…in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits.

—John Keats

Happy new year! I hope everyone found the holidays merry and bright despite less than optimal circumstances. 

Yesterday was gloomy. I came into it thinking I would hack out a draft for today's newsletter and have it ready for a final round of review and revision this morning. Nothing came of the effort. My mood was melancholy to match the day.

In the evening I poured a happy hour glass of wine to keep me company along with  an Elly Griffiths mystery novel. After dinner I enjoyed a taste more of the wine than is my custom these days, just enough to feel a little misty in the manner of Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove, while perusing journal entries from January 2020.

The January 13 entry includes this observation: Twitter is the voice of the howling mob. Well, I got something right. Another entry mentions Dave Miller's interview with Colson Whitehead on OPB's Think Out Loud. Miller brought up the writer workshop maxim "write what you know." In the journal I noted that Whitehead patiently pushed back. It occurs to me that if I write only what I know I will not write much.

In January 2020 I was just beginning the Alexander Pope  project, which I would finish off with blog essays published on June 28 and July 7. It seems another lifetime. The year closed out with the Herzen project essays in mid December. Not a bad way to bookend it.

When I put aside the journal I looked around and took in for a moment my modest collection of paintings by Jim Darlington, Hollye Maxwell, Kelsey Mosley, Rachel Matthews. Then I took a stroll through the museum of the mind where I found paintings by Roderick Smith, Steve Stoller, Jerry Pagane. I thought too of poets Chuck Oliveros, Debra Hiers, Ronnog Seaberg, Ric Vrana, Wade Dinius, Tommy Gaffney, Sophia Helstrom-White, Doug Spangle, and others too many to name. 

From there my wandering thoughts drifted to Trani and Candace, nieces and nephews, cousins, childhood friends, Mom, Granny, my sister Elaine.

The day's gloom faded, washed away by the richness of life.

Links to the annual holiday and year's end blogs are below in the usual place.

Pictured below: Pope project draft, June 2020

Keep the faith.

yr obdt svt