June 6th, 2021: I have No Idea How It's Suddenly June

 

Photo: Meghan Rose Tonery, June 2020

Time for Confession?  I Hear Ya! 

Suddenly, It's June.  The work and stress of teaching is like the memory of childbirth.  Already, I have forgotten the intense labor of those last weeks. True, I learned a lot, teaching in the "remote" format, but  I missed being on campus.  I am looking forward to teaching face to face in Fall 2021.

Somehow, I found the energy to do a fistful of end of year reports by their due dates in May as well as  editing the upcoming 2021-22 catalog copy. With each task checked off the To-Do list, I felt lighter and lighter. I have forgotten my high anxiety, which was complicated by the number of hours I spent online.  It's a little nutty how working from home doesn't have the "limits" of shutting your office door for the night or weekend. Instead, work is always there.  I think both instructors and students suffered from this "constant" presence of work to be done.  I am not sure what exactly I learned  this past year. I stepped up; my students stepped up.  We got it done.  Now we're looking around, feeling a tiny bit lost, because we are suddenly free to do whatever we want.   For me, that feeling of being oar-less is disconcerting, but I somehow right myself after two weeks of drifting . . .  Now working on new poems and stories; edited my novella, hoping that it holds up for my readers (we'll see what they say!); sending manuscripts of prose and poems out. It's been 4 years since I've put together a manuscript.  The process requires such concentration to get it just right (we'll see what they say!).  

Of course, time doesn't wait here on the farm.  Our gardens (5000 square feet) are nearly planted to capacity.  We are out there in the early morning, trying to get things done before the sun and its brash white light fries us to a crisp.  It's been plenty warm lately.  Gardens are looking good, too.

My time in the garden is a meditation on whatever I'm writing or editing.  So I can weed a couple hours; then come in and work a few hours on writing projects.  I hope this will be a summer of healing and accomplishment.  Here's hoping we have bushels and bushels of produce!  

And, suddenly it's Autumn . . .

Photo K. Iuppa, The pond, or what I believe is the inside of seashell.

Suddenly it's fall, and we're still in the throes of harvesting our garden and picking our orchard; putting things by for the months ahead.
The  Fall semester began, nearly 5 weeks ago.  I have 157 students, teaching six courses, three capstones, 2 internships, running an Arts program at Fisher that has this week provided the campus with three exceptional programs this week.  So much work-- my eyes are spinning in oil.

A week ago,  we lost my darling niece, Kiira Jepson.  My heart aches over this.  She was 54 years old and a light in our lives.  I am thinking constantly of my  oldest sister, her mother, and her brother who says she was his best friend.   Her cancer moved very quickly. I was so hopeful that she would be the one to challenge the outcome; the one to set  a new record for survival. And, she was determined to do so, too.  I feel she has been with me, especially this week, going to all the events, attending my classes, with me while I'm making the next batch of sauce.  I hear her voice and her laugh.

As some of you know from this blog, that in the past year, my family hit the cancer jackpot.  I had a challenging cancer, and am now 7 months cancer free; my husband, as soon as I finished my course of treatment, began his treatment, and is now on the other side of it.

I am grateful for every day, every morning where my feet find the floor and I stand, and look both ways, and go in the right direction.  Often, I  wonder how I was cured.  A miracle, really.  But, maybe my work isn't done yet.  Maybe, there is someone out there that I need to meet, have a conversation with, teach . . . Maybe I have to learn something more? Not sure.

In the meantime, I am going with the force. I am trying to be stress free. However, I would like to add 6 more hours to the day.

Today, some of my family will join me in picking  apples and picking the garden.  We still in full swing of harvest because of the late planting.  Soggy Spring.  Not so now. Every day has been gorgeous.

I will try to be more frequent with posts now, especially about art and writing.

February 2nd: Early Spring in Ground hog's sight!

Photo by  P. Tonery: Sun Dog,  Winter Morning

In an eyeblink of New Year, January came and went. Our weather  (Polar Vortex) has been cold to the bone. The Spring semester at St. John Fisher started three weeks ago, and The College at Brockport started this week. So far, all is well.

Today, the Ground Hog didn't see his shadow, so he predicts the promise of an early Spring-- make it so weather gods.

In 2018, I had the grand total of 106  acceptances (poetry, fiction, essays, reviews). 100 acceptance has been my annual   goal for several years , and I have been a bit short. I was so surprised that I actually did it this year.  I feel extremely fortunate to have my work appear in so many fine journals. Now I am working on  a new collection of poems and a collection of 100 100 word stories.  I began this work in December 2018, during those limbo holiday weeks, when everything is strangely quiet and time seems to move at a slower pace. Now I am not sure if I am on foot or horseback, and the beginning of every new semester is wild with do this--
no, do this-- and somehow, everything gets done.

Recent work published in December: 

Dime Show Review: (100 word Story)

https://www.dimeshowreview.com/another-time-by-m-j-iuppa/?fbclid=IwAR1mlkhNpaEK2jMgy0DbxuDUxpkRErB6moRi0mohpK5swDco7FyJLZKW1H4

 Poems in Ekphrastic Review.
http://www.ekphrastic.net/apps/search?q=iuppa


Poems in Burning House:
https://burninghousepress.com/2018/12/21/m-j-iuppa-2-poems/?fbclid=IwAR3QSAHQNaDZ3i3n-fmxVzBkm_GXUdIAiKDHAkYVFxjAOcbInKQQuAkmsLI

Consider sending your creative work to these fine journals.




 Quote for the Day:

“When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is life itself. And I think the world tends to forget that this is the ultimate significance of the body of work each artist produces. That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.”
                                                        ~ Stanley Kunitz

It's Saturday . . .Much to do . . .

Reading:

On June 1st, I went to Seymour Library in Brockport, and  picked out a new novel: Running by Cara Hoffman.

The Book Discussion on June 28th, 11-12, will feature The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.   I found my copy, and have begun reading. I seem to read this novel every two years. I have wanted to be in a book club for a long time now.  Maybe summertime is the perfect time to join a group.

Writing:
  
Since the end of the Spring 2017 semester, I have been trying to switch gears to a work schedule that is strictly my own. Some days, I'm inspired; other days, I'm distracted.
However, I have been writing.  Mostly 100 word stories ( my latest addiction) and several CNF essays, of varying length, and a fistful of poems.  Mid-May, I returned to my novella, and was surprised by how fluent it is.  I asked my son Nick to read a bit, and he grew very quiet, quieter than usual.  I said, "What do you think?" and he said, "Your writing makes me want to steal some of these lines. I can "see" what's happening."  I was thrilled by his immediate reaction. I actually "see" this novella as a film. So, this summer is the summer I get it ready to be sent off to publishers.  I'm making plans.


Planting:

For the past week, I have been lifting, bending, raking, pulling, reaching, digging . . .
My body is just "thrilled" by all of this movement.  Yes, I found  500 new-to-me
muscles. Flower gardens are in good shape, save one garden that is a total mess, and may have to be taken apart completely. We'll see. We're three weeks behind on the vegetable gardens.  Hoping to get things going in the North garden this weekend. Again, we'll see. More rain in the forecast.

 



 
 
 

This is called A Poem

 

photo by K. Iuppa

Resonance, that is a  poem's musicality, is the single most important element in creating a lasting poem.  How often I have hung my hat on lines that become ever-lasting due to the way a poet has selected  his/her words (ideas and images) to build metaphor that takes my breath away.  I read and reread these poems often; never tiring of them.

Since I spent the earlier part of the summer writing lyric nonfiction essays, I have been very fussy finding the right rhythm for my recent poems.  I keep snipping at  these poems, trying to settle in.  This summer has been both difficult and rewarding.  I used to say that I was writing about human nature through nature.  But the truth is, nature can't be controlled.  It's unpredictable and quite frankly scary, and human beings and their patterns of behavior are actually easier to figure out if you stop to think about it.  Of course, the way you figure out human behavior is to take yourself out of the equation.  That will give you a necessary distance, and like horse's vision, the ability to see things from both sides.  But, sometimes, it's best to have time that is unfettered by the demands of so many others.  I think this is the reason so many writers seek a retreat or residency away from their normal busy life.  I have never had the opportunity to go away for long periods of time.  I think my MFA years were the closest getaway experiences. 

Most of this summer has been spent in recovery.  I think the bouts of illness in early June made both Peter and I realize what is most important.  So we hunkered down and kept to ourselves, working steadily on the gardens and getting healthy (head, heart, spirit).  Family came to visit, which allowed us to catch up with our siblings. 

We've been taking car rides west, stopping along the way at Mennonite farm stands and businesses (bakery, meat market, and so on).  The other day, we went into the meat market because it's only open on weekends (Friday-Saturday).  As we were looking through the meat cases to see what they offered for sale, we were eaves-dropping on a conversation between the Mennonite butcher/purveyor and two satisfied customers.
What was strange about this conversation was the Mennonite butcher was relaying a story about deceit.
Another customer had brought back some lobster tails and had claimed that they were spoiled.  The butcher,  after a brief discussion about the handling of the said lobster tails, gave the customer  a replacement order of tails.  He said he was heartsick over this loss.  Then, after a day or so, the unsatisfied customer returned with money to pay for the replacement order.  This gesture surprised the butcher and he felt it was important enough to share the story of "good faith."

Of course, I understood and appreciated this parable, but I confess I was stuck on lobster tails.  It seemed to be an incongruous food, especially for people who live a "plain" life.  It still seems "all wrong" to me, which is hilarious, because I'm letting my idea of "plain and good" dictate what they can and cannot eat.  Who is to say that Mennonites don't eat lobster?  Peter and I talked about this at dinner last night.  Assumptions come up every day.

More important, than this little story, is the Mennonite produce. We bought some corn on Friday and it was exceptional and I'm sure GMO free. So all of you who are from our area, you need to seek out these farm stands.  These are in Waterport NY.


I'm a bit sad that summer is galloping to its end.  Here we are at the beginning of August.  In several weeks, my sister will be here, and the college semester will be gearing up.  Life's engine will  continue to chug along, and once again I will be caught in the demands of several worlds.

So from now until then, I promise to be here now, and put all of my concentration into my daily work.