Announcement!

Earlier this year I was shortlisted for this competition conducted by the Ravenglass Poetry Press.

I am pleased to announce that Ravenglass Press will be publishing my first collection, entitled Blue Wasp, which will soon be available as a kindle edition on Amazon.

Be sure that I will keep you posted on any developments!

Coming Home Again

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

-T.S. Eliot “Little Gidding”

Growing up, my parents took us up to Weston, Missouri, each October. We picked pumpkins and looked at the animals at Red Bard Farm and spent the day at Westbend State Park, which sits above the bluffs above the Missouri River.

The trail at the park is a three mile loop; my brother and I rode our bikes around while Mom and Dad walked. Sometimes, if we were feeling particularly strong, David and I would ride around again and catch them up from behind.

This year we took Harriet with us for a second time. Last year she was just a tiny baby, and Devin carried her around the trail in a sling.

This year she isn’t a baby anymore, but though this loss of baby-dom at times makes me unutterably sad, it was delightful to watch her interact with her surroundings with her boundless toddler energy and insatiable curiosity.

For me, going up to Weston is always a lesson in memory and nostalgia, and taking my child to my old haunts adds yet another layer to my experience of the place. This year, as I looked over the bluffs and down the river, the forested landscape pristine, turning gold, I thought about our childhood bike-trip around the Westbend Loop.

Now, I thought, I’ve really come full circle. I have caught my parents up from behind: I have become a mother myself. I’m bound to watch my daughter experience these places that are mine.

There is something rich about moving back to the place where you grew up. Richness and a strange kind of sorrow in watching a new child in your old place. Sorrow because you know you can’t be that child again. Sorrow because your daughter’s childhood is—though *yours* in one sense—in another sense completely inaccessible. Hers.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am so glad to be home, biding here in these familiar parts. Home, I find, is not the dull wasteland I feared it might be. Your house is, after all, your castle and your hometown a country of terrible beauty.

Announcement

And now for an announcement!

Earlier this year I was shortlisted for the Ravenglass Poetry Press Competition.
The competition was judged by John Burnside.

Ravenglass Press is a small press based based in England and edited by Julia Wallis Martin. Every year they publish an anthology highlighting those poets shortlisted in their competition. And, behold! I am one of them!

You can buy the anthology on Amazon UK. For my American friends, there is not, alas, an American addition. But everyone likes getting a package from abroad, yes?

Purchase the anthology by clicking HERE!

I Don't Need No Professional Photographer

"We should hire a professional photographer," my husband said. We were perusing old family pictures and I was ooo-ing and ah-ing over an adorable picture of my maternal grandmother when she was about Harriet's age. (Precious, yes?)



"Professional photographer? Why do we need a professional photographer? I'm a good photographer!" I retorted. "Well, you know," he responded sheepishly, "a professional photographer would have a studio, the right lighting, you know...and a really good camera."
"We have a good camera!" I countered, "and I can put up a sheet and take a shot just like this--" I held up my grandma's photo. "I'll put that silver cross around Hattie's neck. It will be great."

The next day I proceeded to hang a sheet in the dining room and a necklace around Harriet. I plopped said babe down in front of said sheet and started shooting. "So far, so good," thought I.



Of course young Harriet is mobile now, so...




...she soon left the sheet behind.

Then she discovered the drawers in our china cabinet.



Then she discovered her necklace.





So I took the necklace away.

Then...



...she became very angry with her mother.



So much for that.

Any recommendations for [professional] photographers?

Slow Food

“Our hunger for the twenty-minute gourmet meal, for a one-pot ease and prewashed, precut ingredients has severed our lifeline to the satisfactions of cooking. Take your time. Take a long time. Move slowly and deliberately and with great attention.”

-Thomas Keller, French Laundry

I read this quote this Sunday as I sat with my husband at the one-of-a-kind Justus Drugstore in Smithville, Missouri. Jonathon Justus, the chef at the Drugstore, included these words in his menu, and as I savored my delicious, extended meal I pondered.

Pondered my relationship to food, and how this relationship reflects how I relate to the world around me.

Food is a mystery. A “mystery” not because it is unknown or unknowable—because eating is, of course, one of the most common, tangible, and mundane aspects of human experience. But yet food is a “mystery” in the sense that it’s full meaning stretches beyond itself. Food helps define communities; it is an expression of culture (family, ethnic, religious, national). Meals form families. Food is “the fruit of the vine, the work of human hands,” and as such it is the supreme cooperation between humans and the natural world. The clouds rain, sun shines, earth enriches. We tend the soil, plant the seeds, harvest. Then we cook.

And the action of cooking itself involves the whole person: her foresight, her hands, her mind, her time, her love.

How often I forget to enjoy the process of cooking and eating. I am tired at the end of the day, my emphasis is on speed and efficiency. This past year has been the worst; it is so difficult to slow down and consider the onions, the carrots, the roux. The first few months after I had Hattie I was plagued by anxiety: “How can I get everything I need to do done?” I asked, panicked. How long will the baby sleep? When will I find the time to [sleep, bathe, clean, read, write, exercise…eat…cook].

As the months have gone by my ability to balance has improved, the baby sleeps more consistently and is more easily entertained. I no longer live in a state of emergency. But a bit of the anxiety lingers, and I feel it when I cook and when I eat. Chop the vegetables as fast as possible. What can I prepare while the shallots carmelize? How can I be more efficient? When I sit down to eat I forget to look at my food, at my husband. Forget to drink water, sip wine, talk, breathe.

This past Sunday’s meal was a good reminder—a reminder to slow down. Enjoy the sight, smell, feel of the kale, the way the carrots contrast with the celery on the cutting board. Slow down. Slow down and eat. Reassure myself that I am not late, I will not miss my life—or my dinner.

October: A List

roses bloom crimson

sweet potatoes and cabbage stewing

crickets

wind and leaves

Hattie's new word: "moon"

chickadees in in the summack

apple wax

view from the bluffs

Remembering Twelve Months

Zero

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve



Now that I have finally completed this post, I find that I am remember not twelve months, but THIRTEEN. Happy 13th month-day, my child.

And Happy Birthday, also, to my wonderful husband, who makes babies, family dinners, and sanity possible.