Excitement wanes. Ever feel it? The adrenaline and stars start flowing from your body, and you come back down. Something so glorious and wonderful becomes absorbed into the common, everyday orbit of your existence. You are glad it happened, but it doesn't shimmer any longer because a new destination takes its place. You are always reaching, even if all you grasp is air.
*~*
My chapbooks are delayed (unofficially). A lot of people think publishing is a fluid process... until they go through it. Editors are busy. Printers can cause delays. Communications can be rare or even absent.
My editors are the publishers. They are solo operations like myself; it is one of the reasons I chose them. I have silence from them because they have a cacophony of voices screaming from in-boxes and telephones. Though, admittedly, the lack of response can be a bit difficult to take.
I keep working on other projects while I wait for the next step in preparing my chapbooks to launch into the world. One day, everything will reach warp-speed, and I'll barely be able to keep up. I should relish the calm.
*~*
I turn thirty-five tomorrow. Thirty-five: The age everyone says your first collection must be published by to ensure maximum success. Chapbooks supposedly don't count. Maybe I'll regret not trying to force a full-length poetry collection out of me, but I still want to believe it will happen in its own time.
I was first diagnosed with cancer at age thirty-two. Next month, I need another PET scan to see if my Hodgkin's lymphoma is coming back. I'm scared. Every time they diagnose me with cancer I'm afraid. But, I turn thirty-five tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment