A picture of a kindergarten assignment. The top reads, Some things I can do very well are. The responses are written thusly: reading, swimming, runing, writing, coloring, learning. To the right a stick figure holds a black box which presumably is a book.
Posted on by becca

Not so much this time

For many reasons. I am writing. This. 

  1. It’s August already and did you know that the year is 2022? I forget this at times because as we all say, what is time? This means that summer is abounding, COVID is slithering, and we’re on the cusp of a new school year. 
  2. That’s right! We had COVID, Patrick & I. It was gross and awful. Much love to Paxlovid for its metal-mouthy anti-virulence. One to knock the proteins out and the other to sit in your kidneys and delay the elimination of the first one. It’s a lot of chemistry in the body and it felt like a rush of tiny knights in my veins. And in my stomach, such pain. 
  3. I am still looking for a job. I fluctuate between what I want, though what I need stays constant. Good money and some benefits. Can I find this at a university? As a consultant to nonprofits? Comms for an art space? As a teacher? There are so many different ways for me to move forward that I am a little overwhelmed. Plus, fucking cover letters.
  4. My poem, “He Has a Hatchet,” first published in Glass Poetry Journal is now having a second life as text for a jazz ensemble. In Berlin, no less. The album will be out this fall/winter. 
  5. Let’s act on abortion, shall we? Poet Claire Schwartz and Hannah Cornfield have created #500ActsForAbortion and I have pledged to do an act in support of abortion on August 27 on the principles of accessibility, abolition, and acting locally. Join me. (And yes, we have to keep acting, because the right continues to further its aim of criminalizing people with uteruses. Read this.)
  6. All I want to do every day is throw things away. I want to purge my clothing, the bric-a-brac that clutters all the surfaces of our house, the extra kitchen gear we can’t use. The only reason I don’t purge is that I can’t just throw things away. I don’t want my regret sitting in a landfill for thousands of years. I want it to be repurposed or reused. Lying in bed sick when I couldn’t do anything, all I thought about was how I want to clean my shitty apartment. Toss things. Scrub. Bleach our hearts. There’s too much stuff looming in boxes, clapped shut, holding our younger selves.
  7. In July, way back when, I was the grad assistant for the Solstice MFA program. It was glorious. I read with Laure-Anne Bosselaar and Josh Neufeld. I introduced Quintin Collins and Roy G. Guzmán. Dealt with tech and live streaming issues. Handed out folders. Sold my book! Negotiated pillows and blankets. Talked about art and poetry and photography and stars and injuries that happen when bagpipes are around. 
  8. This is a good number to look forward. Read this essay by Lyz Lenz about finding beauty while the world burns. My little pots out front have scorched with the recent heat wave and my neglect due to sickness. I am going to replenish them and bring some color to our front steps. Then I am going to eat some tomatoes from Tim & Katie’s garden and relish the fact that soon I will have my feet in the salty water of the Atlantic.