A Yearly Challenge and Looking for Madrid
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Greetings! I am a poet turned memoirist. I used to teach writing to kids of all ages, but now I get to write anytime I want.
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The Challenge:
It’s still January, that month for making resolutions. I don’t make resolutions anymore because it’s too easy to let go of them as time trudges on. However, I do believe in challenging myself. This year one of the commitments I’ve made to myself - and you - is to post a newsletter every month in 2025. I’m just making it in January!
The last time I made such a writing pledge was in 2014 when I joined a group of writers who agreed to write and post one haiku each day for the year. I did that almost every day that year. Some of my haiku joined others in Everyday Haiku: an anthology, edited by Kristen Kingman and published by Wandering Muse Press, 2017. You can order it here.
One of my haiku from that anthology reminds me of what writing means to me. So that’s what I’m focusing on this year.
The Search for Madrid:
Last September I traveled to Madrid for the first time I was a Junior in High School. Back then, I visited Spain with a group of students led by our Spanish teacher. That was about fifty years ago. At that time, Spain was still a dictatorship under the control of Francisco Franco.
That first international trip was pivotal in my life. It opened my eyes to the world beyond my little suburban home and made me the traveler I am today. While I’ve visited Spain in the recent past, I’d never returned to Madrid. Last year when I met a writer who lives there, I knew it was time to go back. I expected much to have changed after so many decades but I was sure my teenage memories of Madrid would find echoes in the present. How wrong I was.
I didn’t seem to remember much about Madrid at all. As I walked the streets of the city, nothing felt familiar. None of the ah-ha moments I expected showed up.
It wasn’t until I visited the Prado that I felt a flash I wanted. The long-ago visit to that museum was the first time I was surrounded by art. Although I grew up in Chicago, I had never been to The Art Institute. Art was not something my working class parents thought about. So, when I first saw Velasquez’s Las Meninas at the age of seventeen, a new world opened for me.
In September, pacing the halls of The Prado once again, I headed for the room containing Velasquez’s masterpiece. Before I reached the doorway I paused, hoping the magic would return. And I found what I’d been searching for. When I stepped inside the room, I knew exactly where the painting would be and what it would look like. I realized my memory was intact. I stood in front of that painting for a long time, taking it in once again.
Las Meninas by diego velasquez, 1656
This painting isn’t one of my favorites, but finding it was like rediscovering that American teenager who had just discovered the world. It reminded me of where I had been - and why I am still on this journey.
It’s the kind of journey I want for all of us, traveling this world in whatever way we find most satisfying. I wish for a full and creative life for everyone in whatever form that takes.
For me it means writing, for my sister Lori it is cooking. For my mother, who died in October at the age of ninety-seven, it meant gardening. She may not have introduced me to art, but she taught me the sweetness of a home-grown tomato.
This promises (is that the correct word?) to be a difficult year for many reasons. If you need a way to get you through, focus on how you are building your world.
PUBLISHING NEWS
I finally made it into one of my dream publications. My essay, “Blue and White” was published in the Readers Write section of The Sun. This essay is a part of my memoir (out on submission). The theme for that month was Misunderstandings.
It begins, My family called it “the wedding china”: white porcelain dishes with a pale-blue flower motif. There were two plates and two cups with saucers—just enough for a couple.
Published in September, this was the last piece of my writing my mother was able to read. For that reason alone, this is one of my favorites. You can read it here. To find my essay, you need to scroll down.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
Jennifer Lang’s second memoir, Landed continues her journey as an American choosing to live in Israel because of her marriage. Like her first book, Places We Left Behind, Jennifer again uses many unconventional text and non-text structures. As she told me, she uses these to tell stories that can’t be shaped in traditional forms.
I believe this is an important book. By telling the story one woman’s life in a country embroiled in conflict, it reminds us that there is a difference between the government of a country and people living in that place. Buy it here.
What are you doing to live your best life? How do you nurture your creativity? I’d love to hear from you. Who knows - I might find a new way myself.
