Another successful year? Depends on how you track it

I’m writing from the end of a marginally disappointing year and the start of a new one filled with promise. 

The fact is, all years are filled with promise at the start, and many disappoint at the end, or else feel kind of neutral. Very seldom do we look back with satisfaction at how much butt we kicked in the previous twelve months. Even when we kick butt, those butts left unkicked come more readily to view in all of their roseate kickability.

A lot of my writer friends are in the habit of reporting year-end stats: how many submissions they made, what percentage of submitted works were accepted, that kind of thing. I am a huge fan of goal setting and tracking, so I am all for this, even if I can’t participate very easily this year—my records are in chaos and I didn’t submit a whole lot anyway. I did publish my favorite flash fiction piece I’ve written, and an interview with it to boot, and that was very satisfying. But publishing activity is quite time consuming, and lack of time was the major theme of my 2017. I have to work very hard as an adjunct instructor to cobble together a living, and my spare time is mostly accounted for elsewhere.

When I see my friends posting outstanding stats, I feel excited for their progress. Good things are built from publishing individual works—book contracts, opportunities to read, careers, advancement. A lot of people I know work extremely hard on making their magic happen, and I am fully here for that.

Unfortunately, other friends report some despondency when they look back at the year just passed. Some submitted a lot but had poor results. Many, like me, didn’t submit much, and a few of these feel the weight of missed opportunities.

I do wonder if there’s not more value to tracking other factors than our submission flow-through. What if we were to quantify the words we wrote, for instance? (I do most of my poetry drafting longhand, often on handy scraps that I employ and promptly lose, so this is darn near unquantifiable for me, but the idea of counting words feels like a move in a good direction.)

What if, too, we were to count the finished works we created, whether good or bad—a count of the stuff that’s done? Then the end of the year would be spent not in a flurry of final submissions, but in nailing that final couplet on a sonnet or finally solving the problem of how to conclude that essay without resorting to bookending. I think I’d feel very satisfied closing out some drafts as I closed out the year.

And wouldn’t it be lovely if we had the discernment and self-love to assess the beauty we made in a given year? Or the truth we told? Or, embracing the Keatsean understanding, both?

I’ve had many poems that were non-starters that nevertheless had wisdom in them—an image or a line or a phrase that was just right, and that sang straight to the moon. But maybe the poem was a goner, and the snippet wouldn’t fit in another poem or story or essay. Maybe I gave up and posted it on social media. It was still true, right? Still beautiful? Where’s our count of that?

It’s my belief that for writers, a measure is more apt than a count. Rather than tapping each accomplishment on its head to account for it, it’s OK to look back on a year (or a life) and to see that there’s a lot there—the spirit had substance, and it’s impossible to throw our arms wide enough to take it all in.

When we’re writing, we’re allowing our very best selves a chance to be present. In my own private way of construing it, we’re tapping in to a higher intelligence that is allowed to express through us, and every moment spent at the page or in our imaginings is time that we allow wisdom and compassion to flow through us. Even if we have a different notion of the source of intelligence, wherever it comes from, we ought to give it opportunity to express, and that’s the very special thing that writers do.

Think of all the lesser things that took up our time in 2017—television reruns, “presidential” tweets, shaving, bagging leaves, sorting mail. So much of life happens without lyricism. If we made any room at all for beauty last year, we should give ourselves credit for contributing to the net good, and perhaps resolve to do it again in 2018.

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Using the Archipelagos

            It’s a new month, and a short one—a perfect time to embark on a poetry project.

            I’ve mentioned before that I like working in projects, as doing so eliminates the need to spend time pondering over a subject or messing around with a false start.

            This month, I’m sort of feeling my age—not my physical age, which seems to range from twelve to about eighty, but my poetry age. I’m late getting a full-length book published, and it sometimes feels as though time is passing me by. I’m twenty-one years older than John Keats when he died, and, come to think of it, thirteen years past Jesus. It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that anyone will ever name a city after me, or even, for that matter, a dog.

            So no fiddle-farting around for me—I am feeling an urgent need to make my writing count, and a poetry project results in poems of greater depth, or at least greater breadth (a good fake for depth). Good poetry requires good thinking, and I find it mighty hard to think on most days. If I set the alarm to get up early so I can stare off into space, chances are good that a kid will get up, too, and thinking time becomes breakfast time. If I stay up late (not my best time for functioning, as a morning person), chances are good that someone, somewhere, will barf—probably on me.

            A few times a year I take a writing retreat—I have one coming up in a few weeks, in fact—and those long weekends out of town—and alone—have proven to be critically important to my progress as a poet. Keats didn’t have kids. Neither, for that matter, did Jesus, although he was more a storyteller than a writer.

            On my writing retreats, I write poems, but I do other things, too, like shuffle the manuscript around and spend long, fuzzy moments over a cup of tea. It’s all part of the work of poetry.

            But in the mean time, I have to make my spots of time work—the minutes that open up between feeding and playing and cleaning and paper-grading. There are actually a lot of free minutes in the day, if we’re being honest about it (thank you, Xbox); they’re just not contiguous. A poetry project makes it easier to get down to business in those archipelagos of time we do have.

            Throughout February, I’ll be operating from a word bank that I’m still finalizing. This means that each poem will contain words from a list—not all of the words, but some. The trick is to pick interesting words—words that aren’t obvious, but that still evoke some kind of response when I look at them. One of my February words is “litter.” I like how it suggests things—anything—strewn across my path, and I like the sound of it, like dried leaves skittering across the bricks. I don’t know where “litter” is going to take me, but I’m eager to find out.

            My word bank, ultimately, will have twelve to twenty words that anchor my thinking. I have no other plans in mind; it is my hope (and my experience) that the words I choose will want to play together, and that each day they will suggest a subject for rumination.

            I’ll let you know how it goes.

The No-Restaurant Resolution

            Last night, as a belated birthday celebration following week too hectic for cake, I was treated to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in my city, the SpringfieldGourmet Taco Company.

I love this place. The menu is wildly creative, and each bite is a little festival of flavor. The décor is fun—lots of black and red, film posters on the walls, neither a sombrero nor cactus in sight. I’m smitten with the cilantro tiger shrimp sriracha taco, with its grilled pineapple, feta, spinach, and cucumber.

My server, Ty, told me that they prepare all of the fresh ingredients each day, from the cilantro to the tiny minced pears to the white corn hominy salsa. They make their own chili sauce, four kinds of salsa for the chips, and six clever varieties of guacamole.

If I sound unusually excited about tacos, well, it’s because these are unusually good tacos—but also, this birthday meal happened to be my first restaurant meal in 2015.

My family made a joint resolution this year, and it was not to eat out in 2015, except for special occasions. A birthday, even a belated one, counts.

We’ve noticed myriad benefits to our no-restaurant plan. We’ve saved a ton of money. We’re more creative in the kitchen. Our food choices are more mindful. We direct more of our energy toward home and family. And, as evidenced by my birthday meal, the times we do eat out are much more memorable and special.

When we do eat out, it is our plan to dine at those places that do what we cannot. We could never fashion a curry blend to rival the flavors we find at the Taj Mahal restaurant. We might feel stymied by lemon grass, but they know just what to do with it at Thai Peppers. And I’m not about to mince pears into tiny quarter-inch squares—but I certainly enjoyed the little explosions of flavor on my tongue when I tasted them last night.

Maybe true innovation is best left to the professionals, but it has been satisfying to find that the home can be my family’s center of nourishment and sustenance.

Mini-Essay Included in Parade Magazine

I was honored to see my little article about New Year's resolutions in the current Parade Magazine—and special thanks to Susannah Felts for including me!

Kindness That Is Not Random

            I’ve been thinking about kindness since the start of the New Year. In fact, I’ve made kindness one of my daily goals in 2015. It’s going well so far—better than my diet, at any rate.

            It is not random acts of kindness that I’m thinking about; actually, it’s kindness toward people we know who need and deserve kindness. I’m trying to be a little kinder to the people who are closest to me—to my mom and my partner and my friends.

            This morning I nominated my son’s teacher for a prize. This man is more than just a patient person who works hard to help my special guy focus and succeed. He even helped him to make a friend—something my son needed more than anything—and this friend and his family have become an important part of our whole family’s life.

We all want someone to hang out with, to laugh with, and my son had been missing out on that before this new friend came along. Mr. W, his teacher, hooked the two kids up, even though my son’s friend is one grade-level higher than mine. That required several traits—the desire and ability to really understand children, the planning and energy to bring them together, the compassion to know that doing so would be important. This type of educator is far more than award-worthy, and filling out a brief nomination form was an easy way to demonstrate how much he means to us.

Random acts of kindness are a beautiful thing. Arriving at the drive-thru window and finding that the person in front of you has paid for your meal gives a moment of confusion followed by a quick burst of joy—someone has done something nice just for you. You could make someone else’s day and keep the ball rolling. The world could be a gentler, sweeter place.

But I have a friend who is scared about her job, and another who feels overwhelmed by expenses. Someone I love is alone, and someone else I love is in constant pain. There is nothing particularly random about the suffering that is happening and observable in my daily life. And let’s face it—I could have afforded my own drive-thru lunch. It was a nice enough gesture that didn’t change a whole lot.

My sister has a bum knee and is bored to death in her apartment. The mystery novels I mailed to her in a focused act of kindness will make a difference, or at least I hope they will.

A good friend of mine took a risk and felt vulnerable. Another friend gathered her supporters and we all went out for drinks, and I got to see the first friend relax and even laugh. This kindness—which did not originate with me, although I was privileged to participate—makes a difference, too.

I’m in favor of all kinds of kindness. I resolve, though, to be kind nearby—to focus my goodwill. There is nothing random about the way care and compassion can radiate out from a center in great waves of goodness, touching people we may not even yet know.

Toward a Tidier 2015

            It’s the third day of the year, and the third day of my unofficial New Year’s resolution.

            Each day, I target a finite disaster in the home and go at it with everything I have. On Jan. 1, I organized a messy desk in my would-be writing room. On Jan. 2, I cleared off the top of my dresser—a purgatory for worn-once-but-not-dirty sweaters and random knickknacks and jewelry. Today, I’m eyeing the basement, where I tend to stash boxes that may eventually be useful. Just breaking down and clearing up my accumulation of boxes will reduce clutter immensely.

            I don’t think I’ll ever run out of drawers and shelves and closets and dump sites. If I do, there are bookshelves to organize and Legos to help sort.

            A website caught my eye the other day—Clean Mama, a site maintained by an organizational specialist who offers plenty of free tools to help readers with their housecleaning efforts. The author, Becky, suggests an innovative approach to staying on top of housework. There are four tasks that she recommends every day—attacking floors, counters, clutter, and laundry—and then each day has its own particular task. For instance, today, Saturday, is designated for “sheets and towels.” Other days are given over to dusting or vacuuming or similar tasks.

            I like Becky’s specific plans, but the best part about her system is that it gets me thinking about ways to improve my own way of doing things—just like reading a really great book of poetry can inspire my own work. I’m far more of a poet than an organizer (only writing gets done every day—I can go a long while without worrying about homekeeping, but writing is a daily necessity). I appreciate inspiration where it comes, though, and Becky is nothing if not inspiring.

            When I mentioned my organizing resolution to friends, they were generous with ideas. One suggested my mother’s old trick of setting the clock for fifteen minutes and seeing how much I could get done, the object being to surprise myself and keep the momentum up after the clock runs out. That strategy has never appealed to me. I think I can only fool myself by accident. Setting myself up to lose myself in housework will only result in me watching the clock even more closely.

            With that being said, it turned out that cleaning the desk resulted in my tidying, organizing, and cleaning near the desk. While fifteen minutes of effort will never extend into sixteen or thirty or sixty without my noticing it’s happening, a clean area throws the mess around it into stark relief. I tend to keep going if my interest and energy stay high.

            Another friend suggested that I can maximize my cleaning efforts by teaching my child to do small tasks—say, making his bed. But the thing is, my New Year’s mindset isn’t really about teaching and nurturing others. It’s really all about me. I get personal satisfaction from cleaning out the junk drawer. Instructing an eight-year-old in making crisp corners with the flat sheet does not yield the same pleasure. It’s a good suggestion, and I’ll get to him later—but right now, I’m doing some things just for me.

            I love flipping the calendar to a brand new year. The result, year after year, is that I have given myself permission to imagine a brand new me as well—a better home, a renewed commitment to writing, a fresh resolution to be a better daughter and mother and friend.

            We’re only three days in, but I think I really like the me of 2015. I definitely like writing at her desk.

New Year's Revolution

            It has become an annual tradition for me: On January 1, I reset the calendar and begin to recalibrate my life.

            For the last several years, I have rejected traditional resolutions in favor of a rather rigorous tracking system that requires me to examine each day’s progress in several different categories, from personal to professional or even spiritual.

            Last year, I made it all the way until mid-March with my plan, which included some challenging categories. I read a poetry collection each day. I wrote a poem. I exercised for thirty minutes, strengthened a family connection, and made sure my son ate at least one fruit or vegetable. There were also categories for professional health, financial health, and spiritual health.

            As a result of my efforts, I’m now a famous poet who is skinny and rich and totally squared away.

            Oh, wait—it turns out I’m an obscure poet who is the opposite of those other things. But I had a few great months, and they mattered. They got my year off to a good start and made me feel that I was moving in the right direction. For that period of time, I was moving in the right direction. And as of today, I’m moving that way again.

            This year’s chart is still in the planning stages, and I would hate to be too specific about it. It is intended only as a contract with myself—not a source of bragging rights, and certainly not a gauntlet thrown down before my friends. So far it includes a section on movement and nutrition, and ones on kindness, parenting, housework, and even romance. At the end of the day, the categories will be fixed. I enjoy thinking about my goals throughout the day of parades and football. I try to envision what challenges I can realistically take on. It seems reasonable to track six or seven categories, and at the moment I have a few too many. Something has to give.

            Perhaps I will think about the issue over cabbage. I don’t like cabbage much, but I try to eat some on New Year’s Day for the sake of symbolism. Who couldn’t use some more cabbage in 2015? If the only thing I do today to improve my financial health is consume a vegetable that traditionally symbolizes paper money, well, then I’m the one who’s in charge here. I’ll give myself a checkmark for the effort. If nothing else, I saved some money by eating at home instead of going out.

            My favorite New Year’s tradition, also food-related, never occurs to me in time to participate, but it comes from Spain, where revelers consume a single grape for each strike of the midnight bell. Taking one’s grapes in Champagne form is nice, but there is something to be said for going closer to the source—for biting down on a grape and experiencing each tiny explosion, like fireworks in the mouth. To look at it another way, here are twelve little bursts of sweetness. Just try to keep the optimism from stickying your fingers, from running down your chin.

            This year, my friend Molly Fisk made me aware of one of her favorite New Year’s traditions, which came from a friend of her own. Molly seeks out a word—or, more specifically, she allows a word to find its way to her. This word serves as a sort of theme for the year, and it serves as a touchstone for meditation and reflection. As I enter a period of professional transition in my life, today I found—or was found by—a word of my own: THRESHOLD. The first part of the word comes from an Old English word meaning “tread” or “trample.” The literal meaning of the second part of the word is lost to time, but folk etymology suggests that a “threshold” is a barrier placed on the floor to keep the chaff from the threshing of grain outside, where it belongs.

            That understanding of the word is probably bunk, but I’m keeping it in mind. I like the idea that there is a point at which anything that no longer has use to us—that has let go of its nutritive value—is left on the other side of the door we walk through. It happens every year, and it has happened again: Once again I’m excited about the opportunity to leave old ways behind and try some new ones.