POETRY IN THE TIME OF COVID19

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Howdy, Campers, and Happy Poetry Friday! (My poem and the PF link is below)

The topic we TeachingAuthors are exploring in this round is Creativity in the Time of the Coronavirus, a take-off on the title, Love in the Time of Cholera. It's funny--I've been thinking about the title of that book a lot lately, though I've never read it. I wonder if you've thought of that title, too.

And as much as I appreciate and am in awe of the shower of resources, inspirations and suggested activities raining down around us,

can I be totally honest here and say that simply reading the title of each link tires me out?

Eli, after looking at too many Instagram posts

In suggesting this topic, our Blog's Founder and Queen Mother, Carmela, sent us this link to Cynthia Leitich Smith's Twitter thread on March 22nd. (I've condensed it--it was 10 separate tweets on the same day):

Dear Children's-YA Author/Illustrator,

• It’s okay if you can’t get any writing and/or artwork done today.
• It’s okay if you need your writing and/or artwork more than ever.
• It’s okay if you’re upset that your new book isn’t getting the attention it deserves.
• It’s okay if you’re struggling to do online events.
• It’s okay if you don’t have a single idea for a video lesson or activity.
• It’s okay if you’re opting out of online events.
• It’s okay if you owe people messages.
• It’s okay if you don’t have the money to purchase or donate.
• It’s okay if you can’t focus on anything beyond your family/household.
• You take care. Wash your hands. Do what you need to do. Really, it’s okay.

I love all those okays. This list is so forgiving. So comforting.

Have you looked at your calendar lately after canceling event after event, and secretly breathed a sigh of relief?

I had to stop attending my beloved critique group when I was ill and have yet to reconnect. I couldn't drive across Los Angeles for an hour when I was sick. Once I let that go, I realized something: that drive is not healthy for me even when I'm well. 

And thus I eliminated several things I'd done regularly for years.

Am I an agoraphobic in an audacious person's clothing?

On March 24th (So long ago, right?  Where have all my days gone?), I was feeling "teacherly" and emailed a friend, who seemed as lost as I feel now:

Dear Janey,

I think you're asking for survival tips. 

Yesterday my survival tip was to label what I feel. I feel lethargic. Just finding that one right word for how I was feeling helped me. And I stopped yelling at myself for not being as productive as I imagine everyone else is. I just let little April be lethargic. 

Today I made a point of meditating before having breakfast. (What? Delay my breakfast????). Because it's easy to not meditate as my day speeds off on its own. This helped.
And I hiked with my dog and my two grand dogs (I call myself their Dogma) on a beautiful, muddy trail. Drenching myself in green always moves my meter closer to happy.

Note that this upbeat, helpful email was written when my son and his fiancee were hunkered down with us. I loved having them and their dogs fill our house. (Bonus: he bakes bread every day. That smell is house perfume.)  But they drove off to New Mexico two weeks ago, where he'll starts his residency in emergency medicine soon. (I know--yay, Son, and also, oh, dear...).

So now I'm alone most of the day, which is VERY different. I am not gardening. I am not making ratatouille. I am not decluttering. I am not even cutting my bangs.

But how am I surviving creatively?

I write a poem every day and send it to my friend, author Bruce Balan, who sends me a poem each day, too.

Want an example?

On April 7th, I wrote in my journal:

LA County is asking everyone to refrain from even shopping for food this week. We're bracing for a big wave of COVID-19...unless we all lay low. This is kind of like when you're in the ocean and you've miscalculated and that huge wave, which you'd thought you could swim over, is about to crash on top of you and you dive deep, hoping to avoid being in the washing-machine of the wave.

from Pixabay

And here's my April 7, 2020 poem (I immediately want to tell you that it's just a draft and I know it needs cutting and lots of other things are wrong with it, but I refrain from telling you this):

DADDY TOOK YOUR HAND

by April Halprin Wayland

Remember when Daddy took your hand

after you were thrashed

in a watery washing-machine of a wave

and you both walked slowly, so slowly

into the summery ocean
as that big wave came closer

and you could barely breathe

but he was gentle

he was calm

he held your hand

until you rose above the roar

as it pounded sand

and when the next one—the very next one

came growling at both of you

he showed you how to dive deep,

deeper then you thought you could go

below the wave's grasp

so it rumbled it rumbled

past

and all waves

the rest of that day

were just plain old nothing-to-be-afraid-of waves

you could fly

you could breathe

you were somewhere glorious and far away

all day

poem and drawing of the child in the rain © 2020 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

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So...for today, I stand back and watch the world spin. And I forgive myself. It's okay.

Thank you, Molly, at Nix The Comfort Zone for hosting Poetry Friday!

Posted with gratitude by April Halprin Wayland with help from Eli and our teeny tiny newborn pond turtle:

Tribute to Dad

"To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase ‘terrible beauty.’ Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it’s a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else’s body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.” — Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir

Recently, our own Mary Ann Rodman lost her father. Our hearts go out to her and her family during this time of grief.

Roy F. Rodman lived such an amazingly interesting life. He served as a clerk with the FBI before joining the Navy in 1942. He was a cryptographer in the Signal Intelligence Service, where he met and married the love of his life, Frances C. Smith. They were married for 62 years. After the war, he worked as an FBI Special Agent for 37 years. He was one of the original FBI agents sent by President Johnson to investigate the "Mississippi Burning" case. After retiring from the FBI, he worked as Chief Investigator for the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance. O, the stories he could tell! For more information about his amazing life, see his obituary here.

We all know that life is short, no matter how many years we are given. And when we lose someone we love, it is infinity shocking to our very core. It is a sadness so profound, we feel we may never breathe again. Death is an ending, true enough, but it can also be a beginning, says Marc and Angel:


“… endings like these often seem ugly, they are necessary for beauty too – otherwise it’s impossible to appreciate someone or something, because they are unlimited. Limits illuminate beauty, and death is the definitive limit – a reminder that we need to be aware of this beautiful person, and appreciate this beautiful thing called life. Death is also a beginning, because while we have lost someone special, this ending, like the loss of any wonderful life situation, is a moment of reinvention. Although sad, their passing forces us to reinvent our lives, and in this reinvention is an opportunity to experience beauty in new, unseen ways and places. And finally, of course, death is an opportunity to celebrate a person’s life, and to be grateful for the beauty they showed us.” -- Marc and Angel

As teachers, we are often faced with students who have lost a loved one. As Samantha Darby suggests, “There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to helping children grieve, cope with, or process their feelings in difficult circumstances. Instead, you simply have to be there for them in any way possible—to listen to their stories, help maintain normalcy, and to be willing to talk to them about what’s happened in a way that makes sense to them.” Darby offers a list of books to help children cope with the loss of a parent here. 

With my father

by Kobayashi Issa

With my father

I would watch dawn

over green fields.

Photo by Pixabay

Our love to Mary Ann.

Bobbi Miller