The Download: Year-End Roundup
Foggy mornings, toppled houses, winter gardening, and reflecting on the year
Welcome! I’m Lex Orgera and this is The Download, a list of 10 things I’ve been up to / reading / thinking about each month with an end-of-the-year twist. Please share this newsletter with anyone interested in nature + culture!
We took the dog out for a walk this morning——yes, there’s only one right now, more on that later——and happened upon this wonderland of fog and trees and water.
I’m finally somewhat functional after a middle-of-the-night migraine. The morning fog has dissipated, but the day has remained gray. Today is an insular, reflective day...perfect for thinking back.
This time two years ago Head Case was just released into the world. I was scared then to be so vulnerable. I didn’t set up a reading tour or do much publicity, though I did gain many of you loyal readers in the months leading up to the book’s release.
Head Case is still a hard book to read from. I was invited to read this past week, and I found myself choking up while reading the part about listening to “The Ghost of Tom Joad” with my dad in the car. That line in the first verse where Springsteen sings, “Going some place and there’s no going back.” It’s hard to read from, but I’m finally enjoying the readings. It only took two years!
Speaking of Head Case, remember this image, drawn by my dad during Alzheimer’s? (it’s in the book):
Well, I was doing the three-hour cognitive testing I talked about a while back, to get a memory baseline, and there are a few sections of the test where you have to look at an image and then draw what you see. Lo and behold, this image is on the test! Here’s my quick version of it. I think Dad must have drawn it during the test and then embellished it with color and more lines at home.
Obviously, Dad’s is art, mine’s just a line drawing that I was instructed to copy exactly as I saw it. But it’s the same drawing, don’t you think?
I will speak with the doctor about my results on Tuesday, but I didn’t feel like I did poorly at all. To be perfectly honest, since I found the right anti-depressant, most of my focus and memory issues have subsided. This feels like a tiny miracle, one that allows me to feel a little of the luxury of depth-of-thought again.
Along with the depression, focus, and memory issues, this past year also brought two new pets to our home, one of whom has caused stress and mayhem in a way that neither Aaron nor I anticipated. We finally bit the bullet and sent our sweet Stella to training camp last week. She’ll be gone for three weeks, and we hope she’ll return and be able to integrate more fully into our household, ie not try to kill the cats or choke herself on walks, etc. We can’t live on cell blocks anymore! We both love our Stella, and we both feel like two dogs needed rescuing so we have given them a home, but Jesus H. Christ, she is a hard dog.
Meanwhile, we are basically having whiplash from the difference in our household. Here’s an example of the calm that now exists:
I actually thought I’d never get another thing published again. I thought my proverbial poetic ship had sailed and then got lost at sea and drowned in a massive storm. It’s not easy being a weirdo. I’m building a philosophy of life through poems, but I think my philosophies aren’t super palatable or not of-the-moment enough to have instant traction. Maybe they never will. In any case, it’s not for me to decide, and this year brought a publisher that does want to publish one of my books. I was wrong about never being published again, and I was looking at my art through a lens of failure. Which makes it a total drag! Don’t do this! If I’m building a philosophy, it’s mine. About all we can do as artists is be true to that impulse in us. So, you’ll meet Agatha in just under two years. Well, you’ll meet pieces of Agatha throughout next year.
I finished my first year and three months of herbal school! Funny, the more herb school I attend, the less confident I feel about helping anyone with anything at all, but I’m just riding this strange wave and plodding along. Funny-not-funny, I still haven’t (can’t?) started my paper after six (or eight) months of research. So I have a ton of research and no way to make it cohere on the page.
I’ve wracked my brain about why this is happening. Is it writer’s block? Fear? Bad topic? What?
All I can think is that sometimes you literally can’t do everything you want to do, and often you have to prioritize the low-hanging fruit to feel any sense of accomplishment. I simply don’t have time amidst a job, closing down a company, going to school, figuring out dogs, and writing poems to sit down and write this damn thing. Because one thing I know about myself is that I need a chunk of time to think and write nonfiction. It doesn’t pour out like poems do.
I got a new job this year as well! In fact, just yesterday, I officially became the inaugural Executive Director of Greensboro Bound Lit Fest. After 2.5 years as an editor at Microcosm, and 8.5 years publishing Penny Candy Books, I decided I needed a change of pace, a job that doesn’t require me to be in front of the computer all of the time, something that allows me to interact with my community. I often hear a voice in my head that warns me against too much isolation. Well, there are two warring voices. One says, “Go hide” and the other says, “Come out and play.” So, next year I will work on balancing those voices——because now I have no choice!
Oh...of course I’m not completely stepping away from publishing. I’ve decided to KEEP Penelope Editions, which was originally Penny Candy’s young adult imprint. I’m shifting gears a little though and will be publishing books that incorporate poetry and visual art in ways that excite me. Think picture books for adults. I will also keeping some Penny Candy books in my catalogue because, let’s face it, we were doing this half the time anyway. This will be much more DIY than Penny Candy was, much more weekend warrior.
I got this great anthology in the mail:
I’ve just started and have found poems that surprise and delight me by poets I’ve never heard of.
Here’s one by German poet Else Lasker-Schüler, 1869-1945, translated by Eavan Boland. Such a simple, sad lyric:
I had to do it——suddenly, I had to sing. I had no idea why—— But when the evening came I wept. I wept bitterly. Pain was everywhere. Sprang out of everything—— Spread everywhere. Into everything—— And then lay on top of me.
If you’re looking for fun gifts for the holidays along with a way to help small, innovative presses publish vibrant work, check out two things.
Fonograf Editions’ annual auction with tons of cool artwork, broadsides, and book bundles:
b. Or this great T-shirt fundraiser by Scuppernong Editions:
In reflecting on the time it takes to make things grow, I’m realizing that patience is as much a part of gardening as is hard work. There’s soil building and seed starting, caring for tiny trees and mitigating mistakes like overcrowding or just plain planting the wrong thing in the wrong spot. Or the right thing in the wrong spot. So, now that it’s coming on winter, I want to step back to just be grateful that I have all this land to grow on, on which to foster a diverse ecosystem, a habitat for microbes, bugs, pollinators, flowers, vegetables, trees, birds, squirrels, and even groundhogs. The sheet-mulched beds are almost complete, just one more to go, and then I’ll pull out the very cool garden planner a friend bought for me, and I’ll plan for 2024.
Which reminds me: my California poppies are still blooming!! I have no idea why. We’re like five freezes in, and they are still popping!
And finally, since this is a retrospective newsletter, I want to thank you all for hanging in there with me as I experiment with finding a voice for this newsletter! You’ve taken a multi-year journey with me, and while I’ve slowed down over the last few months to let some things simmer, I’ll be back in the new year with more regularity. Heck, maybe there will be one more holiday special newsletter before that. In any case, thank you for your support, community, and interest. Happy December.
xo,
Lex O.