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My body does not wring itself as it should, which means that the channels are full at port, that the harbors between lymph and node don’t quite read the same cardinal marks. I rest in my own bed while my body tries to clear itself of inflammation, fatigue, post-exertion malaise; I scan my phonescreen for the familiar, beloved icon and touch its bright face and there you are, channel and vessel and dispenser of comfort for the body that I’m certain is approaching chronic fatigue, even as I look up at my son, in the bed next to me, and say “I’m just dealing with a cold today, love, you don’t have to worry.”

He nods and the space between us is its own hollow, a stream lined with reeds, a cradle. We watch videos of Larry the Lamb jumping on a rock in Scotland, tours of Himeji Castle, LiZiqi cutting watermelon into skewers for her ancient grandmother, who laughs and laughs as they sit at the table and drink wine and eat watermelon and dumplings and bread with raisins and powdered sugar. My son bops out of the room and I turn on a recording of Hildegard von Bingen, singing to the Virgin Mary, channel of channels:

O Clarissimia Mater sancte medicine (Brightest Mother of Holy Medicine)

tu unguenta per sanctum Filium tuum (through your holy Son you poured)

infudisti in plangentia vulnera mortis (unguents into the plangent wounds of death)

I am not dying, nowhere close, and I have reminded my son of this. And still I come to the word “plangent” - pounding, tolling, like waves wearying a bank of sand - and it is my word, a word with double meanings, to labor in illness and to lament the illness at the same time. Its roots in Latin echo the words beat and waves, and in this the channel of my days I look between the days and nights and feel my body aching and my body reaching, my mind worrying and my heart wanting, each and every day knowing the goodness of life and its cost, its weight, its beauty and its everything. A new channel has been recommended to me, a livestream of Lake Superior’s northern lights, and at this time of day they are lifting in a blue-green sheet above the beach, the night sky popping with white stars while the emerald haze of luminescence hovers above the waters, and a fox runs across the shoreline, surprised by the waves’ insistence, and I somehow see all of this, sick and tired as I am, and far away as I am from Lake Superior. Pray to your Son for us, star of the sea, Mary, Hildegard wrote and sang. Star of the sea, channel in the beating waves, fox in the dancing night, I am forever waiting, and watching.

The hummingbird!

^{Above, my grapevines, from an earlier, healthier year.}

In August, in the last month of my forty-first year, I am watering grapes stunted by March’s early shock of summer, the grapevine that came with our house sprawled sideways over gray pineboard trellises that now warp under the vines’ flat canes, the grapes that bore so well last year now left for sparrows, bees, wasps. Black bears have come down from the mesas into neighborhoods, canals, the sapsucked peach fields searching for anything in what the irrigation company calls “unprecedented drought,” and I wonder if they will come to my yard and lean up on the thinning trellis, brush away the wasps that have sucked the early wine out of the grapes and left their skins hanging on the knuckles of the vines. “There’s jelly there,” the previous owner of the house told us, “if you can get to the grapes before the wasps skeletelize the fruit.”

The sun did the wasps’ work for them this year, as we saw ninety-three degrees at the spring equinox; the grape vine burst into flower, and the peach fields bloomed a flush of pink that felt like a flesh wound, a stillbirth, even though some of the local farmers posted earnestly about the “joy of an early season.” We all knew that it was too early, even those of us, like me, who hadn’t grown up in this river valley of the desert west. I tried covering the vines with old sheets, but that wasn’t enough to save all of them from March’s lioned reversal into freezing sleet. The sun and heat came back and, although it didn’t feel like more than last year’s heat, the vine’s leaves are smaller, and I know that our plot of earth suffers.

So now we approach a harvest and must leave it where it stands. My husband picked a small bowl for the Feast of the Transfiguration, where it is tradition to bring the fruit of the land for blessing, in line with old celebrations of wheat threshing and fruit offering. He brought in some grapes for us, but to be honest, the fruit looked dry, uncertain. Is that too blunt a way to say that I’m feeling middle-aged? That the ebbs and flows of this year have felt more like the life of this grapevine – shock and demand, long stretches in an unrelenting sun? In this year’s grind of woes, I have seen the health of my own vine, my physical body, follow the life of the vine I water. I am not in danger, but I am feeling the hollowness of dreams deferred, expectations not just shifted, but altered – no more teaching, no more work outside the home, at least for now, I say. In my therapist’s office, I hear the phrase “acceptance is not the same thing as giving up.” I try to say this to myself on the car ride home, but find that I can barely whisper it. What is there for me to gather, and what remains to stand?

The city has asked us not to water trees, and to save water, by following a strict watering schedule. This does not, of course, apply to the local golf courses, so I ignore the city and water our trees anyway. I let the hose run along the mulberry’s brindled roots and think of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Thou, o Lord of Life, send my roots rain.

Afterwards, I stare out the window at the vines and watch the sparrows hop along the branches, glad that they get shade and fruit, for mercy’s sake. One day in my window watching I see a flash of deep orange on the vine, and then another flash, and another – it is a group of birds I have never seen in my life, so brightly colored and so present, weaving and bobbing along the tired vines and pecking at the grapes that are there. I am a white woman in my early forties, so I gasp and stare at the birds for twenty minutes, watching them fly into the mulberry’s upper branches and then back down, over and over, their heads so deeply orange they are almost red, golden cherry marvels on the vines I’d been mourning. Western tanagers, native birds that don’t usually hang around my neck of the woods but are here anyway, brought in by high winds and the search for food. They stay for days. They eat and eat and eat. And there are grapes left for us when they leave, grapes clustered on the vine in the rains of late August, which are falling as I write this, as my own roots drink deep.

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It’s been a smoky, abhorrent summer out west, and I’ve been thinking about my son spending most of his summer indoors, away from the sun and heat, and my own summers at his age spent on my bicycle, or walking to the library. He is allowed to both things, and wants to, but the heat and sun really keep all of us from being outside as much as we’d hope to, and it’s a grief that has been sitting with me all summer. I know that people are writing about ecological grief and childhood and climate change, so I’d appreciate any links you can share. For now, we enjoy the garden, the cool(er) evenings, and the bird guests that visit our grape vines (sparrows, finches, and just the other day, western tanagers!)

I started my second master’s degree this summer, mostly as an act of self-care, and also as a way to deepen and expand my professional skills; if I want to keep teaching (in particular, teach reading and literature in different classroom contexts), I need some more training, and the opportunity presented itself to me in my adult literacy work at my local library. I had taken an online course at the Landmark School in language based learning disabilities, and it provided graduate credit at Fitchburg State University, which has a very affordable Masters program in English. And honestly….why not? If I was going to do what I had been telling students and friends for years - nerd out, enjoy learning for the joy of it, pursue the things that call out to you even if and as the world at large makes those things feel pointless, worthless, or even dangerous - this felt like the place to do it. And so far, it’s been really delightful.

The course I’m finishing up is a Creative Writing Pedagogy class. Even as someone who’s taught creative writing, and who reads a lot of interviews and takes from writers about their habits and their processes, I honestly get very stuck when it comes to teaching creative writing. I think it’s because I never got to take a class like this while doing my MFA, and I also think that, as writers, we tend to find habits and exercises that work for us without getting a full chance to examine the architecture, ecosystems, etc. of those habits and exercises. It doesn’t hurt that our reading has including massive amounts of Toni Morrison, and I especially loved this interview from her in the Bryn Mawr Review. I also loved George Saunders’ essay on revision in writing, from LitHub, and his attitude of “love and hope” towards problems in his writing.

One assignment we’ve worked on is designing a creative writing exercise for a particular audience, and I thought of this page as a place to share my exercise! With the Odyssey being everywhere present this summer, and classical forms being an interest of mine, I decided to create an ode exercise. It’s for you!

If you would love to read some odes, and learn about odes, this prompt is for you!

If you would like to do some preliminary writing about something that you’d like to write an ode about, this prompt is for you!

If you like this exercise and want to use it with a group, this prompt is for you (please give me that sweet credit!)

If you decide that you’d like to share what you’ve written, or portions of what you’ve written, that is wonderful, and I’m happy to offer some feedback! Please note that, if you submit this writing somewhere, many journals and sites have strict guidelines about publishing anything that’s been posted online, and posting material on Substack on a comment thread might break their rules. If you like what you created and you want to submit it somewhere, the best rule is to keep it secret, keep it safe, and work on it off the internet <3

Enjoy, and enjoy the August sunlight, wherever you are!

An ode is a poetic form that is both ancient and contemporary, used by Homer, Keats, Neruda, Kevin Young, and Paisley Rekdal, to name a few. Each writer uses the form in their own way to list and praise the attributes of a person, place, event, or object that they want to praise and honor, something that catches their attention. The range for these subjects of praise is wide: Homer wrote odes to the goddess Demeter, and Neruda wrote an ode to a tuna. I also think of a former student who wrote an ode to a bottle of Mountain Dew (hey Reuben!), and who was very surprised at what they ended up discovering in that poem!

For your ode, you can pick any person, place, event, or object that draws your attention, and that captures your own sense of astonishment.

There are two steps here that will help you work towards creating an ode, and I’d like you to focus on them first:

1.) Please read through 3 of the hyperlinks above (including Rekdal’s poem) to get a sense of the ode form. Please also read this helpful article on odes from the Poetry Foundation. Note: The Poetry Foundation article has a lot of suggested activities at the article’s end - save those for another time!

After reading, write about what you notice about the ode form, what you enjoy about the poems you read, and any lines or images that stand out to you.

2.) Make a list of 5 - 7 subjects that you might focus on for an ode poem. This list can be broad while being specific to you: “grandparents,” “girlfriends,” “drives to Trader Joes,” “desserts at fancy restaurants.” Take 1 - 2 of those subjects (whichever feels most compelling to you at the moment) and write a list of specifics that you associate with each subject. You can use Gary Soto’s “Ode to the Yard Sale“ as an example, or any of the poems from above that feel resonant, if that feels productive to you. Trust your own descriptions; let yourself imagine the weight of something in your hand, the light at a particular intersection, the colors of a painting on the wall. Be your own reader and remember-er.

3.) When you are ready, go ahead and write about the subject that you want to work with the most. I won’t give you more specifics here, other than letting the lines fall as they feel natural to you. You can worry about revision later - right now, let yourself build, grow, or cast the ode, by hand or by keyboard.

Peace to you,

Allison

“We can only acknowledge the mystery…”

Jane Kenyon, from her newspaper column on her peonies.

1. FROM THE COUCH

In the earliest days of my life, the entire couch was mine; I brought every stuffed animal, a plastic box of crayons, My Little Ponies, and a storefront posterboard I called “my streetpaper,” which I drew on for months, an essential member of my toy ensemble. My parents and brother sat on the floor while I spread my streetpaper over the cushions, my world safely hemmed by the armrests and the crayon box. When I played outside, I was unhemmed, the sidewalk a more freeing road than the streetpaper. I walked to the neighbors’ houses and peeked in their windows, knocked on doors, and asked “can I come in?” This was 1990, but I was also five years old; the neighbors stared at me, or told me to go home. An elderly lady once brought me inside and sat me on her couch, gave me a bowl of chocolate pudding. My mother eventually appeared at the door, and while we didn’t know the word eloping, we did know that I was curious, mature for my age, insistent. “We don’t go in strangers’ houses,” my mother said.

2. FORMATS

INFJ, ENFJ, Enneagram Helper with a Three Wing, Gifted, Empath, Cycle Breaker, Highly Sensitive Person. Sometimes you wonder if you have borderline personality disorder, like your mother, who didn’t get diagnosed until she was sixty, who needs three hours of alone time in the morning before talking to anyone, and who is currently texting you about the neighbor who called the cops, convinced that your mother stole the neighbor’s dog. You take another online quiz for BPD on your phone while everyone is asleep and the results are the same as last time: You do not fit this profile. You know this, but when you wake up the next day, you are still tired, still spent, and you wish for three hours of quiet before facing anyone, even as your child looms at the end of your bed, even as another text – a picture of the dog on your mother’s couch, “So precious” - flashes across your phone screen. Your work email has three more notifications from the registrar for a student’s missing grade, and the student who complained about you has emailed you, again, for clarification on your grading scale, which “should be six hundred points total, correct?” You wonder what you fit, and where, and if you will ever really know.

3. PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

You would really shine if you could just get a handle on your organization skills. If your notes didn’t look like concentric circles. If your homepage didn’t look like a warzone. If you didn’t take things so personally. If you stopped imagining things. If you got on board. If you kept up. If you stopped focusing on things that weren’t possibilities for you. If you learned how to make a list. If your lists looked different. If you didn’t need reminders. If you spent more time at the desk. If you learned time management skills. If you learned to delegate. If you remembered your tasks. If you weren’t so messy. If you got your act together. If you knew what you wanted. If you focused. If you stopped crying every time you stepped into the office. If you could look us in the eye.

4. USUALLY

Usually I keep a bit of knitting or crocheting in any given bag I’m carrying, just so I have something to keep my hands busy if I’m stuck in a waiting room. What this means is that I have several bags to lose my wallet in, several bags with various unfinished projects all waiting to be reclaimed. Sometimes a bag will sit in my coat closet for months, and I, like a forgetful Penelope, will let that scarf stay in media res, my task blindness stalling time far better than any purposeful unweaving.

5. ONCE THERE WAS FREEDOM

Once, in my late thirties, I took a solo driving trip to Montana, where I drove along Highway 191 and saw the Grand Tetons. The earth and sky opened to each other in a way I had only felt in my dreams, my body soaring over geysers of ice and rock at the top of the world before waking. I stood at a lake’s edge and felt the shore between my skin and the wind recede, and for a few moments, I was not afraid, my sobs freeing themselves after a year of shock and loss. Or maybe it was many years, not just this year of an unwanted hysterectomy and an altered future, but years of dreaming the same rugged landscapes, and feeling the same gutted feelings, in the particular cruxes of never quite fitting in, never clicking into place or catching my breath enough to find my way.

Suddenly I heard steps behind me: unaware lakeside visitors, two men with cameras chasing the sunset. I quickly tied up my sobbing and walked back to the car, even as the wind kept wrapping itself around me. Even as the sky kept opening.

(my photo of the Tetons)

6. LEFT TO RIGHT

As a child I opened books and the words appeared to me without effort, and my eyes skipped ahead far past the lines my father read to me. Sometimes it was the motion of reading that saved me – left to right, over and over, repeating the ritual of return to calm my pacing mind. I have spent years trying to untangle myself from my parents’ woundedness, and now I have other words to read: autism, attention deficit disorder, hyperlexic, late diagnosis, window of tolerance. Could someone have read these words to me thirty years ago? Or am I left to, as I’ve always done, decipher my memories alone: me at eleven years old, yelling out answers during a social studies lesson and my teacher, who delighted in my humiliation, bellowing “Allison Backous, go stand in the corner!” my tears burning and my whole body shaking against the wall’s painted concrete? What is the line between tolerance and survival for a girl, a woman, who now finds herself staring out her kitchen window, reading the horizon for something unspeakable, wordless, true?

7. METAPHOR

As Kenyon says, I am “tired of trying to be stouthearted, tired beyond measure.” I go back to the therapist, who shares my red hair and love of purple. “Neurodiversity is a forest,” she says, “and there are lots of ways to inhabit that forest.” I drive home and think of what creature I am: moss, serviceberry, mycelium network flashing signals of danger to others before they, too, are attacked by the parasitical worm. Even in my self-reflection, my reflex is to fawn, sacrifice, keel over: this is what kept me alive in my parents’ houses. But Kimmerer, in her writing about serviceberries, says that the forest is an economy of gifts. Moss gives nutrients and secure holds; serviceberry trees give fruit and carbon; and the mycelium network gives its attention, its chemical warnings, its rush of alert to rescue the rest of the root. And even if a worm attacks one finger of the mycelium, there is record of other chemicals sent out in volley to protect that injured finger, to let it regrow, to keep it from being lost.

8. OVERWHELM

I only need a couple minutes to get ready, but I’ve been carrying that text like a sharp rock in my shoe since day before last, and the pile of clothes next to my bed is so large that it’s now its own piece of furniture and I cannot get out of bed without my feet tripping over it, and it’s not the pile that bothers me but getting started with it, and I know that we need to be out the door but I just need a drink of water, I just need to find my keys, I just need some help finding my sandals, I left them in the kitchen and they aren’t there any more, are you sad that you married me when I’ve always been like this, can I just have a minute to sit, can I just breathe for a bit, can you get me an icepack, maybe I should stay home and you go without me, nobody will miss me, nobody needs me anyway?

9. NORTHERN FLICKER

Across the table in late winter I see its orange collar, its black speckles spread across a gray breast. It is native here, and while I’ve often confused it for the visiting starlings, I know it now by sight, its patterns and plumage known to me after many Google image searches. The bird hops its heavy body along my neighbor’s elm, and through the window, my heart sings: I know you, I know you. The bird lands on my box feeder and I am overcome with not just ordinary contentment, but joy. Here it is, the wordless one I was waiting for! How I love its separateness among the sparrows, its black chest and secret trust. How I love that it finally came to me after waiting so long to greet it, how I knew to wait even without knowing, the moment not lost to me despite everything, the world held it in its generous, unsearching eye.

Image taken from the Eastside Audubon Society.

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Substack is new, but writing is not.

Like a lot of writers on Substack, I’ve been writing for…forever. I also hold an MFA from Seattle Pacific University and am working on my second master’s in English from Fitchburg State University. I love the humanities, ancient and medieval studies, gardening, textiles, Wikipedia, cats, gifs, LOTR, ecology, women’s studies, oral history, all things nonfiction, and being curious, and writing has always been my way towards loving those things well.

1. Why Substack?

I submit essays to a lot of literary journals that have a small readership and would love to connect with more people; I also share a lot online and would like to share more literary and review writing in a space curated for that, and to create it, as opposed to just sharing what other folks are doing.

2. Who’s invited?

Langston Hughes wrote a poem called “Theme for English B” (that my great sophomore English high school teacher introduced me to) where he introduces himself to his reader (his instructor) by naming the things he loves: “Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.” Those are lines I’ve carried with me since high school, and they mark an invitation to this page - if you like those things, and do those things, you’re a welcome reader to this page! And if your comments keep others from doing/enjoying those things freely, you’ll be asked to leave.

3. What’s being served?

I live with disabling illnesses, and a strict schedule is not in the cards for me for this page. But! As a free subscriber, you’ll get once essay a month. As a paid subscriber, you’ll get three essays, plus bonus content down the road (discounted book clubs). As a founding member, you’ll get free access to any book clubs I offer, and as I’m able, free developmental editing services (within TBA terms of a one-hundred-page document).

4. Like! Subscribe! Enjoy!

I’m so happy to have you here, and so happy to be writing and creating in a time where there is so much destruction, malaise, and nastiness. People crave meaning and beauty in all sorts of ways, and all our interrelated paths of seeking and making meaning and beauty matter. As Ursula LeGuin said,

“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.”

I don’t take people reading my work lightly - it’s oil and wine, an open table, and I’m glad to welcome you here.

]

5. Want to check out my other work?

You can read my very first essay for Image Journal here, and my latest essay for Duke Divinity here. I’ve also reviewed books for the Christian Century, interviewed Christian Wiman, and am working on several nonfiction pieces about my family’s history in the south suburbs of Chicago.