#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Charles River, Trestle Bridge
It’s sunny again and the sky is clear on a bright and cheerful morning even though I’m tired. Before I walk I water new plantings. I’m still thinking about the heart surgeon and my husband’s healing, and my own. These woods, these walks have been a source of great stability and inspiration and nourishment for me. I headed toward the meadow to see what’s new and stopped to take a picture of the trees reflecting on the Charles and realized I was –unintentionally – taking a picture of myself crossing the bridge! This week is a bridge crossing for sure. Frank is driving again, which makes him cheerful. He drives himself to his morning meeting, later out to lunch. He has his independence back. He is cheerful and grateful, energetic and strong and talkative and becoming naturally extroverted again. We cross our bridge back to familiar routines and roles. He feels the family around him and loves his life more than ever. My youngest is packing for a two week trip to Costa Rica - but really, she’s packing for her independent life; organizing her room, sorting what to keep and what to let go. She’s inventorying my dining room cabinet: what dishes she might take that I no longer use. This is a bridge I’m crossing as well. She will have her own home with her lovely young man, and this house will be the place she calls home, but when she’s here it will really be a visit. It was a wrenching act: when after a year she stopped breast feeding and we stuffed the white wicker rocker I nursed her in into the attic. I can never fully recover from these lovely, necessary, heart breaking transitions.
Those poet friends from Monday nights I mention here are below – at least a few of them. We’re reading our poems together on Saturday afternoon in Cambridge. I’m in my third year of being in this Monday night workshop, and I’m so grateful for these peers, for our process, for the feedback, and for all the ways my writing and my approach to giving and receiving thoughtful and authentic feedback on craft has expanded and deepened. It’s a vulnerable and sometimes terrifying experience to share new work. I’m grateful for the trust we’ve built with each other.
Monday night poets, led by Tom Daley: Top left: Jenny Grassl, Robert Carr, Cathy Morocco, me; Bottom Left: Paul Nemser, Eileen Cleary, and Tom Daley