Finding Or Making Light

by | Jun 20, 2023 | blog, Poems

I took delivery on a hammock chair after having my inner covetousness activated by seeing it in action (and yoinking it from Kimi for a bit) and instead of leaving it in the box for a year like I might have not too long ago, I unpacked the thing and took it on a test drive in my front yard.

I loooooooooove it, though I will admit, it’s a bit of a trial to get in and out of the bag and set up – not like those easy camping chairs that you can practically toss in the air and expect to land in a usable position BUT the whole “swinging in a hammock chair in the evening sun” thing makes it well worth it. Here’s the little vignette I set up out there.

Something about rust and teal makes me ridiculously happy. I don’t know why.

I sit out here often now with my iPad and a podcast in my ears, and it is exactly what I wished for myself in July of 2020 when I first moved here. I couldn’t quite get myself to do much more than stoop sit for a couple of years there but that’s shifted, like so many things have shifted, and I’m grateful.

I went live on YouTube yesterday and talked a bit about the struggle of getting any kind of traction on that platform. I think the fact that I talk openly about mental health, trauma, and other things that the YouTube gods have deemed “controversial topics” means I’m being throttled. My subscribers report that I *never* pop up in their “recommended for you feed” and despite hitting the bell to get notified when I go live, that never happens either.

I’ve done over 40 lives on YouTube and my subscriber count hasn’t budged. I’m lucky to get twenty people in there – twenty!

So, I give up. I’m going to move the lives to Facebook because that’s where my peoples are AND the test live I did yesterday got more views and comments than anything I’ve ever done on the YouTubes.

It was a good try, though. I’m not counting it as a failure, though I admit I did have a moment when I wondered “Is it me? Am I boring? Am I not worth showing up for?” and then I recognized that for what it was – bullshit.

Anyway, here’s what I made during the live.

The blackout poem I created:

The first time I had ever seen big water
the strength of lace
bobbins and threads trailing
old women
with full open heart(s)

a sudden Holy Spirit. 

The book I’m using for this project I started in March of 2020 and abandoned is “Untie The Strong Woman” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. If you’re going to work with blackout poetry, starting with beautiful prose sure does help!

The next poem I’ll be painting to (on the right hand facing page) feels so poignant to me…

I ran laughing.
I ran more – laughing, laughing
laughing as though crazy drunk.

For punishment they
set me down hard
in the dark
by myself.

Oof, right?

It conjured memories of the way I was “grounded” in childhood for the tiniest infraction – months in my room, forced to eat in the bathroom so I wouldn’t get food on the bedding, plate perched on the toilet seat while I sat on the floor, my siblings forbidden from speaking to me but taunting me anyway, my parents faces, stony, cold.

***

This morning as I sip my coffee and slay the list, I know this to be true:

No one will ever set me down hard in the dark by myself again. I am and will forever be in the business of finding or making light.

Xo

Effy

Did I Mention Gold Leaf?

by | Jun 18, 2023 | blog, GlitterInTheTrenches, Poems

I wrote a poem and someone commented “Somewhere out there, Mary Oliver is smiling…” and that made me cry because she is my matron saint and so much a part of my literary and spiritual lineage. I felt so seen.

Someone who used to make me really uncomfortable and doubt myself and feel like I didn’t belong now has the exact opposite effect on me and I am shocked by the amount of tenderness I feel towards his curmudgeonliness now that I see it for what it is. He makes fun of me, because banter is his way of saying “You’re okay, kid”, and while he is in no way old enough to be my father, I have taken to thinking of him as one of my “Clay Daddies”.

Don’t tell him, though. He’d *HATE* it (while maybe secretly liking it?).

I am drinking coffee in my first hand warmer mug and feeling smug because I’ve got about eight more in progress. Harvestfest folks! I’M COMING FOR YOU!

I’m painting a thing for new moon in gemini that feels so good to paint. I’ve dropped down out of my head and into my body with this one and that is delicious. Also GOLD LEAF.

There is a steak the size of my head waiting for me to cook for dinner.

Walking down Central Ave is so weird now because someone I just met recently grew up on this street, and we had no way of knowing that, and it was such a surprise to feel how small the world is and how the universe conspires to put us in the way of beauty, and somehow, knowing that has anchored me here and made it feel even more like home.

The fact that the pottery studio is walking distance from my little nest feels like a Godswink and I am paying attention.

Did I mention Gold Leaf?

I’m writing again.

Your turn.
P.S. Speaking of Clay Daddies, this is another one. Watching him throw is like watching witchcraft in action.
P.S. The poem in question:

Not An Ode 

I once found
a bee on the
front step
all curled up
like the number nine,

like a question mark
or an ending,

dead at first glance
but upon closer inspection
(because I notice these things)
I saw Its wings shiver,
and its legs pump in the air.

You would have
stomped it without
a thought,
swept it off the step
like it was nothing

but I made a bee line
into the house to
sprinkle sugar
and drip water
on a spoon.

I tucked the rim of it
and all my hope
up under its
proboscis

because
that is who I am.

That
is who I am.

If I do nothing else
of value in my life,
I’ll have done that.

P.S. The bee lived,
and so did I.

©E.B. Wild