Anyone who knows me, knows I’m not just a Glass is Half Full kind of a person, but a Glass is Half Full and I Don’t Want to Hear Anything But How to Fill It To The Brim kind of a gal.
But even I, these last couple of months, have felt my head disappearing under the surface. The first time since the teenage years that my spirit headed into the red marked territory of despair.
I’m sure you out there know exactly what I mean. The environmental devastation that is picking up exponentially has got everyone on edge, consciously or not. A pandemic that has yet to sputter out doesn’t help. Oh, yeah, and then there is the hint of WWIII.
Honestly, anyone who isn’t wincing upon surveying our present situation just isn’t paying attention.
On the other hand, paying attention and joining together and figuring out ways to move forward is the proper response, yes? And we none of us need ever forget that creative activity is just that, whether in poetry, in fairy tales, in philosophy, in story. I do believe that. Obviously I do believe that, or EAP wouldn’t exist. And my gratitude that all of you have joined in is deep and profound, and helps me on those nights where I lie awake listening for the rain to come.
My favorite contribution this issue is a poem, David Bolton’s “Steps of Time,” which pretty much sums up what we’re all in this for. I love Barry Vitcov’s “Nature’s Beauty is all the Glamour.” David Selzer nails it, alas, with “Lake Urmia.” And our dear poetry editor, Marissa Bell Toffoli, always comforts me with her attachment to the things that really matter: “On Our Way Home.”
Brian Griffith and Zhinia Noorian celebrate poetic bravery in an excerpt from their book Mother Persia: “Parvin E’tesami, an Iconic Female Iranian Poet.” (Welcome, Zhinia!) Bruce E.R. Thompson made me laugh with his treatise on “Unglamorous Philosophers.” Rose Jermusyk never fails to enchant me with her fairy tales, but especially this one: “The Stork Woman.” And Jim Meirose must be the weirdest short story writer in rock and roll: “Beg Pardon, Beg Pardon! Sorry to offend!”
My own contribution to this issue is from a work in progress, My Life with Dogs: “Cymeric.” It’s supposed to be about a dog, but a meditation crept in there on glamour as a defense and kindness as a solution. It’s the story of my mother and her older sister, my Aunt Celia. Because when I peer through the fog into the future, I always look backward to get my bearings.
May you get your bearings, and may you share those bearings with others as we make our way together into the spring.
Welcome back.