So, what did I achieve this week that was outside my comfort zone?  I suppose a few things, although some of them are getting to be more comfortable. For instance,  I was one of several featured readers at the Ontario Poetry Society event in Ottawa yesterday, to continue the launch of my second chapbook, Architectural Variations. But readings are getting more comfortable.

On Saturday, I attended the Plan 99 North event in Wakefield, held as part of Wakefest, Wakefield’s annual art festival. There I actually joked with two of the three featured readers, including Ken Babstock, this year’s Griffin prize winner. Not long ago, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do that.

I also realized, on discussing ideas for new projects that I have in mind, that they might actually be workable ideas. While I haven’t forgotten that I want to get back to my goal of submitting more to litmags, this is actually going to fuel that too, as I go back over earlier poems that are still lying around, not yet quite “done”.  I’ve recently been filing my revisions of the poems in the new chapbook, and happened across a number of poems that I had forgotten all about. They would fit quite nicely with the new projects, with a little attention.  And books that I want to read as research into these endeavours. Not ready though, to share the “what”.

And I have realized that sometimes I set myself up to fail at things by overplanning and trying to put self-improvement techniques into play that just add stress when I can’t quite manage the “one more thing” they represent.  So. That is a breaktrhrough too, of sorts.

Carol

Surprising how quickly things change when life throws the unexpected into the mix. This week my thoughts are with my friend, who cannot join me on the restart of the CHIP program Instead, she will be looking after a friend who has a terminal illness. Girl, I am thinking about you, just so you know.

And yesterday received word that another friend’s daughter, not yet fifty years old, has unexpectedly died. So I am thinking about her loss today also.

On the one hand, the grief one goes through over a longer period of time as an illness progresses. On the other, the sudden grief of the unexpected and immediate loss. Neither way is really easier or more bearable than the other, I suppose. As I try to empathize with someone else’s loss and their grief, I always come back to my late husband’s battle with heart disease that was taking him slowly, and then the car accident that, even so, cut his time short. But I have not lost a child, so I cannot fully understand the way that feels.

Still, my thoughts are with both of my friends today.  I wish I was able to offer more comfort to each of them. Wishing both strength and peace.

Carol