Miss
I had the best of intentions to make a poetry contest deadline on December 31. But I ended up having to work a half day, pick the kids up early from daycare, and prepare for a party. I’m angry at myself for missing the deadline, but there are more, and I’m very much into wanting to work more out of this manuscript after my recent deployment. I let a few “strangers” read my book while I was on the Ice, both of them not poets, not primary poetry readers. They both had a few interesting things to say, however, which may end up helping me shape how it changes in the future. So I’m not feeling too horribly about missing my own arbitrary deadline, but need to figure out how to fit in the revising I know I need to do in an ever-increasing time crunch in my life.
The ice is still sorting itself out for me, and while I know that there will always be a part of me there, and there will always be the ice in me, and not just in my memory, I think this trip did give a sort of closure. Or if not a closure, a departure, a way to say “see you later.” I need to do that with this book, and move on to the next one.
January is going to be *very* interesting, for a number of reasons. More on that later.