I didn’t blog last Sunday, so I’m already down one blog post that I committed to write. This is a make-up posting.

Last weekend I was in Atlantic City, NJ attending a poetry gathering where I was able to be in a workshop with Gregory Pardlo- an amazing poet and human being. I enjoyed the crispy-cold NE air, so different from the damp-cold  winter fog out here on the Olympic Peninsula, which I also love, but differently. I ran into two poets I knew there, and met another writer that I now count among my fussily small group of friends. I didn’t write much, but I close-read three books of poetry that have been patiently waiting for my eyes.  All in all, a good trip.

Let me just say that I had a rough year, along with the rest of the thinking world, in 2017, but with the added joylessness of feeling beleaguered at my workplace. Today, pulling clothes from the drier and rolling socks, I remembered a time period in my 40’s when I would roll socks with the image that someone was standing behind me with a gun pointed at my head, giving me a time deadline for getting the chore done, or be shot. It reminded me of how bad things can get emotionally, while still making the effort to go to work every day, and roll the socks every weekend at the laundromat. I had moments like that over this past year. And murderous dreams.

I’ve consciously planned to take time away for writing this year, the conference this past week, and a week-long retreat coming up next month, more in the summer. I am secretly planning a better year for myself. I am openly wishing a better year for the planet. I don’t know if it’s possible, but if all those women out there marching today have anything to say about it, we might make a little progress. A step or two.