Small Kindnesses

Have you ever run into the grocery store for a small something—a couple of apples, or a carton of ice cream, or a bag of coffee beans—and found yourself stuck in the checkout line behind a shopper with an overflowing grocery cart? You’re already counting how many items this person has and being judgy. (Do they really need all those boxes of cookies? Are they shopping for a restaurant, or maybe for ten million kids?) And you’re thinking if you had just gotten here a few seconds earlier, you might have gotten to the checkout first. You’re cursing yourself for having stopped to say hi and how are you to your neighbor who was just leaving as you entered the store. Why did you do that? 

Then the shopper in front of you says, “That’s all you have? Just the one item?”

You nod.

“You can get in front of me,” the shopper says. “Otherwise you’ll be here all day.” 

And this, such a tiny gesture, makes your morning—it might even make your day. You thank them, but you know it’s for more than the fact that you will get out of the store ten minutes earlier than you thought you would. This person saw you. And considered you.

Which leads me to this beauty of a poem by one of my favorite poets: Danusha Laméris.

This poem is posted here with permission from the poet. The title of this blog is the title of the poem. You can learn more about Danusha Laméris here. The poem appears in her book, Bonfire Opera.

A big thank you to Danusha Laméris for allowing me to share this poem.

It’s National Poetry Month, y’all! Every week during the month of April, I will be sharing poems I love from contemporary writers. I hope to pique your interest in poetry, if it needs to be piqued, and to show you that a really great poem can be accessible to all. 

Also, notice the small kindnesses in your world—and if you can, offer some yourself.

Photo credit: Sreenadh TC from Unsplash.com

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Running in the Dark

It takes a bit of pushing to make myself leave the warmth of my house to run in the dark, which I don’t love to do but sometimes it’s the hour that I have the time to go. At first, I don’t have much gas in me, and it’s a slog. It feels like I have way too long to go—and it seems unending. My legs feel tight, and my pace is slow. But of course it makes sense that the beginning would be the hardest since it’s the point where I am furthest from the end.

But there is a point—it’s about a third of the way through my running route—where I turn a corner, figuratively and literally, and it all starts to feel manageable even though I have more than halfway to go. I always think to myself at that point, I can do this. And then I do.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about that point in my run—that place where I make a turn from I’m-not-sure-if-I-can-do-this to believing I can. I’ve been battling the winter blues these last few months, on and off, and there are days when I am perfectly happy, and then other days when I cannot see the end of the emotional darkness. Sometimes my old tricks don’t work: stay busy, dive into work, keep moving, call a friend. Sometimes the darkness ebbs in beneath the doors I shut to keep it out. Sometimes the blues are triggered by an event, and sometimes they just find me for no discernible reason.

I have a book that I often turn to that is focused on getting through these times, and one thing it advocates is not looking ahead, but focusing on this moment and then the next and the next: all you have to do is get through the next few hours, and then all you have to do is get through the day.

I took my run today and it felt easier than other days, but still, I was wanting to reach that corner, that place where I make a shift. I ran down a hill and then up another, and that second hill was long and steep and hard. But I did it, knowing up ahead, not too far away, was that corner. Suddenly I was there, and though I had two-thirds of my run left, I thought, I can do this. Though it was dark, light shone in the houses’ windows, and the cold made me feel alive, and I ran until I could finally see the end up ahead.

(Photo credit: Kevin Fitzgerald from Unsplash.com)

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UPCOMING ONLINE WRITING WORKSHOPS

Let’s Write Together!
Tuesdays at noon EST (on Zoom): February 22; March 1, 8, 15, 29
Having a hard time finding inspiration and motivation to write? Join me for any (or all) of these online one-hour sessions on Tuesdays at noon EST. We’ll talk about a piece of writing, I will give you a prompt, and then you will WRITE in the genre of your choosing. These workshops are in partnership with Press 53. Cost: $10/session. Register for any of them here.

"These workshops have been excellent, and they are exactly what I need in the middle of my busy work day." —J.B.

The Year I Was a Submission Machine

Here we are again, my annual acceptance/rejection blog post where I summarize the results from last year’s literary submissions. This is where I tell that you that no literary magazines turned down my work because, you know, it’s my work and my work is PERFECT. And this is where I also tell you that all the big publishers are emailing me, Oprah is is calling, and I’ve been nominated for a Pulitzer or one of those other little ho-hum prizes.

Or . . . this is where I tell you the truth: a writer’s world is filled with rejection, and I have yet to have a year where I don’t receive many more rejections than acceptances. I expect no less. And I am proud of my rejections, especially since—and you who are my long-time blog readers know this—I aim for 100 rejections a year.

Believe me, I made that goal in 2021. But, as always, there’s more to the story. 

So let’s start with a short jaunt down memory lane: the year before last (2020), I received 88 rejections and 2 acceptances. Eek. I didn’t submit enough to reach 100 rejections, but with that track record, surely I would have.

In 2021 my goal was to get some of my stories published and, more importantly, to get a third to half of the poems in my second poetry manuscript individually published. (Why? Because it helps to have some of the poems in a book published individually in literary magazines in order to interest a press in publishing your whole collection.) This meant that, especially in the spring and summer, I submitted more widely and frequently. I was a submission machine. If a person built muscles from submitting, I would be busting out of my clothes like the Hulk. 

A few highlights before I get to the 2021 numbers: One of my poems won an award from Alan Squire Publishing and was nominated for a Pushcart. I got a second poem into my dream publication The Sun after another round of attempts. I finally got a piece into The Pinch after many tries. I loved all the journals from which I got acceptances. Because I had researched each of these journals ahead of time, I knew that getting a piece accepted would be a gift, and it was. A big thank you to all the editors who accepted my work.

Now let’s get to the numbers. Drum roll, please. 

In 2021, I received a total of 174 rejections. And yes, that’s a big, fat number, but I also received 30 acceptances. Woooo hoooo!!! I usually have a 10% acceptance rate, but in 2021 it was better. A second wooooo hooooo! As for my goals, I got one story accepted and more than a third of the poems from my second poetry manuscript accepted to be individually published in literary magazines. I’m calling all this a win.

The takeaway? Keep trying, don’t take rejections personally, and never let a no stop you from believing that a yes is possible. Because it always is.

(photo credit: Dayne Topkin from Unsplash.com)

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