What a Difference a Goal Makes

Several years ago, I read an interview with a former governor of New Mexico.  He was a Republican, with very liberal social views (and admitted to using drugs in his youth).  He was not a party favorite.

He also spoke about his annual resolutions, although he preferred to make them goals to be worked on throughout the year.  He believed resolutions, decisions to change a behavior on January 1, were recipes for failure, usually by January 2 (although I quit smoking at midnight December 31 more than 24 years ago).

Instead, he drafted a set of goals for the coming year.  Some were more challenging than others.  Some were for personal improvement.  Some he might start working on at the beginning of the New Year, others would not be done or attempted until later.  He included easily achieved goals on his list, feeling little victories were important to keep the momentum.

Since 1998, I have made a yearly goals list.  I used to keep it to 10 goals, framing and keeping them on my desk and on the bathroom counter as constant reminders through the year.

Two years ago, I switched to post-it notes on the bathroom mirror, each removed when the goal is met.  I can tell you I have never completed a list, but I usually pluck off more than 70%.

I have 14 goals ready for the coming year, and I'm certain to add a few more before the crystal ball drops in Times Square.

Here's a sampling of goals for 2014:

1. Build my saving account.
2. Write one poem a week.
3. Restart my McDougall eating plan and plant-based diet.
4. Visit the Delaware County Historical Society.
5. Enter 4 manuscript competitions.
6. Advance my bread making skills.
7. Buy a laptop.

Some goals are worked on throughout the year, like building my savings or healthier eating.  A visit to the historical society museum can't be done until summer when it reopens.  I make bread all the time and want to experiment with other ingredients.  Nothing is overly lofty, but each one of these goals are things I should be doing or want to do.

Some will require planning, the creation of a ritual, like writing a poem each week.  Buying a laptop might be largely dependent on how well I build my savings.

What goals would I read on your bathroom mirror?

'Tell me something wondrous.'

'Tell me something wondrous, something to remind me of the spirit of Christmas.'  This was the request today from one of my dearest friends.

Christmas is less than four days away; our pace has slowed.  The office parties are over.  The shopping is mostly complete.  Meals are planned and in the staging process.  The kids are out of school and folks are traveling to be with friends and family.

On the banks of the Maquoketa River, the winter solstice dawned with a glassine coat of ice on the bare tree limbs; everything a shade of white and gray, beautiful.  I passed a farm, surprised by the brilliant yellow of a full corn crib.

The first day of winter and we await a snow storm.  In town, there was the expected scurry of shoppers on the last Saturday before Christmas, but there was more bustling as they prepared for several inches of snow and the guarantee of a white Christmas.  It was the talk of every shopkeeper, every customer, and no one seemed too bothered by it.

I have only to wrap a few gifts between now and Christmas.  I'm halfway through listening to my Christmas music collection.  Afternoons are filled with Bing Crosby, Elvis, Bette Midler, the Pink Martinis, Dixie, jazz and folk Christmas carols.  I save 'O Holy Night' and Mahalia Jackson's 'Silent Night' for Christmas Eve; the moment I feel the true spirit of Christmas and as close to God as I can get.

I will think of all my friends, scattered the world over, it seems.  I will think of Jeff and remember our Christmases together.  I will remember my friend, Christopher, who passed away this year, and those glorious, fun, strawberry-filled Christmas Eves we spent in the warmth of our closest friends.

The older I get, the more astounded I am by the passage of time; by things I have collected and the memories attached to them.  I am mystified by the blessings I've been given.  I have been softened by  heartaches.

The perfectly not-so-perfect path our lives seem to take.

Those first snowflakes tonight, the vallens (an old word for snowfall), will arrive quietly, muffling an already silent river valley.  I will stand at the window, in the glow of my Christmas tree, and breathe deeply.  And wonder.

Merry Christmas.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Season

True confession: I am a connoisseur of the ugly Christmas sweater and I was one before it became a trendy, party-worthy collectible.

It's time to set some standards.  First, an ugly Christmas sweater is not a craft project.

Last Saturday, a friend and I attended an Ugly Christmas Sweater contest in Cedar Rapids.  His sweater was a delightful diorama of skiing snowmen, and his accompanying too-small ski jumpsuit, ski goggles and dancing hat made his assemble a thing of joy.

I wore a previous contest winner, one I call 'Patriotic Angels'.  It is a splendid flurry of flying angels carrying flags as they hover over a horizon of Christmas trees and bedazzled homes. 

There were 17 entries, and neither of us made the first cut.


I won't go into the politics at play in the judging, but half of those chosen in the first round were sweaters hung with ornaments and candy canes, sweaters that smelled like glue guns, with cleverly placed stockings at the crotch, or garland wrapped seductively about a twerking waif.  The winning sweater was a knock-off sold at a local hipster/college clothing store.  There were three others just like it in the crowd.

I own 16 Christmas sweaters.  Thirteen were found in thrift stores for less than five dollars (the others, including 'Patriotic Angels'. were purchased at a consignment shop).  My sweaters are originals, sold on HSN or QVC with designer labels like Quacker Factory, Take Two Studios and Holiday Elements.  They were marketed as stunning, festive garments to women of a certain demographic, women who carry faux gold lame handbags.  Women with lots of cats.

Like velvet paintings, or anything kitschy, these Christmas sweaters, when observed collectively, are art.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the humor in the craft-project sweater.  I have a friend in Raleigh who has designed some truly amazing ugly sweaters, so customized, you'd think it was store-bought.

I have hosted two ugly sweater parties.  I encouraged my Borders coworkers to wear them.  We held friendly competitions, and I  crafted trophies to be given in different categories: best craft-project sweater (The Crapplique Award), best original sweater (The Jean Bice Award, the legendary Quacker Factory designer), and Best in Show.

Standards, people.  Standards.

I'm going to two more contests next week, not necessarily to enter, but to view the sweaters.  I'm sure there will be plenty of craft projects on parade and I'll be woozy from sniffing glue.

To find those Christmas sweaters that once delighted a third grade class, or wowed the congregation at Lutheran Holiday Bake Sale, you have to begin your search in August.  Waiting until the week before the party or contest is for amateurs.

Reclaiming Cookies & Christmas

The temperature this morning is a brisk -1, an arctic front has pushed its way down into much of the midwest and points south.  The dogs did not waste time doing their morning business.  No one is wasting time outdoors.

We're a week into December and the hustle of the Christmas holiday seems to be at maximum grind.  There remain decorations to be put up, my Christmas cards will be done this week.  I've done little, if any shopping, and fortunately my list isn't a big one, and I'll wipe it clean in one or two visits to local stores.

I'm hosting a small party this year, my first since Jeff died, so there will be cleaning to do, menu-planning, a toilet to be scrubbed.

Then there is baking.  Jeff and I used to bake a busload of his grandmother's sugar cookies each year and frost them in lurid colors.  We took them to parties and gave them to co-workers.  I don't know that the cookies tasted all that great (I think they did and he and I ate enough of them through the season), but honestly, it was the frosting.

The first year we made cookies, we agreed frosting was key.  We remembered frosting cookies as kids and being admonished for using too much icing. We were adults now and decided it was our house, our cookies, and by God, there would be lots of frosting.

Our cookies provided the most intense sugar rush, the frosting thick, decadent.  We used as much coloring as needed to get deep, rich colors.  Sometimes, we added sprinkles or those little silver pellets that look like BB gun ammo.

I made a small batch of cookies last year with my sister, at Dad's request.  He wanted sugar cookies like his mother made and fortunately, I had her cookie cookbook and we did our best to recreate those cookies for him.

Today, I'm baking with three women.  Each of us is to bring a cookie and candy recipe.  I've loaded two large boxes with bowls, mixers, ingredients.  I'm taking fun Christmas music.  And wine.

I found a sugar cookie recipe (after Jeff died, I couldn't take seeing his handwriting and threw out his grandmother's recipe) and made the dough last night.  I'm not sure of the results and it doesn't matter.  If they fail, I will continue to search for the best recipe.

Christmas was a big deal for Jeff and I.  His grandmother's cookies were part of that.  This is my third holiday without him.  The first year, I just wanted to get through it.  Last year, I determined to reclaim the season and make my own traditions (with a mix our old ones) and I started with a small tree and a few of our collected ornaments.

This year, I'm busting loose.  I bought another tree and most of our ornaments are now on display.  Decorations have branched out around the house, including a fat, stuffed Santa Claus from Montgomery Ward Jeff bought the year before he met me.  It is the first time Santa has been on display in more than five years.

Last night, I drove into Manchester to do my grocery shopping for today's baking and I took some time to look at all the houses lit up, including a co-worker who takes the season to heart.  Her yard and home was joyous and I practically cheered her spirit of fun.

Now, let it snow.

Thirty days: 30 paintings, 30 poems

In November 2011, six months after Jeff died and still consumed with grief, I decided to pour that energy into a 30-day exercise of writing a poem each day.

The poet, David Lehman, wrote a poem every day for a year and collected some of those poems in his book, The Daily Mirror.  In the introduction, he noted how it was 'hit or miss', some poems falling flat and some days were complete misses. I'd read those poems a few years ago and found the concept intriguing.

I'm not a prolific poet, I tend to wait for inspiration; the sudden poetic phrase or line.  It doesn't happen often. By that November, I'd written a dozen  poems about Jeff, his death, my grief, increasing my poetic batting average and  I figured there might be another 30 poems wallowing inside me.

It took a couple of nights to realize I would not be receiving divine inspiration every day.  I don't know that I ever did.  I learned to find inspiration; facing the blank page and grabbing an idea out of the air.

I met that first challenge completing 30 poems in 30 days.  Two poems were almost really good.  Another four had potential.  Ten others worth salvaging and the rest would be filed away.  Not a bad effort for a poet.

The following November, I took the challenge again.  I had moved to my native Iowa and it was my first winter in nearly 30 years.  I was enamored of the quiet, the bitter cold, the life and death of seasons, and many of those poems are inspired by Iowa's beautiful but unforgiving winter landscape.

As a seasoned poem-a-day poet, I knew what to expect.  I didn't fret nights when I had nothing.  I would open my notebook, rummage around in my head and start writing.  I had about the same results as the previous year.

I'd written 60 poems in two years (not counting any written the other months) and of those 60 poems, four have been published.  I'm a poet, not a mathematician, but it seems like a good average.

One of those published poems, 'In A Hopper Painting', became the inspiration for this year's November ekphrastic exercise in poetic masochism.  I love the regional realistm of Edward Hopper and in his six decades as an artist, he left an extensive body of work.  I would write 30 poems, each inspired by his paintings.

It has been the most difficult of the challenges.  I read essays on his works.  I spent hours thumbing through books of his collected works.  I read his weighty biography.  I discovered  little-known works; works not typical of Hopper.  His paintings offered an unfinished narrative, a poetic leap. I avoided more linear interpretations and sought out an emotional landing.  Some paintings veered toward a more personal experience.

'Nighthawks' is not my favorite Hopper painting, but as the month closes, I realize it is the most fitting finish to this exercise.

Tonight, in the quiet dark, I'll sit down, open my notebook, stare at the lonely creatures gathered at the counter and imagine how it all will end.

Shivering is just another part of Iowa

It's unseasonably cold in the Big Woods with afternoon temps never getting above 18 degrees and it's expected the thermometer will dip to zero tonight.

Shivering is truly another facet of Iowa.  So is starkness.  I'm grateful to have a poet's sensibilities which allow me to look at the frozen ponds, the oak and walnut trees wind-stripped and now in deep prayer as they wait for spring.

I drive past fields harvested to brittle, broken stalks where farmers let their cattle forage for bits of seed corn and silage.

I counted three bald eagles circling the nearly iced-over Maquoketa River today, hoping to snag a fish come up from the deeper waters.  On the fence posts, hawks watch the ditches for the quiet movement of a vole or rabbit among the burst cattails and milkweed.

As a poet, all my senses ride shotgun; the wind howling down the river valley, the dusty smell of old barn board, the frigid blast of bitter cold when I take the dogs out at four a.m., the crisp chill of the well water from the tap, the sudden glimpse of a snowy owl vigilant in a tree on my way home from work today.

The dark arrives early these days, and it does seem like my day is shorter, that time has run out and I'll have to begin another day in mere hours.  But here in the Big Woods, it means the stars come out sooner, and against the clear, cold black sky, shine so brightly they steal my breath.

Let winter come.  I will find new words for it.

Popcorn Elitist

It is a blustery, misted day here in northeast Iowa, with rain and thunderstorms anticipated for the afternoon.  I woke up with one thought for my day: I'm going to make popcorn and watch 'The Hours'.

There are a handful of movies I watch over and over; 'The Hours' is one of those, but it requires a rainy, moody atmosphere to make my experience truly complete.  And it needs to happen in autumn.

But this is about popcorn.

I love popcorn.  I love making popcorn.  My freezer is never without popping corn.  I have eaten popcorn for a meal.  I do not need a movie as an excuse to make popcorn.  Microwave popcorn is the devil; it costs more, it's tasteless, and it's toxic and probably contains beaver anal glands.

I'm a traditionalist.  Popcorn should involve a stovetop, a pan of oil, and a vigilant popper.  And white popcorn, not yellow.  White popping corn has smaller kernels; use yellow popcorn only if your threading it for a Christmas garland.  Better yet, try black popping corn; the kernels are smaller, they don't get stuck in your teeth, and the flavor is an incredibly nutty, wild taste.

We all like salted popcorn, and most like buttered popcorn,. I actually don't care for butter on my popcorn.  Years ago, I started trying different seasonings on my popcorn; taco meat seasoning, a little shredded cheddar or sprinkle it with Hidden Valley ranch dressing mix.  One of my favorite popcorn blends is sea salt, pepper and shredded Parmesan cheese.

Still, this is really about the pan.  A popcorn pan is a dedicated pan, used for no other cooking (my popcorn bowl is nearly as sacred).  I've had two popcorn pans in my adult life, both purchased at thrift stores.

My current pan has been used for more than 20 years.  It is a superb popcorn pan; deeper than the average pan (it was the bottom of a double-boiler, the lid salvaged from another pan). It's light-weight with a long handle, perfect for standing over the pan and shaking it for better popcorn.  My  popcorn pan remains on the stovetop, just as might leave a teakettle standing, ready for use.  The outside is blackened from dripped oil (I don't wash it often, only wiping the inside with a paper towel before I use it) and the bottom has warped from the heat so it tilts precariously on the burner.  If I take the lid off, the pan tips over when empty.  I know it is time to let it go.


Last weekend, I stopped at one of my favorite thrift stores in the little town of Hopkinton, or Hoptown as the natives call it.  It's a mission store and if you're visiting, I'm sure to drag you to Hoptown for the experience of a Saturday morning in the Not-So-Tiny House Mission Store.  In housewares I spied a likely replacement for my old popcorn pan.  It was the right size, not as deep as the old one.  The lid was ill-fitting, but that's okay on a popcorn pan.  Best of all, it was one dollar.  In the sorting room of the thrift store, I know there is a stove and I asked if I could test out the pan.  I stood at the stove, felt the pan's weight in my hand, skated it over the burner, rotated the handle as if I were dumping popped corn.  I happily shelled out a dollar.

I'm not quite ready to let go of my faithful popcorn pan; it's like saying goodbye to your first car.  I popped innumerable bowls of popcorn for Jeff and I during our 21 years together.  I've made my gourmet-flavored popcorn for friends to savor while we watched a movie.  My dog, Joey, loves popcorn and knows the sounds of the pan being readied and he waits patiently at the stove for me to finish, then he sits at my feet in the living room and I toss kernels to him and he catches them in midair.

For now, I'll work with my warped and charred old pan, and hope it's replacement serves as admirably.

Don't Just Survive.

 Claim your space.  Draw a circle of light around it.  Push back against the dark.  

Don't just survive. Celebrate. ~ Charles Frazier

This week, a high school classmate died suddenly of a stroke.

Tom was 52, exactly 11 days older than me.  Statistically, his death should not be a big surprise.  One out of every 234 people will die between the ages of 45-54 and one in 97 of us will die between the ages of 55-64. 

We graduated in 1979 from Denver High School, in Denver, Iowa.  There were 97 of us and our class was nicknamed 'The Biggest and The Best'.  To date, we remain the largest graduating class from Denver High. 

We're a close-knit class; anybody who went to school in a small town understands this.  It's not that you remained tight with your classmates, but you know everyone of them by name even 35 years later.

Thanks to Facebook, many of us have reconnected and remain in contact.

Tom and I had been friends in high school; we both lived on the blacktop outside of town and I would er bike to his house on Saturdays to hang out.  We'd spoken briefly at our 20-year reunion; a warm exchange, a quick sharing of our lives after graduation, and that was it until news of his death this week.

Nothing makes one consider your own mortality more than the unexpected death of a peer.  I do not feel as though I am just surviving this life, although at times, it is just that, surviving.  It's what we do.   

But we shouldn't forget to wonder.  To consider even a gray and bruised sky beautiful.  To stop and listen to the wind grab the last oak leaves.  To stop for art and music and dance and poetry.  To drowse in the late afternoon sun.  To love our family and friends.  And for heaven's sake, laugh.  And often.

Godspeed, Tom.  The Class of '79 is just a little smaller now.

Roadkill Poetry

Each morning, before sunrise, I drive the nine miles into Manchester for work.  These are country roads, and I meet few other cars at 5:30.  It is not other drivers I'm concerned about these days; it is the sudden appearance of deer.

Though I see deer all year in the Big Woods, they are more visible in late fall when the fields have been harvested, fields full of dropped seed corn.  The deer also make their way into the our yards for the grass now that other tender eats have suffered a freeze.


I see a lot of deer.  Last January, I counted 20 head in the field outside my front windows, and for much of the month, they would cross that field heading up or down river.  One afternoon, just after our first snowfall, I took the dogs out for a walk and four deer cut across the driveway, not 20 feet from us.  Two days ago, I had my closest call while driving to work.  I saw the deer dart out of the ditch ahead of me and had just enough time to hit the brakes before the second deer bolted out, missing my car by just a couple feet.

I see plenty of roadkill all year in my drive to and from work.  Raccoons, opossums, farm cats, hawks, Canadian geese.  A large red-tail fox was hit earlier in September and I can still see the traces of red fur on the side of the road.

Roadkill is just another part of living in the Big Woods, and though I hate seeing a fox, or hawk, or barn cat (and please don't let me see someone's dog), but the sight of a struck deer is particularly unsettling.

Deer are large, with a weight between 110-300 pounds.  Hitting one with your car at 55mph will not only kill the deer, but damage your vehicle.  This time of year, I encounter one or two dead deer on my route to Manchester every week.  I hate seeing these beautiful creatures splayed along the roadside; there is always a twinge of sadness.

Last November, a doe was struck in an area I often see them crossing.  On one side of the road is woodland, the other side is a large cornfield.  Her positioning in death was oddly elegant, especially in the cold, autumn sun.  I could not let her beauty, even in death, go without words.

Writing Through November (NaNoWriMo, kids)

October is coming to an end.  In the Big Woods, we saw our first snowfall this past week.  I've brought in the plants, stocked the woodpile, stored the patio furniture, and aired my winter coats.  Later this week, I'll clean the pick-up and then move it into the garage until April, swapping it for the 4-wheel drive Blazer.

Like most folks in the Snowbelt, November is the month to hunker down, to refamiliarize ourselves with long, winter nights; the quiet of a crystalline moon, the indistinct rustle of dried oak leaves still clinging to branches, the kick and comfort of the furnace.  It is a poet's month.

For three years, I have participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  In 2009, I took the challenge of writing 50,000 words by month's end or 1,700 words daily.  I worked on a story idea, set in Cherokee, NC, at the foot of the Smoky Mountains.  I managed just over 51,000 words and haven't looked at it since.

The year Jeff died, my days were full of words and sorrowed poems and I spent that November taking the NaNoWriMo poem-a-day challenge.  I do not participate in the online community, but I did use prompts from Robert Brewer, an editor with Writer's Digest magazine.

For poets, the idea of writing a poem a day is terrifying (I hear this from other poets whenever I mention
doing the challenge).  It's a masochistic marathon, really.  Poets love to ponder words and lines, images and ideas; they wait for inspiration.  If you're writing a poem every day, you're taking inspiration from whatever, wherever you can.

I would read the prompt each morning and then spend the day thinking about it, sometimes an idea would form quickly and other times, nothing.  Some prompt were absolutely meaningless (I don't write political poems or limericks or haiku).  One prompt, that year, on 11/11/11, was to write a math poem.  I'm a poet, for pity's sake, I hate math (but I did write a poem using mathematical terms and it is one of the best poems to come from that year).

Last year, my friend Kathe R. took the challenge with me.  At the end of November, each week through mid-January, we would send one another five of the poems for critiquing.  

I'm a sporadic poet, at best, but in two years, I've written 60 poems.  Most poetry manuscripts are a minimum of 48 poems.  Let me be honest, out of those 60 poems, I consider two of them exciting, and maybe eight poems are good.  Three of these poems have been published.  Another dozen are worthy of a second look and some refining.  At roughly thirty percent (I can do some math); for any poet to write 32 half-decent poems in a year is something to celebrate.

In less than a week, the challenge goes up again and I've had a prompt idea since September (ekphrasis, I bore easily).  I'm nervous about keeping up my end of the bargain, it's not like I can carbo-load for this or do any stretches (I did draft a poem this week just to keep the wheels greased).

Afternoons pass quickly now, and night folds over the Big Woods without much warning, and I will sit in November's chill-black and write poems (and I'm going to participate in Movember).  I say, bring it.

Waste not, poet nor cook

As a poet, I have learned the value of words, the value of conciseness, of using only the best words to create a poem.  In poetry, all words carry weight.  The fatted adverbs, the slovenly adjectives and interjections are pared.  Verbs are hashed, blended, manipulated and hammered to give the poem rise.  The poet counts every syllable, listens for rhythm and threads of sound to weld the lines.  The poet is a fierce editor, slashing the underbrush, clearing the way for the reader to see the poem's true beauty.

I am a writer, I will not waste words.

THE STARLINGS

They lift in thousands,

a black wave rolling

up into the Iowa sky,

as if the dried husks

in the fields sighed,

 flocked murmur—

they scatter, collide

into rioted shadows,

seem to loll, linger

then split the blue

September, only to

weave and stitch,

ribbon the horizon

with crack-the-whip

tails flung higher,

then over and around,

rumor above our heads,

their hurried wings

like soft words—

God’s whisper.

We are a wasteful lot; wasting words, wasting time, wasting food (the biggest sin one can commit).  I began a new life plan in August, switching my diet to a mostly plant-based menu.  The concept is to eat clean, avoid the 'whites' (salt, sugar, flour and dairy).  I have eschewed processed foods for fresh fruits and vegetables.  

This 'diet' (and I'm loathe to use that word) can challenge the single person.  Fresh produce can go bad before you can eat it, and I'm not alone in admitting to tossing whole heads of lettuce that turned brown  after committing to 'eat more greens'.  

Not long ago, I overcooked brown rice, rendering it to a hardly-palatable mush.  I did my best to eat it with some sauteed veggies for a couple meals and regrettably threw out the remaining.  A friend later suggested I could have given it to the dogs.  Damn the waste.  Better yet, I'll refine my brown rice cooking skills, however, the dogs will always be considered part of my 'zero waste' policy.  A small garden plot next year will benefit from a compost heap and 'zero waste' should be my reality.

I'll write about wasting time in a future post.  Right now, I need to stare anxiously at my Facebook and see what my friends are eating, watching or not doing.

A Simpler Kitchen

Five days a week, from 6am to 1pm, I command the grill at a local diner.  Eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausage, hashbrowns, burgers & fries.  During the week, we offer a lunch special - meatloaf, pork steak, scalloped ham & potatoes, chicken & biscuits - and you can always get the hot roast beef sandwich drenched in gravy.  The mashed potatoes are real, the pies and desserts are made in-house, and now that the weather is turning cold, you can get a bowl of chili or ham & bean, or chicken noodle.  Next week's soup is creamy potato.

The grill is behind a service window that looks out onto the dining room and from there I watch the world: the truck drivers, the coffee ladies, the Catholic League, the local businessmen, the dusty farmers and their stoic wives, the young families.  There is talk of the weather (it's been another dry year), crop prices, the government, birth and death, marriage and scandal.

The waitresses are efficient, sassy, and quick with a laugh.

I watch it all from my place behind the grill.  I crack wise.  I nod to the regulars.  I love every minute of it.  It is a far cry from my years as a retail manager.  Maybe I don't make as much money, but the poetry found in a plate of scrambled eggs and toast is worth far more.

I have always enjoyed cooking.  I make a mean lasagna, a firebrand chili, a whiskey-infused meatloaf.  Working in the diner, I have learned the art of cooking simply.  I have memorized farm recipes from stained 3x5 cards.  This summer, I gave up processed foods, went local as much as possible, including growing my own peppers and tomatoes.  I buy honey from the Amish farm a mile up the road.  Last week, I made my own whole-wheat bread.

I revel in this simpler life; the former disco boy clubkid trading the mirrored ball and laser lights for cast iron skillets and a whisk.  I'm in bed early and wake up before the sunrise.  This morning, I'd already baked a loaf of bread, moved the woodpile and washed the windows by 7 o'clock.

A slice of warm bread dripping with butter and clover honey.  That's poetry.

How dogs, diners and death brought me back to life.

It's three years since my partner, Jeff, died. The grief was consuming, breathtaking; sometimes beautiful, sometimes hellish. “We all ask the same question,” the poet, Dorianne Laux said to me shortly after Jeff died. “Who am I in the face of death? For you, the answer is a simple one: I'm a writer.”

And so I wrote. Poems filled with my grief, my anger, my confusion. My wonder.

A year later, I loaded my belongings and my dog, Jack, and returned to Iowa where I grew up. I moved into my father's lake home in the tiny village of Delhi in Delaware County.

I found a job as a short-order cook in a small diner, a place where farmers gather in the early morning to gab over coffee and eggs.  "We're like a family here," the owner's wife told me the first day.  It was a far-cry from retail manager, but I found the artistry in working the grill.  And I found a family.

I'd only been in Iowa three months when I met Joey, a fat ball of black fur and the saddest puppy eyes. He was leashed with a bit of twine and two young girls were desperately trying to find homes for him and his three sisters.

I wrote more poems that fall and winter; poems about Iowa, about the farms and the churches, about the quiet. I still grieved for Jeff, but there was a shift, a turning, a discovery that I was going on and surprisingly, it was okay.

My second winter is coming. Joey is a big, lovable teddy bear of a dog, and he and Jack make an odd pair. The three of us crawl into bed at night, the best threesome I've ever had. 

And recently, I noticed, grief slipped into memory.

 In theory, you let go.