The first session of Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee, which is now a series in which I read good poems by other people every Sunday morning.
Poems come from these books:
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| A creepy sort of greeting on this pandemic thanksgiving |
As a child, I didn't have a family that was big on traditional meals or large gatherings. Once married, my sister tried a few times to create a semblance of the Norman Rockwell's painting with our family and her in-laws, and it was a damn good showing (she cooked it all, and Dad would fall asleep on the floor for the rest of the afternoon, hat tipped over his eyes). Those remain a few of my childhood memories of so many family members in the same place and time. But we were never a family that could sustain a tradition that seemed so asynchronous to who we were as anxiety-riddled humans who prefer small groups, or better, our own company.
As a teenager, I spent Thanksgiving morning working at the town's fine-dining restaurant, which hosted a bountiful Thanksgiving buffet. The tips were good due to the guilt-generosity of diners who relied on us to serve their meals instead of themselves. That morning always passed fairly quickly, and since it was a buffet, it required more preparation than the deep effort and juggling that comes with menu service. And the meal afterward, my goodness (a whole table dedicated to dessert!), and shared among fellow servers and cooks . . . well, it was pretty pleasant to eat good food with equally tired friends.
Once married, I'd attend a traditional Thanksgiving at my husband's grandparents' house. This experience was a little startling because of its ease--everyone knew the order of events, what to say, and where to sit. Afterward, the elders gathered around the TV, and the cousins met on the carport to share memories of when they were kids at this same house on this same day. I hadn't known such families existed.
Now, my former husband, my partner, and our son gather sometime after noon to share a simple meal of soup and bread and a warm pie. Afterward, we might go on a hike or walk around the neighborhood. It is finally what makes the most sense to who I am and who we are. That we all live between 400 and 2,000 miles from our first families helps to keep the day easy and delightful. Though, when asked what my plans are for Thanksgiving, I think my plans sound off-key to the questioner--or I imagine they do, lacking as they are the crowd and commotion the day seems advertised to require.
Thankfully, I won't have any of that.
There is much to be discovered and enjoyed when we unravel traditions, rituals, and routines.
And so today's pandemic meditation comes from no Thanksgiving tradition.
Today's meditation is made of music. Many of us have relied on, returned to, and replayed songs and albums that bring us the most needed emotions, memories, and mind-states as we experience these sorrowful and surreal times. There is something to be thankful for, or just simply said, about what helps us cope with, or better think about, our lives and each other.
Thank you very much to my friend and Spokane musician Neil Elwell for taking the time to create a playlist from the music he's been listening to, as he says, in "the ugly months of 2020."
Perhaps you'll find yourself among songs this Thanksgiving Day.
That would be good.
Listen.
~E.P.
😷
It would be cumbersome to write about all of the artists and music I've been listening to since the pandemic began, so I've broken it down to a few artists, albums, and tracks . . . Here ya go, Neil's Pandemic Playlist, in no particular order, a tip of the iceberg, but gems, nonetheless. (As always, your mileage may vary.)
Miles Davis' album In a Silent Way is the master's 1969 musical expression featuring keyboardists Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, and Chick Corea, with Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, John McLaughlin on guitar, and Tony Williams on skins . . . The entire side one of the original recording is 18 minutes of bliss, called "Shhhh/Peaceful"-- and it is.
Dire Straits, with Mark Knopfler at the helm released Love Over Gold in 1982. One of several amazing cuts is "Telegraph Road," a 14 minute tour-de-force featuring Knopfler's incredible guitar work and songwriting. DS had a great feel for dynamics, and in this cut, it shows.
♩
Richard and Linda Thompsons' release Shoot Out the Lights (also from 1982) is a soul-baring musical chronicle of the Thompsons' impending divorce, at least in part. The track I find myself singing in my head is "Walking On a Wire," which shows Richard's songwriting talents and blistering guitar.
♩
Musical maverick Paul Simon's 1986 recording Graceland dares you to not engage in foot-tapping and maybe a little dancing around the room. The title track and most of the album features mainly South African musicians. The Everly brothers, of all people, show up to provide background vocals. Wow!!
♩
Ry Cooder's 2013 album Corridors Famosos, recorded live at SF's Great American Music Hall is a tour of the many lands that Mr. Cooder has visited (literally and musically) throughout his career. In this record, and onstage that night, were no less than 17 musicians--with Cooder and the band at the top of their game. My favorite track: "Crazy 'bout An Automobile"
♩
Joni Mitchell's Hits is a mainly user-friendly compilation of her radio hits up until 1990. Another recording full of great tunes, with "Big Yellow Taxi" as one of the standout tracks.
♩
Guitarist John Williams (and others) put together a fine tribute to guitar music Spanish Guitar Music. It offers the six-string masters performing Spain's folk music at a very high level. "Fandango" here is this record's amazing piece.
♩
Tom Waits spends a lot of time blasting out of the speakers, inside and out, here at the hovel. No wonder the neighbors think I'm "weird." Nevertheless, all of Mr. Waits's records are magnificent, especially Small Change\ from 1976. "Tom Traubert's Blues" with the "waltzing Matilda" refrain is a long piece that's just about guaranteed to stick in your mind. All hail Tom Waits, is my motto.
♩
This is just a small sampling of what I've listened to during the ugly months of 2020. Other artists include Muddy Waters, Emmylou Harris, Rolling Stones, Maria Muldaur, Howlin' Wolf, John Coltrane, James McMurtry, Peter Rowan, JGB, Robert Johnson, Weather Report, Earl King, Willie and Lukas Nelson, Neil Young, Django Reinhardt, Johnny Cash. Many more made it onto the turntable and into the cd player.
It's tough and not a lot of fun, being locked down.
Music helps.
A lot.
𝆕
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| Neil Elwell |
Every week since September, creatives of all sorts have been sharing reflections on the pandemic. This week, please welcome writer Regi Claire, who sends us these words from Scotland.
😷
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| flattened, photograph by MV (fa73) from flickr, used under CC license |
These past few months I have felt increasingly flat. Flat from the bottom up. From the worn soles of my purple docs to my no-appetite belly to the limp cling of my hair. Some days, my skull feels like a thinly papered room whose inhabitants have moved out and taken the furniture with them.
My lassitude has caused time to slow down, down, down. I dream and dawdle. And yet the months since March have passed in a blur. Saturdays come round rollercoaster-fast; it feels as if my orchids and other plants need constant, rather than weekly watering. Time contracts and relaxes erratically, like a giant heart out of sync. No more rhythm to the beat. No more sense.
There has been a seismic shift in my approach to writing. I have downsized, you might say. My words now tend towards the miniature rather than the vast canvas. Composing poetry seems the answer to my scattered unsettledness. It all started one morning in May, at the height of the first wave of coronavirus infections here in the UK, when I received an email telling me that my first-ever poem, ‘(Un)certainties’, about my sister’s death at sea, had been shortlisted for the Forward Prizes, the most prestigious poetry prizes in the British Isles. I felt jolted out of myself. Buoyed up. Tearful too, because the poem had been my attempt to deal with a grief that threatened to overwhelm me. Since the arrival of that email, I have written only poetry, putting my work-in-progress, a novel-of-stories, to one side. The poems have come to me in fits and starts, between sleep and awakening, while I am brushing my teeth, putting on makeup, or walking our golden retriever.
The pandemic has made me seek out more solitary places that don’t require complicated choreographies of avoidance: during lockdown in March I discovered the large Commonwealth cemetery in our neighbourhood, where I occasionally meet with a writer friend and her puppy dog. Beneath its majestic beeches, birches, oaks, Scots pines, bushes and cherry trees – yes, with real cherries, though small and hard as marbles, fit only for the dead – rows of weathered old tombstones and recent graves extend across bumpy, root-thickened grassland. There are crows here and magpies, squirrels, owls, foxes and (so I hope) hedgehogs.
My husband reads to me when I do the cooking and the washing up. A treat of the first order. Not surprisingly perhaps, we have now fallen back on Wodehouse’s Blandings novels – a totally escapist indulgence.
I miss not being able to visit friends in their homes or welcome them to our flat. Only once was it possible to enjoy a socially distanced meal (and movie) in the house of friends. But we have been to some delightful outdoor tea parties, even in numbing temperatures, also a fantastic barbecue and several sun-dappled al-fresco summer lunches complete with white tablecloths, wine and strawberries, as perfect as any French impressionist painting. My American writer friend, who lives at the other end of the Meadows park, has promised us a traditional Thanksgiving dinner next spring, or whenever local virus restrictions permit. And we look forward to reciprocating with them all.
I miss not being able to teach face to face. For a while I ran my creative writing and critical reading groups on Skype and Zoom, but the rapport, the magic that binds people together in one room as they breathe the same air, share biscuits and cups of coffee, that atmosphere of quick-flitting glances, nods and smiles just can’t be replicated on screen. For me, online workshops, despite all the laughter and easy familiarity, can never achieve that level of intimacy. Still, many of my students are keen to resume and I have decided to run my courses again in early 2021. I know this will inspire me to read more widely, and I hope my own creativity will take off in all sorts of exciting, unexpected directions.
And I miss not being able to travel. Our annual trip to Switzerland to see family and friends was cancelled by the airline. Thanks to generous Scottish friends who offered us their fabulous pieds-à-terre further down the coast and who drove us there and back, we had a holiday all the same (we don’t own a car anymore and with our compromised immune systems would have felt uneasy staying at a hotel or guesthouse). That week of sunshine retains a brightness and intensity in my mind that seems to illuminate the whole year – and to hold within it the immensity of the sea and the sky, the joy of our retriever chasing into the surf after sticks, the soar and swoop of birds, the orange flare of the sea buckthorn above the dunes, and the breeze recharging every fibre in our bodies.
When not writing, walking the dog, doing housework, fiddling with my iPhone or calling friends and family, I spend chunks of time administering our life so we don’t have to go to the stores. Several friends with cars have been incredibly helpful with our shopping. We live in Edinburgh’s university district, which due to its high density of student accommodation has become one of Scotland’s coronavirus hotspots, and I currently buy almost everything online: groceries, dog food, vitamins, CBD oil, red wine, toner cartridges, printer paper, books, specialist lightbulbs for the tenement stairs, a spray shower hose, a toilet seat and, just the other week, a washing machine…
Instead of novels and thrillers, I often read product reviews, especially the bad ones. Seldom in recent weeks have I laughed as hard as when checking out one-star reviews of toilet seats. The ‘best’ one included a video, complete with sound effects, of a slow-close lid that creaked so hideously it could have come straight out of a Hammer horror movie. It made for compulsive viewing, even at one o’clock in the morning.
Today I ordered a five-star shampoo and a conditioner promising gloss and volume. Tomorrow I will get myself a new pair of docs. And then I am going to bake an apple pie from the fruit picked in the orchard of friends. I will drop off a couple of slices for them and some more for our other friends; and we will sit in their winter-ready gardens, wrapped in our padded jackets, hands round a cup of tea or a glass of wine, and catch up on life. We will eat and drink and be merry (and celebrate the outcome of the US election) even in the midst of looming Brexit and this paralysing pandemic.
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| Regi Claire and Leila, photo by Dawn Marie Jones (used with permission) |
Once upon a time, about twenty years ago, I was a college student living in an apartment at the back of a red brick house that shared a back alley with a bowling alley and the dumpsters for Mogger's Restaurant and the Tap Room.
By day, I spent my time in the halls of Root Hall at Indiana State University (ISU), most often with my best friend Alexa--whether we were in class, picking up free books in boxes outside professors' offices, or smoking cigarettes on the picnic bench outside the building.
By night, I wrote in the screen light of my iMac in my kitchen, drank too much wine, and crossed the driveway to the Tap Room or to my best friend's apartment. Sometimes, I'd carry my dirty dishes to her because I hated washing dishes and she would do that for me, knowing that it was that or I'd leave them to mold then throw away.
At the time, I didn't know how fleeting those years would be or that not every university would be as wonderful, or that not every English department kept their doors open and inviting to students.
Of course, twenty years have passed somehow, and Alexa has died, my former professors are retired, teaching elsewhere, or in the grave. A few of the stories I wrote in the Creative Writing classes appear in my first book, The Floating Order ("Losing, I Think"; "Wednesday Night Reflections, Edited Thursday"; and "Remember Ella"), and the initial idea for my newest novel (Hezada! I Miss You) was seeding itself.
One of my favorite departmental events was the "Always on Friday" presentations at which professors shared what they were working on--and, bonus, there'd be doughnuts in the kitchen.
Another perk was the Creative Writing Department's Theodore Dreiser Visiting Writer Series, wherein the department would bring writers to campus to talk with the students and share their own work.
I'm happy to say that now I'll be on the other side of the podium, virtual as that podium may be. And I hope you can make it.
As much as I desperately wish I could be there in person, and that you could be there in person, we know what times we live in, so we must be together virtually.
The event is free and open to the public, whether you live in, near, or far from Terre Haute, Indiana and the ISU campus.
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| Hezada! I Miss You |
Every week, artists of every medium contribute their thoughts, creations, and reflections on living during the pandemic. This week's contributor is Jade Violeta Antonette whose essay reminds us that despite how the pandemic has shifted our perception of time, much can still change in our loves, lives, and relationships--and even then, there are rocks to sit among and rivers rushing to reflect our ache and beauty.
Please welcome Jade Violeta Antonette to the series.
~E.P.
😷
Leading up to the due date for this submission, I’d prepared a slightly different (actually very different) Pandemic Meditation contribution. It was focused on inner-child work and the things I realized I was no longer “surviving” from my past. Intuitively, I felt this submission was preparing me to make room for greater emotional capacity for whatever was to come. Little did I know, the day before I was ready to turn in this piece, my ex broke up with me.
I did not know that my advanced intuition would be so very literal and fast-coming.
I wondered what it meant about me that we couldn’t make this relationship work. I am a healing practitioner in a multitude of ways – I’m a Reiki practitioner, a therapist, and a facilitator. But then I remembered two things – there are wisdom and skill in honoring the natural intelligence of a thing, like when it’s time to part ways. And in a much less esoteric sense, I had also been on the fence and at the end of the day, we had done the best we could.
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| Mural: Girl with the D Earring by Sydney G. James photo from here |
Like many who began dating during the Pandemic, we had regular conversations around COVID testing, social distancing, and what it meant to be a part of each other’s pods. I’m grateful to have been in practice of what it looks like to date during these times where the grandeur of loss is ever-present. With the closing of this relationship, there is far more to be grateful for than to lament.
And honestly, I’m pretty happy to reorganize my priorities and get clearer on how I am looking for partners to show up for me while dating inside of so much social unrest. For example, do we emotionally cope with navigating late stage capitalism in a way that is compatible? Do we both have the skills to hold space for new lovers during uncertain times?
I walk away with new questions after this departure. And, it took a lot of generative and beautiful (though sometimes very difficult) emotional labor to romantically connect with another during a pandemic, particularly as a Black queer femme.
To celebrate the expansiveness of my heart after the breakup, I journaled a little bit on what ‘lovers’ mean to me, and then I made myself into a lover and gave myself a self-care photoshoot! I share both with you this month.
Sometimes, lovers are hosts through various portals of our lives. They introduce us to deeper versions of ourselves if we're willing. We move through these portals with lovers in a way that we may not with other dear ones - not due to disproportionately centering romantic relationships, but because romantic spaces are also sites of praxis, another window through which we can observe how we show up in the world, another window through which we can understand limitations, boundaries, and the extent to which we're open to expanding. Romantic relationships in many spaces are sometimes seen as tertiary, frivolous, or a-political but that's not true. We can learn a lot about our values or how much we are in integrity to our values through the people we share so much of our emotional, energetic, and physical bodies with. So lovers, I like to think of them as hosts (and not teachers). They are people to say thank you to when hosting duties are complete...
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| Jade Violeta Antonette, Self-care photoshoot 1 |
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| Jade Violeta Antonette, Self-care photoshoot 2 |
This pandemic meditation is an invitation for myself and anyone who reads this to give ourselves permission during these wild and uncertain times to do one small thing today to make ourselves into a lover - to acknowledge and celebrate that we’ve made it this far. It is unclear what lies ahead inside of a year with so much involuntary restructuring of our lives, personal losses, a global pandemic, state violence, and more.
But, is it still possible to affirm that we still have a life worth living by doing the things that bring us into ‘exquisite care’?
I say…
Yes 💓
As part of this week's Pandemic Meditations, my sister-in-law Cynthia Pringle, shares her Covid story.
😷
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| Age before Beauty by Cynthia Pringle (used with permission) |
About ten years ago, my husband and I moved to a nearby town and into an apartment in a senior living facility. Soon after, I began working there--from escorting residents to the dining area, to helping tidy their apartments, to sitting with them and singing songs to reading or listening to their stories and memories.
A few years later, my husband and I move into a house, which is better for us and our large dogs, but of course, I continue to work at the facility and with the people who are not only residents but also my community. Sometimes, I bring the dogs by to visit their old friends. My husband and I become involved in helping monarch butterflies migrate to and from Mexico. We share the butterflies and their habitats with the residents. We make a film about it. We give special showing and the residents watch and eat popcorn.
The residents and I celebrate birthdays and holidays together. We notice the weather. We remark on the news, the food, books, art, the coming days. New friends arrive. Old friends leave. We grieve together. I work there, but it's a work that feels less like work and more like the days I lived with and cared for my grandmother in her final years.
Years pass like this.
Then, Covid comes.
When the wave of Covid-19 suddenly hits, the senior living facility is put on lockdown. No visitors are allowed. Outside activities such as the monthly musical entertainment party and popular monthly dinner event that features a speaker are cancelled. The volunteers from the Methodist Church cannot come to lead worship. The beauty shop is closed. And so the staff takes on more duties--leading the residents in worship, calling bingo, playing music via YouTube on a projector screen. Family visits take place via phone calls or FaceTime or window visits. I bring in my banjo ukulele and play old gospel songs during our singalong sessions. |
| Cynthia Pringle, photo by Kirby Pringle |
Welcome to November, and to you, reader. Pandemic Meditations is a weekly series in which artists of all sorts share work that responds to life during COVID-19.
This week, Idaho writer Farley Egan Green joins the series.
😷
Teeth
🕮
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| Farley Egan Green |
❤ Read more Pandemic Meditations at http://www.erinpringle.com/p/pandemic-meditations-series.html
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| Neighbors by Paul Sableman, used under CC license |
Pandemic Meditations is a weekly series in which writers, artists, musicians, and all the creative sorts share reflections, journals, and more in response to the current pandemic.
October is about to go, but you need not worry--we will return next week because November is scheduled, even if the pandemic refuses to be.
Please welcome YA author Trace Kerr to the series.
~ E.P.
😷
By nature, I am an Optimistic Pessimist. I’m always certain things will go wrong. On the face of it, I may sound very doom-scrolly, like some Cassandra shouting all the terrible crap that might happen to the world.
However, as an Optimistic Pessimist, I also constantly formulate contingencies in case SOMETHING needs to be done.
Honestly, in a good year it’s tiring listening to my anxious mantra of “what might be?”
And now?
2020 is driving my brain into the ground. There’s an entire pet store’s worth of thoughts running in the wheel of my brain. How can you plan for this kind of year? I can’t. None of us can.
That trailing spiderweb in the wind of loss and uncertainty has stretched me to a ravelling. When I’m at my most desperate, I turn to poetry because painting with words makes me feel safe and gives me hope. Here is one.
October
Tuesday morning bit with the teeth of autumn
and I felt. For the first time
I didn’t worry over shoulds.
Nothing amazing happened
yet the day was wonderous:
a golden treasure of small things.
I
Baked bread
Hung out laundry and watched my hens bully yellow petaled Brown-eyed Susans
Read and read and read
Talked with my children and marveled at how damned funny they are together
My mother-in-law texted: A wild rabbit needed rescue
He was calm in the old fishing net before we let him go
I
held the day in my hands and didn’t think
about how March to September passed in a confusion
of masks and
social distancing and
our fucking pandemic.
Seven months. Until I woke up
on this single Tuesday
and discovered myself
outside my head.
🕮
Trace Kerr is a lifelong Pacific Northwesterner who loves writing stories about undaunted queer teens and magic. Her debut YA novel, The Names We Take came out in May of 2020.
When she isn't writing, Trace is the producer and co-host for Brain Junk, a lighthearted fact-finding podcast that sometimes airs on Spokane Public Radio.
She lives, loves, and sometimes goes a little crazy in Spokane with a gardening-crazed chemist, one kid who's still at home, several chickens, three cats, and the sweetest chocolate lab named, Ruby.
You can find her on Twitter as @teakerr, on Instagram as trace.kerr, and on her website TraceKerr.com
❤ Read more Pandemic Meditations at http://www.erinpringle.com/p/pandemic-meditations-series.html