In-Person Visit! Happy Solstice

As hinted at in my last post, this past week has begun a change that I would have expected to be dreadful, but has turned out to give hope that breaking down is also building up (and perhaps "Ecclesiastes" meant that all along). It's no surprise that the situation (about which I'm not yet comfortable being more specific), and its attendant message of a silver lining-and-coating, should arise around the Solstice of what's been a year of piercing upheaval, and often destruction, for most people I know. But the Solstice is also a natural bringer-together of people; an opportunity to rest in the beauty of what-is, and of the special people with whom to share both the beauty and the what-is-ness.

We love each other in my MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. At last count, there are three(!) Facebook groups for us, and any time I go into Facebook, the majority of posts in my feed are from RWW-ers. There are several with whom I have a special connection, and we email as frequently as our schedules allow, usually in great depth and length. I am lucky enough to have two RWW alumnae right here in Homer, whom I love and admire and somewhat heroine-worship. But otherwise, the fact remains that Facebook and email contact is not the same as face-to-face sharing of air. I know. I'm telling you something really surprising.

So what a treat it was that Meagan, who now lives in Olympia but was raised in Soldotna (just 72 miles north of Homer, a third of the way to Anchorage), came home for the Holidays!

 I broke my journey in Soldotna and stayed over (thanks again to her so gracious parents); her dad took a look at the Warthog's barely functioning radiator (having noted how cold my hand was on the initial handshake!); her mom ensured I slept cozy and peaceful; I got to meet her beautiful daughter...it felt special to laugh so hard with people whom I'd never met before, the family of someone I wish I could see more often.

Special, also, to hike the beach at Kenai, the lunar landscape with 3pm alpenglow of sun sinking in the south, being with Meagan as she exclaimed in excitement, awe, fascination--variations of "Wow, this is so cool! This is so beautiful! Unique!" The sea ice with its various textures, its flattened snowflakes like feathers a cell thick, its texturing with pools and ponds frozen just as solid as the rest but with a translucency like an observatory, really is a poem-puller.

There is something so elemental about it. The temperatures were hovering from 3-9 degrees above zero, depending on which thermometer you were looking at (this morning, Anchorage at 16 degrees feels balmy by comparison). And yet it still seemed perfectly natural to lie down on this ice rock, to be against the earth's extra skin.

But even with two coats and many other layers on, that was still a rapid chill!
With gratitude and best intentions for this Solstice...

NaPoWriMo: Midway Progress Report and Taking the Shots

It's been a hectic couple of days. I've been productive, but without much breathing space. This seems to correlate with my going to bed thinking of what I didn't get done rather than feeling pleased with everything I did. So, a progress report on this 'poem every day in April' project feels like a good anchor for this post.

Breathing Space and Missed Shots
Speaking of breathing space, here's the window I had to squeeze through as told in my Comedy of Errors post: I mentioned in it that events had moved at such a zany pace that I didn't have frame-by-frame pictures, and kt made the very smart suggestion that that was one pic I could share.

The window's quite tall but that crank mechanism doesn't allow it to open very wide...

Other productive busyness for which I missed the obvious photos: yesterday, I 'hosted' our writers group. We meet every two weeks. People take turns to host at their home, creating a relaxed environment with snacks. If one's home is too small, one can host at the library--which is obviously what I did! I'd have loved to have taken photos, both of the group and of the spread that I put on, but I left my camera at home. One thing that did feature in the spread was 'blackamole,' though...

We have light in the sky from before 6am until after 10pm now, which means we're getting into manic season. I'm not dreading it as much as last year. However, the combination of so many hours of daylight and big low tides around the full moon means that it's prime time to drive out on the beach to the base of the bluff on which our cabin sits...

filling in with an older pic

...and for Phil to put in more long, heavy hours of fighting against the Pacific Ocean!

another old pic...

We were down there this morning by 6.20: the beach deserted and expansive, all the creeks fully thawed and flowing rapidly into the ocean, crows and gulls dancing among the tidepools, the eastern sky rosy.
(And once again, I didn't have the camera...) It was still cold from the night: 25 degrees--and feeling the air and ground frozen but hearing water running everywhere was a peculiar juxtaposition.

NaPoWriMo
Wait--weren't you supposed to be talking about NaPoWriMo and how this poem-a-day jaunt is going? Well yes. My point is that it was so easy to miss all those shots, not to be present with the ever-ready camera, or to miss all kinds of inspirational moments and opportunities in the course of a day. And writing a poem every day has been a wonderful antidote to this tendency.

One new poem every day: and I set myself the additional guideline that every day's draft should be something worth working on further after the end of the month. This means that I can't miss my shot: every day, from my internal landscape, from events and scenery outside, or even from using a prompt, I must find something worth writing about and worth thinking about in an exalted way. But, as this wealth of possible sources hints, it also shows that there are so many possible shots! I couldn't possibly write every poem that occurs to me in the course of a day and this reflection has sometimes induced paralysis. The habit of writing just a single one of them, every day, opens this up so wide: it feels more like fruition and less like agony in the bud.

Although, as I predicted, I'm already looking forward to the end of the month and having more time to revise and develop what's come so far, I'm thinking that I'll probably continue something like this just for the juice that it generates. Even keeping the habit of writing down some 'germs of gems' every day sounds so attractive.

I haven't yet played with a couple of forms that I wanted to play with, and I need to do some more 'funny' poems, but the only day's effort that didn't feel like it was going anywhere for me was a prompt, to attempt a cento poem based on Bob Dylan's lyrics. I didn't give it a fair chance, did it from off the top of my head...and even though I wasn't pleased with what I did, it definitely gives me more interest in playing with cento.

Low tide was at 7 this evening and Phil wanted to go back down and fight the ocean: I thought he was leaving at 6.30 but he wanted to be gone soon after 6. He wolfed his dinner, and I stayed home and enjoyed mine slowly.

Yam with coconut butter, doused with cinnamon (with lots of salad on the side) seems so decadent and delectable--perfect for savoring alone.

Another long day and early start tomorrow: we're going to Captain Cook State Park and beach, 100-some miles north of here, to meet a friend, hike and look at rocks and fossils.

Have a beautiful weekend!