I didn’t have time to get a Wobbly together this week, so I am going to give you the little tidbits I write, kind of like a diary, when I don’t have anything going and just need to keep at it anyway. I gather some facts from what shows up in here and there. Then I play with them. Are these prose poems? Maybe.
Tuesday
Is it only Tuesday? Sometimes the days go fast, but mostly slow. It’s strange to be here among people with no job anymore, who have to invent their lives day by day. Including me. I have to think what day it is. There’s a lumbering along like a bear, step by step, nothing necessary. No living to be earned anymore. It’s all done, so we’re like a bunch of grazing sheep, out to pasture is the way it’s said. Still, it’s good to be alive, even if it’s repetition, day after day. Old hat. Coffee still tastes good. You have to focus. If you drift, you can lose yourself. It’s harder to find yourself at this age. There are so many ghosts and you can’t be sure if you’re not one of them.
Wednesday
If you put a seal in a rowboat, it will get seasick. So will I. I am already seasick on land. The boat is rocking too much, the waves are too big. Seals have existed for about 30 million years. I could say we’re going to kill them off in a few dozen, but that would leave me feeling superior, like I can chastise the world for being the world. Seals are pinnipeds, meaning fin-footed, so we have already made them into ourselves, given them feet. Might as well buy them shoes. A hundred thousand Baikal seals live in Siberia, which goes to show it’s best to exile yourself if you want to survive. The Southern elephant seal can weigh almost 9,000 pounds. These are the facts. The facts are another thing that makes humans feel superior. We have the facts, they have the skins, which we use to make waterproof coverings. This either shows the interconnectedness of humans and animals or it shows human cruelty. It is hard to talk about seals without being prescriptive.
Thursday
I use plastic. I use the bags, all sizes. I buy plastic things. I forget to bring my cloth bags into the grocery and end up with an armload of plastic. Furthermore, I use a paper towel to cover my bowl of oatmeal in the microwave. I buy clothes made in China. I drive a car that uses gas. I buy stuff and more stuff: new makeup, new TV. I am utterly enmeshed in my culture. It would be hard to find me among my errors. My hands burn with guilt, but I go on. I welcome the sun on the porch, the fading away of winter. So far the fires and floods have not touched me, earthquakes crumble in distant countries. People are trapped under rubble, people are being shot, but not here. I am guilty of everything, most particularly of loving my life here in the sunshiny, budding world.
P.S. I’m doing local readings for Doctor of the World. Slight revision to the schedule, so I’ll put it here again.
Scheduled Local and Zoom Events
April 22nd , 7:30 p.m. Notebooks Collective w/ Anne Marie Oomen. A great conversation format. On Zoom: The Notebooks Collective. We’ll be talking about Doctor of the World, and probably The End of the Clockwork Universe, coming out in the fall. P.S. This was a really good event. Anne-Marie and I could have kept going for hours, I suspect.
April 24th, reading at Bookman Bookstore in Grand Haven, MI, 6:30. (Their Poetry Night reading, with Jack Ridl, Teresa Scollon, and Greg Rappleye).
April 25th, Michigan Writers Triple Book Launch at The Circuit, (Teresa Scollon, Ellen Stone and me). The Circuit is the re-purposed church on 14th Street in T.C.
May 2, 3:00 Reading at Cordia, plus Q & A, Traverse City
May 23, Noon (bring your lunch!) Dog Ears Books, Northport.
June 7, 11:00 Crooked Tree District Library at Walloon Lake. The Crooked Tree library is working to build a program for the arts. This reading will be the inaugural event. We’ll have a little Q & A afterward.
July 19th, 3:00, Bellaire Library, Bellaire, MI. With Q & A.
Sept 6, 7-9 Northport. Featured speaker/reader at Community Open Mic Night.