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 