Coming up in April--30 Days of Posts! Health Activist and Poet?

Look what I saw on our path today--green clover!

That'll bring the moose to their knees, for sure! After such an unrelenting winter, Spring is here of a sudden. Rivers of meltwater running everywhere, and more and more ground exposed, sometimes a big step down from residual snow. Well, it is almost April!

The Library in town this morning

Coming Up in April

Speaking of April, this will be my last post in March, and I have undertaken to post every single day in April! To be honest, part of me doesn't know what I'm playing at, as April promises to be maximally busy already, with my final MFA packet of the school year due, the last few units of my Linguistics course to prepare, then review, final and term grades by the first week of May. And editing and translating. And taxes! 

But when I was invited to take part in WEGO's Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge, I had to say "yes." Although first and foremost I am always a poet, I consider myself many kinds of "writer." I further believe that the more topics I'm able to write clearly about in a way that invites connection and empathy, the better a poet I may become. Am I a "Health Activist?" Yes, in the sense that I take action on a daily basis (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse) to manage my own health conditions. More importantly, outside of my own vortex, I always do the best I can to educate and support the people in my life in their health and healing decisions, whether that takes the form of nutritional education, providing food friendly to their newly diagnosed allergies, or researching an appropriate supplement for them.


One additional thought: given how busy I'll be in April, I'll need to be a "Health Activist" just to keep my own more self-destructive instincts in check as I negotiate the stress, so this daily check-in may be a lifesaver.

April is also National Poetry Month. Last year, I tried NaPoWriMo--writing a poem every day of April. I just looked at those a few days ago, and there are many drafts in there that are itching to be worked into something to see the light of day. More to add to the pile for when the crunch ends (if it ends?!) in mid-May. I'll be writing many poems this April too, in between all the rest.

What to Expect?

WEGO have provided a prompt for each day of April, and I will probably utilize at least many of those. Since I am going to be so busy, I will also aim to keep my posts brief.

What else to expect? I've been going back and forth about whether to be more open on this blog about my personal health struggles, diagnoses, etc--whether to write more posts along the lines of Monday's post this week, for example. I've asked the advice of some trusted friends and received a mixture of suggestions, from encouragement because posts like this can be very helpful to others in similar positions to caution about the danger of people holding these revelations against me later in certain contexts. Any more thoughts or suggestions on this will be much appreciated.

Of course, I'll continue to post recipes, although it's probably pretty obvious that I'm not much into food of late. I may post some "for other people" recipes, as I make those no matter whether I'm eating or not and they're guaranteed mainstream-tasty. I'll also get up that protein powders review/comparison I've been promising for some time.

Because of the prompts, there'll probably be something of a shake-up on here if only in terms of format of posts. It'll be fun! Please join me--and if you wish to participate in the 30 days of posts, it's not too late to sign up!

Have a lovely weekend, and be free with your advice!

much love.