Spooky Is My Joy
Dearest dears,
If I didn't feel like I was running through molasses, I would be in love with this October. If it wasn’t for the skeletons and pumpkins, I wouldn’t know it was October. The warmth, the freeze, and a Noreaster, which is a remnant of a hurricane I believe. Frost. This could be November. What we endure to continue on. I do love living, I do. It’s just that it’s very hard right now.
CREEPS
I’m thinking of all the ways we try to find joy and then all the creeps out there who try to take it away. Complaining about our silliness as if we should be dour all the time. Zoom bombing poetry events with porn because why not destroy the beauty? Maybe it’s because it’s getting darker and colder and people are getting more desperate. More determined.
My garden is devoid of its flowers. I ripped up all the cosmos and zinnias and I’m saddened by the emptiness. Like, I was surprisingly upset by the photos of the East Wing. Surrounded by destruction. I know that my garden will come back next spring. I doubt the White House will be whole again.
This is the entire US government right now: seeking to destroy any joy or happiness or security. You want to write poetry? No more NEA grants. You want to cure cancer? Tooo bad. You want to have dinner with your family to celebrate a holiday? Get a job.
I know when my stress level is elevated because the tinnitus gets worse. There is a very loud white noise machine in my ears right now. It sounds like sadness.
IN MEMORY OF BECKY JOHNSON
When you lose touch with someone, it hurts even more when you find out that they are very very ill. Becky who was a friend of mine from that mess of time in the late 1990’s has passed away. She was the chillest, funnest, and nicest person. So creative and talented. She helped me sew curtains because I didn’t know how. She had such style. She brought people together, which is an under-appreciated gift.
My thoughts are with her family and friends and I thank her for her kindness during that time in my life.
GOOD THINGS
While it was a small group, my second Poetry Appreciation Society meeting was a cackling good time. The three of us spent an hour reading Christina Rossetti’s poems, talking about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, models, the male gaze, and Victorian mores. Even though I didn’t plan to talk about the Goblin Market, just because it was too long, we spent some time trying to figure it out:
Though the goblins cuff’d and caught her,
Coax’d and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratch’d her, pinch’d her black as ink,
Kick’d and knock’d her,
Maul’d and mock’d her,
Lizzie utter’d not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laugh’d in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrupp’d all her face,
And lodg’d in dimples of her chin,
And streak’d her neck which quaked like curd.
Also, I taught a class on ekphrastic writing at ArtSpace Maynard. I love teaching artists because everyone is creative but in a different medium from me. It was a joy to watch them make connections between the paintings and the poems and somehow it always came back to Breughel.
UPCOMING SOON
The Notebooks Collective will host poets Nichole Callihan & Zoë Ryder White on November 11 at 7:30 PM. This is our last In Conversation of 2025.
In addition, we’d love to have suggestions on what to program for next year. We have made this survey – and even if you have never attended an event, please let me know what you MIGHT be interested in attending or what you could use to enhance your creative life.
The next Poetry Appreciation Society meeting will be at the Maynard Public Library at 7 PM on November 20. In tribute to gratitude, we’ll be reading Ross Gay.
LASTLY
I submitted my application for the MCC creative individuals grant. This is the fourth time I have done it. Now I’m more inured to the process. Still this time I submitted new work and I am feeling very raw and vulnerable right now. Like here’s a beating heart don’t stab it.
I’m still working through this identity shift with my autism diagnosis. When I read through older poems I find that the grief and confusion in so many them stemmed from that autistic isolation & what comes from not understanding people’s intentions or what they want from me.
I began a series of prose poems that exposed a lot of my earlier thinking — of how I played pretend until I was 12 and how throughout high school and college and even after that, I used books and movies to understand what to do. And also, when I connected with a book or poem, I wanted to be IN it. Live it.
I always expected some sort of plot device, that there was a HEA for me with any new boyfriend or adventure. Spending that much time in my head means I missed a lot of actual interactions or signs that pointed me in a different direction. I mean I’m 49 and in a lot of ways still feel like a lost kid.
I am grieving all this and also excited to try these prose poems because they are me: weird, tender, and imaginative. Authentic.
Here’s an excerpt from a draft still in progress:
In This Version, Wardrobe Advice
Your friend has decided to help you and she has created outfits for you to wear for the next 20 days of 4th grade. She went through your closet, your bureau and has matched pleated skirts and purple tights and that wool sweater that always made you itch. You watch as she reviews day 19, the nude skating tights you got as a hand-me-down. She wants you to wear skirts and put bows in your hair. You envy your friend’s style. A daughter of a politician, she is forever in patent leather shoes, plaid kilts, blouses, with a matching ribbon in her hair. But you are not that. You are not smooth or put together. Your hair is always a bit too dirty, and your hair doesn’t stay up in pony tails. You would definitely scuff any patent leather. You are most comfortable in jeans and your prized possession is a white sweatshirt with fluorescent paint swatches on it. You are wary of the stacks of outfits lining your room. How will these new outfits, patched together from the corners of your closet, feel. How will you wear your new skin?
With all the love and a big heart and maybe a breather or some relaxation for you?
Until the wilds of November,
Becca
P.S. Please forward to a friend.
P.P.S. New folks, I hope you like this. Feel free to leave if it’s not your thing.