In 2013 I traveled to Ireland for the first and only time thus far. I had studied the history of British colonialism in an academic setting but this was the first moment of touching into my own relevant root story, my reamhscéal…. the tricky sense of connection I feel to the land and story of Ireland.
Once upon a time I read fairy tales. Once upon a time I read a slightly subversive Victorian lady fairy tale to a virtual audience of about ten. We were all in little digital Zoom boxes, but outside of the boxes we were inside of homes.
We have sat quietly in front of our computer screens in California, Washington, New Mexico, Mexico, India, Canada, and elsewhere – through pandemic, divorce, social unrest, insurrection, the death of loved ones, catastrophic wildfire…. Inside of all the turbulence, there has been still life.
This has been a year that does not want to be written. Out loud.
I had an essay in progress about the way my son was navigating loneliness but decided it was too private.
And then, fire.
I pitched something to Lit Hub and they took it. A dream. But bittersweet. Because it’s for Eavan Boland. It’s about motherhood, and middle age, and passion and confusion and regret. So it’s also for all mothers who have art stirring, and waiting, inside them. Go be you. I know it feels hard. But do…
During the Kincade Fire some friends and I wrote some little things. Literally, little things: haiku. And then I wrapped some more words around them, and published it on Medium. I’m just getting around to putting it here. I hope you enjoy.
I posted something on my Medium page last night. 950 people have read it in about 14 hours now. That feels like a lot. If you read it, too, thank you, truly. If you don’t, I’ll chalk it up to the crazy-making (though somewhat hilarious, once you get some distance) obfuscation of Derrida! – Amy…
I do not work in higher education. I work as a mother. I work as a poet. I work part-time as a copyeditor. I work on my children’s school board, as a political activist, and for my rural, collectively-owned community. All those things are work. But because of the society in which we live,…
“It is distressing, baffling, confusing, but the fact must be faced; there is no certainty in heaven above or on earth below.” – Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938) Virginia Woolf was right. Of course. But it’s what we say in Zen, too. And at Pacific Zen Institute, we have started an online magazine of Zen and…
It’s been a wild autumn. I was picking up speed here, posting about Barbuda and Puerto Rico, and a poem in response to Las Vegas, and then…silence. The reason for my silence was fire. I live in Santa Rosa, which was the city hardest hit by the Northern California fires in October. I was rendered…