From Lemons to Lemonade, with Writing, Loss, and a Speeding Car in Between

Winter and early spring have been a chaotic few months, bitter and a little hard to take. It began with knee surgery for my husband, followed a few weeks later by the loss of his much-loved father, with whom he worked, side by side, for nearly 40 years. 

Then, about three months of  recurrent illnesses (and tests and a bit of surgery) for me, and finally--as if my family wasn't already feeling like we'd gotten hit by a speeding vehicle, an actual speeding vehicle turned a quarter of my husband's  brick and concrete warehouse into a drive-thru. (Fortunately, hubby was 20 feet away from the crashed wall--though 20 seconds before he was right behind it.) Seeing your husband bowed first by loss and then by the physical destruction of the place where he and his father built their business, is something I don't yet have words for.

Yes, life goes on. As life went on the last few months, I kept writing, because--well, that's what we writers do, right? We write. Nonfiction writers especially write about what's swirling through our lives, buffeting us with emotions and situations we'd rather avoid, or don't understand, or find confusing, stressful, emotionally demanding. We write, not sure why some days, or where any of it may lead.

What I've been scribbling over the winter of discontent may or may not ever amount to anything. Right now all those hand written pages are just pages, just notes and half-simmered thoughts and ideas of what may make a good essay--one day. For now, it's just marinating. Another day, I'll peek under the lid and see what the stew holds, maybe ladle out something that looks or smells promising.

Meanwhile, the writing life went on, goes on...

~ The academic semester is ending, and later this week, I'm heading to the campus of Bay Path University in Massachusetts to see our first creative nonfiction MFA class graduate--and meet most of my online students for the first time, as they read from the creative work I've witnessed them conceive, craft and revise and rewrite, for the past two years. 

~ My fingers are crossed that a 2017 AWP panel proposal will be accepted. 

~ Fall courses are penciled in.

~ The rejections arrive, are duly noted. And the essays and short memoir pieces and pitches go out again.

~ An essay close to my heart has been accepted by a print journal I admire (with a fall publication date).

~ I've sent off a rewritten memoir manuscript--this time a more traditional linear narrative (transformed from a linked essay collection). Will YOU cross your fingers for me on that one?

Meanwhile, it's spring (though the continuing cold weather in New Jersey suggests otherwise). The crappy winter is in the rear view mirror. Summer is ahead. And, lemonade.

Onward...

Images: Flickr/Creative Commons -- Lemons (BobBertholf); Lemonade (LaurenAllik-Floating/Vibes).