between two moons

on life being the ultimate body of work

Happy summer from Maine 🏵

Two full moons have come and gone since I wrote you last. We’ve survived a killer heatwave and a small handful of mega thunderstorms. I have experienced some dramatic, unexpected shifts and I have much to share- so much has been laid down over the past month+.

I began writing to you here to talk poetry and self publication, to share my artwork, to let you know about the classes, workshops and retreats I was hosting, the one on one mentorships I was offering.

Suddenly, I found myself having to entirely disengage from this work.

It feels like I quit everything I spent four years building in the blink of an eye.

Here are the reasons why I am suddenly walking away from this living, breathing thing I birthed:

• screens began to feel like an addiction

• my use of screens was harming my relationship with my daughter and causing some wild behaviors to pop up

• there wasn’t ‘big money’ to be found working virtually/monetizing my art

• I was distracted from my child, my husband, my real life

• late stage capitalism had worn me down to a nub

• I was sedentary for days on end

• my anxiety was spiking, sleep was difficult to fall into

• my slowly detaching retina in my right eye did not like me sitting in front of a screen for multiple hours a day

Here is what I’ve learned since setting virtual work aside:

• life is the ultimate body of work

• no bio, website or blog can contain one’s multitudes

• being present with the flowers (/nature) and the people in one’s physical vicinity is of the utmost importance, if one desires a regulated, grounded nervous system

• eye contact, deep listening and play greatly matter (no matter one’s age)

• children are incredibly resilient

No doubt these lessons will continue to deepen and expand as life continues offscreen.

heatwave survivors, 2024

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What do you do when no one is watching? We mothers/parents/caregivers have so little personal time on our hands. Since putting my virtual work on hold, I have an expanded understanding of time- its fickleness, its finiteness. The best ways to wholeheartedly fill it. Drawing. Painting. Sitting outside. Staring at the garden. Cooking slowly. Eating outside. Looking my daughter straight in the eyes. Reading a book. Telling/receiving a story orally. Being wholly, painfully, miraculously present.

poetry picnic, birthday edition, curated by my dear friend Holly, June 2024

I have decided to read the entirety of Devotions by Mary Oliver with my dear friend

Autumn Fox

poem by poem, day by day, and journaling about what it shows/teaches me. I have started a personal project named soft animal wherein I allow my soft animal body to love what it loves. I track this project in an unlined, unassuming notebook. In it, I sketch and paint and jot fragments from books and quotes from my kid and tape photos I’ve printed and whatever else makes my heart go ping. I am studying astrology simply for my own amusement, and Waldorf & Lifeways methodologies to sharpen my skills at my in-person gig. In short, I am filling my time with what I think is the best stuff that life has to offer.

The art I am making these days will no doubt receive zero accolades, hang in no gallery, be published on the twelfth of never. Yet every day, I find myself joyfully making for making's sake. Mixing tea, whipping up supper, a quick crayon sketch of the sun to welcome summer (pictured above), a fort for the little ones, a fresh bouquet for the table (paired with a carefully curated setting).

I am on my own timeline. I am accessing my child's mind. I am allowing the soft animal inside me to do its thang. You can trust that whether or not you hear about it, these things will continue to happen.

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between two moons

My sister and her children have arrived for the summer. The whole summer, and perhaps some autumn too.

We are rediscovering missing puzzle pieces. Extended family living under one roof, nurturing babies in community, feels like it. It feels like the way life is meant to be.

For now, we are in the thick of it - raising children, raising ourselves. We aren’t designed to do this work alone. It feels necessary, even wonderful, to be doing so together.

We roll up our sleeves, get our hands dirty, continue this work of forming future societies, as a hamlet of sorts.

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We went to the grocery store, my sister, niece, nephew, daughter and I. Lore sobbed for candy facedown on the floor in the checkout aisle. My sister laughed. Then I did too.

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We found and bought a heart shaped potato at the market.

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I received my first rejection letter for a piece I am writing. I felt relieved - I've not been one to submit my writing for someone else’s validation, and sing the praises of self publication (although, having ones writing accepted for publication is also a very cool thing and something I’d still like to do at some point in this lifetime).

Now I plan to use this piece for a book I will write in my own way, in my own time. Through this rejection, it feels like I’ve entered a hallowed hall where many admired writers have walked before me.

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We celebrated said rejection by going to the beach. There were only two other souls as far as the eye could see (of the human sort, that is). The sand was warm and the water north-Atlantic cold. The seaweed danced and the sun leapt. Lore threw sand that went down my shirt and I was angry. I took my bra off and shook myself out and I was happy. Then grateful.

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We found a pebble that looked like a minuscule piece of moon, along with a shell with an imprint of a heart in it.

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There are diamonds buried in the dirt. The dirt itself is what’s important.

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other worlds

There are other worlds within this one. Countless possibilities available to us at any given moment. What a wonder, being alive in 2024.

I was born with a heart that beats for wandering. This tune has found me again and my soles are itching. I know that travel, out of state or otherwise, is not in the cards for my family or I for quite some time. And so, I redefine what enough can look like in this moment.

For my birthday, I decided to gift myself a trip to Italy. I spent the second half of my special day in the kitchen, listening to Jimmy Fontana, obsessing over the ingredients I had sourced. For the first time in recent memory, I followed a recipe (albeit a simple one)- cacio e pepe. We ate on the dilapidated deck of our 1760’s era farmhouse, overlooking the sixty year old flower garden.

This is a practice I would like to continue - leaning into the wonders of existing in 2024, exploring far-off cultures through food and music from my own kitchen table. Eating outside and/or by candlelight, requirements of the process.

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I leave you with the Mary Oliver poem that continues to trail after me this week…

That Little Beast

Written by Mary Oliver

That pretty little beast, a poem, has a mind of its own. Sometimes I want it to crave apples but it wants red meat. Sometimes I want to walk peacefully on the shore and it wants to take off all its clothes and dive in. Sometimes I want to use small words and make them important and it starts shouting the dictionary, the opportunities. Sometimes I want to sum up and give thanks, putting things in order and it starts dancing around the room on its four furry legs, laughing and calling me outrageous. But sometimes, when I'm thinking about you, and no doubt smiling, it sits down quietly, one paw under its chin, and just listens.

from Felicity, Penguin Press, 2015

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Thank you for being here. Connection is the name of my game. I’d love to hear from you about what your creative practice/ art looks like these days, be it in the comments, in a message, in a text, what have you. What we engage with in the quiet moments matters. It’s an honor to share some of them with you.

Until soon,

Kat

the poet / student on her birthday, 2024