Better Than Carol's World

My February column for Brain Mill Press.

"Subversions" (posted on the Brain Mill Press blog)

Here's my January column for Brain Mill Press.

It's not that I haven't been writing. . .

Reasons I haven't posted on this blog for two months:

1)  I've been writing a novel.  I thought about posting pieces of it here, Charles Dickens serial-story style, but that seemed sacrilegious.  When it's published (yes!), you should all read the entire novel as one piece.

2)  Curve magazine asked me to write a few freelance articles for their 2016 issues.  Look for my first essay in the March/April issue.

3) Brain Mill Press invited me to write a monthly column, which I've titled "Subversions."  Read my first post here.

4)  My work continues on what I call The Anna Dickinson Project.  Ask my fiance and my daughter.  Many of my dinner conversations start, "Did you know that Anna Dickinson. . .?"  When I finally put that novel together, the world will be astonished at how incredible -- and revolutionary -- she was.  I'm convinced everyone needs to know about her.

5)  And of course I'm nurturing my relationship, parenting a beautiful little 3rd grader, planning a wedding, trying to stay on top of all the responsibilities involved in teaching high school English, AND trying to enjoy the world.  I need to cross-country ski and wander out into the woods on long walks more often.  I need to read more poetry.  I need to watch more films like Carol.  I need to turn up the music and hold more dance parties with my family (the dog, too).

Blogging is a bit strange.  For whom have I been writing all these years, since 2008 when I started blogging?  Why blog instead of journal?  Why fling ideas out into the universe instead of guard them, nurse them privately?  I'm reminded of that lovely little poem by Walt Whitman, "The Noiseless Patient Spider".  I'll end with Dr. Walt's words:

A Noiseless Patient Spider

BY WALT WHITMAN

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.