tempus fugit, momento mori

The Best (and Worst) of 2023:

It has mostly been a quiet year and I like it that way.

One of the year's most fulfilling activities was joining a tiny writing co-op. We meet once a week for a couple hours on Zoom. Though not strictly required, participating in the weekly workshop is akin to a potluck; you might come empty-handed occasionally, but contributing regularly is part of being in the community. Both reading and being read constitute the heart and soul of the community.

Some weeks, I brought 'shitty first drafts,' embracing Anne Lamott's advice from 'Bird by Bird.' Sometimes my first drafts have been not so shitty as I thought. A few needed only small revisions. Other shitty first drafts have been relegated to a “to be revisited” file because there was likely something in them worth examination, but not at this moment.  

With only one or two exceptions, I've had something to workshop at every meeting this year. I did miss a few meetings this summer when we were traveling in the van.

There has been something quite remarkable about having a community that I know and trust make a close read of my poetry and to offer the same. It has also resulted in a daily practice of writing poetry. I think I have become both a better writer and reader of poetry and that seems an entirely proper activity at this stage of life.

I am happy that I write with no pressure. I do not need to make a living on poetry and that is good, since writing poetry is not known for providing much income.

I will turn 70 later this year, which means health is a thing. I had a little cancer scare this autumn, having discovered some lumps on my thyroid. My 1998 dance with head/neck cancer and radiotherapy makes me higher risk for thyroid cancer. Fortunately, a week of crazed testing and intensive online cancer research, the lumps turned out to be a bit of benign old guy lumpiness. I wrote a poem about that week's hardest aspect: the prospect of having to tell my daughters if it were actually cancer.

Dianna and I took a 9,100-mile trip in our sprinter van during the summer. We visited all the daughters. Did a couple small workshops. And saw some really beautiful country. I wrote a poem about that too.

Valley of the Gods in Southern Utah

I have continued to slow-run the mountain trails. According to my Apple Watch, I fell twice this year. Once in July in the woods north of Seattle. That fall, I bruised (maybe broke) a rib on a big tree root. It took about 6 weeks to heal entirely but was not the sort of thing that laid me up or required a doctor visit. I fell again just a few days ago in the desert near our home. It was bloody, but just involved skin and blood with no real damage. A little trail rash seems a small price to pay for the beauty and intimacy of a good trail run.

On the whole, I have been unreasonably well and content. Both of these, being well and content, come as something of a surprise and have showed up in my poetry also.

My plans for 2024:

1. I plan to teach a little, not too much, and only what strikes me as interesting. (Seattle, Madrid, and Mexico are in the queue.)

2. I will continue to make my slow runs up the mountain trails near our home in the Sonoran Desert.

3. We will make a 2 or 3-month summer trip in our sprinter van. The tentative plan is to focus more on the mountain west, though we may not be able to resist driving east to visit our youngest daughters.

4. I will continue to meet with my writers' co-op. I know some people manage to write in isolation, but I find that I really need a heartful writing community. I feel very fortunate to have found one. I am increasingly convinced that all health professionals (especially the most science-focused folks) should have a poetry practice. I think science needs poetry, perhaps even more than poetry needs science.

5. I have a somewhat vague plan to do more art, maybe cut paper, maybe painting, maybe some combination.