Due to my website being offline while it’s being redesigned, I’ve posted April’s blog in its entirety on my author facebook page here. If so inclined, please post comments there.
Thanks!
I interrupt the regularly scheduled blog this month to bring you my first bout of Covid-19. I could add, that I know of. As in, maybe I had such a mild case I didn’t know it. As in, had I tested when I had a few sniffles, maybe that was Covid. Five years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, I am here to say, in my experience, there is no not noticing this virus.
Days 1 – 4
My case of Covid roared in with a sore throat to rival strep. Scratchy raw like sandpaper. With a night so restless, so filled with chills and fevers, it was as if I’d never slept. Perhaps I hadn’t. The day brought body aches and fatigue. Headaches that pierced both sides of my head. Nausea. An occasional raspy cough.
For me, the virus was a whole body assault.
My smell and taste? Unaffected. I would trade all my other symptoms for those two in a flash.
Days 4 – 6
While Paxlovid did help knock down my fever, relieve the severe headaches, and most importantly, lower my elevated heart rate, my other symptoms persisted, and in some cases increased. The cough, while still occasional, grew in harshness. Fatigue hung on my body like a hundred weighted blankets. My respiratory rate at night remained high.
(Paxlovid is no longer free as it was when first available, so if you have a high deductible health insurance plan like us, the cost will be obscene, thanks to a health care system that puts profits over the well-being of people.)
Six days in, my smell did become affected. The smell of cheese: parmesan, feta, jack brought on a swift gag reflex.
If I move too quickly or for longer than ten-fifteen minutes, I feel nauseous and need to sit down.
On the other hand, I am not completely down for the count, as others have been. I can get out of bed. Warm up a can of soup. Do a load of laundry. I can pick away at writing projects at a slug’s pace, and that distraction from my bodily ills is helpful, though the brain fog soon sets in and it’s time for the next nap.
Days 6 – 8
The doctor said due to an immune response kicking in, days 6, 7, 8 of Covid can be the worst. This is when symptoms can escalate and send people to the hospital. Considering how bad my symptoms were, I’m grateful that I was able to take Paxlovid and avoid further complications.
If you’re still with me, thanks for reading so far. There’s enough misery in the world today without my heaping on with my private pain. So I hesitated to share that the day I woke to my new Covid reality, was also the day the roofers arrived. Four and a half days of pounding and power tools. I wore my noise cancelling headphones and slept whenever the roofers took breaks.
I would be remiss to not also mention that the weather this week was gorgeous spring/summer weather. Splashes of sunshine across vibrant greens dotted with yellow and white blooms. Squirrels chasing each other up the cedars. Birds flitting everywhere. A junco couple hopping among the roofing debris, past the roaring compressor, beaks full of nesting material, their nest in the camellia two feet from the hubbub. Despite impediments, life will find a way forward.
Days 8 – ?
To be continued.
P.S. I know the Covid experience varies widely from no symptoms to mild symptoms to hospitalization to death. If you’re so inclined, I’d love to hear about your experience, especially how you cared for yourself as you were recovering.
In the writing world the saying goes, nobody cares about your dead relatives. Or the living ones, for that matter. The fact that my Armenian grandmother was dear to me isn’t enough to endear her to readers. Saying my uncle gave me the best books for Christmas doesn’t keep a reader turning the pages. A reader doesn’t care that I got my interest in astrology from my great-aunt.
And yet I am writing a family memoir about some of my dead relatives, including my Armenian grandmother.
My grandmother and I shared a conviction that education helps form the foundation of a well-rounded, interesting, and fulfilled person. She urged me to marry a person who was college-educated because if not, what would we talk about? My grandmother was annoyed when my uncle gave me science fiction books Christmas after Christmas. Tsk-tsk, her tongue would click. Those aren’t the right kind of books for a young mind. I was thrilled with the sci-fi books and I don’t know whose reaction my uncle enjoyed more, a smile wide on his face. The books my grandmother gifted me? A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson when I was eight, and, when I was seventeen, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.
My grandmother and I shared an idealism that the world could, and should, be a better place for all. She wrote letters to world leaders, including one in 1986 to Col. Muammar Ghaddafi, the Libyan dictator. She implored Ghaddafi to be an honest, strong, responsible leader, to make his nation prosper, and work for the PEACE OF THE WORLD.
My grandmother survived the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 which took one and a half million Armenian lives, men, women, and children. She was ten years old when the other Armenians in her village in Turkey were sent on a death march. She huddled with her family waiting for the knock on the door that would summon them to join the others. The knock never came.
When she was alive, my grandmother waved away my questions about her life in Turkey. Before I die, I hope to discover some answers, and turn those answers into a compelling story.
Nobody cares about my dead relatives? That is the challenge before me.
Haigazn Family circa 1914
Matilda, my grandmother, is the youngest
Inspired by Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, I’ve kept a Daily Delights journal for the last two years. I wanted to do something different than being grateful at the end of the day. I wanted to note what made me smile or giggle, what lightened my heart, what delighted me. Each day gets one line. I write at least one delight, sometimes two or three. Some are obvious delights: owl on fence, walk in snow, massage. Others not so obvious: write (a struggle), started therapy, garden for hours. I keep the Daily Delights journal on my nightstand; it’s the first thing I do when I get in bed. When I travel, I write the delights on a notepad and tape the page into the journal afterwards. I’m delighted by my consistency in keeping this journal. There is room for another sixteen or so years in this leather-bound book.
As for my regular journal, which is a Word document on my computer, I write there irregularly and usually when life is hard, sad, depressing. So much so, I’ve added a note at the beginning.
To my chagrin, this month’s blog started with a blank page. Usually I jot material that didn’t get used the month before into a new document. To which I’ll add ideas as they occur to me. That way, when I sit down to draft the blog in earnest, preliminary material is waiting to be shaped.
But this month, the first month of the new year, there was no waiting document titled January 2025, no preliminary words to consider, no potential energy on the page. This month on January 12th, I started with a blank page, which can be a little disheartening but look—already it isn’t blank. Sometimes the problem can become part of the solution.
December: a month many of us wrap presents for those we care about—a package of thinking of you, a package of love. Sometimes that present is a card or a text, a Facetime call or a Zoom gathering. It is the present of being present with someone, of being in community.
December also brings a reckoning of the year past: books read, trips taken, goals met and delayed. A time to consider what you want to continue doing in 2025 and what you want to alter in the new year.
I’ve been listening to John Green’s book The Anthropocene Reviewed. (Highly recommend, and on audio if only for the chapter on the Kauai o-o, a bird that was.) The chapter on orbital sunrises tells the story of the first art made in space by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. He sketched the view looking back at Earth. That perspective—the blue jewel of Earth in the black of space—makes me think of the vastness of the universe, the ongoingness of deep space. Here on planet Earth everything physical is finite: a bedroom, a house, the yard, a city has limits, states and countries have borders, our bodies stop at the outermost layer of skin.
“This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.” – Maya Angelou
This month, on November 6th, the citizens of the United States elected their next president. On November 8th, I left the country. I left my country for a planned trip to Central America.
In Central America, in the Caribbean Sea, I float. My heavy heart presses my body downward. Salted swells pitch me up. In a lullaby of lilting waves my body hovers, held in a melody of warm blue while at home a national symphony swells in a minor chord threatening to wreak major havoc. Havoc, what an odd word: n. widespread destruction; great confusion or disorder; v. lay waste to; devastate. Originally used in the phrase “cry havoc”: to give an army the order havoc. The order for plundering.
Can rights be plundered? Can freedom? “First they came for”. . . . by now you’ve read the poem. Reread the poem. Red poem. Heart’s blood. Lifeblood. Right to live, to love, freedom to be one’s own self, freely.
This month I didn’t meet my short-term writing goals of chapter revision which means I won’t reach my long-term goal of having a complete draft of my Armenian family memoir finished before my sixtieth birthday in February. I’ve written before about what is needed to do the writing: time and headspace. This month both of those were in short supply as I prepared for, had, and recovered from a cardiac ablation, a medical procedure to put, hopefully, an end to my atrial fibrillation (AFib) episodes.
What I did do this month, I did for my future self. I gave my future self a shot at a better physical outcome, and I’m moving the goal posts on the timeframe for a complete draft.
While August was a month in which to soak up the warmth and outdoor activity of the summer season, September was a month of seasonal changes, especially as the month drew to a close, including the temperature (dropping, a bit quickly this year it seems), leaves shifting their color palette (a pleasure of this season), and the outside focus (a last camping trip) turning inward (cue the list of indoor projects).
Of course, the autumn weather will often be inviting, there is still the list of outdoor tasks to complete, and that finally final mowing, but the slowing rhythm of the season felt in the later sunrise and earlier sunset draws me inward.
If July was all about travel and community, from my MFA residency in Tacoma, WA to my family reunion in southern Oregon, August is all about staying home and walking in the forest. Even if that is not exactly how the month has gone.
While I did walk in the forest this month—we had a few visits from a Great Horned Owl—the past four weeks contained much more activity than merely idle strolls. The days filled with guests, a mural festival, a brews cruise, concerts, and caring for my mother as she recovers from knee surgery. I also got back to work on my Armenian family manuscript.
Last month, I mentioned Vivian Gornick’s craft book, The Situation and the Story, and this month my focus on craft continued with my return to the Rainier Writing Workshop (RWW), the low-res MFA program I graduated from in 2021. During the ten-day residency, I attended three grad presentations, six classes, and eight morning talks on subjects ranging from Lavish Syntax by Rick Barot to The Vulnerability of Bliss by Scott Nadelson. RWW also celebrated the program’s twenty-year anniversary with a reading from the newly-released RWW anthology, The Next Draft: Inspiring Craft Talks from the Rainier Writing Workshop, edited by Brenda Miller. With this book, you too can experience the nirvana that is RWW’s morning talks! Available from the publisher, Bellingham’s independent bookstore Village Books, and Amazon.
This month I also returned to Indian Mary Campground on the Rogue River in Oregon where my extended maternal family has gathered for over forty years. About a hundred people camped, river rafted, and played a variety of card games and lots of corn hole, competed in a disc golf tournament, played bingo, and participated in a sing-along. I’m grateful to have a loving family I enjoy spending time with, especially outdoors!
I’ve been mentioning flowers in almost every blog this year, not just in the Windows section but in the opening paragraphs. Bits of color holding my attention, lightening my mood, and lifting my energy. June is no different—purple and white lupine, wild daisies, yellow buttercup. June has been alternating between sunny summery weather and dark gray rainy days. Tee shirt or shirt, fleece, and vest. Flip flops or wool socks and boots. But this is not a surprise; this is the nature of June in the Pacific Northwest.
Last month I wrote about a health issue, AFib, which took me by surprise. After having a sleep study confirm I have a moderate case of sleep apnea, the beginning of this month I started using a CPAP machine, and for the last seventeen days I’ve had no episodes of AFib. Seems a bit too easy. Well it’s not that easy—I’m still getting used to wearing the lovely nasal mask which can disrupt my sleep while also helping me sleep better. The no-AFib episodes is a big motivator to keep at it.
April’s bounty, and showers, continue with this month’s collection of blossoms: pink columbine, purple rhododendron, red salvia, sweet woodruff, and the sweet perfume of lilacs and lilies of the valley . . . to name a few.
This month also marks a year since I began blogging again. Writing can be a lonely occupation, so thank you for following along with my writing journey, responding to my assorted wonderings, and gazing out my windows with me at the beauty that resides there. Your comments, suggestions, and questions have made me feel in community with each one of you. I look forward to continuing these conversations. (If you don’t already, please consider subscribing to my blog. Thanks!)
In addition, it’s been a year of tending to my health, including physical therapy and mental health therapy, and discovering I have a heart condition, atrial fibrillation, commonly referred to as AFib. Remember how tired I was in December? Part of being tired was three months of heart problems that I kept attributing to other things: anxiety, panic attacks, sleep deprivation, and dehydration. I have a cardiologist now, and medication, and some ongoing issues we’re still figuring out.
April showers bring May flowers, so the saying goes. In other words, endure April for the reward of May. Yet April offers its own bounty: cherry blossoms, swaths of tulips, and the unfurling of maple leaves, to name a few. April also brings those showers, tree pollen, and temperatures often more like winter than spring. April is an energetic month.
Work: I’m drawn to quotes that reframe the challenges of writing and alter my mindset in an expansive and helpful way. For example, here is a recent newsletter quote from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits:
“If you feel resistance before you begin, it’s usually procrastination and you need to get started.
If you feel resistance after you begin, it’s usually feedback and you need to make adjustments.”
These days I do sit down and get started, because I’m eager to write this book about my Armenian family, to watch the shape emerge, morph, fall flat, and rise again. But it’s taken me a while to implement the second part of the quote. I’ll stare at paragraphs that aren’t working, as if time alone will somehow solve the problem. I’ll make line level edits as if tiny alterations can fix larger issues. (Sometimes they can.) But now I’ve realized a larger adjustment is often what is needed.
The harbingers of spring continue this month, with azaleas, daffodils, and forsythia in full bloom, and maples, alders, and dogwood trees beginning to bud out. We have a mallard couple visiting our pond and a blush of robins spreads over the front field bobbing for worms.
Work: This month I’m poring over a ship manifest & port of arrival form, carbon copies of one great-aunt’s letters from the 1930s, and research on Battle Creek College, Michigan and the Montefiori Hospital in the Bronx, NYC. All that to help me reconstruct the story of how another great-aunt, Silvia (Sirvart) Haigazn, came to America in 1928, after surviving the Armenian Genocide, and subsequently established a new life for herself here. My struggles with this particular section are threefold.
If last month winter was on my mind (winter projects, wintering, snow), the month of February has me noticing the harbingers of spring (daffodil buds, the morning bird chorus, the emergence of Pacific banana slugs), even if the temperatures are still on the chilly side.
Work: I spent ten days with my husband in Mexico earlier this month and made the decision to not bring my computer, or work on my manuscript, even though the writing and revising were going well, even though a part of me would have been happy to stay home and keep working. I wanted to be more present on this trip, and avoid being distracted by “I could be writing!” Of course I brought a notebook and jotted journal-type entries: what we did—snorkeling and kayaking, the creatures we saw—pufferfish and pelicans, the few Spanish words I was learning—cielo azul and lo siento.
I did read a book, Priscilla Long’s Dancing with the Muse in Old Age and pondered, in my notebook, the questions at the end of each chapter. I turned 59 this month and it was helpful to read of creatives in their 70s, 80s, and 90s still doing their art, however that art had, or hadn’t, changed in the winter of their lives.
January bears the burden of high expectations: A New Year! Resolutions! Winter projects! If last month I was tired, this month, the winter holidays behind me now, I felt ready to be productive—I will get so much done this month! And yet this month has flown by—is it really the 24th already?—and I have not gotten so much done. The too-long part of January isn’t an abundance of time for projects, but the endless dark and cold days. In Bellingham, we experienced negative temperatures for the first time in the twenty-six years we have lived here. I’m not a fan. Though comparatively it was interesting to experience twenty-three degrees as a comfortable temperature.
Work: In 2022, I set a goal to have my Armenian family manuscript completed and of publishable quality by my sixtieth birthday in February 2025. That goal felt reasonable and doable then. I set many intermediate goals. I moved those goalposts a few times. I have made progress but not as much as I’d hoped. Hence the high expectations for this January. And now I’m here, with only thirteen months left until I turn sixty. I’m not moving the goalposts this time, but I have altered the goal: a complete draft of decent quality, probably not ready for publication but ready for an editor, a fresh set of discerning eyes. To that end, I hope January, and February, continue to provide the perfect weather—dark, damp, and cold—to stay inside and write.
Do you set short- and long-term goals for your various projects? Any tips for helping to meet those goals? How do you feel about moving the goalposts or altering the goal itself?
I restarted my blog in May and with December’s blog, I’ve met my goal of blogging at least once a month. I almost didn’t reach that goal. I’m tired and considered not blogging this month. I’m tired and considered just posting a picture captioned with Happy Holidays! But that didn’t feel right, or good.
I’m tired. And I wanted to write a blog this month.
I’m tired because of the low light this time of year, because I don’t get outside and exercise enough, because I don’t often sleep well. I’m tired because the state of our planet and our humanity is exhausting.
I wanted to write a blog this month, and I wasn’t sure what to say.
September’s blog was all windows, October’s wonder, so it follows that this month’s will be about the work, the ongoing writer’s work. The fulfilling and frustrating act of creating art. Though, as I seek more equanimity in all aspects of my life, my mindset regarding this work has been evolving. Less high-highs and low-lows, more acceptance of process, as in the work won’t always go smoothly and that’s okay.
Where I am in the drafting process of my Armenian family book: The manuscript is currently about 50,000 words, 177 pages. My goal is around 80,000 words. Much of the manuscript isn’t fleshed out or fully developed. I have several other Word docs, totaling around 20,000 words, with material waiting to be incorporated into the manuscript. I’m trying to establish, again and again as the story evolves, a solid spine around which to build the body of the book. I have to know what kind of story I’m constructing in order to know what belongs in this book, and as that story keeps shifting, so does what remains, what must be added, and what is deleted. I’ve probably written 80,000 words a few times over in my search for this story, which is, at least for me, a necessary part of the process in creating this book.
How would you describe where you are with your current creative project?
Wonder When We’ll Give Peace A Chance
Ukraine and Russia.
Israel and Palestine.
Armenia & Artsakh and Azerbaijan & Turkey.
Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, . . . United States.
How to replace hate with empathy?
How to halt bombs and advancing armies by other than the same?
How to transform greed into generosity, or at least moderation?
I wonder.
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