Another Year in the Books

Here is a shot of Kyle on Santa's lap when he was 4 and of his daughter, Maggie, when she was.

Here's Maggie surrounded by her immediate family in South Hadley:

I see that it's been nearly a year since I posted here, and reading through my blog made me want to take a moment to report on how much better I'm feeling. This year, in which I was able to be at home not working for an income, helping my family settle in and eventually turning to writing full-time, was a true gift -- but I was often so busy living it that I didn't make time to write about it, so here's a run-down:

Amber and Maggie moved here from Southern California in late December of 2017 and now have their own apartment in our town. My daughter Jamie moved here from Oregon and found an apartment in Northampton. And my mother seems finally settled in her third apartment, this one in South Hadley.  There have been some adjustment pains, as you might imagine, but overall I think we are doing beautifully well.

Over the summer, spurred on by my daughter asking what I was doing with my life, I started submitting my poetry in earnest. This has been a disheartening process, but I've had some successes. Three of the 27 places to which I submitted accepted my poetry for publication, and one of the places I applied for a fellowship gave me one, so I got to spend a week in December doing nothing but writing. I worked on memoir poems and scrapbooks of my mothering life and then came home, where I haven't written a word until now.  But I'm getting back to it now, and that's what matters.