The post A Writer’s Road: What I Read in 2023 appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The years go by, don’t they? And although my blog continues to take a back seat to my writing and my running of the non-profit Writing Through, it lies fallow in my brain, awaiting its annual post about what I have read this year. And here we are.
This year’s list is a pretty eclectic one. It seems I escaped quite a bit into the noir world of spies and detectives. But I also dove back into my early interest in classical Greece, its mythology and culture. Plus there have been a few gaps filled, a few beloved authors revisited, and even some politically-leaning nonfiction. I must also now include the annual apology for not listing here the poetry books I read this year, but I assure you they are continually being read and, as importantly, bought.
So here is my reading list of 2023, and my wish that your 2024 is filled with joy, peace and health, plus a library full of beautiful and enlightening books.
The post A Writer’s Road: What I Read in 2023 appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: What I Read in 2022 appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>Longtime readers might have been wondering where I’ve been the last six months. The summer brought renewal – of seeing friends, rediscovering my community, developing new relationships, and continuing my work with Writing Through. I must admit that my desire or need to report on what I had been doing took a back seat to the doing itself. And that’s fine. But I would never let the year slip away without my annual reading list. In good and bad times, reading is an anchor, and it’s interesting to look back over what I read to see what I had been thinking about.
2022 brought a fresh slate of challenges and losses. It was a difficult year coming on the heels of two previously difficult years. My year’s reading reveals a need for escape, for humor, for answers from the past and finding new perspectives. I hope you find the list interesting, and find some ideas for your own future reading (and here is my annual caveat – although I read poetry every day, you won’t find any poetry collections on the list, although there were a great many wonderful ones I discovered this year. Sorry).
Happy holidays to all. May we all travel into the new year with health, joy, purpose, and shelves full of books waiting to be read.
The post A Writer’s Road: What I Read in 2022 appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: Mother’s Day? appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>Mother’s Day is a holiday that means well, but it’s complicated. For me, being American but raising my children in the UK, there was always the question of which Mother’s Day we would celebrate. Do we recognize UK Mothering Sunday in March or the US Mother’s Day in May? Sometimes we’d do one, sometimes the other, sometimes both, but never neither. Like so many complicated things in our family, it became a joke.
But for many, Mother’s Day isn’t a joke at all. There are those who want to be mothers and aren’t. That’s no joke. There are those who have lost children, as I have. Also, very much no joke. And there are those who have lost their mothers, which is also no joke no matter how long ago it may have happened, no matter how complicated the relationship may have been.
I knew this year’s celebration was always going to be a low-key affair for me, with my children being on two different continents at the moment, and neither of them near me. That’s okay, though. I have always believed that my main job as a mother was to raise children who would go on to live their own lives, no matter where those lives may take them. They might be separated from me geographically, but I always know we are together in our hearts no matter where we are on the globe. Leaving is part of growing up, part of being a child. But I have also learned that it is part of being a parent.
My own mother died just two weeks ago. I know my grieving process is just beginning and it makes this year’s Mother’s Day much more difficult. My response to difficulties is to write about them, and this year I reworked a poem I had written a while ago and read it at my mother’s funeral. Over the past two weeks I have realized that the poem isn’t just about my mother, or about motherhood in general. It is about and for all parents, so I share it with you now.
That I Have to Leave
Do not be angry that I have to leave. Your eyes will still pop open every day. Forgive me leaving you here now to grieve. Don’t cling so tightly to my tattered sleeve. In time, I know, you won’t want me to stay. Do not be angry now that I must leave. We’ve worked so hard to make our futures weave a cloth to shield us all. But now it frays. Forgive me leaving you here now to grieve. A youthful road seemed easy to perceive. But now time crumbles off like hardened clay. Do not be angry that I have to leave. I love you with a force hard to conceive. I beg you, take that gift and step away. Forgive me leaving you here now to grieve. Our eyes are full of tears. Ignore them, please. With backward steps I free you from today. Do not be angry that I have to leave. Forgive me leaving you here now to grieve.
The post A Writer’s Road: Mother’s Day? appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: Who Am I Now? appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>Six months ago I posted Are We Done Yet, the last in my series of cancer blogs. The tone of that post was very different. By October 2021, I had written eighteen posts about my experience with the disease. Over that time I clearly lost some of my innocence, but the optimism remained, and it remains today, six months later, although the feeling of optimism has changed. Yes, I still believe I will be alright, I will go on to live my life for years to come, there will be more work, more travel, more celebrations. But all of that is tempered with the knowledge that the stretch of years ahead of me is not endless. The work is changing, and I question my output more as I realize that the fount of energy needed to accomplish everything I had hope to accomplish is not quite as deep as I had once thought. There will be travel, but maybe not as often or as long. There is less hopping on a plane and more gazing out a window. But all of these realizations may well have come through the normal act of aging, cancer or not, and of course these realizations are bound to change again and again. That is the nature of innocence lost, I suppose. But also, it is the gift of awareness found.
So how am I today, one year into the cancer journey? Is my bout with cancer over yet? No. There are still functions that don’t function the way I would like, but they are all manageable. My body looks different in ways that, probably , only I can tell – but, hey, isn’t that true of all of us? Yet my daily energy is back. My afternoon rests are due more to pleasure than need.( I’ve always loved a good nap.) I’m not afraid to leave the house or be on my own. And of course there are new challenges, completely outside of my own health issues, which life has continued to throw at me but which I am now able to face with a necessary combination of empathy and personal boundaries.
But the biggest change, I think, is my relationship to work. I love my work. I do it happily. I take pride and pleasure in it. But, I only do what I need to do or feel like doing. I don’t force myself to work additional hours just to assuage some guilt about not accomplishing more. I allow myself to enjoy what I enjoy, but more importantly, to put aside what I don’t. But as the months have gone by, this has changed, too. Throughout the year, even in the most difficult days, I have kept up my work running my non-profit, Writing Through. Creating new programming and growing this organization has kept me rooted in the world around me. It has always taken me outside myself and allowed me to feel as if I was making a positive contribution even if only from a laptop on my bed. The work I hadn’t been able to do, though, was the work which had been the core of my identity for decades – my creative writing. For months and months I didn’t have the brain space or the emotional fortitude to write poetry or even begin to imagine tackling a novel again. I had the energy to work towards developing the voices of others, but my own voice had grown quiet. But of all the lessons proudly learned during this time, one of the ones I am most grateful for was giving myself permission not to write. I never forced it. I sat with the idea that my publishing days may be over, and although I periodically bothered my publisher with my worries about the delays in bringing out my newest novel, those worries weren’t about some frustrating backlog of poems and novels that were waiting in the pipeline. Instead, my impatience was about wanting to put a full stop on this part of my work. If I was never going to write creatively again, so be it. But please, let the bookshelf be complete.
I stopped asking myself the question, am I a writer? If a writer is someone who writes, then either I am, I was, or I will be. It stopped mattering. And then a funny thing happened, as funny things often do. Once I gave up the need to write, the desire to write came back. I wrote a poem last summer. Then a couple of months later, I wrote another one. I even submitted something to a journal. And then, just a few weeks ago, I started to take all the poems I had been writing for over five years for an imagined collection and reread them, organized them, started to edit and mold and then, write some more. This new collection which I had let go of, now, I know, will be completed. I have even started to noodle possibilities for another novel, with new characters, a different setting, and new themes. There will be much to say about all that in future blog posts. But how often those posts will appear on your screens is yet to be seen. If I have nothing to say, or nothing I feel like saying, then the posts will wait.
So how do I sum all this up, now one year post diagnosis? Well, It’s been a long and complicated twelve months. There is still a view outside my window. It is different than it was, but it’s still beautiful.
The post A Writer’s Road: Who Am I Now? appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: 2021 Reading List appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The difficult year of 2021 kept up its angry stance until the bitter end, so I am two months late with my annual reading list. Mea culpa! But better late than never, and careful readers of this decade-long tradition may note that this year’s list is quite different from other lists. This year I found myself escaping into the realm of international intrigue, and I am now hooked as I discovered that the best of these genres also have some exquisite writing and important insights. You’ll also see some glaring, and perhaps surprising lacunae which have finally been remedied. I hope you might find some new discoveries in this list, too. Again, as always, my apologies for not including poetry in this list, which I read in a different way. But there was a wonderful cascade of poetry collections to dive into this year, as well.
The post A Writer’s Road: 2021 Reading List appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: A Great Teacher is a Gift appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>It seems right to use the word passing to describe his death. He was a man of great faith, and I’m sure he thought of his own inevitable death as a passage to something new, rather than an end. It also feels right to use the word passing to describe his teaching. He passed along so much more than his amazing knowledge of Greek and Latin literature, his enviable fluency with ancient languages, his delight in poetry. He also passed on, through the model of his own life, the importance of holding onto childish delight, the truth that love brings people together more than anything else, that listening is the key to education, that being open to the beauty of each simple day is the best way forward. He was my favorite teacher, but as I thought about him during his memorial service which I, thankfully, was able to watch via Zoom, I realized that I have been lucky enough to have had many ‘favorite’ teachers.
There are those whose faces and voices are right within reach, whenever I need them – like my HS English teacher, my 10th Grade Chemistry teacher, my first Greek professor in college, my 4th grade teacher, my social studies teacher from junior high school. And there were others who, if I give it a bit more thought, can also be brought to mind. But when I think of them collectively, I see that their greatness as teachers had little to do with their subject matter. Yes, some of them taught me classics and literature and writing – all subjects which have formed the backbone of my adult work. But others taught science, music, psychology, even math. It wasn’t their daily lesson plans that provided the lessons which have stuck. Each of them in their own way taught me how to live in the world, how to live with myself, how to listen and think and persevere and discover. Some of those lessons were taught in the classroom, but many were taught on walkways or hallways, in offices and playgrounds. They understood that their role as teacher extended beyond the walls of the classroom or the hours of the lesson. They gave the gift of their lives as they had lived them. To me, to this day, that is the real job of a teacher, and a job which, to an innate teacher, comes naturally.
Our societies give a lot of lip service to the value of education and the importance of teachers. Those of us who have been lucky enough to have had great teachers in our lives know that we owe much more to them than what society gives back. It is often said that we are all the sum of our experiences. I believe that I am the sum of my teachers.
The post A Writer’s Road: A Great Teacher is a Gift appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: Are We Done Yet? appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>It is six months ago to the day that I wrote my first blog about cancer. It has been a challenging six months, to say the least. But, despite the pain and fear and impatience, it hasn’t been all bad. I have been lucky in so many ways: lucky to have had the sort of tumor that could be dealt with surgically (albeit with a humongous one). I have been surrounded by friends and family who always kept up my spirits and reminded me, in my most frustrated moments, of how far along I had come on this unexpected journey. I’m lucky to have access to some of the world’s best physicians in one of the world’s best hospitals. And I’m lucky to have been able to make sense of these past six months through my writing and through the generous encouragement of you, my readers.
Six months. A long time. But honestly, we all know that I’m not done yet. For the next five years I will go through my own quarterly bouts of scanxiety. My guess is that the further away from my surgery I get, the more anxious I’ll become. My kind of cancer is a slow-growing one, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t grow. We’ll just have to wait and see. So no, we’re not done yet, but honestly, none of us are, thank goodness. As long as we walk this planet, we are not done. The world strews our paths with tumultuous challenges and surprising difficulties. But that is the nature of our lives as human beings blessed with self-awareness. None of us are done until, at last, we are. I continue to believe that for me, that moment of completion is still a long way off.
Perhaps, though, it is time for me to stop writing these essays about cancer and turn my mind back to all the other ideas and experiences that I can share, things like art, education, travel, social programs, poetry , novels, theater, philosophy. You know, all the fun stuff. And if, of course, this disease, the true plague of our modern life, comes back to teach me more lessons to be learned the hard way, I will write about cancer again. Then, as before, I will start learning, forgetting, groping my way through it all, both in action and in writing. And, as always, I will extend my hand to you, asking for help when needed, and offering my own, as desired..
The post A Writer’s Road: Are We Done Yet? appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: Wearing Jeans appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>I started to wear my jeans again. For the past six months, due to the nature and location of my tumor, I have only been able to wear sweatpants and trousers with tie strings. But this week, I ventured into my closet, took out my most worn jeans, and cautiously put one leg in and then another. I took a breath and then buttoned them up. Not only did they fit (if anything, I expected them to be too big, which they were, but only slightly), but they didn’t hurt. They didn’t rub or compress or irritate or anything. There I stood, and then sat, just me in my jeans.
But really what I’m thinking about now is the power of symbolism. Without realizing it, that pair of jeans had taken on much more of a meaning than being just an old pair of pants. Those jeans had come to mean functionality, energy, being a part of the world around me, a great return. For the first time in months I could imagine feeling like a healthy person. Those faded yards of denim had transported me back to myself. I stood there looking in the mirror and I said, Hey – I remember you. I may have then made a faster-than-wanted dash to the bathroom, and then later a longer-than-anticipated nap, but nonetheless for the first time in months, I felt like me.
I hadn’t found much symbolism in illness. Yes, there have been lessons galore and experiences leading to understanding of life and what it means to be human. But those never did much to jolt awake my inner literature student. Recovery, on the other hand, has seemed like nothing but symbols. The opened door. The walk around the house leading to the walk down the road. Driving my car. Eating a slice of pizza. And now, wearing my jeans. Each of these symbolized the beginning of a return to life, indeed, the belief in life itself. Being able to wear my jeans means to me that I can walk out into the world once again and take part in it. CoVid be damned. Cancer be damned. There is still work I can do, impact I can make, fun to be had and new experiences to be discovered. Thank you, blue jeans, for being such a wonderful symbol, for doing what symbols are supposed to do — for helping me believe.
The post A Writer’s Road: Wearing Jeans appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: Plan and Wait appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>It’s hurricane season. We’ve recently watched a new tragic storm hit Haiti. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of that small island, especially now as I await a potential big storm to hit my own island home.
Thirty years ago this weekend, my island was ravaged by Hurricane Bob, with winds of over 115 miles per hour. This weekend, thirty years later almost to the day, we are watching out for the possibility of another storm hitting us. This one has the less homey name of Henri, and it will likely be less violent than its predecessor. But you never know. So today, we are all preparing so that tomorrow we can sit and wait.
Boats are out of the water. Groceries are flying off supermarket shelves. Outdoor furniture is hiding in basements and snuggled into corners. Some tubs stand full of water. Some kitchen floors are lined with bottled water instead. Those houses close to the ocean are taped and boarded up. And plenty of people have already high-tailed it off-island. These are the things we do as we try to prepare ourselves for what we know may happen, and hope doesn’t.
After nearly six months of dealing with cancer and surgeries, I suppose I can be forgiven for seeing parallels between this tumultuous weather and my own turbulent health. It has now been two weeks since my second operation. The first one was much bigger and more dangerous, a real hold-onto-your-hats leap into the unknown. By all comparisons, this one was a doddle and so I went into it with some knowledge of what I might expect afterwards. In the week before the surgery, I made all my preparations. I completed some important work tasks. I bought all sorts of supplies, just in case. I lined my kitchen with water bottles and bought special groceries. I did my research and readied myself for what might come. It made sense, in the way that preparing for a hurricane makes sense. But really, it was all a feeble attempt, once again, to control the uncontrollable. Maybe I’ll use all those preparations. Or maybe I’ll just throw them away.
Now that I am in the midst of this latest health storm ( to carry the metaphor, perhaps, a bit too far). I still have no idea how bad this will be or how long it will last. Each day is different. I find myself struggling to find words to describe what I am experiencing so that I can make the doctor understand. No two storms are alike, and even if everything that happens to me now is to be expected, I still don’t want my sensations to be downgraded to minor turbulence. None of us wants that. Feeling somehow different and special is one of the tricks that we play on ourselves to help us get through our own personal storms. Our own storms are unique, difficult in their own way. None of our challenging experiences can, or should, be downgraded to some lesser tragedy. But while we are in the midst of it, all any of us can do is wait it out, and trust that our own trifling preparations will see us through.
The post A Writer’s Road: Plan and Wait appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>The post A Writer’s Road: Waiting, Again appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>Reading over that previous post, I can see that the strategies for passing the time are the same now as they were months ago. I’m preparing myself as best I can, buying supplies that I might need, printing out instructions and organizing my luggage. I spend some part of the day focussing on next week’s activities, but otherwise, I’m watching reruns of The West Wing, seeing friends, working as much as possible so that I know Writing Through will tick along without me. But while all that is the same, I can tell that something very basic is different. Me.
Before the first surgery, which was radical and long and experimental and a real leap into the void, I felt almost giddy with expectation. I was excited as if launching on a new adventure. I wasn’t frightened. I wasn’t even worried. I was just ready and itching to get going. I felt, I suppose, the way I remember feeling right before I went up to university for my freshman year. Something new and important was about to happen to me then, and I felt eager and ready to face whatever that might be. That’s how I felt four months ago, as I readied myself for my surgery.
But that’s not how I feel now. Now I feel resigned. I am more concerned about the aftermath because I know all too well what it might provide. I am trying to rekindle that feeling from before the first operation, especially since I know that this next surgery marks the conclusion of this incredibly challenging portion of my journey. But I just can’t do it. I am ready and eager, but I’m not excited.
We who study literature talk a lot about the loss of innocence. It is an important trope and the mainstay of every novel that follows a character’s dramatic arc. We all start out as babes and, eventually, amass enough experience to mature. The loss of that innocence is sad. The feeling of that excited high will never really be experienced again with so much joy. There will now always be that What if lurking in the background. That’s not a bad thing, though. With that loss of innocence, with that knowledge of reality, comes (hopefully) wisdom. The past four months have taught me a great deal. it has matured me and as difficult as that might be, that is the essence of what our lives are, isn’t it? The goal is to learn the truth about ourselves and our world, and to find the joy that comes with understanding. It isn’t a lesser joy. It’s a different joy. And if I can hold onto that feeling of pride that comes with understanding, then I think I’ll be okay.
I am a tremendous lover of old musicals and a lyric from one of my favorites, The Music Man, has been stuck in my head for days now. The sadder but wiser girl’s the girl for me. That is how I’ve been feeling about myself. Sadder, but wiser. But the sadness is not synonymous with depression. Rather, it is an emotion which is accompanied by a knowing smile, perhaps a smirk and a shrug, a wink and a nod of the head. I went back and found the clip of the song on Youtube. As I had known, it is a strange sort of pre-love song, very much a piece of its time (1962), and honestly, inappropriate and insulting to my feminist instincts. And yet, it has been the musical loop in my head for days and it makes me laugh. Here it is below for those of you who already know and love it, or for those who are curious to see what I’m talking about. But spoiler alert – it is not for everyone and I send along my apologies to those who might bristle at the lyrics. All I can ask is that it be taken in the manner in which it is offered – with a wink and a smirk, a nod and a knowing smile.
So I’m not wiser but sadder. I’m sadder but wiser, and there is a significant difference between the two. Here I go again. See you on the other side.
The post A Writer’s Road: Waiting, Again appeared first on Sue Guiney.
]]>