Category: Just Jot It January

a long haul

I’ve been thinking a lot about my late father, known here as Paco, recently.

I wish I could say that I am browsing old photos or remembering family holidays but, instead, I am mired in dealing with trying to settle insurance claims and begin the work needed to file his final tax returns and other estate sort of things.

Unfortunately, some of the issues are medical and it is bringing me back to a place of feeling helpless to alleviate Paco’s symptoms and not being able to get timely and accurate information about his condition.

It’s difficult and energy-draining and makes me feel like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head.

I’m not doing that.

I am trying to shepherd my energy and steel myself to chip away at all the work. It’s going to take a long time to get through it all.

It remains to be seen whether I can get the sadness to abate somewhat before I finish or not.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/24/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-24th-2022/

N95s

With the immensely transmissible Omicron variant so prevalent, I’ve decided to try to get N95 masks to wear when I have to go out in public. I have been double-masking with a surgical mask under a very good quality cloth mask made by medicalwear producer Jaanuu but thought that I should probably go to an N95 mask which is designed to fit more closely and filter out 95% of particles under NIOSH standards. (NIOSH is the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.)

It’s somewhat difficult to find N95 masks in stores here. We did get a few from a home improvement store which stocks them because they are protective against dust and other particles for people doing construction or renovating. The problem is that they only carry one size which is too large for my petite face. I was able to find N95s in a size small online and a second fold-flat style that people complained about in the comments as running small, so I have ordered some. They won’t arrive until late this week or early next but I think I’ll be safe with my current mask set-up until then.

Or safe enough…

Masking is just one piece of our strategy. The three doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is my primary protection. The masks, avoiding crowds, distancing, etc. are additional measures to stay as safe as possible but, especially with Omicron, there are no guarantees.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/23/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-23rd-2022/

healing the earth together

On Thursday, I posted that I had a new poem available on Silver Birch Press as part of their series “How to Heal the Earth.” The prompt for the series read, in part, “Your poem can offer practical ideas of how to heal the earth from a personal perspective (i.e., something specific to you and not didactic or soapboxy) or your poem can offer fanciful thoughts that defy the practical.”

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I came down on the practical rather than fanciful side. (I’ll leave it to you to determine whether my poem or this post is soapboxy.)

I wrote a list poem, helpfully formatted into a checklist by Word, that relates some of the things I and my family have done to help combat environmental degradation and climate change. The list blends practical, individual actions, like using LED bulbs and driving an electric car, with social and political actions, like voting and boycotting. Okay, there are also a few more poetic lines thrown in, too.

One of the excuses people use for not taking individual action is that they don’t think that their change will have any impact in the face of such a large challenge as global warming. It’s true that the impact of any one individual action is infinitesimally small but those actions do add up within your household, in your neighborhood, your region, your country to something larger and helpful. If everyone, though, throws up their hands and accepts the polluting status quo, the condition of the planet worsens faster, often harming worst and first those who did the least to create the problems in the first place. As someone from the United States, which is historically the largest contributor to global warming, I feel a particular responsibility to cut carbon emissions as much as I can and am fortunate enough to have the resources to do so.

Individual actions will never be enough, though, unless systemic changes also occur. The political and economic systems in most countries are heavily weighted toward fossil fuels and those companies wield a lot of power. Trying to counteract that is also an example of needing many, many individual actions to create positive change. For example, I and hundreds of thousands fellow New Yorkers worked for years to ban fracking and enact a climate bill in our state. There were protests, public commentary, writing and calling elected officials, court cases, elections, research, networking, meetings, and on and on, but the needed legislation finally passed. Of course, there is still work to be done as it is being implemented but, if so many of us hadn’t made our voices heard, my region would probably look like our neighboring counties in Pennsylvania with large fracked gas wells and the pollution they bring as part of our landscape.

There is still plenty of work to do on the systemic level in the US and around the world, too. Current efforts include boycotting the banks that fund fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure, despite the danger that the companies may never be able to pay the loans back and will go bankrupt with lots of stranded assets in the form of rights to extract fossil fuels that cannot be fulfilled if the world is going to stay under 1.5, or even 2, degrees Celsius in global warming. There is also a major divestment push against fossil fuel companies with some pension funds, universities, and other large institutions refusing to hold stock in those companies. In the US, we are also trying to get more federal funding for the transition to renewable energy and an end to decades of subsidies for fossil fuels.

All of these efforts have an individual as well as a corporate component. Whether you are inspired by prose or by (the much shorter and easier to read) poetry, I hope you will join me by doing what you are able to do to fight global warming and heal help the earth from wherever you are.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January and/or Stream of Consciousness Saturday! I chose to not take Linda up on the SoCS prompt this week, which is “icing on the cake”, but do want to wish Linda a happy birthday and a peaceful, healthy, creative year to come! You can find out more about #JusJoJan and #SoCS here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/21/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2022-daily-prompt-jan-22nd/

Review: Encanto

When we went to the UK to visit our family for the holidays, four-year-old granddaughter ABC watched the Disney film Encanto frequently. I was impressed with it but hadn’t realized how popular it had become until after we returned to the US and it seems that I run into commentary on it several times a week, including news that the soundtrack and individual songs from Encanto have been appearing in high positions in the Billboard charts.

For the few of you who may not know, Encanto tells the story of the Madrigal family from Columbia who use their magical gifts to help their community. Granddaughter Mirabel appears not to have been given a magical gift but her strong love for her family and their home powers the story.

Much of the commentary that I’ve seen concentrates on how important it is to have this portrayal of a Latinx family and story, along with inclusion of Spanish in the dialogue and songs. I agree with this point but want to note some other ways that this film feels inclusive to me. As someone whose family is racially diverse, I appreciate that the Madrigals have Indigenous and Black roots, as well as (presumably) European. As someone who wore glasses from a young age, I love that Mirabel wears glasses. I could get all metaphorical about clarity of vision, but I won’t. It’s just nice to see a positive portrayal of a girl who wears glasses in an animated movie.

The biggest point of inclusivity for me is the complexities of the family relationship. The most popular song in the soundtrack, the ensemble piece “We Don’t Talk about Bruno”, reminds me that my own family had an uncle that was seldom mentioned for mysterious reasons. We see Mirabel and her non-magical father struggle with finding their place within the family, which is a familiar issue in many families, for example, when a very sports-oriented family has a member who would rather be singing in the chorus than out on the field with a ball.

We also see the double-edged sword of trying to live up to family expectations. While it’s admirable that members of the family want to use their gifts to serve the family and the community, it’s all too easy to see each only for that one gift and not for the complex being that they are. This leads to feeling that it is only that gift that makes you valuable or loved. The clearest expression of this is “Surface Pressure”, the song that Mirabel’s sister Luisa sings. Luisa’s gift is that she is very strong, so she is much in demand at home and in the village. The song shows how difficult it is to deal with the pressure of those demands and her own worries and insecurities. She sings, “Under the surface/I’m pretty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of service.” Ouch. How often in our families do we pigeonhole someone in a specific role, overlooking other attributes and gifts they bring? How often do we take for granted the work that someone does or make it seem that they are only valuable in what they can do, not in who they are as a person?

To me, among Mirabel’s gifts are love, thoughtfulness, insight, curiosity, caring, and truthfulness. None of them are “magical” but the results of them can be miraculous.

They can be for our own families and communities, too, if we honor those gifts and each other as Mirabel does.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/21/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-21st-2022/

How to Heal the Earth poem

Back in November, I posted that I had had a poem accepted by Silver Birch Press as part of their How to Heal the Earth series.

I’m pleased to share that my poem is now available here!

Please visit and comment either there or here if you are so moved. While you are there, you can read dozens of contributions to the How to Heal the Earth series along with the Thoughts About the Earth series.

Thank you to Silver Birch Press for including me in this series and for the lovely photo that they chose to accompany my poem.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/20/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-20th-2022/

One-Liner Wednesday: MLK quote

It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January and/or One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/19/one-liner-wednesday-jusjojan-the-19th-2022-voice-to-text/

How Does JC’s Mind Work? #2

For months/years, I have threatened/promised to write about how I got to be who I am today and what shaped me along the way. This sporadic series will try to unpack my personal history and influences and, I hope, set people to thinking about their own.

When I posted the first installment of this series and used the word sporadic in the intro, I didn’t think it would be almost a year before I posted the second installment, but here we are. Of course, I didn’t know last February that 2021 was destined to see my father’s final decline and death, which, along with the necessary estate work, occupied so much of my time and mind last year.

What I’ve decided to write about today is how my natural introversion impacts how my mind works.

Any personality assessment I have ever done shows the largest deviation from the centerpoint on the scale toward introversion versus extraversion. I’m not just a little bit introverted. I’m very introverted.

I find crowds overwhelming. When being in groups, the smaller the better. I much prefer an in-depth conversation with one person to small talk with ten. I am also content to be by myself for long stretches. I can function in larger groups when I have to, but it is very tiring and I’m not able to participate in discussion very well.

This is partially a function of not being very good at inserting myself into ongoing discussion and partially another introvert trait, which is that I need time to think through issues before I can formulate opinions and put them into words. If there is a discussion on a topic that I know well, I can participate almost as well as the extraverts in the group, but, if the topic is new, I usually can’t make my brain work fast enough to participate before the discussion has moved on to something else. This is especially difficult for me when workshopping poems that I haven’t studied in advance. I always feel that I am not as helpful as I might be to the other poets in the group.

Introverts often have a preference for writing over speaking. I’ve always loved to write. I find it helpful in clarifying my thoughts. I think part of the reason I’ve been able to sustain this blog is that writing posts organizes my thoughts in a calming way after I have been mulling something. That I can then share those thoughts with others is not as much the primary goal as a bonus.

And introverts are definitely “mulling” types. Decision-making is very deliberative and often involves research, time, and depth of thought. I am not a snap-judgement type and like to take time in forming opinions and action plans. I know this is frustrating for others who are quicker to come to positions and decisions. I can seldom see things in a this-or-that way; everything is a spectrum for me and it takes time to think through where on the spectrum I will land – and more time to adequately explain it to someone else.

One of the things I have learned recently is that introverts’ brains work differently than extraverts. I find this knowledge comforting. There has been pressure on introverts to become extraverts, as though introversion was a choice rather than an inherent part of one’s personality. Knowing that my brain works in the distinctive pattern of introverts strengthens my acceptance of myself as I am.

I am also part of a particular subset of introvert. In Myers-Briggs-speak, I’m an INFJ, which is considered the rarest personality type, so my brain has a few extra quirks going on, but that is a post for another day.

With luck, it won’t take me a year to get to it.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/18/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-18th-2022/

van update

When we returned from the UK, the newly replaced battery in our van had lost all its charge. After three days – and yet another new battery – the dealership was able to determine that the screen in the center of the dashboard which controls all the environmental systems, radio, navigation, phone connection, etc. was malfunctioning and draining the battery. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a replacement. They have ordered one, but we have no idea how long it will take to arrive, so they pulled out the module so that we can drive the van while we wait. We don’t have a radio or phone pairing capability, but we do have cruise control and heater/defroster that we can set with push buttons, so we are good for now.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/17/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-17th-2022/

two chapbooks to order!

I’m excited to share pre-order news for two forthcoming chapbooks by Boiler House Poets Collective members through Finishing Line Press. It was my privilege to be involved in manuscript reviews with the poets for both chapbooks, so I know firsthand that they are fantastic!

Girl, Woman, Bird by Katherine (Kay) Morgan encompasses personal and national history and the natural world, especially birds. Kay also shares her gift for ekphrastic poems in this chapbook, as one might expect from one of the original Boiler House poets who met during a residency at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, although the art that invokes these poems is not all contemporary. Girl, Woman, Bird is available for pre-order now and will begin to ship on March 18th.

For Dear Life by Jessica Dubey reflects on the impacts of her husband’s brain surgery and recovery on their lives. Besides being a member of Boiler House, Jessica is also part of my local poetry workshop, the Grapevine Group, so I was able to witness the creation of this chapbook poem by poem. Jessica’s ability to take us through such difficult terrain is stunning. For Dear Life may be ordered now for shipment beginning May 13.

Check out the links for additional information and ordering. I already have my orders in for both!
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/16/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-16th-2022/

JC’s Confessions #20

In the first few seasons of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert did a recurring skit, now a best-selling book, called Midnight Confessions, in which he “confesses” to his audience with the disclaimer that he isn’t sure these things are really sins but that he does “feel bad about them.” While Stephen and his writers are famously funny, I am not, so my JC’s Confessions will be somewhat more serious reflections, but they will be things that I feel bad about. Stephen’s audience always forgives him at the end of the segment; I’m not expecting that – and these aren’t really sins – but comments are always welcome.

JC

I hate exercising.

I can almost hear people saying that I haven’t found the right activity or I will feel better once I’m doing it or it will give me more energy or some other positive thing about exercise that I’ve heard before, but no.

While I do enjoying walking with someone in pleasant surroundings, I do it for the conversation or the setting, not because walking is good for me or inherently pleasurable. I don’t find that I feel accomplished or energized after exercising, just more tired, although that doesn’t translate into sleeping better. I am not a very kinesthetic person. I’m more cerebral and am happiest in quiet, calm places.

There have been long periods of my life where I have made myself exercise nearly every day, so it’s not that I can’t do. I just have never been able to get above the “barely tolerable” feeling about it.

I admit that, since my father’s passing last September, I’ve been less active. I’m a bit out of condition, as I could tell by how difficult it was for me to keep up with everyone else on our recent trip to the UK. I’m not sure how much I could improve through a concerted attempt to exercise more or how much is that, at 61, I can’t expect to be as strong as I was two or three decades ago. I have an appointment with my doctor next week and will ask what she thinks.

Meanwhile, I am back in physical therapy for a recurring health problem. I’m trying to be good about doing my at-home exercises, but that may actually compromise any attempts to try to do even more exercise, as there are limits to how many things I can make myself do, as I confessed here.

I don’t expect, though, that, somehow, I’m going to suddenly find joy in exercise, which, in a culture obsessed with sports and fitness, is something close to a sin.

I will, though, dislike aside, try to do what I must to keep going for as many years as I am able.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/14/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2022-daily-prompt-jan-15th/