawaii, one way and another. But it is only a part of my passion, and it isn't, perhaps, the most important part, although it's definitely important.

My true passion is my writing - and especially my poetry writing. Writing my blog is so much fun and so gladdening, but it doesn't give me quite the sense of being completely in tune and in the flow that sitting down and really working on my creative writing does. For me, poetry writing is the deepest work that I can do toward being my best, because it is connecting with my spirituality and with the sense of GOD as 'Good Orderly Direction,' even when the poem is all about chaos!

I've been working a lot on my translation jobs recently, and on other things, and with the trip, visiting, working on the farm, etc, I haven't been making much time for this writing and connecting. It feels so good to be reminded to think about how important it is to me. And the next step is to honor myself, and it, and make the time to spend with it!

What are  you most passionate about?