JoCoWrites

By Jane Doe

Shelter in distant Spaces, looking for others Present by proxy

By Jane Doe

Essence. Essential. Existential. Exist. I Bathe in life’s essence.

By Meagan Condon

pregnant with mute fear like Spring buds about to burst ere the final frost

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Poetry can offer a fresh perspective on life and the world—from small details to deep concepts. Haiku, specifically through its limitations (a 3-line poem consisting of first 5 syllables, then 7 syllables, and ending again with 5 syllables), can both simplify complex things in revealing ways and/or show the value of simpler, everyday things. During the month of April, join us in celebrating National Poetry Month and thinking about these strange days through the lens of haiku. You can post once or multiple times, include several haiku in your post or just one.

How does the world look Through your homebound eyes that see Beyond boundaries?

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The posts below were responses to our March 2020 prompt: Where do you find comfort in troubling times?

By Lisa

I’ve been thinking about my grandmother lately. Ok, ok—I always think about her; but these past few months she’s slipped into my peripheral vision more often, whispered clear “I love you”s when I least expect. She’s been gone too long.

I suppose I’m thinking of her more lately because I’m wondering what she’d think of our current state of affairs. She was gone before the 2016 election, but my gut tells me she’d have supported our current president; a cradle Catholic, she was fiercely anti-abortion (she’d call it pro-life, I bet, and we’d disagree). I want to tell myself she’d have respected (I can’t bring myself to use the word liked, because I know what a stretch that would be) Hilary Clinton, but I don’t think so. I know she listened to Hannity too often to see things the way I see them (she thought Hannity was cute, she said, and watched him on FOX News).

Still. No matter how different we were from each other, I respected my grandmother. We shared one vital thing: she was a single mother. She lived that reality before we used that descriptor. She raised 5 kids on her own after her husband left. But in so many other ways, we are different: she cleaned doctor’s offices and ironed men’s shirts and butchered chickens at a local restaurant to make ends meet. I write and work at a public library. She smoked for far too long and got my dad hooked when he was just a kid (she’d have him light her smokes while she ironed). I abhor cigarettes, can’t be in a room when someone lights up. She was unfailingly, resolutely Catholic. I aspire to be more catholic, despite my misgivings with the church.

All this is to say: she wasn’t perfect but she was soft hearted. She gave the best hugs. She welcomed people back after they failed her or hurt her or lied to her or stole from her. She fed everyone, offered everything she could. She was comfort, no matter what.

Since she’s passed, I often think about the stories that she took to her grave. The memories she never shared, the wishes she kept secret, the lessons she could have taught us, had she known what was coming.

She was born 2 years after the last pandemic this country faced. She was a kid during the Great Depression and was raised in a small Kansas town during the Dust Bowl. I wish I could ask her what all of that was like, how it changed everyday life. She may not know; I mean, if you’re born between a pandemic and the Great Depression, then spend your childhood years in the harsh reality of the economic impact of the Depression and the Dust Bowl, hardship and uncertainty aren’t aberration; it’s what seems normal. At least that’s what I imagine she’d tell me.

So where do I find comfort, now? In research, for one. I’ve been reading more about what life was like when my grandmother was a kid. There are great online databases accessible through the library’s website (go to “Research” on the main navigation bar, then choose “All Topics,” then “History.” History.com is great, too.) I will never know what her life was like then, but I can sketch an approximation through reading and, in some small way, come to understand her a bit more. Remembering that she lived through so much but still lived a long life filled with family and faith and good food and laughter. That's comfort, now. It's hope.

I’m also finding comfort in poetry. This isn’t new, but it feels more important now than before. This poem, in particular, calms me. It’s from Ada Limon’s book Bright Dead Things.

DURING THE IMPOSSIBLE AGE OF EVERYONE

1. There are so many people who’ve come before us, arrows and wagon wheels, obsidian tools, buffalo. Look out at the meadow, you can almost see them, generations dissolved in the bluegrass and hay. I want to try and be terrific. Even for an hour.

2. If you walk long enough, your crowded head clears, like how all the cattle run off loudly as you approach. This fence is a good fence, but I doubt my own haywire will hold up to all this blank sky, so open and explicit. I’m like a fence, or a cow, or that word, yonder.

3. There is a slow tractor traffic hollering outside, and I’d like to not be traffic, but the window shaking. Your shoes are piled up with mine, and the heat comes on, makes a simple noise, a dog-yawn. People have done this before, but not us.

By Chris

May You Live in Interesting Times

For the historical record, we are now in the midst of the Covid-19 virus pandemic. Probably still in the early stages. Everything has been incrementally shut down the past few weeks where we live as the spread we've been reading about elsewhere for a couple of months started infiltrating our areas. People are to stay at home except for essential functions to avoid as much contact as possible, thus preventing further spread. The numbers of sick and dead are minimal so far, but it's impossible to say how well the containment efforts will work. School has been called off, most businesses closed, all sports and recreation cancelled. We're “sheltering in place.” Working from home where possible. Some have responded with panic by hoarding toilet paper, sanitizer, and non-perishables. Others think the efforts are a silly overreaction and have ignored the orders to stay in. Some are more worried about the sagging economy than loss of life. Most are rightfully worried about how they will manage without income if they can't work from home.

Our household has been quietly anxious. We've taken the warnings seriously and were early adopters of “social distancing,” but have still gone to the store for food and such when needed. Our youngest is still going to a reduced-attendance preschool that has implemented best safety practices. The kindergartner has just started home learning. I'm able to work remotely. My spouse is still figuring out what she's going to do with her minimally-essential medical job. Our immunocompromised roommate and honorary brother/uncle has hard quarantined himself to the basement. Everything is different and all feels strange.

Even though we've maintained good spirits and normal routines where possible, it's clear the children are feeling the anxiety to some extent. Yesterday when I picked up the four-year-old from school, he . . . wait, first a bit of backstory. Recently I've read the boys the humorous book Wedgie and Gizmo, which is alternately narrated by a guinea pig and a dog. The guinea pig is a self-branded evil genius and dreams of world domination. The dog is exuberant and dim, and calls his mate a “furry potato.” The boys have taken to calling it the furry potato book. So . . . yesterday when I picked up the four-year-old from school, he said, “During naptime today I thought about how the furry potato has created the sickness.”

“Because he's evil?”

“Yeah, it's part of his evil plan.”

“And that's the story you told yourself instead of sleeping?”

“No, it's not a story, it's real!”

“I see.”

“Luckily, everything in our house is mighty, so our family might just be able to stop him.”

(Mighty being the Paw Patrol terminology for superpowers.)

He doesn't actually believe the “furry potato” or mighty powers are real, but he's clearly struggling to process everything that's been going on in terms he can understand.

Just like the rest of us.

“May you live in interesting times” is always shared as “an ancient Chinese curse.” It's not, of course, but it still seems appropriate to the circumstances. Most of the time we complain when life is mundane, banal, and boring, wishing something “interesting” would happen. Yet we forget that “interesting” things are often tumultuous, difficult, and tragic. In comparison, everyday life can seem a blessing.

These are interesting times, indeed.

By Helen Hokanson

Routine Comfort

I don’t remember when I first learned about the Corvid 19 Virus pandemic, but I do remember looking at the numbers on the CDC website and not understanding the alarm. That was a Thursday evening. At that time, out of the 80 million people in Italy, only 500 had died. I’m bad at math, but statistically speaking, I thought that isn’t really significant, right?

Friday I really started poking around to see where the escalating drama was coming from, and as I read the stories and personal accounts (mostly) coming out of Italy, I was starting to come around.

At my normally busy library, Saturday was comparatively slow. The regulars were all there, of course, but there were few browsers and fewer people calling in for holds. Until the press release went out that JCL libraries would be closed until April 4th. Two and half weeks with about three hours to get in and stock up. People took advantage of those hours, myself included.

It was during these hours that I experienced my first and only real sense of panic and the instinct to hoard and monopolize took over. No, I didn’t run to the restroom and sneak County TP under my sweater. I checked out books. A massive number that I could barely carry to my car after we locked the doors. Will I read those books? No. I won’t even make a dent in the pile. But my fear at being totally alone for two and half weeks invoked an irrationality that, once acknowledged, abated.

Fast forward. It’s Sunday and I’ve been working from home for seven days. The things I thought would bring me comfort haven’t yet surfaced. I thought I would read many books. It took me several days to finish Great Teams, which I was already very close to finishing. Now, I’m only about half way finished with Welcome to Wherever We Are. Not because these aren’t good books. I’m keeping myself too busy and even if I weren’t I just can’t focus.

This past Tuesday, I started subbing as a Meals on Wheels driver. Without that, I think I might have gone a little crazy. It gave me purpose in an otherwise empty day and a reason to put pants on. Already a frequent user of parks, I’ve been meeting my brother at the park with our dogs to play fetch. We’re able to maintain our distance while moving freely. Fresh air, to me, is imperative.

I’ve never been a big napper. Naps usually leave me feeling groggy and the danger of not waking for hours and then not sleeping during the night is too real. But in the past week I’ve been surprised by naps. As we head into a 30 day Stay at Home order, I plan to make them a part of my routine. I’ve been enjoying my daily naps (plural) so much that I’m already getting anxious about returning to work when things get back to normal.

The greatest comfort comes from the most surprising place, my routines. I still go to bed at the embarrassing hour of 8:30 (sometimes earlier). And I still rise before the rest of the world to drink my coffee, journal and quietly contemplate long before the sun rises and Max gets restless.

I had thought we would be exploring different parks and sections of trails we’ve never been to, but that’s not the reality. We stick to our usual haunts; the same paths, parks, and neighborhoods we’ve always walked. Any new places we’ve visited have been outside our normal routine.

I also thought I would watch a massive amount of TV, but beyond a couple of Dave Letterman’s My Next Guest is . . . I haven’t watched more than the usual of none. I’ve cleaned out exactly one cupboard, and only run the vacuum once. If my apartment isn’t spotless at the end of this, I’ll be terribly disappointed in myself. And yet, thus far, I haven’t felt the nesting instinct my sister, friends, and colleagues seem to be experiencing.

So far, it seems like business as usual. An odd kind of usual, but usual nonetheless. And that is where I find comfort. The same long walks with Max, the same creamy morning coffee with a lap cat. I’m eating the same homemade granola with crock pot yogurt for breakfast. I haven’t learned to bake bread, or experimented with any new recipes. For me, it’s been in the routine. As long as you night owls don’t start calling after bedtime, we’re gonna get through this just fine.

By Rick

I have found that the COVID-19 cannot live in hard-boiled eggs marinating with garlic stuffed olives. I'm currently seeking more recipes for egg salad, deviled eggs, . . .

It's all we've been hearing for weeks. The world is hurting. As we spend the coming days in the absence of our friends, family, and colleagues, let's look for the good. If we can't find the good, let's look for solace. Where do you find comfort in troubling times?

We're happy to announce the winner is LeAnne Hansen. Check out her piece Filled with all the other submissions below. Thanks to everyone who participated and responded to our prompt: “How do your friends, family, and community use food to connect?”

Join us in April for our next prompt celebrating National Poetry Month (hint: start forming your thoughts in haikus).