Dear friends, I’m challenged, excited, baffled, stumped, inspired, energized, disorganized, off and running in the month’s marathon of writing 30 poems in 30 days for Tupelo Press. Your sponsorships mean so much! Enjoy the poems of my fellow marathoners, or scroll to see what landed on other days. They are working poems—most in draft form—because no poem lands whole the day it emerges.

Here’s my Day 9 poem . . . .

Pigs in a Blanket

At the IHOP

silver-quarter horse in the lobby—

Giddyup! Pat the shining mane.

Get down it’s time for breakfast.

Sun glows giddy amber and cherry

through glass jugs of table syrup.

Grandma Mimi—Isn’t this fancy?—

orders for Mother, Theodore, and me.

Your mother’s doing much better.

Probably we won’t have to stay

with Grandma Mimi like we did last year.

Monday

Mother won’t roll out of bed.

I pull a sock soft and wheezy with dust

from under my twin bed, doing things I don’t know how

while Mother drools on her pillow—

pills on her nightstand, numbers by the phone.

I go looking and looking for a shirt,

the gruel of the day.

Tuesday

At the end of every line, lunch, recess.

Unchosen to bat, run, catch, kick.

Bitter as the thin skin of the red apple I eat for breakfast.

Wednesday

Late to school, a bad time to walk in,

heads turning, teachers frowning,

I wait on the swings for lunchtime

spooning the porridge of loneliness.

Thursday

Theodore doesn’t bother eating,

walks out with math book,

hand-me-down shirt dragging its tail.

I shake down the rattle of cereal with no milk.

Friday

Log Cabin syrup on Wonder Bread

kind of like french toast.

Last drops sweet like sugar all the sugar all the sugar.

Find dirty pants, wear those.

Saturday

Lincoln Logs on the floor.

Breakfast an idea forgotten in the tall stack of the day,

toppled.

Sunday

Grandma Mimi says it quiet, like other tables shouldn’t hear.

Doing better, aren’t you, Marilyn? 

Mother’s hand halfway to her mouth,

ruffly egg white on her fork.

Theodore pokes his over-easy.

It pops and runs orange yellow.

My plate. I unfold the blanket.

Three brown-pink sausages, safe together,

hot, close, stuck.

Roll out of bed, piggies.

I pick up the syrup and pour, drowning all.

YES

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out—no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
—William Stafford, from The Way It Is

The title of the above poem, YES, is my word for the year, inspired by the yes’s of 2022.

The nonprofit, Centrum, said yes to my application for a residency as an emerging literary artist. Every morning in October, as a ferry coasted in, I poured out my heart on paper while overlooking the sunrise on Admiralty Bay in Port Townsend.

My biggest YES from my experience was reframing my roles.

When I left on September 30, I was a coach who writes.

When I returned on November first, I was a writer who coaches.

I said YES to scheduling writing. I said YES to a new writing office. I said YES to creating quality time for stories, poems, and novels, rather than squeezing writing into spare moments. I saw that my energy and enthusiasm and joy would benefit every writer and creator I work with.
I learned to say YES to finishing a story rather than first answering an email. To quit wasting time on social media. To say YES to what I love, rather than something Instagram fans might like.

I braved rejection. I relaxed ideas of how my house should look, how I should celebrate Christmas, and whether I’m being “responsible.” I chose to be responsible to my most personal, creative, and spiritual goals, and in turn, to let this responsibility flow out into the world.

I found balance despite the discomfort of doing things differently.

I witnessed your YES’s, too. In Clark College classes both live and virtual, Zoom sessions short and long, a Vancouver women’s workshop, a stunning group of Master class writers, and in the blossoming Mastermind writers’ series. I enjoyed hundreds of awe-striking one-to-one sessions with phenomenal writers.

I feel grateful not just to be your coach, but to be one of you.

Wild Words Camp in July, along the Siuslaw River North Jetty, was a landmark event. Thank you to the writers who were part of the longest and most rustic adventure I’ve ever led: three nights leading the way to YES, unfolding in vulnerability, authenticity, trust, and community.

Thank you for showing your power and creativity at Wild Words Retreat in August at serene Siltcoos Lake, where fantasy stories mingled with southern roots on an old river dock in the fog. We kayaked, hiked to the beach, and journaled in sun and wind by the waves.

I felt awe leading your December adventure of Write at the Light at Heceta Head Lighthouse. We climbed forest hills, combed beaches, and witnessed night beams of the lighthouse sweeping through mist over craggy ocean cliffs and velvety trees. Toasty beside our Victorian-Christmas fireside, we shared darkness and light.

We writers say YES when we boldly take time for ourselves or our work. Whenever we sit with pages and laptops and notebooks. Every time we listen to each other, admire what we’re reading, or treat ourselves to adventures, classes, cohorts, and coaches.

Without guarantees, but with a full heart, I’m saying YES to whatever is next, for me and for you.

I can’t believe it’s been nine months since I moved to the Oregon Coast. Some adjustments have been huge, some small. One thing that’s changed: all my jacket pockets are lined with sand.

When I walk the beach, the sun gleams on frills of incoming tide. Waves ebb, revealing sunset striations of shells. Driftwood branches twist like the elegant limbs of dancers. The rocks are warm and curious in their smooth, odd shapes. I stoop, turn a stone in my hands, stand breathing.

Can’t resist filling my pockets.

Then I get home and empty my pockets. The rocks are ordinary, dull, flat rocks, and the shells are all broken, and the driftwood is riddled with knotholes, leaking grit all over the floor.

What happened?

I left the beach.

It’s the same with our art. When you or I absorb ourselves in wonder, relaxation, musing, and breath, we recognize the beauty we are holding. But then we walk away, removing ourselves to a harsher light. We set down our ideas, shake our heads and say, “What was I thinking? That idea (story, painting, poem) isn’t special. It’s a waste of time.”

Being a brilliant artist seems to require technique or talent or something we haven’t got.

Not true.

Being brilliant is this:

Staying on the beach.

You can’t sustain passion for writing or creating if you are hurrying yourself along to states of obligation and judgment. Away from the beach, away from the rapture.

I’ve learned how to help myself and others get back to the beach—figuratively, as well as literally.

We can experience breath and ocean, a salt breeze, a stone sparkling. We can fall in love again with our own way of seeing the world.

Don’t leave the beach! Join me in taking time out this summer, a little time every day, a little more time every week, or perhaps a deeper plunge on a retreat. Relish your deepest ways of being. Notice and collect all the beautiful things worth keeping.