In praise of tending & trying

Hello, hi, hello! It’s been quite a while. For those of you who have been here since I first began this newsletter in December 2021—oops! I made loud, public statements about writing a bimonthly newsletter, but here I am, August 2023, almost 2 years later, sending … newsletter number 2. You’ll also notice that I migrated over to Substack—I hope you’ll stick around!

Much has changed, and much hasn’t. Since we last gathered, I:

• got a book deal—!

• went to Georgia for my first writing residency at the Hambidge Center

• received a Stadler fellowship and moved to Pennsylvania—!

• drove cross-country with my beloved for said move

• encountered many dead birds (I think 3?) on the Stadler Center’s threshold

• won the 2022 Sewanee Review Poetry Prize—?!

• followed trilliums through the Georgia woods

• followed crocuses down Lewisburg streets

• moved back to California, and—

• became a mother!

Today, I’m thinking about all the tending / work / supplication that led me here: to a book, to and through the time of a fellowship, and to a child, a daughter. I’m not sure if I believe that we make our own luck, but I do believe that we can create hospitable environments for what we want, should it reach us, should it wander our way. And I believe in seasons! We write the best poems we can. We attend to what we love—our bodies, friendships, dreams, desires—and hope they will grow things of beauty and nourishment. We take into account the weather, the climate, the many ways the world conspires for and against us at any given moment.

I’m not writing these days. Each day orbits this new little human who requires my full attention. But tending to her is teaching me anew what it means to be present in each hour of every day. It’s exhausting and overwhelming, but I believe that to take care of her and her needs is to get a refresher on what my own needs, my own priorities are. Tending to my daughter is its own creative practice, and one that I’m sure will return me to the page a different person. I’m reminded of Lucille Clifton, who mothered six children and wrote in between diaper changes and feedings, who said “one learns that one’s process is what it has to be,” who wrote short poems because that’s what she had time to write.

In the meantime, I’m still reading, still dreaming. I’m still eagerly anticipating launching my first book, Theophanies, come January 2024. I just turned in my second-pass proofs and finalized the cover (!!!!), and I can’t wait to share the cover and more, soon, soon, soon. Until then, here’s a peek at the title page, which I’ve been returning to over and over just to stare at in wonder. It’s all really happening.

More thoughts to come another day when my daughter takes another long-enough nap for me to dash out some thoughts. Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading.