Fuck. That. Bus!
or: I'd rather touch grass with skeletons under it.
Hellor.
It feels like time to start something new. I’ve been lacking, mentally, in the perception of opportunity. Being me, I want to dash it all down. Burn it to the ground. Start over.
New career. New big-fat writing project. New man who would never hurt me. New life.
It occurred to me recently, that I deeply miss the 90’s. The no phones, no Netflix, Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill of it all. I realized, descending the stairs to productivity time with my pal Emily on Wednesday--knees aching--that I didn’t realize how good we had it. I always wanted more to be happening. Now everything is happening, all the time, and I just want to bolt into the ocean about it.
Truly, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I’ll never be younger than I am now. Today in a meeting (another fucking meeting about fucking AI), a fellow leader said our university is going in the AI direction, so we’d better get on the bus or be left behind.
Girl, leave me here. I have poetry to write. We used to kiss and bang all the time because nothing was on the 10-channel TV. We’re too far from life as it is.
So, I am surely disillusioned. I’m broke. But I’ve been more disillusioned, and way more broke. Our 20’s were not the picnic many of my peers believe they were. So, yes, I am nostalgic and living now is hellish. But we don’t have to get on the bus. We really don’t. Like, when’s the last time Clippy popped up on your Word doc to say “Hey, it looks like you’re writing a bible for your cult?”
Exactly. God, do I miss Clippy?
Here’s the format, anyway.
Writing: New prose or poetry mostly made during my beloved Northampton Literary Society (Litso) writing meet-ups each Thursday. Updates on our sweet group. Other writing things.
Teaching: Something I learned once or recently, that I would like to teach you about now. The advice you never asked for, really.
Community: Observations big and small to help increase connection amongst the unending deluge of tragic events we uncover daily.
Shall we?
Writing
One of our beloved facilitators had a wee baybay last week. So I’ve asked another trusted Litso member to step in and host us now and again. Soon, we oughta get a plan ready for social media and substack cadences. Our favorite Open Mic spot is kind of open again. I hope to get in there for performances ASAP.
This week we wrote Ghazals, but not really. Olive did, but not I. A Ghazal is a hard poem.
So this one is a “Güzel.” That was my last name when I was married; it means “beautiful.” This poem is about longing and naming names and it repeats ideas so: not a ghazal, but close.
“Güzel for Mother Necla”
Ali built a grand apartment atop his tiny-stone childhood home, 7k miles away, Türkiye.That is, he sent the money, and other men built it in Kemapaşa.
From up on the long veranda; white stone, fireplace, wind, long table for a long family, one could long and stare out at the cherry trees, olive trees, red-long laleler (tulips), all a-sway.
Once, I was up there with Mother Necla behind me, hijab tilted over her mending, and in the hot breeze, among the trees, a black dog who belonged to no one, passed by the tulips like he was bleeding.
I wrote the image down and never forgot it. I will write it again and again. Mother Necla is the red tulip, and I’m the black dog passing behind her from 7k miles away.
And Ali always wanted to be buried under an olive tree. So let him be the zeyten arbor, swaying in Kayleigh’s memory.
Teaching/Community
I have a whole-ass family up in NH. A really good one. I learned to visit the sick and the dead, the young and alive, and how to accept favors. Some images from my niece’s birthday and Mother’s Day weekend.
& While I have you, please give to the Black Mamas.
Kay