The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

We drove out to Picnic Point this afternoon to take some photos for me to start working on a cover for my collection of poetry. I’ve been submitting it to different publishers, and even got on the long list of a UK publisher, but no luck yet.

The next publisher I’m submitting to wants a hard copy sent through the post, so I thought ‘why not give it a nice cover?’.

Over coffee and a conversation about writing, Hubby reminded me that people who get published are writers who can take a no, who can take lots of noes.

I have had my fair share of ‘no’ this year. At least once a week there is an email in my inbox telling me ‘thanks but no thanks’. Every submission takes effort. Some need cover letters, writer bios, or pitches as to why this collection should be published. Not every submission is my poetry collection, some submissions are single poems, creative nonfiction pieces, or articles. And then there are the silent noes. These are the submissions that get no response that after three or four months you suddenly realise must be noes.

The happy news is that I have an article coming out with Idiom in a few months about my one of my favourite things: teaching English.

Another win of this week was the workshop I ran at the library.

I love to teach. Being fully focused on what is best for my students, especially my adult students keen to write poetry, fills me with joy. I love that it isn’t about me, even though it is a little bit. It is more about the environment I create that allows students to experience themselves in new and enlightening ways that light me up. It works because I instinctively know what is needed to empower people to learn and to be able to lean into the part of themselves they are less familiar with.

On Wednesday night, I spent time talking about my research, explaining how trauma reveals itself, and reading poems that showed what I was talking about. All the while, I created a space for my audience—one of whom had driven down from Melbourne just to be at the workshop—to experience themselves as the poets they are. It was so much fun.

And—because this week wasn’t busy enough already—we have had a new kitchen going in.

Life exists in a balance, an unpredictable, difficult balance, but a balance nonetheless. The good and the bad come along, times of joy and suffering. It isn’t predictable or easily anticipated or nicely spaced.

Gerard, my Stretching Class Instructor, explains that there is action and counter action. He’s talking about the tension in muscles required for us to find our balance. Push too far or not far enough, and you lose balance. Stretching is all about intentionally seeking balance.

This week has, on the surface, been a little out of balance—all of these good things happening. They do, however, balance out all of the noes. Oh, and the little thing of being sick and having extra school events, a kitchen reno that has its share of hiccoughs, and the ache that comes when you have a friend dealing with a terrible loss that you can’t do anything about—hugs to you, dear friend.

The thing with the times of joy and suffering is that it is important to have a range of joy-filled memories, a reserve of beauty and wonder, to draw on when times of suffering come along. These reserves might be memories of happy times, successes, or even the small things that bring joy.

The thing with making a cover for my next submission of the poetry collection is that even though a no will be just as disappointing as all of the previous noes, it will be softened by the happy time we had walking by the river, taking photos in the rain, and the fun of putting together a cover that brings me joy to think about.

Make time for filling up on joy. You don’t know when you will need to draw on your reserves. Life is less predictable than you think.