Will finish final touches on manuscript and write acknowledgments soon. Yay!  Looking forward to calling this thing a book rather than a manuscript. I've been writing a lot. A whole lot of new stuff is flowing, billowing like gray storm clouds lit with sunlight. It feels awesome!

I like this video because it shows Dylan's contradictions or contraries. Plus it mentions Juarez. Yes, El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, the most appropriated places in America. It seems many claim the area while simultaneously abandoning it or worse, never having been there, much less lived there-- claim the area as theirs. I call this "the border in vogue." Maybe I'm just a little cranky tonight? I don't think so. I love Dylan and I don't see him doing that here. Maybe I'm deluded tonight! I believe William Carlos Williams made a stop in El Paso. Overall, I don't seem to like it when we appropriate the area in a way that diminishes its people. It's a real place with real people, all kinds of varied and individual people that live and breathe. They are not some border "concept" or "construct."

Much of the world lives in abject poverty--the kind I remember when I was a kid growing up near Juarez. It made an indelible mark on my psyche. We are blessed to have the luxury to write, to read, to question the things that need to be questioned.

Positive Vibrations today. I am going to read some Stephen Dunn, then I WILL revise some drafts of poems which have been sitting on my computer way too long now. No "wish," "should," or "try" as those are dis-empowering words. I am seeking some positive energy for the poetry and for life.

It's difficult at times as it's easy to focus on the past, where things went wrong and of course the blame game. Instead, this time, I'm going to buckle up and head out for a fast drive up the mountain.

Feeling pretty good after a fantastic Canto Mundo! Thanks to the wonderfully giving and nurturing Cantomundistas! I feel free back in the glorious Denver summertime! It looks like I'm being recommended as a peer-mentor or peer-specialist at the mental health center. I'm thrilled as I can do this part-time and keep my disability. I think I need this kind of shift in my life. I can possibly help other people going through what I've gone through. I may even be able to teach a writing workshop or better yet a poetry workshop! I am still waiting for my award letter from social security. I am so thankful the judge ruled in my favor. I feel light. I feel free. I feel happy! Now it seems time to start writing fresh new work! Working on the cover for my book still. Looking at a couple of photographers. I found a photo from an El Paso (Texas) photographer which I am going to advocate for with my editors. I am pleased with the ongoing collaborative discussion about the cover. Everything is going so well in my life. I feel truly blessed and am filled with gratitude. The universe has been so kind to me of late. Oh, I may be leading a panel/round-table discussion with some Latina poets in February. Wait a minute! I will be leading such a panel right before the book comes out with 3: A Taos Press.

Today I asked a mature and together 28 year old how she got to be that way and she said that it was life experience. She said she believes life experience can teach us more than books. Ouch! I have lived my life with my nose in a book, not always such a great thing! I realize now it's not a slight as I tend to personalize way too much. Again though, I had repressed trauma to the detriment of my own maturity and understanding of people and life. It's not my fault. I have to learn to rebuild trust and defer from fear.

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I've been discussing the cover of my book with my editor and am very excited. I advocated for my uncle's painting, but there's a good photographer that has a woman riding on a floating horse! Ha! I haven't seen it yet but think it may persuade me. The idea does seem to go with the themes in the book. Horses again. I like talking about it as a book rather than a manuscript. The editor also knows of a good sculptor she wants me to check out for the cover. I greatly appreciate the atmosphere of discussion and mutual respect regarding what will work for the book!

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I would like to go to AWP in Boston as my book will be out, but I hate to spend all that money; I'm not sure what I will do. It will be sold at AWP, so please, please pick up your copy. It is primarily about trauma and recovery-- experience--and one reason I believe still in individuality is that such trauma causes fragmentation and one lives really separated from one's true self and the world. 3: A Taos Press will have a table set up at AWP, so you can pick up your copy there! I am honored to be published with a group of very diverse and talented poets! Please check this new press out and support their efforts as they work very well and with mutual respect with their poets. When and if they open submissions, I strongly encourage this press!

Congratulations to a Critic

To see with one's own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one has seen and felt in a trim sentence or even in a cunningly wrought word-- is that not glorious> Is it not proper subject for congratulation? -- Albert Einstein

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"Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society, nay even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative personalities able to think and judge independently, the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community." -- Einstein

I could be listening to Mozart or Enya, but I'm in a Dylan-- "Like a Rolling Stone" kinda mood. I dealt the last two days with the long arm of the federal government's bureaucracy, which sounds and acts kind of like crazy. I think though when I get my award letter I'll feel relieved. They do not make it easy in regards to communication as three people give three different answers. None-the-less, I am blessed. I am blessed. I am blessed. I am thankful. I am grateful. I even have a book coming out! Please, please try to read it.

I remember listening to Dylan when I was much younger and much angrier. I was very compelled to argue politics at the time, and now I see how much of that was due to past trauma. It can be a way of coping with and or living in denial about the losses in our lives. I would stay up all night, many a night, listening to all my Dylan albums. Yes, I'm that old, and yes, I was quite poor as a student. I saw and believed others had it easier, and still struggle with that envy or that belief that others are being favored or that so and so is biased. In the end, though, severe trauma leads us to be on edge at all times. This hypervigilance is tiring though, and sooner or later it all overflows. We are filled to the brim with fear. And fear can kill you.

But the fact is I still love Bob Dylan. I understand the rage of this song all too well. We move through it like ghosts, unaware of past events, and now that I am half-aware of the events in my childhood, I feel more free, less angry. I am aware that my politics are mine, and that freedom and peace are more important than being right regarding a political stance.