Where are you headed, 2019?
I thought I would write many posts over this summer but it didn’t go like that. Things were happening too fast. Also, Twitter has certainly made me lazy. As the summer progressed, I simply shared photos and updates about my travels on there. BUT–Twitter is transitory. Even I have forgotten what I shared. I am sure others have too. I bet if I shared it all again now it would be as new as if it had never been shared before. Attention span of gnats. Therefore, bit by bit, I will rewind to March and place photographs and reflections in this digital archive for the year 2019. Because it’s been quiet a full year so far and it’s still not over.
In March my father-in-law passed away. Now that it is Fall, it’s finally sinking in that he is not around; grief is recalibrating. It’s been an adjustment.
Image: March, 2019. Santa Fe, NM
Despite that, in April, we carried on with our plans and celebrated my birthday with East coast friends in Philly. I am thinking I should make it a tradition.
In May we went to a small village in Colorado to spread my father-in-law’s ashes in the town where he grew up (although he was born in Los Angeles).
Image: May, 2019. Crawford, CO.
In June we welcomed my second niece into this upside down world. A breath of fresh air! I just adore both of my nieces and I am always counting down the days till I can see them again.
Thereafter, in the middle of June, I left for Ireland to visit friends (who feel like family, honestly). I could have never imagined a writing family! After visiting friends in Limerick, Galway, Headford, Limerick (again), Cork, Dingle, Limerick (again), I left for the U.K.
I attended a day long writing workshop in Folkestone, U.K. on folktales with author Zoe Gilbert.
All this before I began my last summer of Bread Loaf School of English at the Oxford campus on July 1st. While there, during a weekend, I attended a writing workshop with master author, David Constantine, in Exeter (bucket list learning experience!)…
…and then I went back to Dublin for Sarah Moore Fitzgerald’s book launch, and then I graduated, turning in my second (or third?) research paper for the Old English course, and came back to teach one day after I landed.
How does one blog about all that?! Especially while it is happening! I am still processing. By the way, all these trips were planned well in advance. Nothing on a whim or last minute (other than the second trip in July to Dublin) because the prices of train tickets in U.K., even when booked in advance (I can’t even imagine otherwise!), are outrageous. OUTRAGEOUS.
Needless to say, since I have been back, the last six weeks have been extraordinarily busy. In fact, this is my first “real” weekend. Despite the whirlwind nature of last several weeks, I have been writing (slowly) and revising (even slower) and reading (not as consistently and when I am disconnected from my reading life, I don’t feel like myself) and getting to know my new students (and turning them into thinkers, readers, writers).
For now I will leave you all with a little something I wrote which was published by Visual Verse: Anthology of Art and Words. Thank you to guest editor Luke Larkin for including my words. The fantastic image by Joelle Chmiel brought up many things about leaving New York in 2012. It’s called “Walking Along 145th Street in the New New York.”
