mimsy and outgrabe

Spent three and a half hours writing just over 1500 words of Accountability Partners today (my non-verse play). And in the morning, before the kids woke up, I wrote another poem for the new manuscript. That makes over 60 poems written since the end of June!  Sorry for the blog brag, but I had to share my good news with the universe. I'm on some kind of unprecedented tear here, and thoroughly enjoying it. I mean, not all of those 1500 words are golden, and I sincerely doubt all of the poems are publishable (certainly not right now -- most need the benefit of time and careful revision) . . . but I'm so, so happy and grateful for the generation. And, yes, relieved. Because at this time last year, I was already having serious doubts about my abilities and future as a writer (even before the bad news/sabbatical debacle). After all -- while it goes a long way toward helping with validation, publication is not necessarily the thing that makes one feel like the genuine article.

This post comes to you from the ultra-glamorous lobby of my local Long Island garage, where the Honda is having its oil changed, so rest assured: Sicily was an aberration in the life of this gal, and things are back to normal: the suburban soccer mom gig is alive and well, my friends. But I shall spend this post mostly in photographs, documenting the best parts of Sicily (although our running joke was about how absolutely none of these do justice to the beautiful views from Erice).  Before we get to the vacation slides, though (I'm channeling every 1950s father here . . .), I'll share that Bread Loaf Sicily was a really wonderful program. Far less formal and intense, I believe, than the regular program in Vermont, but no less useful for this particular writer. In fact, I'd venture to say -- even though I've never attended the regular program -- that it was probably far more useful than the regular program ever could have been.  I learned much from observi