In a literally shell-shocked world, coming out of the fourth of July with echoes of gunshots ringing in our ears, I am stepping into the unknown and starting a word-space, a newsletter of sorts, some kind of poetry & art discussion.
Am I nuts? Oh, I am FULLY aware that there is already more than enough blah-blah-blah coming at us. But I cannot ignore the pulling of my own heart and mind, or ignore the feedback from my trusted ones. I miss writing. And I miss you, people. Writers and readers are saving each other’s lives right now, and I need saving as much as the next guy. Partly, I’m being brave and doing a new thing because life has chucked me into a new, difficult reality. Partly, I’m just doing this for my own health. I have always had to have a project (or three) to keep me going. This is my newest project.
Why a writing space? I’ve read and written all my life…stacks of books from the library the first free week of summer, all the journals and diaries that helped me map my mind through childhood, all the papers and books and plays of my schooling stacking up to an English degree, all the lessons and papers of ten years in the classroom teaching writing and literature, and all the…yep, content required to run a creative business in America today. The captions, the posts, the communications with clients. The emails. The correspondence with the State of New Jersey over a late-penalty tax bill. The endless battle with my health insurance company for reimbursement (don’t get me started… that battle took place on actual hard-copy paper until THIS year…the sheer robbery by forced inconvenience… the insane hassle factor for busy people with medical needs… wait, who got me started?). I’m writing all the time… but I still crave a deeper conversation.
Why the Hand? This writing is outreach in a sense. A way to connect. Words do that for us, and they have always done that for me.
Just this morning, I wrote three cards out to friends…the same three friends I was JUST away with for five days…a bread and butter note for our marvelous hostess, and love notes of appreciation to all for prioritizing our friendship in their busy lives full of responsibilities. I know it would be far easier to stay home than to carve out time to drive 6.5 hours just to hang out with friends for no other reason than Oh My God, We Need This. We mostly lounged, talked, ate, laughed, and cried. Every one of us has been through IT in our own ways the last few years…and we are each going through it now. Aren’t you? So I wrote cards. Words help me love people. They help me cope.
So after the cards, I wrote emails all morning, texted half a dozen people to organize this or that, responded to friends, set up appointments, checked in with my brother, and forwarded funny political commentary and cute animals to a few key people. Then I wrote three more personal thank-you notes, these on the back of my business postcards, so I could tuck them into the boxes of the homemade henna kits that I sold from my Etsy shop over the weekend. Every one of these contacts, from my brother to the first-time buyers of my “stuff,” tethers me to my own humanity. And I don’t know about you, but HOLY crap, I need that now more than ever.
Why the Fist? This writing is an act of resistance and solidarity. A reminder of our strength.
When I was very young, I was outwardly almost silent, very shy, obedient, and eager to please any and all adults… I read to find myself, to soothe myself, and to meet the world. I read to grow up. If Maya Angelou could still rise after being raped at 8, what couldn’t I do? It so happens that I had repressed the memories of what my uncle had put me through by the time I read Caged Bird, but I knew in my body that she gave me some kind of strength I desperately needed. And you can be damn sure as soon as I had my first class, I was reading Maya Angelou with those kids. And Gwendolyn Brooks. And Sharon Olds. Marie Howe, Li-Young Lee, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, John Steinbeck, Lucille Clifton. Voices of women, queerfolk, people of color, the working poor. I was 22 when I started teaching, a kid among kids, finding company and fortitude in the words that were as mind-blowing to me as to my students… often a page and a prayer ahead of my classes, and growing right along with them, all of us charged by how humanity turns beauty and love and pain into art. I’ve always been charged by how art and writing keeps my engine going. I need to keep my metaphorical fist wrapped around the metaphorical pen right now…I need the charge.
I’m 53 now, as of last week. Fifty-three years of reading, sharing, and writing… essays, poetry, opinions… quotes, jokes, letters to relatives, notes to friends, every imaginable communication with my husband (who also taught, but for 36 years, and who has been a dedicated poet for over 50). Words are the bread-stuff of our lives. We keep our books and papers in a purple house in a small town in New Jersey, so close to the Delaware River that on winter days, we can see Pennsylvania from our sidewalk. And even though we have lived in this close-knit little community that has held us for 25 years, the last year has been particularly rough, and I am carefully nurturing sources of strength to buoy me up. This aims to be one.
Because after ten years of teaching, five years of full-time mothering, fifteen years of building my art and henna business up from the ground, and 45+ years of flat-out overachieving, I am suddenly not able to work. Or walk too far. Or think straight for more than a couple hours a day. Sixteen months after having a “mild” case of Covid, I am learning how to live with debilitating fatigue and a whole constellation of other new-to-me symptoms. I wake up after ten hours of sleep, exhausted like I just hiked a mountain. I’m hungry when I used to be full and nauseous when I should be hungry. I plan my day around medication and supplements. I now drive to the post office three blocks away because if I walk, even though the movement feels GREAT, I will end up in bed for half a week. In the lockdown, I was walking 4-7 miles most days of the week… now, twenty minutes of slow yoga can mess me up for days. I have tingling in my hands, I smell phantom scents, my life-long, cast-iron stomach is suddenly…off. I have to put my feet up throughout the day. I feel like I can’t get a satisfying breath. My ears are ringing as I type this… the sign that I need to stop soon or I will feel truly ill. So, this is long Covid. Zero stars…do not recommend.
I know I’m not alone, and I also know that with the loss of my abilities I have gained so much: foremost, real gratitude and a new appreciation for the astonishing good health I have always enjoyed. It’s also not lost on me that many people I have known, loved, and admired have been chronically ill for years, and I just didn’t get it. I didn’t really see it. So my compassion muscles are stronger now, and I’m in another marginalized-person club nobody would sign up for. It’s a fully now, fully human experience. How many of us have been removed from our pre-virus reality or work life? And even those who are back at it have been telling us everything is different. And it’s not like the challenges are over as the pandemic recedes…the daily news is enough to make you put a fork in your eye, and I don’t know about you, but the political landscape means my family of origin and I are pretty distant. It’s a lot.
I don’t know anyone with an ounce of empathy or humanity who’s not exhausted, depressed, in a major transition, or on some new path now. Even after two and a half years of Covid, money, greed, and power seem to be winning out over humanity, on repeat, against a backdrop of violence and despair. Here in America, we also have democracy to save. No big deal, it’s just that we’re all Very Tired, and it feels like the world is ending. Maybe I’d be better off if I didn’t read The Handmaid’s Tale so many times. Maybe if I didn’t dig science and spend so much time reading in trees when I was a kid, I wouldn’t feel the panic as the new Supreme Court punches the EPA in the throat. The bottom line is, we need two hands right now… one for holding each other in truth, and one for smacking down the bullshit. We have to remind each other of the things that matter if we’re going to make it through, if love is really going to win.
Hand over fist is an expression we all know, and like some kid you knew in high school, it started out cool but now seems to be all about money. I want to lean into its origins, though… the nautical expression hand over hand that referred to the best way to make solid progress climbing or hauling rope. You can use the phrase to mean “swiftly, steadily, in large amounts.” I like “steadily.” For the purposes of this space, I am interested in the two aspects of self, the open hand and the fist, and I’m interested in progress.
If you are feeling any of this, welcome. I hope we can hold hands and raise our fists here, with words. Pen is mightier and all that, right? I know it will be good for me to write again, and read to you and from you and with you. I hope it is also some kind of goodness for you. If what you read here ever ceases to resonate, feel no pressure to stay. I’m just grateful for your company on the way. Thanks for reading.
Love is the core of the fight.
Hand/Fist.
Catherine
Ooooh, Catherine, I know this is coming from a place of limitations and frustration (and pain and discomfort, which I am so sorry to hear) but, as I am sure you know, I FEEL you, sister. I have been feeling so frustrated by my limitations these first few weeks of summer and struggling to stay present and enjoy(?) the space and freedom within my body’s need to just sit still. I will be looking forward to hearing your words and I will, as ever, be keeping you on my mind and in my ever-loving heart! I LOVE the title! Just right. And I couldn’t be more proud of how you are reaching out, caring for yourself, and bringing us in. Hope to see you real soon. Xo
I am so grateful for you coming into our lives and teaching us about Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost and so many more.
I told my 9 year old about you and the amazing poets you introduced us to and she chose to do a project on Maya Angelou. So you are still teaching us and our families.
I have missed your writing and can't wait to read more. Love to you and thank you for teaching us.