New Year's Eve (Patreon)

Time is a construct, right? Let's get that out of the way. Years, days, hours, minutes and seconds have meaning because we give them meaning- because we have worked for generations and generations to imbue them with meaning. Tomorrow is not monumentally different than today in a practical sense, but we have as societies chosen to use this point in our calendar to mark change (which is happening always, right?) So let's mark it.

We joked all through 2021 that it was really just more 2020, but it wasn't. It was a year where we gained resilience, where we realized that things weren't just changing on their own, and we had to make difficult decisions about what that meant to us. Were we going to attempt to recapture what we had before the pandemic? Were we pushing for revolution? Were we going to continue treading water, waiting for an "after"? Were we just trying to reconcile ourselves with the things the rest of society forced us into? We couldn't mourn the way we were planning to mourn. We couldn't celebrate the way we were hoping to celebrate. We couldn't be present in the ways we wanted to. 

I have been treading water. I'm not proud of it, but I feel how much caution having a baby-now-toddler has given me. At the same time, I feel the fiery individualism/artist/explorer/adventurer just pacing like a tiger under my skin- I want to make/march/dance/demonstrate/support/celebrate/experiment/explore/gather/everything. 

Now for our general review updates.

I wrote a nice poem for the Art Shanty Projects. It's one that I like well enough that I'll submit to publication after on-ice season, or cannibalize for future writings . It's called "a few words for ice". You can support ASP and get a copy of this poem and other delights from artists, staff, and board members soon. Obviously, ASP itself starts very soon, and I hope to see you out there!

Work with Alternative Motion Project will continue forward after the new year. I met with Kristin via Zoom, and we happily agreed that what we'd intended to produce together in 2020 was no longer the thing we wanted to produce together in 2022. Instead, among other, more specific things, I will be musing on: What can we learn from joy? It is the best, most hopeful question I've tasked myself with in ages, and I would be happy to hear from you, what you learn from joy. 

My poetry book progress continues. I hope to have enough poems to actually start submitting to journals by summer. There's a bit of tricksyness to this, but I cannot say more at the moment. Then, hopefully, by next autumn, a whole book's worth of poems to submit to anyone who'll read them. What are your favorite lit journals?

I'm sewing myself a pair of jeans. Folly? Fashion? Fantastic? All of the above?

Mends continue apace. I've only received one Christmas present mend from those I've offered and/or promised, but there's not really a deadline.

The very small roommate has decided to allow me to collaborate with him on drawings, perhaps as a concession to the fact that I allow him to collaborate on cooking meals. I shall include some of those delights here. 

I made some nice photos while out at my partner's family's ancestral home (one his grandmother and grandfather built). Maybe I'll share those tomorrow.