September Is Something Else
Dear Dears,
I’m writing on a Sunday morning. Olivia has just spent an hour teach pre-K kids soccer and there is a gentle breeze over my zinnias. It seems, all in all, a good morning — and that is something that feels very precious amongst all the hatred and vitriol that is swarming around us daily.
There are times when my chest hurts so much from feelings — sadness, anger, frustration — and it’s not even my chest, but the top of my sternum, near my throat, so it’s almost as if the pressure could choke me. I have spent time lying on my back over a pillow, trying to open up that space so that it can release. Still it returns.
I think it’s because there is violence everywhere. And then the gun shots and booms from the Maynard Rod and Gun Club. Like a reminder at how easy it is and how many there are and how we can never escape the pow pow pow. I’m wearing headphones to block out the pops. What kind of hell to learn of a school shooting and then listen to gunfire as you move throughout the day.
Luckily I found my writing again. It was a comfort to take a pencil to an older poem and strike out weak verbs and revise limp endings. We often berate ourselves for our times of drought, and then when we return we realize it was a needed step back, perspective and all that. I mourn all the poems that sat in my head and then disappeared because I couldn’t get them out in time. But the ones who do make it — they’re doing ok.
Still I am lost
I wrote that. I know you can find my easily. It’s just sometimes it can be really easy to want to curl up and hide. I really need some good news. Am I too old for a mentor? I really hope that someone I trust will come a long and say, Becca, here’s what you should do because I believe in you. Alas…
Some writing/teaching/literary news I guess:
I’ll be teaching at Art Space Maynard on 9/25 - found poetry, collage, putting words into images. I will be back again in October for an ekphrastic poetry class.
I also had the first meeting of my poetry appreciation society at the library and was astounded at the number of people who showed up. My heart was full. So we will be back at it on 10/23 hanging out talking poems again.
And of course my love and joy: The Notebooks Collective! This Tuesday we host Taylor Byas! & jason b. crawford! Omg this is going to be so full of oomph & fire & love. Next month, Iain Haley Pollock (mentor extraordinaire) and Nathan McClain. We close out our 2025 season (OMG) with Nicole Callihan and Zoë Ryder White.
Oooh and here is a reading through the Words Like Blades series (curated by a group of poets) that will be soo good and I can’t attend (or maybe can) but you should TOTALLY GO: Quintin Collins, Iain Haley Pollock, and Daniel B. Summerhill.
Help Lisa & Me?
The Notebooks Collective is looking for a volunteer numbers person - someone who has a background in accounting or financial systems - who can help us on the financial side of things. Ok and maybe not volunteer, but like almost pro bono.
Where it all goes
This week I’ll head down to Maryland to say goodbye to my Grandma, who passed away at the age of 103 on August 14. It’s a whomp in my stomach because we have all moved up a notch towards the end. The last time I saw my extended family was about 13 years ago for her 90th birthday. I was a new mom, still considering myself the kid in the family. That’s not the case anymore. It’s weird how family can seem static in time and then we circle back and realize everyone is so much older. How did that happen? My grief is complicated because I mourn the absence and the shift her passing will cause. And I celebrate her! She did so much and while she never talked about it, I know she was a pilot and moved around a lot and took on lots of family.
To close out
I will end this with the submission my grandma made to my Love anthology zine.
I asked my grandmother to pick her favorite love songs from the time when she was growing up. Those with just song titles were played mostly by Glenn Miller's Band or Tommy Dorsey's Band. These songs are guaranteed to be most romantic songs in the world (sorry Gregory JP Godek)…
All The Things You Are from Very Warm In May, Oscar Hammerstein & Jerome Kern.
Begin The Beguine from Jubilee, Cole Porter.
Do I Love You from DuBarry Was A Lady, Cole Porter.
Heart And Soul from A Song Is Born, Hoagy
Carmichael & Frank Loesser
A Time For Love by J. Mandel & P. Webster
I Love You by Cole Porter
Let's Fall In Love
Always by Berlin
Love Is A Many Splendored Thing
Because Of You
Love Me Tender
Body And Soul
Moonlight Serenade
Canadian Sunset
Night And Day by Cole Porter
Deep Purple by Parish & P. DeRose
Stars Fell On Alabama by M. Parish & F. Perkins
True Love
Everything I Have Is Yours
Hello Young Lovers
Embraceable YouSue Meisinger is the editor’s fun loving grandma who will be eighty next birthday. She likes her coffee black and her whiskey straight and she loves her family and her life.
Send notes, love, poems. Reach out to neighbors. Help friends. Right some wrongs. All we have is each other.
xoxox Becca