The new year is almost here. My resolution is to come up with some for 2026. This is always a time of year of reflection, evaluation, and thinking about what to do next year. I’d like to be more disciplined in my creative pursuits, but likely life will interfere at some point killing all my best plans. Not to say I shouldn’t try to be more disciplined and actually have plans for the work I want to do — it’s just that even with planning, well things happen. Last month my brother was in the hospital and I spent a few days traveling to see him. I had a few more doctor’s visits than I planned. All of this stuff that just pops up.
I am retired so I don’t have to do anything, but I am a person who likes to make things, create things, and generally do stuff. I do have a somewhat long list of things I like to be creative at: writing, scroll saw, woodworking, and quilting are top of the list. Within each of those are subcategories like blogging, and poetry. I also like to do other things like building things for the garden and when I get the chance I just love to break up concrete with a sledgehammer. It’s oddly satisfying.
There are two big goals I have for the year, other than being disciplined and spending less time with doctors and they are actually submitting my poetry for publication and starting on a new poetry collection. This fall during the poetry workshop I attended there were a few people suggesting that some of my poems should be sent out. Normally I don’t do that, but this might be the year.
I’ll let you know how that goes, maybe, we’ll see.
I’ve have this title for a poetry collection running around in my head for a couple of years and the only way to get it out of my head is to actually write it. Its, Mowing My Lawn in the Desert.
Lawns are a weird thing to have where there is little water, but it’s still nice to have some. The deeper concept here is the notion of place. That is the sense of place that we all feel and how it defines us as person. Living in a certain place creates environments, memories, and feelings that affect how we live, what we do and informs all that we are. Sure there are other things that define us, that make us what we are, but since moving away from my childhood neighborhood and into a very different place, I’ve become more aware of how a place, a geography, a climate, a tree, a flower and a lawn affect who I was and who I am becoming.
Every time I drive back to the Bay Area to visit my brothers I become keenly aware of how different things are between Reno and there. It feels different — in ways that are hard to explain. There I attended a church with ample parking in an upscale neighborhood and here I attend a downtown church with no parking in less affluent areas. I’ve tried to write about this in prose but that essay just doesn’t work. The only way I feel I can express what is going through my mind, heart, soul is with the images and feelings in poetry.
I mean, this doesn’t make sense, but we have pine trees here in my backyard and early on a summer morning when I take the lawnmower out of the shed, it smells like the High Sierra just after sunrise, before the smell of bacon. Some times the same sound of wind fills my ears as memories of hiking with family, Boy Scouts … takes hold as I slide the battery into the mower and change the smell to fresh cut grass.
There’s a poem there that I am hoping to discover this year.
Andrew's View of the Week 
I like the name you have for yoyr poetry collection. I liked reading what you had written. Thank you.
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It’s time to get those words down Andrew. I can hear the whispering pines and smell the mountain morning.
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I’m writing them down!
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That summer mowing paragraph? There’s definitely a poem there and I look forward to reading it one day soon!
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At least one poem there.
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Hurrah for those poems, Andrew!
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I love a good poem.
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Yes, do send the poems out Andrew!
Meantime, Happy New Year 😉
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Happy New Year!!!
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And to you and yours Andrew
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Thank you.
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I find our environment has much to do with what we create. No matter where I lived – past or present, I have needed to make the place ‘feel like me.’ Most of the time in small ways like the color scheme of the rooms I spend much of my time in, but I find that coming here to rural Nova Scotia from the busy Chicago area has been the most inspiring thing I did. Many years ago, I attended Southern Illinois University and it was my first taste of a more rural lifestyle. I knew back then that it was only a matter of time before I would leave the big city for good. Add to that I love the ocean and always wanted to live by water. I could sit on a beach or rocky coast and just watch the waves for hours. It was both humbling and grounding. Seeing your place in the desert, filled with life and beauty, has been eye-opening and exciting. There are so many places in our world filled with inspiration. We are all different and we all like different things that make us happy, and it is great that you found yours, too. I look forward to seeing what you make in 2025 as well as reading your poetry. Thank you for sharing your work with us all. (Oh – and on your post you mention making plans for “2026”. You are rushing things. LOL! 😀 ) Happy New Year.
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I do find that inspired on many levels when I visit the coast — there’s a power in the ocean that can’t be described, only felt. If you get far enough out into the desert, their is a similar feeling, not as strong, but it’s there.
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Even your prose sounds poetic. Do submit those poems.
Somewhere in my library is a book called The Sense of Place. I don’t remember anything about what it said but you make me want to reread it. I suspect it was a lot about what you said, and what I feel about this place.
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That sounds like an interesting book.
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Keep mowing this long, desert is not gonna wait forever
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It won’t.
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Keep looking, but be patient . . . The poems will find you.
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I know they will.
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✨️🇬🇧🌟
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