On Getting Through

a seasonal evaluation

The last couple of weeks of 2023 were rough, and I didn’t really get a chance to process where I’ve been and where I’m going in an organized way, if at all. But 2023 was a big fucking year. Kaden and I both turned 40 and we both completed graduate degrees, my MFA in Creative Writing, his PhD in History. The duplex we rent was sold (the new owner/landlord ended up being awesome, but we had no way of knowing that), and we both got jobs we weren’t planning for – my full-time job in student services at Spokane Community College, which is keeping me in Spokane, and Kaden’s job teaching in the American Studies Department at Smith College which sent him to Northampton, Massachusetts. Despite paying rent on two units, we can save a little money. I want to settle down: I want to invest in furniture I like, not just furniture that is free that I will feel comfortable throwing away next time we move. I want to plant bulbs and see them come up year after year, instead of feeling like gardening is a waste of my time because I might not be around for the harvest. I want two bedrooms, so folks can come visit us, and I want a cat (we have a not-our-cat who spends most of his time at our house – like I said, our landlord is best-case-scenario).

On an irregular basis, I find it helpful to get contextual insight from astrology. Rosie Finn, Olympia’s favorite astrologer, told me in November that Kaden’s next gig will also be temporary – we can’t count on settling down until at least 2025, and we probably won’t be buying a house until 2026 or 2027. We are coming up on the astrological transits that indicate a classic “midlife crisis.” For folks who have done all the standardized markers of aging in the conventional timing and order, this can lead to a blowing up of what you’ve built, she said. On the other hand, folks who’ve “lived life on the edge,” as we, apparently, have, that is when things start to fall into place, your work pays off, and you settle down.

Right now I am just trying to get through. I got through the first three months Kaden was away, I got through the first two weeks he was home for winter break and had COVID (sleeping apart, masking indoors), I got through the belated holidays. I’m getting through the final weeks of his stay, and through the next three months until I visit. I’m getting through the end of his lease, the summer he is home while I continue working, until our lease in Spokane is up in September. By then, we’ll know what comes next.

“Getting through” is no way to live a life. The first thing I learned while working my new job while Kaden was away was that I am more of an extrovert than I thought. “The new definition of introvert/extrovert,” a coworker said, during a leadership training, “is not whether you prefer to be alone or with others, but whether you recharge by being alone or with others.” I LOVE being alone. But, I realized, I recharge by being with others. Much of the core friend group I cultivated in the MFA program is still in Spokane, and we’ve been getting together once or twice a week all autumn, twice a month for writing support and practice, and more frequently for hangouts. “Something unexpected is that I have all these very close friends who are 12-15 years younger than me,” I told Rosie Finn. “It makes sense,” she said. “In this Mars era, it reflects youth.” So part of how I am getting through is by engaging with my youthful pals, who are thoughtful, knowledgeable, and delightful.

the youthful pals invited me to Priest Lake.

I have struggled for three months to cultivate a solid writing practice, but Rosie Finn told me I don’t need a routine, it’s OK for me to work in spurts, to pull an all-nighter. One of my favorite times I had last season was one Saturday night three of us were planning to go out for beers and we all mutually cancelled. Instead, I had an edible (half of a 10 mg Journeyman berry flavored THC gummy is my preferred method of getting stoned, these days), and spent four hours submitting to literary mags. I got 10 submissions in that night. Another favorite time was a Sunday morning when I got up at 6:45am, had an edible, and posted my Strange Parade set, did the promo, did promo for Volcano Zine!!! being shortlisted for the Broken Pencil Zine Awards, and some email correspondence. Then I went back to bed, and later I spent a full two hours laying on the couch with the cat on my chest, listening to Post Punk Britain on NTS. Another favorite was the afternoon after I got my COVID vaccine and I spent hours, with the cat on my chest, re-reading Jeff Miller’s Ghost Pine zines from 1999-2013.

Strange Parade on Local Smoke Press Mixcloud

2023 had specific segments to it. I wonder if it makes sense to do seasonal reviews, evaluations, and intention setting, instead of annual. There was the winter of novel writing, novel workshop, AWP in Seattle. There was the spring of preparing my short stories for thesis, and graduation. Summer of job search and envisioning/organizing the short story collection into a manuscript. Autumn of working and friend-love and learning to live alone, and getting into the flow of submissions and rejections. And because winter bridges the end of one year with the beginning of the next, so far it has largely been dissatisfaction, stress and anxiety (something to know about me is that I worry about contagious illnesses to the point of distraction), and remembering tools for relief (holy basil, CBD, and body movement).

I’ve approached new year intentions in different ways over the years, but for the last few I’ve set out to make a determination or to unlearn or to end bad habits. One year I figured out whether or not I was femme (I’m not). One year I unlearned my dad’s tendency to catastrophize (that may not have been permanent). One year I made space and took time. Last year I tried not to yuck others’ yums.

My first idea for 2024 began by being very mean to myself and saying my new years resolution should be to shut the fuck up, but what meant was that I need is to reorient myself. When I feel inclined to complain that I can’t do my work – that I don’t have the time, the space, or the energy [“because of my stupid job”] – instead of complaining, I’m just going to do my work. That might mean updating my submissions spreadsheet with recent rejections and cleaning up my inbox, or re-reading my work to see what is there, or reviewing notes from the MFA. My goal isn’t to write X amount of words or get X amount of submissions or rejections or even to publish – although my AWP award-winning story should finally be out in Puerto del Sol in spring – but just to do my work instead of feeling bad about not doing my work.

Kaden was showing me a religious studies course offering at Smith where part of what the students were tasked with was to “experiment with rest.” That is what I really want to do in 2024. Last night we watched Slacker for the first time in years, and I had this deep nostalgic longing for being bored, bored enough that you have to make up something to do. Wander around, run into people. Yet it seems as if, as a writer with a full time job, I will have to schedule time to be bored. The first draft of this post was written during a 4.5 hour blizzard delay while traveling on the Flix Bus over the mountain pass. Today, thanks to my unionized job, I have a paid snow day. Scheduled boredom could be an experiment with rest, but maybe this kind of time can only come by chance, by luck, by weather events.