Readers! I made a bit of a tactical error way back when, by creating a mailing list AND a blog with its own separate list, and I have a million social media accounts I neglect. All of which is to say, forgive me if you’re getting this news twice or thrice, but eager I am to share that I have new poems out in the world!
But first…is it spring where you are? Earlier this week we had another massive storm here in northern California. The rain, a constant pitter-patter. The rain, filling up my crawlspace and dripping in my window. The rain, flooding roadways and overflowing rivers and closing highways.
Atmospheric rivers. We’ve had—seven?
And the wind—yesterday, a tree crushed the house next to the one where my band practices. I thought for sure the eucalyptuses on Albany Hill were going to come down. On Sunday, driving north from visiting family in Santa Barbara, my kid compared the landscape to Hawaii—he’s inherited my love of hyperbole for sure, but nonetheless: there’s not much golden about the Golden State these days. Everything is green.
Oh, but—the flowers are beginning to pop out. Battered, petals everywhere, but—in bloom. And we need them. With the rains have come the when it rains, it pours, adage—seems like many people I know have had more than their share of tragedy recently.
So: bring on spring. And with spring showers come…spring poems?
Then two terrific literary journals arrived in my mailbox. You can read “Frontier” in the latest issue of The Journal and “A Day at the Beach” in this spectacular issue of Ecotone.
But we’ll chat before then, I hope. Drop me a line.
And if you’d like to hear from me just four times a year, use the pop-up that appears on this website to sign up for my mailing list. That’s the easiest shortcut to my rambling newsy updates about new poems and more (I share reading recs, too).
I hope this finds you well, dry, and as happy as can be, and I send you my gratitude, as always, for sharing with anyone you think might be interested.
Friends, here’s what the Spring Equinox looks like here in Northern California.
I got so excited about the torrential rains predicted last Saturday, a gig-postponing, movie-afternoon kind of rain. Instead, it sprinkled for an hour. Climate change and drought, folks, climate change and drought. But when the sun came out again I decided to photograph some of the spring gorgeousness in my garden. Look at this camellia! She’s one of hundreds on the tree. I hope this incredible pink flower brings you hope for brighter days. There’s been so much global and personal tragedy of late—there are really no words for it. Just to say, if you’re struggling, if you’re despairing, I see you.
In my world, there’s been a vaguely soul-crushing attempt at house-buying and some publications to share.
My (very) personal essay “The Stranger Who Got Me Pregnant” was published in Literary Mama in January. Thank you to everyone who read it, commented, and sent me kind notes. I felt really good about getting Sam’s and my story out in the world. I also have poems forthcoming in The Fourth River and Ecotone. And while I won’t be at this year’s AWP conference, I am THRILLED to share that I’ll be moderating a panel with Gabriela Garcia, Masha Rumer, and Shugri Said Sahl at the Bay Area Book Festival the weekend of May 7-8. Thank you, again, City of Berkeley Civic Arts program, for granting me the time and space to write and curate a panel about immigration, ancestry, and motherhood. Tickets and the full schedule are coming April 8th. It’s always an incredibly meaningful literary weekend. Hope to see some of you there!
With love and gratitude for your support,
Susie
p.s.I spent a bunch of time watching a tutorial to improve the look of my blog posts. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s improving! If you received this twice, that’s because you’re on my blog mailing list and my Mailchimp newsletter. Feel free to unsubscribe from one. : )
We made it through two weeks of homeschooling, two weeks of working from home with two kids around, two weeks of The Spring of the Virus. Even if the Shelter in Place order lasts into summer, into fall?God forbid?it will be springtime in my mind when my future wise self and I look back on this global Coronavirus pandemic. Covid19 shut us all down right as the tulips and asparagus burst forth. The other morning, eerily quiet since traffic has so slowed and Bart is running shorter hours and fewer trains, I heard a flock of Canada geese flying over the house. Heading North for summer? Choosing a different path in quieter skies? It was nice to hear them.
HIGH.?
Things at our house are going better than expected, much better than I?d feared. When we made it to last weekend, I could even say, honestly, that we were doing okay. This after a desperate and depressed couple of days; the shops were overrun with people (but devoid of toilet paper), and I ran into a teacher from my son?s school and we both burst into tears. Governor Newsom had just announced that our kids might not go back to school this year, and that was the reality that hit me the hardest both personally and globally: all these children, for whom school is structure and lifeline, are now floating, aimless, free. My son?s got his best teacher so far, and as Ben put it, we wanted the whole year with him?we needed the whole year!?and we don?t get it. It?s hard not to feel betrayed and devastated.
Except that my kid is, basically, fine.
At ten, he?s both sensitive and oblivious, and nothing if not an introvert. He admitted last week that he?s not much missing anyone, and he?s happily reading, doing his math, shooting hoops, and driving us nuts. The three-year-old seems to be thriving, too, which is confusing to me since he loves his preschool so very much. But he?s easier to be around, less exhausted, more cheerful, sleeping better, and thriving on our makeshift routine: every day at ten, when the morning work shift (mine) ends and I start on kid duty, we cook something together, then have experiential learning time (the endless project of making an Ancient Rome diorama) before family lunch. PE is every day from 2:30-4:00: we scooter, or we bike ride, or we meet up with friends outside and keep a careful six feet away. Or we trek up to Indian Rock and climb around.
The running underlying thread of dread. The confusion and guilt of doing okay: am I faring better than some of my colleagues, than some of my friends? Should I feel bad about this? Is this time the calm before the storm, before the colleges and non-profits close and our income disappears? Will all of our favorite businesses go under? Are the kids who thrived on the routine of school going to back-slide during this time and be forever behind, perpetuating the achievement gap in our city? Will we plummet into a global recession that has consequences so long-lasting my kids will feel them in their early adulthood? And will we get and survive this thing? What about our loved ones?
It?s almost unnecessary to outline these fears. We all have them. Even on the good days, they?re there. It?s like this brilliant quote from that show ?The Good Place,? when the Eleanor character is trying to describe what it?s like being human to someone who?s immortal. ?We humans know about death,? she says. ?So we?re all always a little bit sad underneath.? We humans know about Coronavirus, so we?re always a little bit sad underneath. None of us will ever be the same after this spring of the virus.
BUFFALO.
?It?s good to keep knowing yourself,? says Alicia Keys in this delightful video. The strangest/most magical part of The Spring of the Virus? Really seeing the four people who make up our family in clearer ways than usual. When all the schedules are wiped clean, when we?re the only people we see, somehow I know us all better, and differently. L is shyer than I remembered, and consistently happy to entertain himself. Ben takes deep solace in growing things. I?m alive if I?ve got my early mornings and a cup of tea, writing poems. And little S thrives on being needed, on being cherished, more than ever.
Sending love and light, readers, for your Spring of the Virus. We?ll get through this.
High, Low, Buffalo, similar to Rose and Thorn, is a dinnertime game that was introduced to me by my friend An Honest Mom. Over dinner, you share your day: the high, the low, and the magical, or strange, or odd thing you?re still mulling over: the buffalo.
p.s.
Need some recipe ideas while you?re stuck at home? Check out:
**And remember that it?s very likely that your local, independent bookstore is doing online orders. Mine is! Amazon will survive this crisis. Your local bookstore might not. So buy your books indie, friends.
This terrific blogger named Jess Witkins interviewed me about my new poetry collection,?Little Prayers. There’s a book giveaway, too. Here’s a teaser:
Jess: Why do you think poetry is important today??
Me: I think poetry asks us to tap into a different part of our brains than prose does. It demands and requires more intangibility. I remember well the time my mom told me she liked my poems but felt like she didn?t understand them. I told her she didn?t need to, that she should just appreciate what she got out of them. She told me later how freeing that was for her, that me giving her permission not to work too hard took away a lot of her anxiety and allowed her to just sit with the lines and enjoy them. I think that?s one of the things that?s hardest about poetry?we don?t always ?get it? in the way we might, say, a novel or a memoir, and maybe that?s why people run away from it. We don?t want to feel stupid or like we?re missing something. We want clarity, answers. Because poetry often raises?questions.?But?I think that?s a really good thing! Poetry can open us up to mystery and abstraction, which is good for our brains and our hearts. And the music of poetry?learning to hear it?is essential for anyone wanting to write or appreciate good writing.
I hope you’ll read it, and, if it feels right, share on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or wherever you social media.
Well, I’m over the moon. Sometime last October, I disconnected the JetPack plugin from my WordPress site, trying to figure out why my site was loading so slowly. Then all hell broke loose?when I reconnected the plugin, no one could see my blog posts. No emails went out. Radio silence. I’ve been emailing the JetPack people every week for four months, feeling totally frustrated, and saying a thousand little prayers that I’d be able to communicate with my readers again. I wrote this blog post, about activism, which maybe none of you saw, and then I gave up. So then today some dude named Jeremy casually emailed to say he’d poked around a bit, updated a few things, and wham?my “Test” post (which you can obviously ignore) went out successfully.
I’m back in action.
And I have so much to say: it’s already spring in California, which is both lovely and deeply unsettling. I’m having a creative explosion in my forties, apparently, because I’ve been playing music (live! Out! In bars!) and writing and feeling good. The Olympics are rocking my world (my husband and I love to watch the snowboarding while inserting our own commentary, full of pot jokes). And, best of all, I have a book out, my first full-length poetry collection. It’s called Little Prayers, and it was published last month by the wonderful San Francisco?based publisher Blue Light Press.
This book was a long time in coming, testimony to the fact that writers sometimes suffer through multiple rejections, and even a 15-year hiatus, before a thing gets published. Here’s a teaser:
A BIRD, A GOD
I?ve been holding something
in my hard fat belly for days
and in the night I wake from dark dreams.
But no one, nothing, is there.
A bird, a God, what was it you saw last?
Was it this?
I?ve forgotten how to read, what language
to pluck from the ears of strangers.
I salute the sun facing a dead blue wall.
I look into the earth.
Were you a tree cutter? Is that how you knew,
by looking into the mouths of trees?
? Susie Meserve, 2018
Local friends, I’d love to see you at my March 10 book launch at Octopus Literary Salon in Oakland, where I’ll be reading with the talented Kate Folk. I’ll also read at the San Francisco Writers Conference this Friday night at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco (free and open to the public! Lots of great poets). And stay tuned for more readings and events this spring and summer.
Just shy of his first birthday, planning for reflection and nostalgia, instead wham boom I?m in the hospital with a?bum appendix. The husband is away, unreachable, mobile stashed in the glove box of somebody?s car. I wanted this for him, a break from the work and the waves. I was not afraid to let him go. Even in the hospital, frantically phoning the school/the grandfather/the good friend/the nanny I am not even quite afraid, it?s not the right word?incredulous might do it. And, perhaps sickly, slightly relieved. Why? It makes no sense.
My milk threatens to dry up after the hospital stay. I blame Nurse Ratchett, reincarnated as a beautiful blonde named Shelley who refuses me fluids, who looks at the breast pump like it is a medieval torture device. It is clear she does not have children or want children or like children. This is okay; parenthood does not, in my book, an adult make. But kindness? Kindness, yes. She brings me Jello and broths so salty if I drink them my cells will shrivel up. She brings me a vomit bag which I fill and hand to her. (Later, in the 1200-word letter I write to the hospital, complaining, I say the best part of my stay was handing over the puke. This is true.)
A week later, shadows in the studio play off the green chair and make me think someone is passing by. I am writing again, or attempting to. My milk has come back slowly, so slowly. I hear voices telling me one year of nursing is enough, one year is good. But I could not take it from him so abruptly. Returning from the hospital, I was greeted by his outstretched fists clutched tightly in the ?milk? sign, his body tense, his desperate crying for me. There was no mistaking it. Why would I take this away if I didn?t have to?
When the husband finally calls from the road two days later, he too is incredulous. ?Hi,? is all he says, but his voice says something else. ?I?m okay,? I tell him, though I do not feel okay: my belly is full of fluid and air. I can feel them sloshing together, waves crashing on a ship?s prow. Later, after he gets home, we will spend six more hours at the Emergency Room. When did they stop calling it a CAT scan and call it CT? The contrast dye makes me have to pee, flushes me head to toe. The pedantic tech had assured me it would. I guess I was grateful to know ahead of time.
Fluid in the abdomen. Start of an abscess. Maybe. Shit.
?Antibiotics,? says Dr. James Starr, ER doctor. ?Three to four days intravenous, incompatible with nursing.? This is the first time I feel fear. Later, moments before they are hooking me up to an IV, he comes in to say stop. ?The surgeon says you can go home with a prescription instead,? he reports, and then I cry again for a different reason.
The pain is like needles. The pain is a dull ache. The pain is like needles. The sloshing gets lesser. The air passes through. The incisions are like angry little mouths, glued shut. I cannot get comfortable. The air lodges in my shoulder. The pain killers make me stupid. I take one a day, tops.
Let me see your scars, the eight-year-old intones every day. He tells me appendicitis is contagious. He tells me he does not want to get close to me. The first night home, I remind him to be gentle. As if possessed by the devil, he leans over to my belly and with both hands, presses. After, wailing, he insists it was an accident. I pretend to believe him. I tell him it is okay.
It was not an accident.
Someone brings soup.
Someone brings flowers.
Someone does my dishes.
The house is still a disaster.
By his first birthday, things are mostly right-side-up again. The mornings have grown colder. In California you watch for these subtle signs of fall. By mid-day it could be any season, but the mornings are crisp. We attempt a walk. In the bath the night before, I noticed my tailbone, jutting out. Three pounds lost in the hospital, all, apparently, from my ass. How many ounces is an appendix? Not that many.
Pounds lost: 3
Hours in hospital: 30
Babies un-nursed: 1
Appendicoliths: 1
Size of inflamed appendix: 11 millimeters
Incisions: 3
Pounds of air pumped into belly: too many
Appendixes left: 0
The incident with the appendix cuts something with the baby. It is not so simple as that, for two days, waiting for contrast dye and antibiotics to leave my system, I can?t nurse. It is also that, in that time, I avoided him altogether, fearing his desire. Out of sight, out of mind, I told myself. Lying in bed while someone else takes care of him, I feel for a minute like I never had him. I could let my milk dry up, forget all about it. But I do not. Guilt, I think. When he resumes nursing he kicks at my belly. The two of them, these two boys, slowly batter me.
The eight year old, who has always been in control of his feelings, is acting strange. Mad. Reserved. Finally, I make him say it. ?I was scared,? he says. ?You never called me,? he says. ?I never got to visit you in the hospital,? he says. ?I was so worried,? he says. ?I didn?t know what was happening.? My love for him floods the room.
I?m sorry, I say.
I?m sorry, I say.
I?m sorry.
I played around with the style of this blog post after reading Jenny Offill’s amazing and experimental novel Dep’t. of Speculation, which I can’t say enough good things about.
I'm working from the premise that motherhood is not just all diapers, tantrums, and setting limits. It's interesting. Okay, sometimes. 