NOTES FROM SCOTLAND

My husband and I are planning a trip to the Outer Hebrides—islands on Scotland’s northwest, with vast empty beaches and wind always rolling in off the sea—so of course I had to read some books set there. I was hoping for something that incorporated the Callanish standing stones, but this first one didn’t. However, it DID provide one of the most fascinating insights into folklore that I’ve ever come across. First of all, the book is Secrets of the Sea House (or possibly just The Sea House in other countries) by Elisabeth Gifford.

Secondly, Gifford explains the revolutionary-to-me idea about selkies and the Sea Sami here, in more detail than I will, and I hope you click and read her blog, which is supported by a lot of research she did for the book. But here it is in short: there’s a theory that the legends of selkies and mermaids that come from the northern shores of Scotland and Ireland could be true stories about people of the Sea Sami tribe visiting in their sealskin kayaks. Many know the Sami of Norway now—reindeer herders, indigenous arctic peoples who were oppressed by the white Scandinavians and are still navigating that cultural divide—but there used to be Sea Sami people. They used sealskin kayaks, with sealskin coats, pouches for their legs, and an attachment to keep the water out of the kayak and themselves in the kayak, centuries ago.

This technology allowed them to go under and through the waves like a dolphin, and when the kayak got waterlogged, it would float underneath the water—so someone watching from shore would see only a human torso with a dark “tail.” The selkie stories told that if you took away a selkie’s sealskin, they couldn’t return to the sea, but often sat next to it, yearning and sad; and if they found their sealskin again, even if they’d married and had a family, they’d leave forever. As for mermaids, the kayaks had to be dried periodically, so a person might pull out on inaccessible rocks and take off their waterproof hat to comb through their hair—sparking the image of a mermaid with her long hair. And keep in mind that these kayakers might have been either men or women, and the stories include both.

Alongside the idea that dragons, giants, and chimera likely sprang from people discovering dinosaur and other fossils, this is the most exciting concept I’ve come across in a long time! And yes, in addition to being a poetry geek, I’m also an archeology/folklore geek.

p.s. I have two poems from my new poetry book up in the summer issue of Sheila-Na-Gig. There’s also a link to get the book, if you’re so inclined! And if you have received it, consider posting a comment here to let me know what you think.

Andy was there to meet me. After six weeks apart, while I waited in Champaign, Illinois for my visa to be approved, I was beyond happy to see him. The drive home to Kirk Yetholm was an hour and a half, the same time as it would have taken from Edinburgh, but over smaller roads with very little traffic. We wound around and over hills, through tunnels of trees that opened onto sunny views of pastures dotted with sheep or cows, with the blue sky above and the sun only occasionally obscured by the kind of fast-moving clouds that did not presage rain. I was delirious with happiness and relief and fatigue.

Aside from pet videos and photos, I just snapped the views out the back of the house and from the walk beside the river where we took the dogs.

A year later, here’s the round-up of my thoughts:

—It’s still astonishingly beautiful here. Easier to appreciate when there’s blue sky, but the hills, forests, and pastures are just gorgeous. Like getting to live full-time in a place where I’d pay to vacation.

—Except for January. January can go stuff itself. It rained all day every day during that month this year. I’m not kidding. Of course it’s going to rain in a Scottish winter, but ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

—This house immediately felt like home, even when we first stepped inside to view it in February 2025. But it’s taken some time for the village and the country to feel like home. Traveling to see the friends we do have here (Andy has more than I do, of course, since he’s still got some folks from his home town in Yorkshire as well as friends from university) is more difficult than I imagined. It’s not a big country! But the roads twist and turn so much that it really does take much longer to drive places than in the US. Finding pet-sitters who will spend the night with our two needy golden retrievers (ok, Skye really belongs to my stepdaughter, but she’s not in a position to have her full-time right now) and two annoying cats is also challenging.

—Thank all the deities for Zoom to keep me connected to family and friends. I’m also incredibly grateful to the people in the village choir and the village book club, as well as friendly neighbours and pub owners. When my depression is acting up, I still struggle with loneliness, because it’s hard for me to reach out to new friends then, but I’m working on it.

—The NHS (national health service) has its positives and negatives. Positives include that care is paid for by taxes, including prescriptions, so you aren’t required to have health insurance. Negatives include that I literally cannot get the one medication for acid reflux that actually works for me (in the US I ordered it from Canada), referrals to specialists can take years, and complex care requires travel to larger cities.

—Yes, being away from the US makes my mental health a bit better. My friends and family are still dealing with it, fascist ideas are still popping up like wildfires, and climate change rolls on like an avalanche. But people here don’t talk about the news every single time they get together, because they don’t have to. And that means I can breathe.

—One family member and my best friend since university (and her family) have been to visit, and each visit feels like it forms an invisible but tangible connection. We are learning where and how to get visitors to interesting places; Edinburgh, for example, is too much for us unless folks just want to do ONE thing there. But we can get folks to a train into the city and be there to pick them up on their return! So if you “don’t want to impose” but have thought about visiting, just email me and we’ll work it out!

—As of today, I can no longer legally drive in the UK, and I have decided not to pursue my UK license. Forty plus years of driving in the US—and my dislike for driving even there—is too much for me to get past. There’s a bus that stops about 20 steps from my house and I can, if necessary, walk over to Town Yetholm for choir, book club, and anything else essential. Andy is almost always free to drive me places, and he enjoys driving. Though it’s not the same day, we can get groceries delivered. Taxis exist, even out here. And the roads will be safer without me behind the wheel!

—I do miss American openness, how a person will tell you everything on the first meeting. I miss being able to understand everyone because they also have an American accent, and not feeling like my own accent sounds flat and clumsy. I miss elevators in every hotel, parking spots wide enough for me to exit the car without performing gymnastics, air conditioning, a clothes dryer in my house, you-can-get-everything-there stores like Target, and drive-thru fast food that’s open late.

—But every day, I feel lucky to live here with my Brit, our pets, millionaire shortbread, hedgehogs, and thousands of years of a history and culture I’ve been fascinated with since I was a kid.

Thanks for reading this celebration of one year spent in the Scottish Borders, a mile from Northumberland (in England)! More poetry-related news next time.

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Also, I had two poems come out in Plant-Human Quarterly, a wonderful magazine I’ve been a fan of for a while now. It just so happened that some of my poems about native UK trees and their folklore were a good fit, and though I’ve gotten lazy about that project, I’m thrilled to have those out in a magazine with a mission I love.

And I want to share a link to a poem by a writer I’ve been working with in my online classes for a few years now, Tamara Stewart. I’m so fortunate to be able to support other writers as they make connections with the larger literary community, and to read their important work.

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Finally, I’ll try to be brief as I work through my response to a book event that took place here recently. I had read the writer’s memoir beforehand, knowing she was to visit, and it’s very good—feel free to email or message me privately if you’re interested in the author’s name and title. I will gladly recommend it.

The day before the book event (discussion with the author and a reviewer who lives locally), I did a quick search to see if she had published other books, and I was glad I did. There’s a novel that opens with a scene of animal abuse. I know this is my biggest personal trigger, and that for me, there are so many amazing books in the world that I feel comfortable not reading books with this content. My enthusiasm was somewhat dampened, but I still looked forward to the discussion, since the previous event with the same terrific interviewer had been fascinating (though I noted that writer mentioned only one woman writer among over a dozen other writers whose work he admired, which is all too common for male writers).

However, I sat in the event space feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. To be frank, I actively disliked the writer, and I hated that I disliked her. There were a few reasons, some of them no doubt having to do with the content of that novel, which she read from. But after days of thinking about it, I decided the reason that mattered, the reason I’m bothering to share my experience here, is connected to some statements the writer made about what good writing is and what it should be, with dismissal of writers who take a different approach. To paraphrase, she suggested that writers must examine cruelty and brutality in detail—whether in writing about people or about the natural world—in order to write “good” books.

We’ve all heard this kind of claim before, with writers laying out what “must” be done in order to write “well,” and almost always those unofficial rules line up with their own work. I know I was particularly sensitive to this claim because I struggle to cope with cruelty and brutality in real life as well as literature. However, I would never claim that books illustrating cruelty are “bad,” nor that others should refrain from reading them.

But what I do believe, after writing and teaching for 35 years, is that there is, wonderfully, a huge variety of art out in the world. Poetry is just one type of art, and it can be a few words or the length of an epic, quiet or loud, use long lines or short, rhyme or not, incorporate photos or audio, be hopeful or despairing, take us inside the experience of inanimate objects or speak the words of a mother, take 100 words to describe an apple, be about love or grief, ambition or disappointment. I know that my own taste in poetry tends towards more accessible poems of no more than two pages, but I am thrilled that poems I couldn’t explicate if you held a gun to my head also exist.

Which is just to say: read and write what matters to you. If you go to other writers or teachers for advice, try to sift their words so that you only take in what gives you permission and encouragement to try out techniques and ideas—and reject what makes you feel like you shouldn’t write what you want to write or read what you want to read.

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Now for publication & poetry news from some of the folks who have taken online classes with me!

Liz Berkstresser has been on Rattlecast not once, but twice, reading her poetry. She said she was nervous, so I told her it’s far worse to read on Zoom than when you’re in person and can see people’s supportive expressions. In this link, she reads at 1:27:30. In this one, she’s reading at 1:22:50.

Alexandria Wyckoff has three poems up at Root Smoke!

And Scott Bethay has a poem up in The Amazine!

NOTES FROM SCOTLAND:

I’m not someone who watches sports, though I did participate in them when I was young, before ME/CFS. But I am LOVING the positive stories coming out of the World Cup 2026 (football, or soccer to north Americans). I first heard about them because the Tartan Army, the huge fan cohort of the Scottish team, has made such a splash in Boston and Providence. From making new friends to cleaning up after themselves to donating money to drinking Boston dry to bringing the fun to celebrating with Haitian fans, Scotland and its people have brought joy to my country of origin.

But it’s not just the Tartan Army. It’s also Korean fans and Mexican fans forming friendships, folks from other countries tasting American food (look up the Japanese fan going to Waffle House—I can’t remember which social media platform it was on), and Kansas adopting the Algerian team. Honestly, there are just too many stories to link to. But it’s international connections, respect for cultures, and the recognition that we can all share friendship and joy. Avoid doomscrolling and dive into this wonderful antidote to despair. You’ll be glad you did.

Of course, “hot” here is anything over 70F (20C), which is hot in the sunny part of our house (kitchen and master bedroom). When you groan, US friends, just keep in mind that we don’t have a/c.

I’m also enjoying other things about Scotland:

1. They let me vote (!) because I’m a permanent resident. We don’t all have to agree on politics, but I will tell you that I was happy to be able to support the Green Party.

   

2. My husband and I stayed by the North Sea, just an hour and a half away, for three nights, and took a boat trip where we saw thousands of gannets, as well as puffins, razorbills, cormorants, a handful of seals, and more. It’s my goal now to get to the seaside at least once a month, and we’re close enough for day trips, too!

   

3. I’ve got five new local friends to schedule lunch with! It’s a little overwhelming for this introvert, but I’m so grateful to be getting to know the lovely people here. My only trouble is that I have trouble with non-American accents when in a place that’s loud with other conversations. Surely technology has something for that?

4. Since putting a hold on getting a driver’s license here, I’m far less stressed. I can legally drive until July 21 (12 months after my arrival) but otherwise my husband has to be my chauffeur or I take the bus, which stops only about 20 yards from our house. Narrow, twisty roads with trucks and tractors barreling towards me from blind turns are just not my thing. Not to mention roundabouts.

There are difficult things, too, of course. A couple of recent accidents with our indoor cats and birds (a cat got out once, and a bird got in once) felt as traumatic to me as being electrocuted. I can’t get two of the medications I relied on in the US. I miss my family and friends, those sparks of connection you only feel when you’re in the same physical space with people you know well.

But all our lives include both joys and sorrows. And writing creatively helps us make sense of them.

So on to the bragging!

Two of the amazing writers I’ve worked with in my classes have recently published pieces online! Please read Yes, I Tell Him by Jennifer Pinto in Beautiful Things and Sumo by Scott Bethay in Blood & Honey. I’m thrilled to say that drafts of both pieces were originally written for my classes, though I can’t take credit for these writers talent.

Please let me know if you’ve published something you may have started in one of my classes—I do love to brag about you!

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I received my box of the new book a few days ago, and it’s gorgeous! Many thanks to Mili Vishwakarma for the amazing photo (she lives in my home town of Champaign, Illinois!), Sarah Carey & Susan Leary for the kind and insightful blurbs, and Hayley Haugen at Sheila-Na-Gig for all the hard work she does as the editor there.

If you’ve already received your copy, please let me know. And if you haven’t but would like to order a copy, click here.

And Hayley is doing all the work to set up my virtual book launch! It will be on Sunday, June 28th at 2pm US Eastern Time (that’s 7pm my time here in Scotland). I’ll read, along with other wonderful Sheila-Na-Gig poets. You can click here to register (it’s free, but you need to register to receive the link to join).

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Last thing, I promise: my next asynchronous online class begins June 24. It’s on COLOR, and you can click here for more information and to sign up.

Yes, I owned a 3-hole punch and yes, at first I organized the collection by date. Then I tried doing it by the poet’s last name. Eventually I tucked poems into it without even copying them onto a standard 8.5 x 11 inch page, creating a pile of poetry without order, words bursting out like children at recess.

I took that binder with me from dorm room to apartment to rented house for years, sitting on the floor to sift through and greet favorite poems like old friends. There I met Sharon Olds and Eric Ormsby, Louise Gluck and Yusef Komunyakaa. It was my own favorite poems anthology, my poetry mixtape.

Eventually I made the difficult decision to recycle the binder and poems, after too many moves and too much illness, when every box felt unbearably heavy. Now I have a folder in my email that’s overflowing with poems I like from the Academy of American Poets or SWWIM or Psaltery and Lyre or One Art or other literary magazines I’ve subscribed to over the years.

The point is: read what you love, and fall in love easily.

My next class begins May 6, and is on the theme of water. Writers can submit poems or short essays, and folks who take the classes range from multi-book authors to beginners. We create community, despite it all being online and asynchronous, and I take my time in responding to every submitted poem or essay.

One recent publication by a writer who has taken some of my classes can be read here, and though he came in writing only poems, now he also writes amazing creative nonfiction. (By the way, if you’ve taken a class with me and published something you started in that class, please feel free to let me know so I can share your brilliant work!)

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NOTES FROM SCOTLAND:

The RSPB (main birding organization in the UK) has asked those of us who feed birds in the backyard to stop feeding any seeds from May 1-November 1 in order to halt the spread of trichomonosis, which is killing mostly finches (and there are several types of finches here). I’m terribly sad about this because I had to cut down what I fed the birds to just two feeders—niger seeds and crushed sunflower hearts—due to rats in the back garden, which can also spread disease and more reliably make for unhappy neighbors. So that means I can’t feed birds, which is one of the things I love to do, because I don’t have to use any energy in order to enjoy wildlife. And I haven’t had time to fill up my garden with mature native plants that will bring in the birds naturally.

However, the daffodil season has been long and lovely (and there’s a daffodil native to the UK that I can plant in the fall!), we have sunshine at least every other day, and even in my mostly treeless neighborhood, the dawn chorus of birds is beautiful.

And yet, I cower inside as I read through the review copy of my forthcoming book, hiding from anticipated criticisms about the poems being repetitive, whiny, and self-obsessed. I will never forget a single-sentence rejection I received from a prestigious press many years ago, 18 months after their short open reading period: Well, the reader certainly learns a lot about you in this collection. Oof. And I’m not alone; I’ve spoken with many other poets and writers over the years, including folks I’d consider poetry-famous, who respond to compliments about their work with words of self-loathing.

But actually I really like a poem just after I’ve finished the first draft. Maybe it’s the high of the focus needed to write, or the sense that I’m doing something rather than just sitting around being exhausted (my default as someone with ME/CFS), or the hope that this time I’ve finally gotten it right. Maybe it’s that I’m the only one who’s read the poem, the only one who even knows it exists, so there is no possibility that it will be criticised and I can simply ride the joy of creating.

I am trying to return to that uncomplicated joy as I share news about my book. It’s called What Life Is Like Here on Earth, after a poem I wrote, shared with my writing group, and published in the wonderful literary magazine Does It Have Pockets? I wrote it after a day during which I cried too much, feeling sorry for myself for various reasons. But by bedtime, I really had moved on, forgetting my despair in the face of something—birdsong, a joke my husband made, completing some necessary task—life-affirming, hopeful. I really do think this is what life is like here on earth: grief, despair, pain, interspersed with small, often forgettable moments that keep us going, hoping for something good.

P.S. By the way, there are too many people to thank, but I want to shout out to Hayley Haugen, editor of Sheila-na-Gig Press and beautiful poet herself; Sarah Carey, who wrote one of the lovely blurbs for this book; and Susan Leary, who wrote the other gorgeous blurb for this book. I have been a fan of both of them for years now. Click on any of these names, and you’ll have a chance to read some of their poems!

P.P.S. Here’s a poem I read yesterday and am utterly smitten by. Please read and enjoy, just for the sake of poetry.

The rush of good feelings wasn’t just about validation of my poetry, though if you write you know how much of what we do feels acutely personal, almost cut off from other people by the solitary nature of the work. It was about connection. These other poets, at various stages of their writing experience—some widely published, some not yet published—are now part of my literary community, whether or not we communicate directly with each other again.

When I was a young poet (approximately a million years ago—we depended on woolly mammoths for transportation), I felt I had failed at one vital aspect of graduate school: networking. Uncomfortable with smalltalk and with putting myself forward, I never joined the circle of eager students surrounding visiting writers like baby birds hoping to be fed. I didn’t see the point; this famous writer wouldn’t remember me afterwards, as they were surely busy hanging out with other famous writers, drinking champagne and eating caviar and being geniuses.

But guess what? Now I’m an old poet, if not famous, and while I have wonderful friends, some of them writers, I’m always happy to talk or email with other poets and writers, published or not. Talking about writing is a joy to me, in this world that offers so much anti-poetic noise. Knowing that others are searching for the right metaphor, experimenting with line breaks, trying to get closer to the mystery by expressing what it’s like to to live in their bodies and minds in this specific time and place—that gives me hope when hope too often feels far away.

Incidentally, that poem in Rattle appears in my forthcoming poetry collection from Sheila-na-Gig, What Life is Like Here on Earth. It will be out in April or May, and I’m excited to share it with you all.

NEXT CLASS BEGINS MARCH 4: The next class I’m offering is on dreams—the ones we have at night, daydreams, life dreams, and more. One of the writers who has taken those classes just had their first piece accepted; others regularly publish poems and flash essays that started in response to prompts from the classes. We have found a way to create real community online, through thoughtful responses to submitted work that note what’s going well and challenge the writer to try new approaches. Click here for more information & to sign up.

However, there are very short poems that lodge in my memory because they strike deep into my always-broken heart, making me feel connected to the poet, making me see the world anew.

This one only came to my attention recently, through social media. Yes, the discovery of new favourite poems is one reason I stay on social media!

Note that the line breaks in this 7-line poem do a lot of work: “You being” lets us linger on what our own being might mean before “inside” puts us in that ambulance, helping explain the way in which an ambulance is safe, then “means” prepares us for the punch of “you’re already hurt.” We slow down while reading this short poem, but still crash headlong into the explanation of this metaphor that feels absolutely accurate and makes the poet a seer. Yes, you understand that I am hurt, and that a poem can be a place of safety for me, Ms. Correa. How did you know?

Then there’s Sean Thomas Dougherty’s oft-shared poem “Why Bother?”, which speaks directly to us as poets. Why bother writing our little poems, those pieces of our insides that make no money and seem to make no difference at all in the world?

Then finally a little poem by Gregory Orr that I saw years ago in a magazine—maybe American Poetry Review?—and committed to memory because I liked it so much. I also taught it year after year because students liked it and the writerly choices clearly add to the impact.

Oh, the confidence of “We all do” followed on almost the same line by “I think.” And then the first stanza wrapped up with the reason why so many of us (me, me, me!) “want to go back/To the beginning.” But—but!—no, the confident speaker tells us he’s wrong, and he’s wrong because of a metaphor that opens the whole poem to something much bigger. Then the final line, which asks us to consider what those bigger things might be. Is it a wound in the surface of the earth? Is a wound necessary for life, for growth? Do we as humans have to be wounded in order to live, to become?

Yes, well. I could go on. There are other short poems that I’ve read and remembered over the years. Maybe you have one that sticks with you? Maybe you’ve even written one? If so, please, please share in the comments!

NOTES FROM SCOTLAND

I think birds are a bit like short poems, at least the small ones that flit around the feeders in my back garden. I have been enjoying learning the names of birds here, including the long-tailed tits in the photo below (they love the fancy suet balls I order online—didn’t like the cheap ones from the local store). Just so you know, there are also blue tits, great tits (yes, yes, I know, my American friends—but that word isn’t really used in that way here), coal tits, marsh tits, willow tits, and…one more I’m forgetting. And of course European robins, chaffinches, dunnocks, blackbirds (a type of thrush, unlike the other black birds that include rooks, crows, ravens, and more). Naming the wildlife helps me feel connected to this place, chips away at the loneliness that seeps in when I find myself mired in small talk and really missing the American ability to cut through to more substantive conversations.

It takes courage to be a poet.

Why? Because when you write poetry, you are attempting to understand what’s not easy to understand, the hidden, mysterious places in yourself and the world. You are rejecting the idea that capitalism is religion, that working, buying, and spending are the meaning of life. Poems are notorious for not making the poet any money, but poets write them anyway.

It’s scary to use words to find your own meaning, to choose complexity and uncertainty—those chewy, sustaining foods—over the chemical-laden over-simplified cliches our culture tries to force-feed us. Others may not understand why you spend hours listing metaphors, making notes, revising the end so it goes towards something fresh, arresting.

And then, if you’re brave enough to share your poems with others, you face rejection of this creation that feels inseparable from your very soul.

I’m watching the horrors of what’s happening in the US from the relative peace and safety of rural Scotland. I am not an activist; that kind of courage is beyond me. But I urge you all to be poets. To be brave enough to write (and/or make any kind of art) so as to keep alive the best parts of humanity.

Be brave, like Renee Nicole Good. Be a poet.

NOTES FROM SCOTLAND

On January 2nd, I saw a shooting star. I had walked out back with my dog, Duncan, partly to cool off due to a hot flash (thank you, menopause?) and the spark traveled from overhead to in front of me, over the fields beyond my back garden, then disappeared. It was so fast, I almost didn’t believe I’d seen it. Then I thought it might be from fireworks. Then I knew what I’d seen. A shooting star, a meteor from the Quadrantid meteor shower. It’s been years since I’ve seen one. Maybe it’s a sign of something good for us all.

We have two kinds of holly in our back garden: variegated leaf holly in the form of a small hedge of bushes, and the traditional dark green in a tree that’s growing by the shed at our back fence. Neither produced berries this year, which I learned is due to either harsh pruning or youth or both. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can manage them better and get berries in the future. I know the birds would appreciate them.

But the truth is, though we have very short days right now in southern Scotland (sunrise at 8:34 and sunset at 3:38 today), the winter has been mild. The birdbath only froze a couple of nights, and the grass is still green. It’s windy (about a third of the time, the wind gusts up into the 40s mph), but I can still go out for walks. According to locals, we have gotten a good bit of snow here in past years. I can only hope!

Though the folklore suggests the Holly King and the Oak King fight for the crown twice a year, I prefer to think they hand it over to each other, one ready to rest and gather strength, the other prepared to lead us back to nature as the wheel of the year turns towards or away from our favourite seasons.

p.s. My next online, asynchronous class is on Learning—in school, from mentors, from family, for hobbies, for fun. Poetry & short creative nonfiction. As a reminder, I work with writers who have published books and those who haven’t, folks with pieces out in well-known magazines and those just exploring writing for themselves. We even manage to create community without ever interacting face to face. CLICK HERE for more information and to sign up.

p.p.s. One of the poets I’ve worked with in these classes and individually has her first book of poetry out! Check out Victoria Melekian’s collection of poems, The Accidental Courage of Our Lives. It’s beautiful and authentic and you’ll be glad you read it!

I expressed sympathy—dog people get that these losses are intense and often under-recognised—and we talked about his dog. He’d rescued the dog years before from the house next to the one he was working on; the owner didn’t want it, a white Boxer puppy of about 5 months old who was deaf. We chatted a bit more before he went off to do his job and talk technical issues with my husband, but before he left, he showed me a photo of the sweet deaf Boxer boy.

These kinds of interactions help me persuade myself that I’m not quite as awkward and useless and neglectful of other people as I think I am. The thing is, I believe I’m at least slightly autistic, so I rarely feel like I respond to others appropriately, as normal people do. I rehearse conversations before seeing anyone who isn’t family or an old friend, skip social situations where I don’t know people whenever possible, and, worse, I remember the stupid and strange things I’ve said and done like I have eidetic memory (which I don’t):

Once a young person I’d never met but who was in a group with me and others I did know teased me about the towel I was carrying to sit on for the fireworks we were attending. I threatened them that they’d need it because I’d push them into the lake. I thought I was joking, but apparently they didn’t, as we exchanged no other words during the evening.

Once I made a comment about a movie I was watching with a couple of friends in their house, and one of them disagreed, pointing out the overall theme of the movie and how my opinion contradicted it. I equivocated, and have always felt I misspoke, that I revealed both a lack of narrative understanding and too much of myself.

Several times I have revealed a friend’s secret because I didn’t realise it was a secret and I was casting around for something to say in a group where I felt uncomfortable.

The list—consisting of much more than two items—runs through my head when I can’t sleep, or when I’m deciding whether or not to go out socially. My missteps in tone or content, the way I seem to miss social cues or simply not know how to respond to them—they just feel heavy and ungainly, like a box slightly too large for one person that you have to manoeuvre into your house by yourself anyway. I’m not tortured by these moments, but I don’t really want to carry any additional boxes if I don’t have to.

But connections with strangers over something I understand—dogs, grief, or a small number of other subjects—those don’t bother or scare me. If they go poorly, I have no stake in them and can dismiss them from my memory. If they go well, they’re pieces of candy-coated chocolate in the trail mix of the day.

And then there are the 70,000-piece puzzles of those people I was once close to and lost contact with over the years. I think of them, remembering, and each time I wonder if it’s my fault, if there’s an unwritten code somewhere about how to keep in touch. I hate talking on the phone—no body language or facial expressions leaves me even more lost than usual—and have been, at different times, too busy and/or too exhausted to send even one more email. But do those people think of me negatively, like some folks do about those who leave the party without telling anyone or saying goodbye (also me)?

Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is that I think of people I’ve known with good will, hoping they’re happy, knowing they’re making art or writing poems or organising fundraisers or caring for loved ones, knowing they’re doing small kind things every day that no one else even knows about but make this world better.

My sister, despite being shy, was so good at remembering details about distant relatives and noticing people’s needs that it was a type of magic. She was like the person at the ice rink whose grace remained, quietly beautiful, whether she was skating alone or with one other person or with a group. Of course, she probably didn’t feel that way. Which reminds me of one last thing: if you notice a friend or loved one doing something well, once or multiple times, consider telling them. None of us ever get enough compliments to believe something good about ourselves.

NOTES FROM SCOTLAND

The tiny village where I live—our tiny village, I should get used to saying—has more clubs and activities than a private high school. There’s the village choir, which I had to temporarily drop out of because my voice kept giving out from recent disuse (their Christmas concert is today and I’m looking forward to walking to the church to hear it!); the book club, which meets at one of the two pubs and is, like many book clubs, more social than bookish—something that has its advantages; the craft club that meets at the church; the once-a-month film night at the village hall; the history club; and more I’ve already forgotten. I love the feeling of community, and can imagine that the more activities you’re part of, the more you see the same people until, after a time and without any effort, they’re friends.

As long as I find ways to minimise my clumsy, messy social awkwardness. But what are the odds of that?

*Yes, we had two dogs, both golden retrievers—Duncan and Skye. Skye is now happy beyond her wildest dreams because she gets to live full-time with my stepdaughter (her favourite person), just an hour and a half away in Edinburgh. Skye gets pup cups at coffee shops and ice cream shops, and she knows where they are so her humans never get to pass by without Skye getting a treat. She’s fussed over by dozens of people per day, has a fenced-in park across the street where she chases squirrels and plays with other dogs, and gets all the attention without having to share with another dog and two cats. And she gets to see us regularly. It’s all good!

One of the kind things said by someone in attendance—the wonderful poet Glenda Bailey-Mershon of An Unfettered Woman—was that she liked that in my book, readers got a strong sense of who my sister was. I know that in some books on grief, we see the aftermath, which means the writer, but not the person they are grieving. So in case that’s your thing and you haven’t gotten my book, you can buy it through Bookshop dot org in the US here. I need to get my books up for sale from here in the UK, but I get side-tracked by things both mundane (doctors, drivers licenses) and profound (walks in the colorful Scottish countryside).

In any case, I hope you enjoy the reading with photos. Thanks!

p.s. If you’re looking to do a bit of poetry or flash cnf writing before Xmas, I’d love to see you in my next asynchronous class. Click here for more info.

I decided to squeeze in one more asynchronous class for writers of poetry and short creative nonfiction before the end of the year. Yes, the theme is Holidays, but the prompts won’t be limited to winter holidays and you definitely don’t have to write about lovely, perfect holidays (in fact, please don’t, or there won’t be anything at stake). Click here for more information and to sign up. Class begins November 12.

And in case you think it’s all roses and rainbow-haired ponies in my classes, please note that one of the participants in the current class ended a submission with this note to all of us: Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on this bullshit. Honestly, I can’t think of a more accurate summary of how most of us feel when presenting our writing to others for comment.

NOTES FROM SCOTLAND

Just five minutes ago, my husband walked across to the pub and bought half a bottle of red wine so he could make moussaka. The pub is a two-minute walk from our front door; the closest open grocery store is a 20-minute drive. We haven’t been there frequently enough because we very rarely drink (maybe a glass of wine once a month, if that) due to an excess sensitivity to alcohol from long COVID and ME/CFS. Oh, we’ve eaten Sunday roast (roasted pork, cracklin’—which is the skin fried crispy, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, peas, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, stuffing, and I’m probably forgetting something) at the pub three times, dinner once, and treated ourselves to sticky toffee pudding a couple of times. But for a local pub in a village of 250 souls to thrive, folks need to frequent it. So my husband was actually happy when he came back, having paid sixteen pounds for his half bottle. We’re supporting our local.

I know the US has zoning regulations for a reason, not least because bars come with large parking lots and, often, obnoxious drunk people making noise at late hours. But most towns and villages in the UK have a local pub, and it might be right next to houses where regular people live. The huge advantage of this: if you walk to the pub, you’re not driving home while inebriated. But pubs are also, in general, quieter than bars. They rarely have public TVs. They’re small, accommodating maybe 25 customers. And if you get obstreperous, the bartender knows where you live and can call someone to come get you out of their establishment.

p.s. My husband had to taste the wine, which was a Malbec, and he said it was much better than the cooking wine he would have been using if he’d remembered to buy it at the grocery store.

For this event, I’ll talk a bit about writing, read a bit from the book, and if I can figure it out technically, do a sort of slideshow. And of course I’ll be happy to take questions.

ANNOUNCEMENT TWO: I think I’m going to add on, or intersperse, stuff about moving from the US to this lovely little village in Scotland this past summer. For a while I thought about starting a new Substack for that content, but I don’t have the energy for another item on my to-do list.

So what does that mean? Sometimes I’ll have a section labeled NOTES FROM SCOTLAND where I tell you, say, about the woman I sit next to in the village choir, who nudged my water bottle with her foot one day. She apologised, and I said, “Oh, no worries, it’s just water.” She said, “Would it have been different if it was gin?” I’m somewhat used to British sarcasm, since my husband is English and I’ve watched hours and hours of British tv shows, but it still tickles me when someone’s that quick and hilarious—especially when she’s a grandmother.

It also just so happens that this woman, who we’ll call J, mentioned the Borders Youth Theatre performance of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” My long-suffering engineer husband agreed to go with me, and it was amazing! The young people weren’t professional-level, but they were engaged, and the performance was innovative while still delivering the main idea: that we need to love all living things in order to redeem ourselves, regardless of whether we consider them beautiful or important. It seems to me that message is particularly necessary right now.

Other great elements of the performance: the albatross was huge, a construction with a 12 foot wingspan, and its lighted eyes were removed when it was killed. The actors traded a blue scarf around to indicate who was currently speaking as the mariner. They used beer bottles filled with various amounts of water to create sound effects; the actors blew across the top into a microphone. They sang a song periodically to give the sailors a bit of character as a group. And I was delighted to hear Coleridge in a Scottish accent.

I’m not traveling here in Scotland; I live here. But to some extent, I feel this quote applies to me: something I loved as a kid was the mythology and folklore of the British Isles, and recently I have been returning to that love. I drove past The Kelpies (large statues you can see from the highway) and was reminded of that bit of folklore, which—as so often with Scottish folklore in particular—is violent and frightening, particularly the stories about a kelpie luring children onto its back and dragging them into the water to eat them.

As a child, I loved folklore because magic and mystery were an antidote to the stresses of regular life, which I felt keenly enough to empty out my hoard of wheat pennies at age seven or eight in order to buy my family treats at Dairy Queen, all in the interest of assuaging my father’s constant worry about money and the arguments that resulted. Now, I love it for the insights into cultures that lived closer to nature than I do, people who didn’t have the mixed blessings of cell phones and YouTube. For me, these stories are like time machines; the kelpie may have been a story intended to remind people to be cautious around the rivers and lochs of Scotland, a type of public health announcement.

What was it like, the sparks of the fire rising into early winter darkness, the smell of pine saturating the campsite, a stream chattering close by, while the storyteller used all their usual tricks to dramatise the story of the beautiful, human-devouring horse? Would it have been a bit like my own father’s reading of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, while my brother and I flanked him on the blue plaid 1970s couch? Or would it have been wilder, the story even more tangible because of the dark and the cold?

And so I’m indulging myself, and the next class I’m offering is Folklore & Myth (click for more information and to sign up). What if we explored a bit of the folklore of a place before we traveled there, in addition to looking up the recommended restaurants and best sights? What if we examined the folklore that shaped our own perceptions of the world, like the idea that a fairy would pay us when one of our teeth fell out?

Meanwhile, I just got word that the online course I signed up for—Introduction to British Folklore—got enough students to run, and begins next week. I’ve also subscribed to some other Substacks on folklore, and begun writing poems about native British trees and the folklore associated with them (starting with the Hawthorn, a favourite tree since I was a kid and the hillside by our house bloomed with white, sweet Hawthorn every spring).

Poking around a bit more, I discovered that Hawthorn blossoms share a chemical, trimethylamine, with decomposing animal tissue. So while people in the British Isles decorated gardens and common areas with blooming Hawthorn branches for spring celebrations, they did not bring those blooms inside, lest dangerous fairies consider that an invitation and someone ends up dead.

Next, I’m going to ask those of you who’ve taken any of my classes to let me know when you publish your work, particularly any pieces that might have begun in my class. If you just had a poem or an essay come out in a literary magazine—or a book of course!—let me know so I can share it on social media. I promise I won’t take credit for your talent and hard work! I just think it can be wonderful to share each other’s successes, to maybe get a poem or essay in front of someone who really needs to read it.

Finally, to my friends living in the U.S.: even as I slowly get my house here in Scotland set up, as I sign up for the NHS (National Health Service) and know that, even if it’s slow, I won’t go bankrupt from healthcare bills, I think about you. I know so many of you feel dread and horror and fear every day. I know you’re taking action in the ways you can, including writing (creating in the face of destruction is absolutely resistance!), taking care of your loved ones, reading, teaching, feeding the birds, volunteering, marching, making calls, meditating. I won’t tell you what to do, but I will link to Anne Lamott’s wonderful piece about laughter as resistance, which I quoted from in the image above. I can’t say it any better than that.

But one of the participants in my last online class heard the title of this next one and reminded me of the scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail where Eric Idle calls, “Bring out your dead!” If you’ve seen that movie (“film” here in the UK, while in the US we tend to only call something a “film” if it’s serious or literary), you can probably hear this line in your head, as well as the character who says, “I’m not dead yet!”

The title of my next class is: Revival, or Bringing Back What Is Dead. Here’s my description: How do we revive what’s dead in us, or in the world—and what would we do if we could? We spend so much time yearning for what’s gone; what would it look like if we could revive our own innocence, our lost youth, our dead loved ones? In this course, we’ll speculate, wonder, and explore what we’d bring back, and how, and whether we even should.

I told you I wasn’t funny.

Galway Kinnell is, however, in his poem “Oatmeal.” In that poem, he imagines John Keats as a breakfast companion because “it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.” I love this as an exercise in revival, and (spoiler) will be using this poem as a sample reading in my upcoming class.

As a reminder, my classes offer sample readings, prompts, deadlines, and written feedback that prioritises description and a respect for what the writer’s trying to do before moving on to questions and suggestions.

The class begins in ten days.

Oh, one more thing: I am so lucky that I will be going to a 50th anniversary showing of Monty Python’s Holy Grail at Doune Castle, where several scenes were filmed, this month. I can only imagine that everyone, including my husband, will be saying the lines with the actors all the way through. Talk about revival! Though this movie never died, its silly 1970s humor delighting old and new audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for fifty years.

And I think the volume felt turned up on this connection and purpose for a few reasons.

1. I live in Scotland now! I’m incredibly lucky, and very aware of it. My husband and I had planned to move to the UK on his retirement, so the mindset of moving abroad was already there. We just happened to inherit the money to do it a little early, and exactly at the time we felt the call of the UK most urgently. Since I met him, I’ve learned more and more about the culture here, influenced by “free” healthcare (paid for by taxes and not tied to full-time employment) and other factors. People here have the time and energy for hobbies. They get to find meaning in life that’s not tied to money. Of course there are problems! But I feel more peace here, less guilty for my life of creating rather than earning. I thought I would hate hanging laundry on the line, but my back garden looks out onto hills and swallows are raising babies in my shed. The people we bought chairs from—used (reduce, reuse, recycle)—were so nice and we had the kind of lovely chat few seem to have time for in the US. My stepdaughter has been over and told us hilarious stories about the kids at her after-school care centre. And my computer is now correcting my writing to British spellings, which amuses and delights me, and reminds me that, in the 90s when I had a poem accepted by the (now tragically closed) Gettysburg Review, the editors corrected my spelling from “grey” to “gray.”

   

   

2. We tend to take things for granted until a big change forces us to appreciate them. I knew I’d be able to work on my online class and I hoped my internet would be fast enough for Zoom, but connecting with folks I care about post-move was a confirmation that I’m still part of these groups. I suspect they felt that relief, too.

3. Writing and talking about writing—at least the way I like to do it, which is to respect, encourage, and challenge the writer—affirms that who we are still matters in this world that offers so much to be afraid of. Yes, terrible things are happening. But also: there is more.

p.s. I need a little time before offering my next online class. I hate packing but I love unpacking, finding a spot for everything, setting up my house to be comfortable, convenient, and beautiful, since due to fatigue I have to spend so much time in it. For a couple of weeks, I plan to immerse myself in that happy busyness. But I’ll let you know when the next class is happening!

p.p.s. If you’re here to move to Scotland (in The Scottish Borders, close to England) vicariously, thanks for giving me the chance to share details. I’ve been here eight days, and honestly the place felt like home the moment I stepped into it. I’d only seen this house once, for less than an hour, in February, but it was just as warm and inviting in July, with not nearly as much stuff in it (because ours isn’t here, our two U-haul pods hopefully making their way across the Atlantic at this point). The view out the back is just as beautiful, the flowers blooming despite weeds, the pub just a two minute walk away—doable even for me. The first couple of days, the temperatures got up to 80 Fahrenheit (I’m still hopeless with Celsius), but after that the high has been 70 or even 62. No one has been unfriendly despite our American and English accents, and I keep thinking the young men should go to the US because their soft Scottish accents are beautiful. I have not yet driven, but I suspect my husband will be insisting I do so soon; luckily we were able to get an electric car, so there are no gear changes. Wardrobes are not as big as closets, so many of my clothes sit in bags, wrinkling. The pigeons are nearly as big as chickens, which explains pigeon pie. And I’ve had gluten-free scones with clotted cream and jam. Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments!

—William Wordsworth

My father loved the Romantic poets. He had been an English major in the ‘50s, the first in his family to go to college. Because of that, of his wonder at what higher education could do, he decided he wanted to help other young people like himself, so he studied higher education administration for his doctorate. All of this was paid for by the military, since he’d joined ROTC and would serve as an administrator on a base in California—fortunately in between wars—for a few years before working in university administration.

By the time I knew him, he regretted his choice. He found administration stressful, worrying about each challenge the university faced, bringing that stress home, unable to separate himself from the inevitable things that go wrong: a student who died, a department head who quit at the last minute, a fundraiser that could get the university in legal trouble.

I knew, but didn’t understand or sympathize. His anger ruled the house, everyone walking on eggshells (a cliche so accurate I had to use it) to try to prevent his red face, his clenched fists. I blazed with hidden anger myself, judging him with a righteous flame for the unfairness of his outbursts. Behave better, I thought every time he yelled. But of the fight, flight, or freeze, I was freeze; I said nothing, tried to disappear.

I’m thinking of him now because I am like him in some ways, though not in how I feel or express anger. I’m like him in how I’d rather my head be filled with poetry than the news. How I tend to finish projects once I begin them. How I get overwhelmed by sudden loud noises, traffic, people talking at the same time. How I forget the names of politicians, even the ones doing things that horrify me, but remember Robert Frost’s Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.

People I love follow the news, and I want to connect with them, so I try to remember one or two details in order to understand what they’re talking about. And I used to feel that I should follow it, should know the names and the details, should be informed and share my knowledge and outrage on social media. But these days I’m trying to remember I only get one life and the years ahead are fewer than the years behind. Knowing all the details of current events makes me feel sick—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

We all resist differently. We fight for the vulnerable, for human dignity, and for a better future—differently. I admire and love friends who take to the streets, write about current events, make phone calls and send letters to indifferent elected officials. I hope they also love me, as I hold space for gentleness and art—the best, as I see it, of who we are.

p.s. I GOT MY VISA! I leave for Scotland in 6 days. Not that I’m counting or anything. I can’t wait to see my husband, my pets, my stepdaughter, the house I was so excited about when I saw it online that I did a little dance, and that turned out to be just as lovely in person. Please feel free to share any Scottish poets or writers whose work you love; I am trying to educate myself.

p.p.s. I’m terrible at promoting my work, but please do consider buying my latest book, a lyric memoir about my sister and grief. Or get it from your local library, or request they order it. And if you have read it, please write a short review, even a sentence, wherever you can: Amazon, Goodreads, StoryGraph. I truly appreciate those who already have: thank you, thank you.