Vanessa Shields's Blog, page 58

Refine…and Enough-ness

March second today. Holy balls.

I woke up and immediately started to hiccup. Like, deep-lift-your-whole-diaphragm-up kinda hiccups. Not sure what that means…except that maybe I need to remember to breathe more. The hiccups lasted for about fifteen minutes. After I got dressed, tidied my mouth and face, and laid out my work for the day, the hiccups went away. I didn’t notice them leave. Huh.

My words for 2020 are REFINE and ENOUGH. I’m feeling the expansion of each word in my life. Refining is happening a lot at Gertrude’s…some things are visible and some things are not (at least not yet!), but the point is that I’m very conscious of how I can make things smoother, simpler and at the same time more effective. That can be a hard balance to find. It’s also challenging my brain in terms of how it wants to organize things…where my heart wants loads of colour and different ways to design, my brain knows that the main thing is that what I want to be communicated is clear and concise. And, so small but important changes are happening. I’m having to choosing to make these changes bit by bit.

I’m feeling a real urge to go through my clothes and get rid of (donate) at least 50% of them. Remember the days when we had two outfits? The dressy dress for church and events and the day dress for everything else? Me neither, but I know they existed. And so, I’m feeling a mighty purge day coming on that front. I wonder how it’ll make me feel to look at 50% less of choices for clothing. Relieved, I hope.

In all this pushing for refinement, I am acutely aware of amounts of things…and I can feel this kind of humming underneath me coming from what seems like the centre of the planet…whispering for change. Do you feel it too? There is much, much unrest…and I find myself falling into bogs of deep worry several times a day from the bigness of what I know is happening on a very small, energetic level. Paradox is alive.

I’m going to admit that my mind plays horrible films that race through my thoughts like bullet trains…yet they go slow motion when I notice them and I see and feel things I don’t want to write down they’re so bad. They’re fleeting most of the of the time, but sometimes they’re not. Sometimes, I can’t stop watching these short films of pain, destruction, loss and I get really, really, scared. At times, they grab me when I’m trying to fall asleep and I have to sit up and open my eyes to darkness and say: YOU.ARE.NOT.REAL. It’s some Stephen King-esque kinda scary.

Then there’s Matt Damon. He’s been in my dreams lately. We’re camping and he has all these really cool, amazing-for-the-planet things he’s showing me and the other dream travellers who are with us. This morning’s dream had him showing us these beautiful white flowers he had harvested in his home garden. We were to plant them in the forest we were in because of their healing power. He bent down and opened a bit of soil to drop the flower and its roots in. The soil grabbed on like the flower was the magic it was waiting for. Then the flower shrunk a bit, like the soil had sucked out its liquid…and then BLOOOOM the flower tripled in size and seemed to make the surrounding area brighter, more alive. It was miraculous.

Perhaps it was my heart yearning for spring…for this change that I’m feeling to finally show itself…but I believe the lesson is also in the shrinking…like, we’re/I’m maybe in the replanting and shrinking phase…like we/I have to be ‘small’ before I can bloom into something more magical, miraculous, helpful, lasting. Refinement, right?

A week ago today, I returned from my annual writing retreat with Charis Cotter. It was another incredible weekend. Different than the ones before…and we marvelled at that. How we so obviously needed to work on such different things each year.

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The space we were in was beautiful. The light was great for writing and creativity. The couches and chairs were conducive to work. But much of our work came in the form of conversation. We talked and talked. We listened and listened. We cried and laughed and talked some more. Never underestimate the power of conversation.

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And always have tea and treats to soothe your tummy and help keep your mouth happy for more talking. We drank lots and lots of tea. (Thank you Charis!)

We were also very disciplined about how the day was organized. We had to be in order to accomplish so much heart and soul healing and dreaming. We woke early, ate well, talked, wrote, walked, napped, talked and wrote more then had end-of-day reflections. We were to bed no later than 10pm.

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It was very productive, our weekend.

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And, of course, we did lots of goofing around.

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‘Enough’ came up. Oh goddess, did it ever. The intention behind me choosing this word was to preface it with motivational and empowering words, like: I AM, YOU ARE, WE ARE, I AM DOING, THERE IS…but as we talked and I was honest with myself, it was clear that my intentions weren’t being met. Instead, I was feeling NOT ENOUGH – in too many places in my life – creative and not. And so…we talked about it. I cried. And we trudged through the marshes of my self-esteem, and exhausted, came out on the other side. It’s a daily battle to win – feeling enough. Believing that I am enough. That I have, indeed, done enough work for my creative life, the business, the family. Our daily affirmations now include saying out loud: Great job doing all the work you did today! You did what you did, and that matters. Also, I love you. 

And so, we swim forward making sure to pull to the shore often to breathe, rest and admire the beauty that is all around. Then write about it.

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You Tell Me

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Friends, I really miss writing poetry on demand. Since I met and exchanged poems with @dreampoetforhire Marshall James Kavanaugh, I’ve had an extreme desire to write poetry for you.

So, you tell me what you want me to write about.

Give me a comment with a theme or even 3-6 words – any words you want! – and I’ll write you a poem.

I think this will help with my floopy-ness. Writing always helps me push through whatever’s trying to push itself out of me.

If’d you rather send me an email (shieldsvanessa@gmail.com), go ahead and do that. Or if you’re reading this on Facebook or Twitter – you can give me a theme or your words in the post comments.

I’ll send the poem I write for you poem to you in an email or private message.

You tell me what to write about.

Thank you!

Floopy – Existential Panic

Where to begin?

I feel…floopy. This is the word we use to describe how the dogs get when they’re tired and flop down onto us because they want some hard-core lovin’. Except…without the existential panic that I’ve been feeling on my insides, I think. Can dogs have existential panics?

I immediately want to think about what’s causing these floopy feelings: the moon cycle, the cold weather, it’s mid-February, I haven’t written anything in a while, I have to make some business decisions, I’ve been comparing myself to people, I’ve been worrying about what people think of me, I’ve been reading books that are so good they make me question my own abilities as a writer…oh, golly, the list goes on and on.

I just have this pressure in my chest centre. It’s like someone’s hand is pushing on the part between my boobs where my ribcage meets. It’s not a painful feeling, but a pressure, kind of. And no, not like a I-need-a-doctor feeling because I know how that feels.

Two nights ago, I did a big write in my journal about this feeling and I came to the conclusion that this place – the spot where my ribcage meets between my boobs – this is where my soul currently resides. I don’t know if souls can move around in a body…or if they can change shape and size…but I’m feeling like they absolutely can. A soul can also hide in the deeps of a body and be inaccessible if it wants to. But that’s not happening here. I think my soul is like, HEY. HEY, YOU. And I’m like, UM, ME.?

WHO.AM.I? WHAT. DO. YOU. MEAN. – YOU? DO. YOU. MEAN .’ME’.? 

And therein begins a kind of tightening panic in my centre-chest.

I’ve been here before. The place and time where I just can’t feel my self. When I question my purpose. My place. My reason. And I fall into the deeps of what.it.means.to.be.alive.in.this.time. I feel like an alien. I feel like…maybe I’m not from around here. Do you ever feel this way?

And why am I so afraid to write about it? These soul-screaming feelings that make me question my me-ness at the same time as they make me feel more alive than usual but in ways that affect my ability to really know anything. Like I have this soul-voice knocking thoughts around in my brain and my heart is like, hold on – who’s this? What’s this new language? What’s going on?

I mean, I’m a writer, that much I know. But when even this…power feels…well, floopy, I start to feel panic.

Do you ever feel like it’s hard to…decipher? To take so much in, process and then have an opinion? Or create an action?

Why does social media make me so uncomfortable?! There’s this thing on Instagram (which is the new…well, Twitter and Facebook, right?!) called a ‘story’. Seems to me I should be drawn to this. I’m a story-teller. It’s simple. Press the button to start the video. Record stuff. Hit stop. Add cute words/decorations and then HIT SHARE. This story exists for a certain amount of time, and then, poof, it’s gone. Folks are into this fleeting style of sharing. But why does it kinda freak me out?

Where does it go? Does it mean anything that folks can miss it altogether? Do I feel that attached to stories that I don’t want to know they’ll disappear into some magical cloud? Or does it have nothing to do with the story, but everything to do with not even remembering this form of communication exits…and maybe I don’t want my face all over the interweb? Because my own self-confidence about how I look is very likely one of the major reasons my soul be like: HEY. HEY, YOU.

It’s trying to get my attention.

I feel very much like a stranger in a strange land most of the time.

Sigh.

I don’t know if I’m doing a good job of explaining how I’m feeling. There’s a voice in my head saying: it doesn’t matter! Just write.

It’s Valentine’s Day. Okay. Every day is love day, isn’t it?

I feel that love is so obviously what’s in the floopy zone. My own love. Love of my own work – on the page and in my mind.

This presence in my chest-centre is love being gathered by my soul. And if I’d just be quiet and listen..let her finish speaking…there’d be more to learn. More to receive. More to ponder.

HEY.HEY, YOU. I LOVE YOU.

…and the tears come.

Existential panic is…an awakening…an invitation…a love letter…I think…somehow…

I don’t know what else to say. This is me today.

Moved

This evening as I was driving home from the three-thousandth errand, I took my eyes off the road to look at the sky. I noticed in the grey blanket of cloud an open zipper of bright yellow. Like someone had sewn an opening in the sky, closed it with a zipper than opened the zipper and let the colours inside spill out. Then the sun chose a hue of pink so vibrant it built itself into a tower of ‘notice me’ so strong it shot above and below the horizon like it was trying to connect to itself to anything in its stream of light.

I was moved to tears by the beauty the sky showed me.

Then I thought about the writers in the erotica writing workshop I’d led earlier in the day…at their courage and open-minds. At their abilities to dive so deeply into a world of words and writing that is out of their comfort zones. I thought about how truly extraordinary human beings are, especially when gathered together to be creative or celebrate art.

I was moved to tears by all the art in the world. As Tonic serenaded me on the radio with ‘If You Could Only See‘, I let the song bowl me over, and I blubberingly sang along…because I know the blue eyes they’re singing about. I know how blue his eyes can be when he says he loves me. (The lyric is ‘her’ eyes, but I changed them in my mind!)

I thought about how much one can accomplish simply by loving. By loving a thing or a person or an action. By accepting love.

I remembered that a full moon is nearly sky high. (I am getting my throat ready for a good, long howl.)

Opening sentences to a story I’ve been needing to get out clamoured against my forehead.

I’m not from around here. There’s no one to tell. I look like her but my heart doesn’t feel a connection. I don’t know how to talk about it.

I sat in my car in the driveway and I swallowed gulps of airy emotions. Holding the rest in.

And it was okay.

I was moved. Moved so deeply.

Sew Songs

“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art

I haven’t written about my new collection of poetry (launching Spring 2021! Weeeeee!) in quite some time. It’s not because I haven’t been working on it. Oh no, we’re still working on it. The editing process is going calmly and patiently which is very important to me because the writing process was (and still is for new pieces) difficult – at best.

When I read the above quote, it struck the heart chords that have blared with symphonies of fear over the last year and a half since the book began to take form. How do you write about one of humanity’s hardest realities – death – and the fear of loss attached to it? This is one of the themes I tackle in the collection. Fear of losing my beautiful Nonna. Fear of losing a huge part of myself in her going…Fear of the ability to exist…to breathe without her.

She is alive and as healthy as her aged body and dementia-flowered mind allows her to be. She still knows who I am…who her children are…and that makes such an immense difference in all of our lives. Fear was and is in my heart when I write about her, about us. But as Pressfield writes: fear tells us what we have to do. I have to write about her. I have to write about she and I. I have to be the voice of her legacy…give it shape in words on pages in a book. The more afraid I am of her dying, the stronger I feel…the more confident I feel about creating this book for her, for us.

She knows I’m writing a book about her…about her life and legacy…about my love for her and how she taught me how to love…when I remind her that I’m writing it. Her face lights up with intrigue and shyness. But her face lit up in a bigger way yesterday when I stopped by for a quick visit and to tell her that I was taking a sewing class. Because I also must learn how to sew.

Oh, it was like a hidden light found its switch and flicked itself on high. My Nonna started sewing when she was 11-years-old in a small room in a small building in a small town in northern Italy. I’ve had the amazing opportunity to witness her sewing, to wear clothing she made from thoughts in her mind, to hand-sew and mend with her, and to see her teaching Miller how to thread a needle and sew by hand. These are gifts that will live in my heart and hands forever. But I’ve been wanting to learn more. To really challenge myself to learn how to sew.

And sew (!), I signed up for a two-night, intensive introduction to sewing class at Fusion Fibre Arts in the SHO building in Walkerville. It started last night.

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This is the machine I’m using. She sings, oh yes, she does.

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One of our first jobs was to sew onto paper. It was a cool experience. I tried to sew the word ‘love’ onto the paper. I’m super interested in using sewing to write things…

I have to tell you that my mind kept getting continually blown. As I learned what all the parts of the machine do, how to thread a bobbin, then thread the actual needle (I didn’t know there were two places where the thread came out!), and finally, ever so gently push my foot down on the motor peddle…I immediately felt a deep heat of love for my Nonna. Sewing is not easy! Not that I really thought of it that way, but she was always so pure and simple about it. The machine, the thread, the needles, the thimbles…the ironing board (another necessary part of the sewing world!) – all of these things were like extra body parts that were extending out of her body, her face…like joy or an outside soul.

The sound of five sewing machines purring in one room nearly moved me to tears. All those years of hearing the songs of Nonna’s Singer came flooding back.

I will bring my machine to her house and get the singing going again.

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High School Dream (Recurring)

I had a recurring dream last night.

It’s the one where I’m back in high school (Go Raiders! Assumption College School) and I’m late for a class. Also, all my assignments are late or I can’t find them. There are hundreds of students around, uniform-clad, moving in slightly slow motion, and seemingly calm. Me, I’m chaos personified, and worry and fear too. I can’t find my way around even though I know I know the halls with my eyes closed. I feel complete panic and I search in my back pack for due assignments that I swore I put there only moments ago. I make it to class, sweaty and out of breath. People see me but don’t acknowledge me nor do they care that my assignment is MIA. I can see teachers but they can’t hear or see me, which makes it really hard for me to explain why my work isn’t done.

I woke up out of breath and unable to identify in my mind what day it was. I tapped my phone to see what time it was, and when the numbers said 2:49am or some too-early time, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep, but I still wasn’t sure what day it was.

When I woke up again, it was by sweet Pages licking my hand and whining so I’d get up and feed her and Oscar…let them pee outside. That was around 6:30am. I realized it was only Sunday with large relief. I went back to sleep after all the business was done and slept uninterrupted until 9am. I can’t remember if I had any dreams during that stretch.

So why the recurring dream? Well, for one thing, the ‘to-do’ list is super long these days. Even after crossing things off, new items replace them and I’m constantly time managing and weight priorities and actions. Plus, I’ll be back at my high school on Friday (yay!), so the actual place is on my mind for real life – not just dreams. Funnily enough, when I was in high school, I was more stressed and anxious than I am now. In high school, being busy was like a drug. I was addicted to intense involvement, over-achievement, and a pretty unattainable height of success. Thank you hindsight, inner-growth and aging for helping me unmake those old patterns of over-filling a plate.

My plate is definitely full – but I have learned how to take things bit-by-bit. To eat slowly and savour the food, if you will.

What are you reading?

I finished Fahrenheit 451 whilst in New York. It’s still on me like a burn. I turned to Ann Patchett’s ‘The Dutch House‘ for a new world to dive into. It’s pretty wild and mysterious.

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After that, I have two books about trees that are calling my name.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s  ‘To Speak for the Trees’. I know she was just in Windsor reading this book and sharing her extraordinary wisdom with us, but I wasn’t at the event. I’ve since been told by several friends that I must read this book. It’s on my nightstand.

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The other book is called ‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers. A writer friend suggested I read it.

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My book plate is definitely overflowing!

It’s February. Today is Imbolc. A unique day to celebrate the midpoint between winter and spring. I think it’s also ground hog day…or it’s coming soon. Certainly, we’re in the ‘in-between’ of the seasons.

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I hope that you’re enjoying the in-between. It can be a great opportunity for cleansing!

Here is a poem I wrote yesterday at the Poetry and the Body workshop at Gertrude’s Writing Room. The workshop was lead by Samantha Badaoa, Windsor’ Youth Poet Laureate. What a magical workshop it was.

 

eyes

 

I say no to eyes

there are too many poems about eyes

your eyes are your sexiest body part he says

I roll them out of my skull & catch them in the palms of my hands

they are slippery with stories

I heave them into the freshwater lake 

hopeful they will find the mermaid they belong to

New York! New York!

We took the kids to New York City…Manhattan to be exact. For seven nights and eight days, we pretended we were living in one of our favourite places in the world. Thank you AirBNB for the home we stayed in. It was our second time in the big apple as a family. The kids were quite young – 4 and 6, if my memory serves me, but it impacted them enough that they wanted to return. For Jett, his young soul fell in love and he decided then that he wanted to live in New York. As he grew up, his dreams expanded into not only living there, but to attending NYU film school. (Is your pocketbooks hiding in a corner? Mine is.) I suppose attending the school would give him a solid experience of living there.

So one of the reasons we returned to the city was to go on a tour of the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Oh, it was something!

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We also did a tour of NBC and had the chance to go into the SNL studio and the Jimmy Fallon studio. That was pretty darn cool. NBC. Golly, this woman used to dream of working on SNL as a crew member…and eventually as a writer. Can you believe it? Perhaps some of that dream moved into Jett through DNA. It’s possible.

For me, the trip was a time to dust off the old camera (a Nikon D90…a dinosaur!) and take photographs. Also, I really wanted to go to The Strand Bookstore.

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And yes, to be with the family in this now – at these ages, at these stages of our lives. It was a very different trip than the first one, but no less exciting, exhausting and magical.

My camera lens was drawn to shoes. To art. To people. To dogs. To horses. And so, here is a visual story of our trip in photographs.

THE SHOES

For these photos, I kept my head down and my camera at my hip. If I saw a cool pair of shoes, I aimed and hoped for the best! I got a load of photos of the naked sidewalk. But certainly, with all the walking that everyone does in New York City, footwear interests me very much.

THE DOGS

Dogs! Dogs! Everywhere dogs! We missed our dogs toooo much on this trip! And everywhere we looked there were dogs! I did my best to capture dogs walking, sniffing, and you know, being dogs!

THE PEOPLE

I’ll admit that at least twice a day, I had a chest-tightening moment when there were just too many people around me. I felt panic in my body like flashes of fuzzy heat, worrying about the kids…and making sure to pay attention to what was happening around us. There were some subway rides when we were body-upon-body and I felt sweaty with anxiety and fear. With news of fast-spreading viruses and escalating conflicts around the world, I was addicted to hand-sanitizer and breathing through narratives in my mind of scary things that could happen to the thousands of people around us all the time.

Alas, I could also hear a pretty, soft, calm voice in my head reminding me that we are all just people. Walkers. Workers. Worriers. And to pay attention to what makes us unique can be exciting, humbling and love-building. I saw many people kissing, embracing or simply making physical contact with one another. It was beautiful. I saw people helping, giving, and sharing. New York is a poem alive. Stories reverberating in every step and sound.

THE ART

Seems to me that everything is art! I adored all the graffiti, the stickers, the life of expression in so much of what I saw. From typos on signs, to patterns in flooring, to architecture, pens, crafts and garbage, art was everywhere. I especially loved the wall of pink roses!

THE OTHER ANIMALS

Horses rule the cobblestone. They seemed so calm…and aware. I loved photographing them. The squirrels were plump and punchy. And, we saw one white dove in a sea of colourful others.

THE STAIRS

We love movies and New York City is a movie master! So many places we’ve seen on the screen came to life before our eyes, but the place we most wanted to see was in the Bronx. There is a stairwell there that Joaquin Phoenix danced down in the film ‘The Joker’. Jett absolutely needed to go there and take his place on the step too. We weren’t the only ones visiting this new film location, but we managed to get some photos of Jett alone on the stairs…doing his Joker dance.

THE DREAM POET FOR HIRE

Of course I couldn’t resist the poet for hire! His name is Marshall James Kavanaugh and he is a real-life traveling poet for hire! He’s traveled across the world writing poems on demand and participating in poetry readings and slams. He is a poetry brother! He wrote us a poem on the theme of ‘education’, and he let me take some photos of him.

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MY FAVS

The hubby loves to play chess so we went to Washington Square park where people play. He played a man in a five-minute fast game (sorry, that’s probably not the correct terminology!). It was a good game. We chatted with the fellow who played and his life story was book-worthy. Two degrees. Two PhDs. Travels across the world. Had to claim political refugee status, and his hope is to return to Toronto for work where friends are waiting for him. Toronto Ontario Canada. Wild.

I took some photos of Jett in this land of dreams. I can barely believe he’ll be starting high school in September…and that it’s very possible he will one day live in this behemoth of a city. I guess I’m moving to New York at some point!

Oh, and yes, that’s a replica of the Zoltar machine from the film ‘Big’ that we saw in FAO Shwartz (the machine, not the film), and the big step-on-it keyboard was there too!

I read two books. I wrote pages and pages in my journal. I took hundreds of photographs. I ate four black and white cookies, none of which I photographed! We watched movies. We ate delicious meals. We walked and walked and walked. And walked.

I do love New York City. It feels different each time I’m able to go, but it’s still a soul city. That is, a city that my soul adores.

This just in – a review of Look At Her

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Though it’s been some time since Look At Her launched, turns out that folks are still reading, and affected enough to give time and energy to writing and publishing a review!

Many thanks to FreeFall Magazine – “FreeFall is a literary magazine based in Calgary, AB.. In 2008 Micheline Maylor and Lynn C. Fraser took over publication of the magazine and created the FreeFall Literary Society of Calgary, a non-profit group.” 

And super thanks to poet/publisher Sharon Berg, out of Sarnia, Ontario, for taking the time to read my poetry and write about it so honestly!

To read the review, CLICK HERE!

After that, be sure to subscribe to FreeFall Magazine!

Thank you for keeping poetry a vibrant art in our world!

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Why I Say Yes

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Last week I said yes to three jobs that would overfill my proverbial plate. Today I said yes to yet another.

Why? Because poetry.

In the last two days, I’ve read over 100 poems.

Today, I listened to 17 brilliant high school students recite two poems each. That’s another…um…math…34 more poems in my life.

I’m addicted, but what’s more, I’m curious. Poetry is so vast and wild and hard and wonderful that when an opportunity presents itself wherein I can engage with poetry…it’s like my mouth, my fingertips, my body – they all scream YES.

It is a pure, creative exchange between me and the words. Between me and the poet. Between me and the meanings, the power, the energy that is part of each poem.

You know, when people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a writer and go from there. I’m not specific. I don’t say, I’m a poet. Why do I do that? I am a poet – through and through.

It’s an interesting self-observation and when I’m immersed in such deep piles of poetry, I feel poetry flowing through me like an extra kind of blood.

The students reciting poetry for the Poetry in Voice school-level competition today floored me. I mean it. The nuances…the natural ability to be the poem was moving and outstanding. I wanted to hug each of them. I wanted to shake them and scream THANK YOU! The words…the meanings…the poetry dripped from their lips and limbs like…like stardust. Better even.

I spent nearly three hours with a poet…seeping into her manuscript. Pouring love into every line as we moved through her words. It was incredible. It was exhausting. It was momentous and essential. It was inspiring and beautiful. Poetry makes me more me. And it makes anyone who reads or write it – more.

So that’s why I say yes. Because poetry!

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Accumulation

I’ve been gathering photos for you. Photos of things I’ve done…gathered…achieved…done to my skin.

I’ve been accumulating things to tell you.

Why has it taken so long to share these things with you?

I don’t know.

Hesitation turned to later turned to tomorrow turned to now-it’s-too-late.

Why do I do that to myself?

Why do I withhold?

I don’t know.

But I’m paying attention to this pattern.

It’s not too late.

It never is.

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I wrote a song for my Nonna. It’s called ‘Take You Back’ or maybe ‘Song for her Soul’. It is made up of four chords. The four chords I can play the best. I really love playing the guitar. I move in and out of giving the musician in me attention and time. But no matter the distance of space in between strums, I always feel at home in a home that isn’t quite mine yet. But it still feels like home. (Thank you Karen for giving your time and wisdom to this home you’ve lived and thrived in for years!)

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I received an Honourable Mention in this year’s Polar Expressions poetry contest. I submit to this contest every year because, well, it feels like another kind of home. I love the folks who organize it. I can feel their care and love for poetry.

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I got two new tattoos. One is of a spiral goddess. She represents the best known modern symbol of the Divine Feminine. Both the spiral and the moon are strongly associated with Her. The moon is the symbol of the Goddess, and its three phases – waxing, full, and waning – relating to the three aspects of Maiden, Mother, and Crone.

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The other tattoo is of a thimble. It is in honour of my Nonna – seamstress extraordinaire…the most loving, love-filled woman I know. My new collection of poetry is currently titled: thimbles.

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An essay I wrote about my Nonna’s courage and my fear of losing her was published in a beautiful book called ‘Fear and Courage’ published by Exisle Publishing as part of its Timeless Wisdom series. When I received this book in the mail, felt it in my hands, I cried. It is a hard-cover beauty that I am grateful to be included within.

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This is a photo of a house that I am using for inspiration in a new novel I’m writing. In the story, this house is a library. The main character works at this library. Every time I look at this picture, I feel heat in my chest and I feel the characters…the books…the story. I love these feelings. Though it doesn’t always move me to write, it does make me feel good about the story, and that is enough.

I experienced a full-circle dream come true. It was that I went back to my high school as a professional writer to teach the students about writing and living the life of a writer. It. Was. Incredible. What’s wild is that I found a photo of myself in one of my yearbooks under the heading: Writers of Tomorrow. In my heart, I always dreamed that I would go back to high school to talk about my writing life. I spent a full-day there in the fall. I spoke to over 400 students. By the third presentation, I cried. I was so happy. I was overwhelmed with emotion. I was teaching the kids that poetry matters. It was truly an extraordinary day. Thank you purple Raiders and the Assumption High School English Department for inviting me home!

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My time in classrooms is always nourishing, inspiring and educational. I learn so much from the students of all ages.

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Teaching is another place I feel at home.

Home.

Accumulation.

Thank you for being a home for me to share my accumulating experiences.