#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

In the melting brook

I helped Wave get ready for school and gave him an A+ for getting out the door really cheerfully, early. Then I went back to bed. I felt overtired and so instead of my morning walk and swim I realized where I needed to be. It was the right choice. I met with my Ukrainian group, and it was powerful, and then I took my walk. It was not raining, but so much moisture, a kind of thing fog hung from the trees and above the river. Everything soaked. An more rain will come tonight, a drenching with wind. I walked and took pictures of all the wet things that looked beautiful and startling to me. I listened to two poetry podcasts. One was discussing Robert Hayden’s, “Those Winter Sundays.” In the December light as I walked the poem was especially moving. .

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Pádraig Ó Tuama reads and discusses it brilliantly in his podcast, Poetry Unbound.

I started to feel anxious about Christmas today, so I did a couple of things, crossed them off my list so I could feel less anxious. Things that had nothing to do with Christmas, but just the cluttered items of everything around Christmas gets too busy. Well, one Christmas thing, Frank and I agreed on a present for Wave and ordered it. The house continues to adjust to the idea of Franci and Will moving this weekend. And my evening was FILLED with poetry, Joy Ladin’s feature & open mic for the Journal of Expressive Writing. How lucky am I to produce this fine monthly gathering that feeds so many.