Wherein I Launch a New Writing Project with the Approval of My Friend Lisa B.

So I nearly took myself off of FaceBook this week.

Why, you ask? Because after reading through people's posts, I felt like literally EVERYONE is handling the pandemic better than I've been. I understand intellectually that things on social media are curated--sometimes heavily so--but still. Why is everyone making quilts and baking and biking and taking classes online and what have you while I'm mostly just painfully pacing around my house, waiting for evening to come and hoping that when it does, I can sleep?

Oh. Wait a minute. I know why. I've been depressed. Severely depressed.

Here's the thing. Clinical depression isn't the same thing as feeling sad or blue or down in the dumps. Actually, those things start to look good to you when you're clinically depressed because then you would at least feel normal. No. All you feel is this painful, painful hollowness--like the person you were has shriveled up and mostly disappeared and whatever scraps are left of you could fit into your big toe. With room to spare. You can't laugh. You can't cry. Depression just has its talons in you. It also messes with your ability to concentrate, to focus, so reading and writing become tremendously difficult.

And speaking of writing. I'm afraid to. I feel like I'm starting all over, which is why I'm cranking up the blog again to make me do it. No one really reads blogs anymore--so SAFETY-- but yet I still like to write for an audience other than just for myself. I thought I'd use this platform to talk honestly about my experiences, while also commenting here and there about--oh you know--THIS DAMN PANDEMIC THANG WE GOT GOING ON. But I'll talk about other things, as well. I thought I'd mix up the posts with observations about things that give (or gave) me delight. This idea was suggested to me by Lisa B when she told me about a a collection of short essays by the poet Ross Gay called Book of Delights and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. (I'm acting here like I knew who Ross Gay is before Lisa B mentioned him, which I didn't.)

OK. This post is verging on or has possibly surpassed the TLDR category. Most of the posts will be much, much  shorter.  I promise. And thank you for reading.

Pandemic in Brooklyn: for Quinton

My son who lives in Brooklyn
tells me that each night at 7:00
he and his neighbors open their windows
to clap and hoot and bang on pots and pans
to celebrate the day's first responders,
gifting them with an alchemy of homemade
noises given to spin exhaustion and sorrow
into something gleaming and gold.

The Call

Sometimes when I first wake up,

Tangled in my drift of sheets,

I tell myself to go back to sleep.

What difference will a few minutes make?

But then I hear the morning call

And when I go outside I find

The apricot tree has blossomed

And the thick scent brings me into the 

Moment of a new day’s birth.

A Prayer for the Super Moon

Please
Search out each small thing
as you rise above it all tonight--
the sleeping bees
the lilac buds
the cat in a basket on our porch
the pigeons tucked beneath the eaves
My husband and I lying anxious on our bed--
Find us all and flood us with your
beautiful, beautiful light.

Where?

Where will I find a poem today
I ask as morning tumbles through the window.
Will it be seen in the long leonine shape
of my cat draped over a chair?
Is it hidden beneath the mound of wild violets
blooming beneath the crabapple tree?
Or heard in the noise of so many birds
weaving through its branches?
Or felt in the softness of my big dog's
coat as she leans against my knees?
Or sheltered in another person's words
that inspire and fire my own?
It's always a mystery to be sure.
But a poem a day is somewhere there,
waiting for me to notice it.

Nature in a Season of Pandemic

And the hyacinth still blooms
And the hawthorne still fruits
And the wind still whistles
And the mountain still stands
And the sky yawns and stretches
Over it all.

At times like this Nature can
Seem supremely, cruelly indifferent
To us mere mortals sheltering in place.
But I find both calm and comfort
In her unpredictable predictability.
She endures--and suggests we do the same.

Stuff I Have Learned About Myself During the Pandemic, Part One

Yesterday I chatted (while social distancing) with a neighbor whose name I don't know, although I do know his dog is named Hudson. Anyway, this neighbor said, "I'm an introvert and a misanthrope, but it turns out I miss seeing people."

And I was all dude. Truth. Turns out I miss seeing people, too. Turns out I am a lot more social than I ever thought I was.

I tried to turn this surprising insight into a poem, but I've been too busy painting bathroom doors instead today, so I guess this will have to do.