Jessica
Taken on Saturday, May 28.
The text reads “Everything is Sacred…and we are too.”
May 29, 2011
In One Week, I Fight to the Death
Maybe I’m being a little dramatic. Really, I’m only fighting to the literary death
Next Sunday, I am participating in a local Literary Death Match. LDM is a traveling literary competition, where a handful of writers perform pieces of their work in front of judges and audiences. The judges then choose the winner of the night. It’s sort of like a slam, but with less back and forth battling. One of the cool parts of the event is that each reader represents a literary institution of some sort, to help publicize that institution. I decided to represent qarrtsiluni, because I like their work so much.
While I have never attended an LDM, my good friend (and excellent writer) Darci Schummer participated in one earlier this for Minneapolis. She had a great time and she recommended me to the organizers. (It pays to have awesome friends.) So, in a moment of bravery, I agreed to perform. And now, because I’ve been so busy, I have a week to select and practice 7 minutes of material. I’m thinking of performing some work from Blameless Mouth, as well as some newer stuff from the unpublished chapbook that I wrote last year.
So, here are the details of the event:
June 5, 2011
Aster Cafe, St. Anthony Main
125 Main Street, Minneapolis
Doors open at 7, event starts at 8
Tickets are $8 at the door, though you can also buy them here.
My fellow competitors are Minnesota Book Award winner Lightsey Darst, author Geoff Herbach, and writer Ethan Rutherford. I am going up against some seriously talented folks, so if you are local, please attend. I could use a cheering section and some friendly faces in the audience. If you aren’t local, the show is archived on iTunes, so you could check it out there.
May 27, 2011
On Being Expandable
I am a pocket. A purse. A pouch.
Twenty weeks into this pregnancy, I am starting to realize my new role. In addition to building an ever-growing little stranger, I am also carrying him or her wherever I go. Earlier in my pregnancy, I could ignore this fact. But now that I can feel the Spawn squirming around, I know. I am a valise.
I am starting to wonder: who am I carrying around? As Aaron and I narrow down names, and rearrange our lives for this little guy or girl, I want to know who he or she is. How is he or she affected by all of the traveling we are doing together? And how am I affected by carrying this little one around?
Right now, we have this private relationship, the carrier and the carried. I have a feeling that I will carry this connection with me, long after he or she is born.
May 22, 2011
Minnesota, You Disappoint Me
For the past several months, the Minnesota Senate and House have been debating a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in our state. Even with a Republican controlled legislature, I thought that we were just too nice, too welcoming, too good of a state to actually move this issue onto the ballot. I was wrong.
Earlier this month, the Senate passed the bill on to the House. And last night, the Minnesota House passed the bill, 70-62. The vote was largely along party lines, with a few brave Republicans voting against the bill and two DFL members voting for the bill. In November, our state will vote either to protect civil rights for a minority or destroy them.
Even though we have much more pressing issues at hand as a state (state budget, education in K-12 and higher, etc.), what disappoints me most about this is that we could stand on the wrong side of history. I truly believe that in 30 years, we will look back upon this moment in history and think, “How could we have been so bigoted, so wrong-headed, to deny comfort and joy to law-abiding state citizens?” We will have moved past this issue and hopefully accept others for how they live and love, but this amendment will be a source of shame for us.
I have been thinking a lot about what my child will think of our state, in the light of this vote. If my child is gay or lesbian, he or she will want to move away from a state that denies him or her civil rights. If my child is straight, he or she will wonder how his or her parents’ and grandparents’ generation could have been so narrow-minded.
I hope that in November we will all come to our senses and vote against this offensive amendment.
May 19, 2011
What I realized while shelling peas last night:
I have always loved to learn what lies inside.
May 16, 2011
I am changing, so there are changes.
It has been a month since I last blogged here. A month. A big part of me is sad, but there is another part of me that deeply knows that my life is changing. Of course, there will be changes here as well.
Most obviously, physically I am changing. In addition to the normal rounded-belly, wider-hips changes, I am learning that I am not in control of my body. All of my life, I thought that my body behaved according to my will and whims. Now I know that my body is capable of doing so much without my intent. I had a moment about five weeks ago where I got to see our Spawn on an ultrasound and I saw its little spine and brain. My body created its flesh, bones, and organs without my conscious involvement. Knowing this has changed me, mentally.
Secondly, my mind is invested in so many new things, some of them mundane and some of them serious. My free time is now devoured by both: looking for cribs and reading about child development, researching cloth diapers and interviewing doulas. The list goes on and on. When I think about this space, I just don’t know how interesting all of this stuff is to anyone but me, especially when this space was devoted to poetry and thoughts about creativity.
That leaves me with a conundrum. I still want a space for me to explore creatively, but I can’t imagine having the time to keep this blog going in its current state. I haven’t written a poem in a month (the last time I posted). I haven’t thought about my creative process much at all, except to wonder where it went. Now, I am looking for a way to keep this space warm for whenever I return to my creative practices. (I am sure that they will return, eventually). I thought about starting a Tumblr blog, where I can post quick links and fun things I find online, as well as regular poetry-postcard type things. But then I realized that I could just as easily do that here.
Therefore, starting this week, I am going to try to post more regular content. But I cannot promise that it will be the content I once posted. It may be full of what is consuming my life right now, either creatively or in preparation for our Spawn’s arrival. It will definitely be shorter and less poetry-centric. If you visit here at my actual URL (does anyone do that anymore?), you’ll notice that I changed the template to be more conducive to shorter content. And if you few dedicated souls still have me in your feed reader, hopefully you’ll notice more regular content soon. It’s hard to consider shifting gears like this, but since I call my blog “Everything Feeds Process”, I think I cast my net pretty wide. I think the shift will help me to feel more engaged in regular practice, even if it won’t be at the same depth I once practiced.
Thank you for changing with me.
