The part of me that is an artist (and even though I've done plenty of art over the years I've never been comfortable calling myself that) has now separated from the writing part of me (a bit - as much as I am able).

It's taken decades to do this and it's no small thing. And while drawing and writing will always be cousins, it's writing that has carried me along --for the most part--in this pandemic. It's writing and zooming for over a year with folks I would not otherwise know but who are "regulars" to writing events, whether it's generative writing or listening to someone launch a book--whatever. And it's writing that has kept me sane (along my dear cat, Miss P). Otherwise I would truly be at my wit's end. 

The part of me that is an artist and always will be what I call 'a doodler' will always be. Full stop. But I've placed that artistic web trail, including photography and drawing, at finleydesignart --where it's been for ages--and will pull out the writing side, creating a new profile; one that exists (already) and always has, but one that has not actually had its own lawn so to speak. So... this site * finleywrite launches this week and finleydesignart stays much as it has been. And sure, there will occasionally be drawings on the writing site, and yes, there will be the occasional terse thought on the drawing site, but they will have their "own-ness." And, I'm a bit terrified to admit that it's fun to see them that way. 

In writing, I'm often working on stories and poems and nonfiction at the same time. It was only recently, when I heard someone say they keep their projects on different tables, that I got excited. I've started doing that too. Because when you're working on several things at once it's easy to get overwhelmed. And I am just keeping head above water as it is. 

So....I'll go from desk to desk. Maybe I'll even park a hat on one table and help my person of the day slide into her persona, her profile--her way of being. And I'll continue to write and draw, but maybe I'll have more room for each thing. Hoping that is true. 

It's official, I have Pandemic Ennui. I don't see many people and even if I did, I'm tired of the effort of existing. I did a comic about how we have nobody to talk to and it's like talking to balloons (I have ennui about zoom too) and here it is (it's good to have illustrations, right?). Here's the thing. I don't want to eat anymore. That is to say, I don't want to make the effort to feed myself. I'm unwilling. I'm not sure I've ever had had much going on in the way of kitchen motivation, but knowing I could run out for California roll, a burrito (not here in MA) or get some fabulous empanadas (why does this come up as misspelled?) or some fish and chips or some Japanese food, or ....(I could keep going but it's only going to make me more sad) could help me get through each day avoiding the dreaded task of having to cook for myself. I love take-out. I really do. Living where I live now, in the boonies, there are slim pickings on where to get food. Nobody eats in, of course. I miss those days of ordering chicken parm and a really good IPA and squirreling myself into a little bar corner and reading while eating (which is, oh-my-god my favorite thing to do). Okay, let me get to the point. I found a way to exist: Survival by Frittatas! Even I can cook them and the miracle of Dr. Praeger's spinach cakes, which come frozen like little hockey pucks, and eggs (they have to be jumbo eggs-take my word for it) will get you from one day to the next. I don't have a microwave (I know, I know) but you can fry pan those hockey pucks in olive oil (it sounds like it's out of my grasp but I can do it) and then chop them up and throw the eggs in and turn up the heat and voila! Even I can make a meal I'm willing to eat. The fact that I have this day after day is not as alarming as a former husband who had tuna sandwiches for lunch EVERY day but it may be, could be getting close. 

[* visit me on @coastalwrite *]

A Monday is a terrible thing if you're stewing about all that you haven't done. But I was able to push out a poem. I'm not saying it's good. It's just a poem. Be gentle. Here 'tis:

I realize all I have
 
Is the part when I let go
And find myself staring
At the wind’s circumstance
Leaves lifted up like skirts
Or the river’s silver-white glance
trees shifting
I wait, I wait
 
Soon the weighing down will come
Reminding me of time and loss
It’s blue that cheers me
Your pale eyes remembered
Or in the evening come the moon
Giant hole-punch
often yellow
 
Blue or full or even new
In vacancy I view as grief
Could I be bear
To prowl to find that quiet place
And curl up there
 
Quiet that floats in evening mist
And tells me to forget the rest
 
--CDF

Here's the first prompt for the month. I'm sharing this one, but I don't promise to share any others.  DAY #1 Prompt: “I remember.”
 
1. Take five to ten minutes to write “I remember…” lines without stopping. Name specific scenes, moments, descriptions. You might want to try writing this by hand rather than by computer. See the sample poem below for some examples.
2. Consider copying this list and cutting it into separate lines and rearranging them, or rearrange them on your computer document. You could choose your most descriptive or striking or surprising top 10, 20, or 30… Do what you want with these lines to make a poem.
 --Keep the “I remember” at the beginning of each line, or don’t. Random and optional word list: test, pleasure, stall, move, path, trace, give, unique, sturdy.
The person who mailed this prompt says this prompt idea came from the book A Primer for Poets & Readers of Poetry, by Gregory Orr.  She sent the prompt to me and all the folks who signed up to write yesterday (for today). She said in her note, "...that way we could think about it in our subconscious," and boy, she was right. By the way, I'm hoping all the poems are not this depressing. If you'd like to get an email of my daily poem why not use my contact page to sign-up and let me know. I'll add that once I stepped into this remembering process it resulted in me remembering a bunch of things I really didn't want to - but that's the way it is with memories. You can't turn them off once loosened up. I'm posting day #1's poem here but that doesn't mean I'll post them all here. Well, anyway, just for today, here it is..a poem.

I remember
 
a small wading pool with triangle corners
my grandparents’ hydrangeas
the black and white movie
of driving to the hospital at night
nosebleeds that wouldn’t stop
how my teachers talked about me in 7th grade
appendicitus at eleven
how my mother dressed me like I was a paper doll
like I was her hobby
skating on new asphalt
new surfaces of survival
 
--CDF

**LINK to my fundraising page for the Center for New Americans

Everything has a name, a place, a time...a title. We learn language and each object we learn has its own rules of use (or so we're taught). We set up our own storeroom of this knowledge and with our imaginary label-maker we define things. It's  odd to think of it that way, but it's true. As we merge into life, as time goes by, we label and define so many things, but it's ourselves and others we wind up limiting by that all that labeling. She's a graphic artist. He's a bricklayer. She's a musician. Labeling. We don't realize that we're limiting ourselves and others by titles. What about great cooks who can code javascript? What about musicians who are incredible painters, photographers who write, designers who are mathematicians, trumpet players who are gardeners, sculptors who compose?

I call myself writer now and it took me a long time to do it, not that I haven't written my whole life, not that I'm a bad writer, but that the permission hadn't been set in my own brain. I finally got there and that's okay, but when I began calling myself a poet it felt false because of how I had previously defined it. It was the same problem all over again. It was a definition I had constructed that didn't include me. I think we do that - define things so narrowly it's hard to shift into a different mode. And we all have a bit of imposter syndrome going on that taps us on the shoulder and makes us feel uncomfortable, unworthy. 

So about this being a poet. Besides writing poetry and having a big pile of poems going back years, and besides writing every day, how can I feel more comfortable about my own definition of myself?  Well, I thought of a way. I signed up for 30 Poems in November, a fundraiser for the Center For New Americans. A poem a day - and honestly I'm almost doing that anyway - but it allows me to step into poetry in a more formal way. It's like making a contract with myself to commit to being more present as a poet, to have more intention at least for 30 days. A side benefit is that I'll be  connecting with other poets who are of a like mind; who whatever their motivation regarding writing is, they too want to support immigrants. I definitely do. We all struggle but those who come here with no connections are struggling to become part of a community. They're more than a little bit lost. They need connections to food, learning, health providers -- so many things, and CNA does such good work to support them. If you'd like to receive a daily poem from me in November, I invite you to use the form on my website to send me a request. And if you like, make a donation to the Center For New Americans. I'll be here writing poetry. I can do it. I'm a poet. 

A blog is a great concept, but honestly it's not the kind of thing you can do every single day and also write 9 short stories in 139 days  (just under 5 months if you're counting from today). Plus, I'm adding in writing a poem every day.  Here's the official challenge: write like a demon, like it's a limited time we have on earth, like it's a pandemic...hello, it is.
Time doesn't wait - it just goes on and on and we, whether we're measuring our days with coffee spoons or charging around the planet saving lives, inventing new things and creating our own jet trails; we  are ones doing the doing (or not).  So, just saying, enough. I may come back to blogging, but for right now I've got work to do and that is the work of writing and not just an hour or two a day. My butt is in the chair. It's the perfect time to lean-in and do everything you always felt you were meant to do. Just saying. Oh, one more thing - I posted the titles of the stories on my banner. Try not to steal them. 

When I'm done it will look like this...

      There’s a tin dove hooked onto the window. It’s a window that doesn’t open so it’s a good spot for a bird made of metal that will never fly but which represents flying. I come in to touch it from time to time and pretend I can, like an inoculation, get a bit of bird-ness, of movement and desire to fly high from it. I suppose that’s why it’s there. I’m not even sure where it came from, but it is something that has a power as inanimate objects sometimes do. When I moved here it was in the box and I placed it without too much thought on the old sunroom window. It seems more important than ever now that we’re all stuck in one place.
     We do hold onto things. We hold onto memories and objects and hopes and dreams. I carried a whole bunch of my paintings around with me for years, decades, until one day I just let go of them. Things go on until they don’t. I suppose that’s the thought most of all in these pandemic times…when normal is anything but.
     The other morning I saw a bit of sunlight on the ceiling and it was bent as if by magnets or magic and it stopped me. I took a photo of it because if light can bend , if bending light  is possible, right here in my living room, why not miraculous cures? Why not all kinds of miracles? I find myself thinking of the things one thinks about after a long illness or after a fever of several days. It’s a clean slate of wonder about the world and what is possible if we can truly be ourselves and not the jealous, reactive, sometimes selfish people we have a tendency to become. It’s not like we do it entirely ourselves, but we can try harder. I can, I know that.
     The other day I had a conversation with someone and I allowed myself to overreact and I was not happy with myself later. Is it so hard to just allow others to be their weird selves and to be the Dalai Lama in the room; the one who accedes and concedes and smooths out, not the one pulling and tugging and making all the wrinkles? Well, remorseful, I am (Yoda speak). I resolve to try harder to not get all plugged in. But it is a delicate balance between surrendering and giving up. Big difference. On the one hand, you are accepting and contributing and on the other hand you are removing yourself and taking yourself out of the equation; just disappearing. Somewhere in the middle would be good.
     Let’s all be the tin bird; not flying, but representing all that we can be. Let’s be persevering but not privately hoping we win. Let’s all value ourselves, but not above others. God, it’s hard to do! I miss Sundays when I used to try to press the reset button. Now, it’s a drifting sort of existence without Sundays or weekends. We’re just all home all the time.
     But we can be our own tin bird; each one of us trying to represent and emulate and (+outside of the metaphor) reaching out to others and helping and acknowledging their efforts in the best way possible. It's not as hard as bending light, right? If this is too corny, I’m sorry. I’m a bit fond of corny. Sitting around with my cat has only made it more noticeable.

I don't want to wake up early, sometimes at 6:30 a.m. My cat hasn’t even walked up onto my chest and butted me in the face to let me know she’s hungry. The light is barely getting going. The sun is very slowly hauling itself up and into this cloudy morning. Or I'll wake up with a start at 5:30 a.m. and (after sprinkling a few cat treats to keep the cat happy) I'll climb back into bed and drift off immediately; sucked into dreams with casts of thousands, often people with whom I’ve lost touch or who have left this world in some form or another. I dream of my father who is someone I’d like to speak with about just about anything and certainly about the precarious life we currently live. He died before the Berlin wall came down and before Russia dismantled itself. I speak to him by simply tilting my head. Dad, I say, do you believe this? It’s incredible…and then I wait for him to reply. There’s no voice but I feel better having spoken aloud to him; acknowledging the weirdness of the times in which we live and that I miss him.
     My timing’s off, I tell him. But he knows that. He’s seen me bumble around in life and has never outwardly cast any aspersions. He’s seen me rise early and fall asleep only to meet me in my dreams. He’s seen me unable to settle down at night, sometimes up until nearly 1 a.m., not even coming in the bedroom to lie down until after midnight. Gone is the 10 o’clock bedtime you could set your clock by. Read Jane Austen or Wilkie Collins my father would advise. It’s good advice. I always settle down after reading twenty pages of Jane Austen. And I love the Moonstone. Like a favorite chocolate, it never gets old; the desire and satisfaction combined in every (readable) bite.
     I made coffee this morning as I do every morning. Once I open the bag and scoop in the blackness, like scooping earth itself, and it fills the tan pleated folder and waits for water, even at that moment, before it’s really coffee, I’m repaired. At least for a little while. The smell of it is what does it. Anticipation is all about smell in coffee and I guess in many things. I read in the NYT that a little known definitive symptom of COVID-19 is the loss of smell. That’s news that should be passed around. I’m not sure buried in a feed that information will be read by enough people. You’d notice not noticing smells wouldn’t you? That’s my thought. Slight cough, feeling off, aches and pains…and no ability to smell whatsoever. I know someone who hit his head and for nearly a year he couldn’t smell. That would be torture for me. I smell everything. I smell tree bark and weeds and (yes, coffee) and garlic and just so many things. I rush up to them and insist they produce a smell. I’m like a child that way. It’s a kind of instant happiness that invades me when I’m able to waft in aromas. And that’s not even talking about the memories they invoke; old bookstores and libraries, a funny green soap that reminds you of elementary school, that crisp, distinctive icy smell ­­before a snowfall.
     So if my timing’s off (and I suspect yours too) what do I/we do to mellow out? For me it is to look out the window as the snow falls. The luxury of being in rural pandemic-land is that the fields are laying out there unencumbered by people and you can walk down and come close to the river, the mountain standing behind it. It's the nature-cure of fixing all broken things. I’m grateful for that. Try to find your cure. Be sure and smell a block of cheese, the cat box or open a bag of coffee and put your nose in there. Take deep breaths of things. And at night, if you’re unable to sleep, read Jane Austen.

My daughter who teaches yoga and voice and something called vocal yoga and is very connected to the spiritual side of herself, and when I say that, I mean the part that is familiar with the word Chakra and all the 7 chakras and whether or not they’re blocked, tells me I should not hold in fear, or have fear govern me because it will be detrimental to my well-being.
     I guess my reaction (other than being fond of these types of advisories and, of course, of my daughter) is to respond by saying I’m not fearful. I don’t have that pang or dread or physical heating up or any physical sensation at all. No out-of-breath-ness (just my regular problems in that regard) no super pangy headaches, no clamping of the jaw – nothing. I was robbed at knifepoint once so I know what fear is. I don’t have fear, I tell her and I mean it.
     I just have the sense of the oddness of it all. Like we’re in an episode of Twilight Zone and Rod Serling (who wrote more than 80 episodes) is there mixing it up; serving up his twisted mix of horror, sci-fi, comedy and superstition. Except (cough) it’s real. It’s our real life. It’s (and I hate to say this) the new normal.
     So I can walk in the back yard and down to the river. And I can step onto the porch. I can even drive in the car. But I can’t open the window if someone wants to speak to me. Not with a recent lung infection. Nope, can’t do that. And if a friend volunteers to pick up a few groceries I can wave from the steps but I can’t come out to meet her. She puts the bag down next to my car and knows that after she’s pulled away I can come and fetch it. If my upstairs neighbors (it’s a large gothic Victorian with two flats) come to the door I can’t open it and say hi. Nope can’t do that.
     I read recently that the bank in town (the little town next to the little town I live in) has suspended in-bank banking. You can use the drive-up and if you have something terribly complicated you can make an appointment. Nobody can be seen without an appointment. I called the local general store (yes, we have a general store) and asked if they had any special things they were doing for COVID-19. She asked who I was. I said I was Fin, a neighbor from down the street. And she said, Well, no –not really. We’re washing our hands, she added. With the virus in all the surrounding counties but not having made an appearance in ours, I guess I get that. Still, I would have to wear gloves and probably a face mask if I entered the store and people were there. Rod Serling knows these rules. Out here in rural America we’re trying to figure it out. I wonder if it’s scarier in the city. At least we have nature for a distraction.
     It’s funny, now that I think about it, this transition moves us not only to a different kind of being but maybe even a different time. It reminds me of a Jane Austen period of time. All of a sudden, we are much more formal. Did you notice that? We bow. We don’t shake hands. We make appointments. We don’t just show up and expect to be served. You know, I hadn’t thought about it until now. The new normal: in addition to making us value our friends and family, has made us more polite. If there are other silver linings, please feel free to tell me. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
It’s deceptively normal. 

​Truth is stranger than fiction, never more than right now with the whole world reeling from a pandemic. COVID-19 in the hilltowns? Last night I heard my upstairs neighbors (in their early thirties) having some type of get together. I was envious. I won’t see people, even my brother and his wife, for what looks like months it sounds from the last report. I am aware that life ends, but the sword of Damocles palpable imminence of it, the tortuous prejudice of the divide between young and old, the fact that I am seemingly disposable and have to live in subjugation until that moment in time does irk me. It really does. I know it affects all of us but if you’re old you’re screwed. The streets are deserted this morning, the plows making their way from driveway to driveway to carve out exit holes for those allowed to leave their homes.
     There isn’t enough snow to require plowing of the entire parking area. It will not amount to anything. I have that view, looking out at the white, thinking that particular evaluation was made about the virus in the beginning. Now, with the fat in the fire spitting away and flaming up, now measures are being taken, caution turning to panic, rising up like a fire completely getting out of control. I look at the president and think, God, we’re in for it. He’s so cavalier about everything. We never get the truth. It’s always some varnished bit of truth that he’s been holding in his pocket, polishing. One imagines him as a schoolyard bully; torturing kids and buying and extorting favors. It’s not possible this man is the president. I’ve said that to myself a million times.
     Today, I discovered my phone charger isn’t working properly so I’ll need to get a new one. A month ago this would have been a simple task. Today it’s an adventure. I step outside daily to walk down into the field near the river, but I am mainly here. I try not to leave the house to do errands more than once a week or two. I haven’t been in a store almost three weeks. I wore gloves on Friday when I went to the little Post Office. There was someone at the counter chatting with the clerk and she looked like she’d be there a while. In my former life I’d have looked at the cards and loitered inside. Today, I smelled the dusty, dirty smell of the cramped space, almost a metallic smell, and stepped outside grateful for the sunny day, the fact that I had that option since it had warmed up a bit. When the woman left I scurried in, hoping she wouldn’t take it personally that I couldn’t be in the same room with her. I wouldn’t even have gotten my mail except that I knew some books had come in. If one has to be in solitude one needs poetry, certainly Yeats and Eliot.
     My neighbors Tom and Mary don’t have email and I’m assuming they don’t have any ties to social media. I’d like to reach out to them, but I don’t want to intrude on their privacy. It’s about 150 yards from my house to theirs. He and his wife have lived in this tiny town for decades, having raised their kids and settled in a cozy kind of way. I’m new. I’ve only been here a year and a half, coming here after illness and death, the two things that I had thought you could move away from. My daughters didn’t want me to move so far away. But the east seemed like such a refuge at the time, a place to reconnect to my distant past.
​     My tiny family; not counting my kids, it’s just me and my brother. Now, I spend days worrying about them and about my son who lives three states away. Both are about 6-7 hours away if you come right down to it. Not that hopping on a plane is in my future or anyone elses. It’s always after a plane ride you get the worst colds. We can’t afford that now. The germs out there live on plastic for three days. Is that right? And the droplets – we’re supposed to be vigilant about the droplets; social distancing and keeping at least 6-8 feet away from everyone. Tom and Mary live a quiet life and I wave to Tom when he’s out in the garden. They have a lovely garden. Tom’s out there digging and pulling weeds quite a bit of the time. It’s winter now, or March’s version of it, so they’re not outside. Mary was sick for a while and I heard she was much better. I hope so. They are good people. I should have sent them a Christmas card last year (I let Christmas come up too quickly and wound up not sending any cards at all, not even to my kids). I regret that. I regret so many things now that hindsight is a daily mode.
     If I didn’t have my cat I’d be quite lonely. She’s a senior cat adopted last November. When I put out my hand to pat her she stands on her hind legs and rises precariously to meet my hand and bonk it with her head. My sister-in-law calls that tippy-toeing. I miss them. We used to get together once or twice a week for beers. Often they’d bring their own beer because they don’t like my IPA. Too bitter they say. Family, people I care about that I used to see, now just people I speak to on the phone. Are they okay? I used to be grateful for proximity. But that doesn’t do me good anymore. My brother is a year older than I and in fairly good health, but until recently he worked at a large corporation with lots of opportunity for contagion. Now, until they’ve been isolated for at least fourteen days, I can’t see them.
I can’t see anyone really. I had a lung infection a few years back and now I’m susceptible. I think about those who are more vulnerable than I. I wish there were a way to collectively communicate to them and say, hey—hang in there. We can do this. Daily, I say a little prayer and light a candle on the mantel for the people I know and for the people I don’t know; holding them in my heart intentionally. I take a moment to move into gratitude. It’s helpful for me to return to that mode. It’s taken me a lifetime to learn that anger and hate just piles up on your own door if you hold onto it. So let’s see…I’m grateful for the people I’ve met at the senior center and church, all lovely. They are shadows, sadly, in my life now. We can’t go out. We can’t see each other. For many of them, old school telephone is the best way, the only way, to communicate. I’ve thought about letters but I don’t know where they live, what their last names are. There’s a woman, Shirley, who comes to the center to meet-up but doesn’t stay for lunch. I wonder how to reach her. Lunch and meeting up is only once a week. Correction, was only once a week. This is a small town of not quite 1200 people after all. That’s the official number but it’s got to be less than that I’m thinking. 
So what will the future bring? I have a granddaughter I haven’t seen in a year. I was supposed to go to the west coast to my younger daughter’s wedding in May but it’s been canceled. There’s no way to hold any kind of gathering. All the restaurants and bars are closed. All the stores are closing. I read today that Philadelphia was closing the liquor stores. That’s a mistake in my opinion. I need my beer and whisky and in the evening, when you’re by yourself, it’s a comfort. I suppose they’re worried about the number of people in the store.
     ​The latest advisory said no more than ten people. But honestly, if you’re a senior with respiratory or immune issues you have to stay home all the time. You have to ask people for favors in picking things up for you. Asking for help is something I’ve always had trouble doing. But we need to stay put. They call it hunkering down. As an introvert I’m okay with that. But I miss my friends and family. I miss my so called freedom. Did it ever exist or was it simply a figment of my imagination the whole time? Now, who knows? Venturing out is like a dark kind of roulette. At some point the ball is going to drop into your slot.