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om our retreat house deck since i last posted i published my memoir something i never thought would happen during the last 30 years i ve been wrestling with it shockingly i did manage to finish it and get it published and it has been getting a really warm reception this beautiful review in the library journal and this one in the associated press which then ended up getting spread around to a bunch of tiny local newspapers and the biggest surprise of all was being named a finalist for the national book critics circle award i m flying to new york tonight for a few days of events around this a finalists reading tonight the awards ceremony tomorrow night and then a reception afterward it s just like those hollywood awards ceremonies where the winners are announced on the spot thankfully they will not have cameras panning the audience showing reaction shots thankfully i do not have to rent or buy a gown this event seems to be a mostly black attire thing so i got this sparkly shirt to wear it s been a very busy time to say the least i started the official book tour launch back in november with a big party and then a few other events before the holidays hit i took a hiatus from thanksgiving to new years but then started up in january with a trip to southern california that was fantastic february was busy with a big midwest trip including awp in kansas city see you in la next year visits to iowa and chicago a family trip to florida and an event in new york phew i had a week of recovery before starting up again march has had a few much needed retreats and respites including a beautiful final silent calligraphy retreat at my beloved santa sabina center and this little writing retreat unfortunately there won t be a lot of quiet or retreat time for the foreseeable future april will be a whirlwind of events in new england new york nj the bay area and finally oahu phew it s all good though if i just take it one day at a time i m going to go back and do a deeper dive into each of these periods i want to write about what it was like to be at awp with a new book two panels and just being in a different place than i have been most of the time i ve attended i want to write about the launch and so cal and more are y all still here is there anything you d like to particularly know or hear about let me know in the comments i ve been composing many blog posts in my head for the past few months and i m happy to finally be back there s so much to say hello is this thing on 18 friday nov 2022 posted by susan in miscellania 2 comments i can t believe it s been over five years since i last wrote here i m glad i didn t erase it i m glad i kept paying to keep it alive because now that twitter is in a precarious state i just might pick things up and resume it s shocking that i started blogging in 2005 i haven t even looked in here for years but i don t have the energy to start a new substack i m not convinced that mastodon is the new place i m not even sure if twitter will actually vanish or if this is going to be a y2k style scare that doesn t happen the thing is i have a book coming out next year yay and i had been counting on twitter to be there for me for me to share my cover reveal my finalized title my blurbs and arcs and unboxing and all the good things but that might not happen i ve been on twitter for over 13 years and amassed over 8 thousand followers i wanted to share my events my zoom launches my in person parties and more will this be the place for that to happen i don t know but i m dusting it off and seeing if there s anybody here let me know if you re still here still reading photo by lucas pereira on pexels com seeking compassion 28 saturday jan 2017 posted by susan in 527essays2017 miscellania 5 comments tags buddhism compassion criticism insight meditation meditation mindfulness self compassion self doubt this is essay 4 of 52essays2017 i know that many of us are feeling extra fragile terrified depressed with everything that has been unfolding pretty much every few minutes since january 21st it s bleak it s stunningly terrible and i would write about that if i could even focus on what to say it s just everything that s the state of mind i ve been in but i ve been trying extra hard and have made a commitment to trying to care for my mental and spiritual health last week i had the great gift of doing a small two day retreat with a dear friend she suggested each morning that we take ten minutes to do a meditation together i normally meditate either by myself with my husband or in a group meditation sitting i rarely if ever meditate with just one other person it feels incredibly intimate and also so affirming my friend introduced me to the insight timer app and i showed her the headspace app what a gift to share these things anyway last night i attended a really fun celebratory book party at my writing place the san francisco writers grotto ten of our writers had recently published books and it was a grand celebration i love going to parties at the grotto because for me it s a perfect introvert extravert environment i can jam myself in with all the folks in the big party room get food and drinks and when it starts feeling to hot noisy or claustrophobic i can retreat down the all to my own cozy little office i have my own couch desk and a really nice chair that i recently acquired from someone who was moving cross country i like to sit in there with my door open and invite passersby to come in and hang out with me for a quieter more personal chat i had some wonderful conversations moving back and forth from the big party to my own little party when it was time to leave i was with a friend and we were chatting it up on the way to elevator i had gathered up my laptop bag and some other things i d wanted to transfer from office to home and i was distracted we drove across the bridge and i dropped her off then i thought it would be a good idea to text my husband and let him know i was on my way home oops no phone it must be in my purse in the trunk i got out of the car and popped the turn no purse either big oops i guess i must have left my purse and my phone in my office i got home and activated find my phone sure enough it was radiating a little blue dot at the grotto address then i got an email from another grotto writer that someone had found my purse where and she d secured it in her office there okay i actually didn t give it much thought i knew where my stuff was i went to bed in the morning my husband showed me some charges from our credit card on his laptop had i gotten gas at a shell station at chevron i knew i d filled the car but which was it and what was this hotel both charges had been declined but it made me wonder what if someone had taken my purse out of my office where had someone found it why had i been wandering around a 100 person party and leaving my office door wide open what was wrong with me suddenly i had an image of our financial life crashing down around us all of the credit cards compromised bureaucracy having to change all of our accounts and it was all my fault because i was careless something inside me cringed i have to go i pulled on my clothes didn t even brush my hair or wash my face i grabbed the car key and drove back to the city there in my friend s office was the purse there was my phone in my desk drawer i counted all the credit cards and the cash and everything was there probably no harm was done but maybe it was what was that weird hotel charge maybe somebody took all my numbers and are waiting to use them when i am not expecting it maybe i m just a paranoid fool i texted my husband that i d found the purse and phone but that i needed to sit and get a grip he suggested that i do a guided compassion for self meditation that both of us know well i agreed that it was a good idea i hemmed and hawed for a while in my office before settling down and starting the meditation first i did a 5 minute self compassion meditation from insight timer i felt like it barely scratched the surface there were mad voices in my head telling me i d blown it i d blown it big and it was just an indication of what a terrible stupid careless loser i was as soon as i heard think of a time when you were feeling hard on yourself i started dripping tears then it was a gush then i was sobbing out of control man the places your mind goes that s the thing i ve noticed about meditation it s an incredible place and i was absolutely shocked to find myself even after no harm had been done in this veritable zoo of monsters unlocked monsters by the way if it wasn t so painful it would have been fascinating ok it s fascinating now there was a big story going down about how i always lost things i never keep track of my things my time my appointments my life it was just one huge crumbling chaotic mountain i could try to be more organized by using a bullet journal or whatever but ultimately it was fruitless because i m basically the worst person on earth and i shouldn t be trusted with anything it was a giant domino game that led from me stupidly leaving my purse somewhere at the grotto to our entire lives falling apart and my family being left in ruin all because of me wow where did that come from this thing took about half an hour to run its course i felt like i was being beat upon from all sides it was exhausting but also curious it felt like such an enormous effort to find my way to even a crumb of compassion eventually it came a little bit i was able to get myself up from the chair and put an arm around that other loser self and say hey it s okay the thing that i find comforting about this practice is knowing that hey the buddha went through this too everyone goes through it and yet we think it s totally all about us and i also felt comfort in knowing that like everything else that it would eventually pass i just had to let the tears fall to hang onto the armrests of my red chair like the sides of a life raft and hang on minds are funny things resist but how 20 friday jan 2017 posted by susan in 527essays2017 life miscellania 1 comment tags activism art democracy politics resistance writing this is 3 of 52essays2017 it s january 20th barack obama is not president anymore it s unfathomably terrible how could this have happened well we can t go over that again a thousand people have written about it but that doesn t matter right now it s what are we doing to do now i ve found myself very weirdly finding strange comfort or actually a compulsion to do things by hand i m not sure what this is about but i m feeling a need to write more things with a pen and paper to keep a paper journal to make various forms of art and most recently to take up embroidery is it because i feel like we are headed backwards are we going to be sitting around stitching tablecloths maybe i want to be prepared in case the world somehow collapses and all of our electronic things are taken away or just cease to be useful what did people do during the civil war they wrote things by hand or used a printing press they sewed stuff they gathered in secret they had an underground railroad they figured out who needed what kind of support they organized i feel like things are going to get both more out of control with technology and also more basic i m feeling both i want to keep writing and posting things in the internets but to be honest i feel like it could just vanish overnight there are marches happening tomorrow i feel strongly that it is important to show up and make visible the resistance but i also feel that this will by no means be enough i m probably going to one of them but it feels more like something to make me feel better than to change things this afternoon i took my mother to see hidden figures yes it was inspiring but it was also disturbing and upsetting and at the end i wanted to cry i did cry a little i wanted to cry because of all the shit these brilliant women had to endure the racism and sexism and then being basically invisible for all of these decades one of them was honored by president obama at the age of 97 which was great but why the hell did it take so long this movie brought home several things for me but one thing was that as long as there are terrible laws that restrict and harm people all the marches aren t going to do a thing one of these women mary jackson was intelligent and driven and wanted to be an aeronautical engineer but she couldn t get a degree because of a law that prevented colored women from taking required classes at a segregated white school that whole scenario was so disgusting how many people were denied an education because of this law thousands millions and yes i know it s still going on insidiously and in other forms today this was the same thing that struck me when i was watching the movie loving same thing these people s lives were affected by racist miscegenation laws a married couple had to risk imprisonment for being together in the same state is it a coincidence that both of these movies featured racist laws in the state of virginia we can march to show our numbers to put our bodies in the street but really when it comes down to it is the lawmakers that matter it is voting that matters and once voting letting those lawmakers know what we want them to do making phone calls or writing letters might be more boring or more intimidating actually than holding a sign but it s just as important it fills me with despair that 90 million eligible voters did not vote in this election for whatever reason apathy anger despair laziness those people and the people who actually voted for t sealed the future of all of us maybe forever maybe our democracy is gone maybe all of us will be was the right to vote truly not precious enough to them i guess not but that s what it s going to take voting unless of course that was as some darkly predict our last election and in between marching organizing making art writing getting smarter getting stronger finding each other protected instant 15 sunday jan 2017 posted by susan in 527essays2017 adoption good things living enter your password to view comments this content is password protected to view it please enter the password below password bread with first date spinach soup 04 wednesday jan 2017 posted by susan in fiveminutefreewrite eating health life living nonfiction writing writing exercises leave a comment tags fiveminutefreewrite bread comfort food daily writing marriage soup vegetarian writing writing challenge writing prompt this is a fiveminutefreewrite day 4 in the january fiveminutefreewrite challenge prompt bread this year i ve signed myself up for a couple of writing challenges the 52essays2017 challenge and the daily fiveminutefreewrite that i started myself some days those five minutes will be just that five minutes i might choose to write here and post them as quickies or i might write them freehand in my journal and sometimes it s possible that the five minutes might st...
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