I have never learned to juggle. I've watched a few people learn it, and it didn't seem terrible -- but as someone who can barely catch a basketball, grabbing smaller items out of the air isn't likely. Actually I don't throw very well, either. (Don't ask about the company baseball team, back in 1973 or so.)
Maybe you have read the "how" of juggling? I leaned on such book-learning for writing "Juggling Parenthood at Seventy," which is in the most recent issue of New Feathers Anthology - you can read it here (it's short). I was thrilled that New Feathers asked for a second poem, too, which again is set in my part of parenting "adult children." (Yes, it's here.)
With the onset of my seventies, I notice changes in how I move, which is no surprise. I'm losing some speed and coordination, but not, thank goodness, determination.
What scares me more than the physical changes are mental ones. I worry each time I can't pull up a word or remember why I was headed into another room. It seems that most of my similar-aged friends have the same worry ... none of us want to become dependent on others for basic life, and that's what those little glitches seem to threaten.
But I can't live under threat as a mood. It's terrible for writing. So I'm trying to be practical, the way I was when I got rid of the last throw rug (I loved it, but throw rugs are a Big Problem in terms of falling, "they" say.)
For writing, that means sometimes narrowing the range of what I'm working on. With the gracious collaboration of editor/publisher Justin Lavely, I'm taking a break from feature articles for The North Star Monthly for a few months at least, and I'm not rushing to write another novel. Instead, I'm making a lot of room for poems. There are scraps and Post-it notes and lists all over this home, with metaphors, bits of lines, ideas for structure. It's working! Maybe I should have tried this sooner.
Meanwhile, though, I'm watching how the novels are reaching readers. If you live in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, you can buy a copy of The Bitter and the Sweet easily in St. Johnsbury or Lyndonville (thank you, Boxcar & Caboose, and Green Mountain Books). But you might not have heard: I was able to regain rights to the first two books in the series, The Long Shadow and This Ardent Flame, and Speaking Volumes has them back in print, with covers that match the ebooks. You can get the lovely softcovers at those same two bookstores -- and of course, order them in any other bookshop, in person or online.
There's some relief in not juggling as much: I don't worry about hard rubber balls landing on my head. But can I stick with just poetry? Umm, no. Watch for news about a huge historical research project in the wings.
No comments:
Post a Comment