A wedding and a book!

writing with coffee jitters

Hello!

I'm sitting at my favorite coffee shop trying to think about what the heck I want to write about this week. It's been slow around here - I've read a lot, I got a big work assignment, I've been going to a lot of yoga classes, and I'm in a state of perpetual panic because my novel is sitting at the "just about done" stage and I'm avoiding making the final edits I need to make because then the next step is sending it out into the world and that means opening myself up to a whole lot of rejection that I'm not looking forward to! It also means I feel like I have next to nothing to say about anything else. The state of things is very bad for a million reasons. That's depressing! And infuriating! And then we have to just keep on living, too.

My mom and I keep calling each other to make little jokes about random things and then eventually one of us says something about one of the million bad things and we talk about it all for a bit until one of us says: wow, everything sucks but at least this wedding we're planning is going to be great!

So! There's that! The two of us (I guess three, Adam should probably be included in the discussion about his wedding, too) have decided that everything is bad! So it actually makes a lot of sense that we're spending a ridiculous amount of money on this wedding because we all need a little joy! And the night is going to be full of joy!

Also, I've decided not to panic about the wedding too much. Or to fuss over any of the small details that don't matter. Which is great! But also - the wedding is in six months and mostly everything is very chill and handled. So naturally I'm still stressed because I'm convinced I'm forgetting something (we're not - we have a planner with a very intense checklist that I generally avoid looking at except for in the rare moments that I need reassurance I'm not behind! But still, the random panic)!

I don't know what made me think it was a good idea to merge the year of wedding planning with the year of finishing a novel! But here we are! Always in a state of: ahhhhhhhh!! (But like, in a good way!)

During all these yoga classes I'm taking, the instructors keep being like "as a society we have a hard time slowing down so do your best to focus on your breath!" and then I find myself balancing on one foot with all my weight leaned forward and my arms out and thinking: I need to tell Adam we should start working on designing our wedding invites tonight because I know time is going to get ahead of us and we can't be late sending those out! Or: if I just tweak the dialogue in that one scene to make sure there's some kind of subtle joke in it, it'll be more obvious the tension between the two characters is lighthearted and not an actual fight! And then I have to stop myself and focus before I fall to the freaking ground.

Anyway, at least it's a good thing that the novel part is stressful and the marriage part is not! Adam and I were talking to a friend the other day who said something along the lines of "I can't believe you two have been together for almost six years! I still think of you guys as this newer couple." And honestly, so do I! I don't know how it's been almost six years since Adam and I started dating! Life has changed a million times since then! It's so weird that we're going to be married soon! That we aren't still these 24-year-old kids sitting in a bar in California anymore. That we're somehow real adults planning a real wedding (Maybe 24-year-old Sam already believed she'd marry Adam one day, but she definitely would have guessed we'd elope somewhere or randomly go to the courthouse one day)! But we aren't this little baby couple anymore. How strange. How nice.

All of this is to say - our wedding is going to be so cool so I hope everyone is ready! And also please keep me and my book in your thoughts as we try to cross this finish line! And maybe one day soon I'll be on the other side of this and be able to talk about more than a wedding or a book, but for now! Sorry!

Life is simply too chaotic and weird right now for me to even pretend I'm going to give poetry any real attention. I would love to have more time for it, but I don't! So, here I am again trying to pull a poem out of thin air. I'm so happy I created this tiny little space so I didn't let go of poetry over the last few years of writing this novel. I miss poetry. I'm excited to go back and edit so many of these drafts I've created! That's the plan so, so soon! But for now, some rushed, "I have 20 minutes before I need to move on with my life" thoughts turned into a draft:

POETRY PARTY 

If I wanted to, I would hide 
words against skin.

Or sharpen fingertips like blades. 
Can I get another phrase? 

Words unused.
As a kid, I’d ask my mom

to call and say: come home. 
It didn’t stop.

If we offer another line 
of thought—what happens? 

Collections keep going
until someone says stop, feels

something like anger 
or an intense lack.

At the beginning, picture a bird
like a lifeline.