hello/goodbye

I haven't posted on this blog in a long time!  Really, I haven't been a very consistent blogger since, ummm, 2005 or so!  I think it may be time to say goodbye to blogging for me.  I'm not going to delete this blog, but will probably end it here.  Check my website (http://www.wendywisner.com/) for updates on my writing life. 

xoxo, Wendy

Martha's Vineyard

What pure pleasure it was to go to Martha's Vineyard and read at their little library.  Ben had a blast, of course, and remembered the Vineyard well from when we went there last year.  I got to walk the island and see all the old sights.  I was three years old when I lived there but I remember it quite clearly.

The reading was very nice, with several local residents attending, many of whom bought my chapbook.  The West Tisbury library is gorgeous, and it's next door to an amazing sculpture garden which I spent a good twenty minutes walking through (alone) before the reading.  I read with Leah Nielsen, who was wonderful.  We discovered that we share a publisher for our first books.  

On my way out, I dropped a few books off at Bunch of Grapes bookstore.  They had me autograph them and they'll be displaying them on their "Vineyard Authors" shelf.  Ben in particular was thrilled by that idea: "Mommy's book at a real bookstore!"

I'm so glad I went, despite the fact that I fretted quite a bit over the cost of staying at a hotel for multiple nights (the only way to make it bearable with a child).  In the end, I felt rich with poetry, with ocean, and with the meager sales of my books.  So worth it.  It reminded me why I do this writing thing at all, and will keep me going as I continue to revise my new book. 

Tell Me

Next week Ben starts summer camp.  Tell me I will stick to my promise to write each day he is there.  I haven't made this kind of committment to writing since he was born.  I'm ready.

To do:
1.  Revise that pile of new poems
2.  Revise my manuscript
3.  Be brave
4.  Don't answer the phone, put away the dishes, vacuum, water the plants, etc.
5.  Be brave

End of June: Boy

 

Because you study him, each and every part, when you're the mama.

loving...

~ happy (almost) naked children, warm weather, sprinkers
~ basil growing on our windowsill, picking it at dinner time, throwing it into whatever i'm cooking
~ danny home much more often.  boys, boys, boys!  there is so much chatter around here when they're together!
~ marveling at the very new sunflower (also grown on our windowsill).  there's nothing like the feeling of growing and caring for something and watching it grow.  miracle of miracles.  it never gets old.
~ watching myself get older, wiser, enjoying the little extra moments i've had lately to reflect.  poems brewing.

Graduation Day!

taking a breath

These past few weeks have been too busy and too stressful.  I've felt the stress in my body. 

When I feel it in my body, I know that something has to change.  So today I caught up on some sleep (thank you dear sweet husband), took a long walk, let some housework go, canceled some plans so I could rest (thank you mom and friends for understanding), and spent some time at home with my family.

I must remember that it's OK to say no to stuff sometimes, that I can't change the world each day, and that taking things slow and keeping things simple is the best way to live.

Ben is done with school next week, Danny will still have a light schedule until July.  So time to stay home when we want, go out when we want, minimize computer use, and catch up on some reading.  Retreat into myself, and savor the summer days with my family.

I will be thinking about my new poems, and the manuscript I want to revise.  In July Ben will be in camp five mornings a week (wow!) and I hope to get some of this writing stuff done (i.e., my "stay-at-home writing retreat").  Until then, I hope to get myself in the mode of reflectiveness and quietude that make poetry writing possible for me.

the last of them

These are the last of the May photos.  Our photo project has died down, and soon will come the task of Ben and me putting together our photobook. 

Ben is still very focused on photos of food, and spends many meals asking me to photograph each bite he takes.  He's also been wanting pictures of his spills, particularly the milk that spills from his cereal bowl each morning.  He likes each unique spill shape.  Sometimes I've been too busy to take pictures while he eats, so I tell him to take a picture in his mind so he'll remember it.  I wasn't sure he'd buy that, but he does.  He really likes the idea.

He and I have definitely been paying more attention to the flowers and trees we see, each bud, each leaf, each tree trunk.  The details. 

And now Danny's wrapping up the school year and we are both so grateful to have him home, and so proud of what he's accomplished this year.  This means that the concentrated time of me and Ben all day is coming to a close for a few weeks.  Usually I feel nothing but relief to have an extra parent around, but the other day I was feeling a little bit sad.  These past few months have been sweet between Ben and me.