THANK YOU Alicia Gomez and Shore Publishing for featuring two Three Chairs books — Say Yes! to Your Creative Self by Mary O’Connor and Sleeping with Ghosts by Jen Payne — in the Winter on the Shoreline magazine! (Both books can be purchased at Breakwater Books and Guilford Art Center before the holidays!)
I hope you can join me on Sunday, December 15, 1:30 p.m. at the Blackstone Library (Branford) for POEMS FOR THE WINTER SOLSTICE, a poetry reading hosted by Branford’s Poet Laureate Judith Liebmann. I’ll be reading, along with local poets Sheila Dietz, Marion Gittleman, Amy Levitin Graver, Kate Hubbard, Mark McGuire-Schwartz, and Cathy Weiss.
And, if you’re looking for last minute holidays gifts, I’ll have books for sale after the reading!
Ain’t no way around it, these are dark, dark days. And so we are called to be there for each other a little harder. To be there for the vulnerable, the weary, the downtrodden. Us, who must walk each other the long way home. Art can’t fix it, but it’s still a powerful tool lodged deep in our unbreakable souls. Friends, we’re going deep. Share your light with us. With the world. (Anti-Heroin Chic Call for Submissions)
About the December 2024 issue of the creative journal Anti-Heroin Chic, Founding Editor James Diaz writes:
“That’s why we’re here. To deal with, and to help each other deal with, what won’t go away in us. Every creation that comes from out of the long dark night of us takes some of the edge off our pain. But there is a pain that can never, and maybe should never, be entirely removed from us. It is the very specific, democratic pain that comes with being human. Not the pain caused by injustice and organized cruelty, these are never necessary, but the pain that comes just from being flesh and blood and bone. There is a soul-ouch that cannot be unfelt in being here. Sometimes we feel it too much, or not at all. But it’s there, moving by degrees, throughout our lives. Mended by hand and open heart, by a rigorous honesty. By tending and holding that line, carefully, until just the right moment.”
I was honored that James selected two of my poems to be included in this issue! To read more, visit the links below:
• Anti-Heroin Chic, December 2024
• Editor’s Remarks (James Diaz)
• My Poems (Jen Payne)
US Review of Books, Book Review by Mari Carlson
(Read the Original Review)
“If one…
is blessed with the gift,
of the most perfect balloon,…
one must make all accommodations
to hold fast…
else that perfect thing
might slip from a grasp….”
Payne’s latest collection of poems, musings, and artwork is a bouquet of balloons—lovers, friends, and moments she could let slip away but that she keeps close through her writing about them. Grouped around seven (plus a final) ghost and a few intermediary themes, the poems are arranged and curated. Each section features a title page with artwork that spills over into the succeeding pages, creating both distinct moodscapes and an overarching synthesis. The poems are of a variety of lengths and styles. Few rhyme, some are one-hundred-word prose poems, and one about a necklace aptly curves down the page. Along with the whimsical illustrations, the song lyrics that several poems reference set an overall lively tone.
Although many poems are dedicated to someone specific, the people in the poems are unnamed. The subject matter of stars, ghosts, and dreams set the poems on an abstract plane, but they remain concrete by being located specifically in cities, bedrooms, houses, woods, and shared books. The poems give voice to letters never sent, connect people when in-person communication was lacking during the pandemic, and put words to elusive feelings hard to name in any clinical way.
In many of the ghost poems, lovers’ rendezvous are clandestine or fleeting. Likewise, the poems let readers into a delicate and secret balance between worlds. Like one poem about a dream lingering into wake-time, the collection is liminal, linking opposites: definite and indefinite, reality and fantasy, timeless and time-specific, and indescribable and descriptive. The final poem, dedicated to Payne’s father, crystallizes the collection’s intimate and loving atmosphere. She looks at her child self—hopeful, aspiring, tender—through her father’s eyes. So, too, the poems reflect back childlike wonder that enlivens and inspires.
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts
Some of my all-time favorite books on writing are classics, like Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge, or Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. Those were the must-read books when I was coming of age as a writer.
I’ll be dating myself even further when I say that I much prefer Goldberg’s Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life to her popular Writing Down the Bones. I remember reading Wild Mind while sitting in an airport and feeling compelled — literally dragged to my feet — to go buy a notebook and pen so I could write right there.
That’s some powerful how-to magic.
That’s the kind of book you want in your TBR pile if you’re a writer in need of writerly guidance. Something that feels like magic!
One of my most dog-eared books is Brené Brown’s Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, which isn’t a how-to-write book at all. It’s a spellbinding get-out-of-your-comfort-zone-and-tell-your-story kind of book.
For a quick dose of that kind of brave magic, read any of The Moth compilations: Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible, A Point of Beauty: True Stories of Holding On and Letting Go, or All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown. Talk about how to tell a story. Wow!
For those of you having a hard time finding inspiration? You gotta shake it up!
Do you know Keri Smith? She’s most well-known for her book Wreck This Journal. But she has a whole, delicious series of books that make you look at the world in curious new ways. Try The Wander Society or How to Be an Explorer of the World, and you’ll see what I mean.
For me, the key to writing is seeing the world with fresh eyes — which is what Smith’s books help you do. But there are other ways to do this.
Lots of writers write books about writing, right? Who better to know how to do it than a Stephen King (On Writing) or a Margaret Atwood (On Writers & Writing)?
But I find I am more inspired to write my own stories when I can get lost in one of theirs, like Atwood’s MaddAddam series, or Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series.
Some of my favorite more recent get-lost books — the ones that help me shake up day-to-day — include The Book of Form and Emptiness, Ruth Ozeki, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr, The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern, and The Watchmaker of Filigree Street series by Natasha Pulley.
Of course, you have to find your own favorite authors and genres, but don’t be afraid to mix it up! I spent one winter in a back-to-back foray of historical fiction books about World War II, while just this spring I devoured Tony DiTerlizzi’s young adult sci-fi series The Wondla Trilogy!
These might seem a little off-track from the topic of “How to Read Like a Writer,” but as Steve King himself says:
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut… If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.”
So, tell me, what books are on your TBR pile?
Photo by Rikka Ameboshi.
This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.
DO GOOD HERE
(Or that time I bought a mini trampoline but forgot I am a spatially-challenged short person living in a hobbit house)
My new trampoline takes up about 20% of my little living room, but I love it! It’s a healthy way to add some more movement into my life. It’s also playful and really fun!
And these days, who doesn’t need a little fun, right? Everything seems a bit dark-and-twisty, no matter what side of the aisle we sit on.
Which is not to belittle the seriousness of world affairs. They’re huge and seemingly insurmountable.
Unless you are bouncing on a trampoline and listening to Prince sing about the other apocalypse that was going to happen back in 1999. Then the world seems…just as crazy as it’s always been.
I can no more alter the course of the grand scheme of human things than I can move a river, but I can Do Good Here.
All around us, here, there are small tasks that need doing. Small ways we can improve the world in which we live. Small adjustments we can make within ourselves to collectively improve the human condition.
The popular saying “Be the change you wish to see in the world” actually originated from this quote by social activist Mahatma Gandhi:
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”
We need not wait to see what others do.
We can just start the doing.
So, look inside your heart and ask: what do I need to change within me?
Look around your community and ask: how can I help to make change?
Then DO GOOD HERE.
Volunteer at a local organization. Donate to a local charity. Support local businesses.
Speak with kindness. Smile. Laugh. Be constructive (not critical).
Be creative! Use your creativity to be a voice for the change you want to see in the world.
Then, buy a trampoline and bounce your freakin’ heart out. Because joy is contagious and it might just be the best first step!
Wishing you and yours a joyful holiday season, and a new year filled with GOOD.
With Love,
Jen Payne
Today, I talk with more Charity Howard at Chit Chat with Charity. You might remember her from the “Power of Writing Through Poetry, Memories” review she did of Sleeping with Ghosts. Today, we chat interview-style. Check it out!
JEN: Hi Charity.
Thank you for being part of the WOW! Women on Writing blog tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts, and for taking the time to ask some good questions!
What is your favorite part of your book and why?
JEN: I love that Sleeping with Ghosts is not just a book of poetry or a memoir, but it’s also a visual experience. The stunning cover photo, by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, captures the mood of the book so perfectly. The artwork by Michael Rayback and Lana Elanor illustrates the themes of the individual chapters and adds a bit of whimsy to the pages.
And while I love all of the poems, I think my favorite part is the Table of Contents and how it tells the story of the book at a glance. I like how it’s not just a block of text with page numbers, but a cipher for how to read the book. It feels like one of those maps you find at the beginning of adventure books or a legend that tells you how to travel forward.
What is your biggest inspiration for this poetry and musings book? Or perhaps the poem that stands out the most for you?
JEN: First and foremost, I am a storyteller. It’s how I relate to the world, how I communicate experience and understanding. I talk in story…remember the time?
Many of the poems and musings in this book are stories that live inside me already. But it’s not like I am thinking about, or “dwelling on” things, all the time. The stories just get primed to come to the surface sometimes.
It’s like when you hear an old song on the radio or smell a certain perfume in the air, and it reminds you of a memory? As a writer, I am able to follow those memories and pull out a poem or a short story.
A good example of this, and one of my favorite poems in the book, is called “Chester, 1 a.m.” I was driving down the highway when the Jethro Tull song Bourée came on the radio, and I was immediately transported back many, many years to this short, sweet memory…
CHESTER, 1:00 A.M.
You will always be blue flannel,
a plaid hard crush against skin,
Bourée on a flute in the dark,
and the taste of unseen spirits.
Your sudden kiss,
the punch-drunk dance
against kitchen counter —
what did you want from me
in that brief romance?
I still wonder.
That’s how inspiration works for me. My muse shows up in many forms with suggestions for which way to take my writing next. And I follow.
What is your advice for poets as they write their inspired work?
JEN: Listen to your Muses, not your Critics!
Your Critics are going to tell you how to write and what to write. They’ll tell you what’s good and bad, correct and incorrect. They’ll be rather black-and-white about things.
Your Muses, on the other hand, are creative and wild, and they love to color outside of the lines. Play with that and with them, and just follow your heart.
Be brave enough to tell your story the way you want to tell it!
What do you feel is the most important part of your writing process?
JEN: Making time for it. Period.
We’re all so busy with so many things that need to get done in a day. But that creative process, the process of expression, is so important to our well-being. As important as movement or rest or nourishment.
And just like those things, you have to make time for your creative work.
I am a notoriously early riser, and I will often spend the first few hours of my day writing. I love the quiet of the early morning before everything is awake and noisy again.
A 3 a.m. start works really well for me, but you have to find what works for you. Maybe it’s the other side of the clock midnight-writing, or an hour at a coffee shop with your laptop.
Remember, your creativity is a gift, and it’s important that you give it time to exist and prosper.
What would you say to describe your book to help entice readers to pick it up?
JEN: One of my readers — who is also a ghost in the book — once said my writing is “funny, sad, sexy, maddening.”
Sleeping with Ghosts is a time-traveling memoir that introduces readers to some charming characters — star-crossed teenagers, secret lovers, and long-term loves. It’s about romance, heartbreak, dreams, found love and lost love, memories. It’s also a book filled with story, inspiration, creativity, and pages and pages of beautiful muses without whom this book (and I) might not exist.
This interview was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.
red is the color of cardinals
obviously
the underside of bittersweet
in the last days of fall
red is American holly
if the jays have been temperate,
winterberry and spicebush,
the staghorn sumac
it’s the pointed leaf of a maple
red maple, aptly named
and the flash in the splash
of the painted turtle diving
red is the tap tap tap
of the woodpeckers, there
and the robins who
may have stayed too long
red is burning bush
invading the woods,
it’s native wintergreen
and partridge berry
red is abundance
and wild, decoration enough
CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS IN NATURE PRESERVES
Think about the following before decorating a public tree:
Poem ©2024, Jen Payne. Photo by Michał Roba.
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
It must be the kingfisher
wakes at eight
surely that is the reason
for his frequent
interruptions
his call overhead
his teasing sweep across the pond
I want to think he knows me
remembers me
even if that’s not the case
he no more knows my face
than the ducks in the pond,
the swan in morning light,
the heron hiding in the marsh
But I sit a while anyway
in a softness of sun and pine
all of us old friends
just starting our day.
LISTEN: Belted Kingfisher (more info)
Poem ©2024, Jen Payne
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
Text from Pressenza: an international news agency dedicated to news about peace and nonviolence
This moment that humanity is experiencing can be seen as a door or a hole. It is up to you to decide whether you fall into the hole or go through the door. If you consume the news 24/7, with negative energy, constantly on edge, with pessimism, then you fall into that hole. But if you take the opportunity to look at yourself, to consider life and death, to take care of yourself and others, then you will go through the portal.
Take care of your home, take care of your body. Connect with your spiritual home. When you take care of yourself, you are also taking care of everyone else.
Do not underestimate the spiritual dimension of this crisis. Take the perspective of an eagle that sees everything from above – with an expanded view. This crisis involves a social issue, but also a spiritual issue. Both go hand in hand.
Without the social dimension, we fall into fanaticism. Without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and meaninglessness.
Are you ready to face this crisis? Take your toolbox and use all the tools at your disposal.
Learn resistance from the example of the Indian and African peoples: they have been and are still being exterminated, but they have never stopped singing, dancing, lighting a fire and rejoicing.
Don’t feel guilty for feeling blessed in these troubled times. Being sad or angry does not help in any way. Resistance is resistance through joy!
You have a right to be strong and positive. And there is no other way to do that than to maintain a positive, happy and light-filled attitude. This has nothing to do with alienation (ignorance of the world). It is a strategy of resistance.
When we cross the threshold, we have a new world view because we have faced our fears and difficulties. That is all you can do now:
Guilford Art Center is excited to welcome local author Jen Payne to its AUTHORS IN THE SHOP series hosted by Three Chairs Publishing. For four Saturdays in November, authors will be in The Shop signing books and talking with Holiday Expo shoppers from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 16
Learn about the ghosts in Jen Payne’s new book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings, an intimate exploration of memory and meaning.
Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Connecticut writer Jen Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams. Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves slowly, one at a time, in this wistfully reflective, time-traveling memoir.
AUTHORS IN THE SHOP is a great opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with local authors and to get a head start on your holiday shopping. (Signed books make awesome gifts!) Refreshments will be served. (Click here for more information.)
Out and about for Shoreline Arts Trail? Be sure to make time to explore Holiday Expo 2024! The Shop and Gallery at Guilford Art Center are filled with holiday gifts from local and American artists, makers and designers; craft categories include accessories, candles, cards, ceramics, clothing, fiber art, glass, homewares, jewelry, leather, Christmas ornaments, soaps, specialty foods, stationery…as well as signed books from our guest authors.
Authors in The Shop at Guilford Art Center and Holiday Expo are free and open to the public. Guilford Art Center is located at 411 Church Street, Guilford, off I-95, exit 58. The Shop is open 7 days a week, Monday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sunday 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. For more information, visit www.guilfordartcenter.org.
In the movie,
the woman is sad
and she curls into
the man for comfort
and he wraps his arms
around her
and pulls her close
and I remembered —
briefly —
when you used to
do that for me —
comfort me —
now all you do is
enrage me —
you and your
weak minded
hypocritical
ignorant politics —
and instead of
curling into you
I want to tear off your skin,
and bludgeon you with a stick,
and run over you with my car
at a very high speed,
and I find myself wishing
that instead of loving you
I’d suffocated you
one night with a pillow
and…oh
was that out loud?
Poem ©2024, Jen Payne
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
She arrives with a flounce,
a bell-ringer at the door
in a purposeful manner,
and before I even see
the graven image
hung around her neck
I know what I am dealing with,
it’s in her posture —
the parochial way she holds herself
as she quietly tsks tsks tsks
at books on the shelf,
the way she nods
when she finds a kindred spirit
points to one up high on a shelf
“He’s Good,” she says out loud
and I know it’s a capital G,
like her god.
I feel like I should sit up straight
and uncross my legs proper
but my own talismans give me away
before I can adjust myself;
I want to tell her we are all
made with love
but she averts her eyes
and walks right past,
the crucifix seemingly larger
with each breath.
Poem ©2024, Jen Payne
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
It occurred to me this morning — after I went back to bed for two hours because why not? and then spent the next hour filling up every space in my thinking with busyness so as not to actually think think — that this is Grieving.
This is the day after Death.
This is the day after Death because yesterday you woke up to (mostly, sort of, relatively) normal, and today you know Death.
You not only know Death, you have spent the last day sparring with it. You have cried with it, made inappropriate jokes with it, yelled at it, cursed it, and feared what comes after it. You’ve thought about all of the things you were planning before Death, and tried not to think about all of the things that won’t happen after it.
This is Grief.
Grief is the emotional response to loss. And don’t underestimate it. Don’t think this Grief is somehow less than the Grief you knew when your loved one died or when your relationship ended. This Grief is just as big and real and significant.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is known for establishing the Five Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. You might think this a chronological, step-by-step process. It’s actually what one would see if they looked at your psyche up-close in a microscope at any minute of the day right now. ALL of that — Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance — floating around in your cells 24/7.
In Judaism, Shiva is an honoring of Grief. It is the week-long period during which people mourn the loss of a loved one. They sit together, usually on low benches to symbolize their grief or “feeling low.” They avoid work and regular routines, talk quietly with family and friends. They don’t worry about their physical appearance, often wear old or torn clothes, light a candle in memory of the loss.
This is Mourning.
The seven days of Shiva are followed by 23 days of Mourning that include limited social activity, prayers, and other rituals. This period of 30 days is called Shloshim.
There are many ways to mourn and many rituals for Mourning. How you experience it depends on “your personality and coping style, your life experience, your faith, and how significant the loss was to you”
Inevitably, the grieving process takes time. Healing happens gradually; it can’t be forced or hurried—and there is no “normal” timetable for grieving. Some people start to feel better in weeks or months. For others, the grieving process is measured in years. Whatever your grief experience, it’s important to be patient with yourself and allow the process to naturally unfold.
This is Grieving.
Which does not mean we’ve stopped caring. Or stopped advocating. Or stopped working to make this world a better place for everyone.
There will be time for all of that again. And soon.
For now, practice self-care: exercise, meditate, eat healthy food, drink water, try to get enough sleep.
Find good things to occupy your time: read a book, spend time with a hobby, go for a long walk, take a drive.
Talk with friends. Follow a routine. Be easy with yourself.
For now, allow yourself the time to feel low. To be quiet. To rest.
This is Grieving.
For more about Grief, please read the following articles which were helpful in writing this essay.
“The Stages of Grief and What to Expect,” by Kimberly Holland,
“Death Rituals, Ceremonies & Traditions Around the World,” by Tracey Wallace
“Shiva, the First Seven Days of Mourning,” by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin,
“Coping with Grief and Loss, Stages of Grief, the Grieving Process, and Learning to Heal,” by Melinda Smith, M.A., Lawrence Robinson and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D.
People often ask why I get up so early, and I will tell you this…in the morning, in between midnight and dawn, there is a beautiful quiet. It is filled with all of the potential of a new day with none of the worry or flutter. It is a time of immense peace.
This morning at 3, for example, I did my yoga outside, under veiled stars, listening to the waves in the Sound, the bell buoy chiming, the unseen visitor in the yard stepping through autumn leaves. It was a blessing.
The only drawback to being an early rise occurs on days like today, when news headlines arrive in my sightline hours before many of you wake for the day.
And so this morning, I had the distressing task of holding the news by myself, its weight bearing on my chest so much I could barely breathe, its implications making my entire body numb.
The only glimmer was an email sitting in my In Box from an organization called Grateful Living. I’ve read it and read it again, and feel, deep deep inside a sense of the direction I must go. Of where I must travel now to find my way past the despair and grief of this day and this time in history.
Perhaps it is too soon for you. Or perhaps this is just what you need to get you through today…
“The end of an election season does not return a fractured society to civility. There does not exist an on and off switch to suddenly pivot us in the right direction after we’ve come this far. The more something is destroyed the longer it takes to rebuild. And rebuilding is the work of our time. This is the work of living gratefully.
Well before this election season began, we lost sight of what is most sacred for our survival: our shared humanity. We seem to have forgotten our interdependence and, as a result, have divided ourselves up by teams, where there are winners and losers. What is happening in communities across the globe is contrary to gratefulness.
The practice of grateful living teaches us that in order to reach our fullest capabilities as humans, we need to prepare banquet tables large enough to include those with divergent perspectives and lived experiences so that we might better understand. Instead, we find ourselves huddled around bistro tables where we can only hear those closest to us — those who think and live like us, those who value what we value. How are we to repair our communities and build a world worthy of our descendants if we don’t seek understanding?
Fear is our greatest barrier to understanding because it separates us. It is a tool for distraction. We can no longer see clearly when we are terrified. We only see two paths: fight or flee. This is where gratitude goes to die because we can no longer perceive the abundant gifts life has to offer. Rather than being a people of possibility — a hopeful people — we become narrow, stingy, and impotent with scarcity guiding our hearts.
The pervasiveness of fear is not new to humanity or these times. Fear and tribalism have always been present in the human story, but gratefulness is resistance to fear. It moves us forward and helps us pursue more compassionate and inclusive communities of belonging, where every human can arrive welcomed and worthy rather than discarded….
The work ahead for all of us will not be easy, but it begins by opening our hearts rather than sealing them off out of fear and disappointment — this is our grateful resistance in a time of othering.”
This was written by Joe Primo, CEO, Grateful Living. You can read more of the essay and learn more about Grateful Living here.
For now, and this morning, and this week, month, year…please know that I love you and am grateful for your presence in my life.
I voted.
I voted for the rainbow.
I voted for the cry of a loon.
I voted for my grandfather’s bones
that feed beetles now.
I voted for a singing brook that sparkles
under a North Dakota bean field.
I voted for salty air through which the whimbrel flies
south along the shores of two continents.
I voted for melting snow that returns to the wellspring
of darkness, where the sky is born from the earth.
I voted for daemonic mushrooms in the loam,
and the old democracy of worms.
I voted for the wordless treaty that cannot be broken
by white men or brown, because it is made of star semen,
thistle sap, hieroglyphs of the weevil in prairie oak.
I voted for the local, the small, the brim
that does not spill over, the abolition of waste,
the luxury of enough.
I voted for the commonwealth of the ancient forest,
a larva for every beak, a wing-tinted flower
for every moth’s disguise, a well-fed mammal’s corpse
for every colony of maggots.
I voted for open borders between death and birth.
I voted on the ballot of a fallen leaf of sycamore
that cannot be erased, for it becomes the dust and rain,
and then a tree again.
I voted for more fallow time to cultivate wildflowers,
more recess in schools to cultivate play,
more leisure, tax free, more space between days.
Poem by Alfred K. LaMotte. Photo ©2024, Jen Payne.
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts
People often comment about the visual nature of my creative work, and how my writing is usually accompanied by photography or artwork.
As a graphic designer, artist, and writer, I firmly believe that partnering visuals and words layers the intentions of my work and makes the communication more palpable.
Two of my previous books, Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness and Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, were as much about the color photographs as they were about the essays and poems. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of the poems in Evidence of Flossing was inspired by a series of photographs I took showing discarded dental flossers in random places.
Odd, I know, but they spoke to the message — our disrespect of nature — in a necessary and immediate way. Sometimes writing takes a while to be absorbed, while images have a speedy hook!
LOOK: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU! (Read More)
I love that the cover of my new book, Sleeping with Ghosts, does exactly that: it grabs your attention!
The cover photograph is by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, who I connected with online back in 2015. (Yes, I’ve known the book’s title and have had that photo saved for nine years!)
Małgorzata is a contemporary painter and photographer known for her symbolic nighttime landscapes and ethereal portraits exploring the world of the Unknown. She graduated in 2004 (Olsztyn/Poland) with the title of Master in Arts. Influenced by 19th-century symbolism, her photographic works feature a bold painterly approach to the compositions she depicts. She has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and Europe, and published her works on numerous book covers and magazines. Today she mostly focuses on traditional media such as oil painting and continues to explore themes and ideas less accessible for photographic medium.
In a bit of happenstance, on her website, Malgorzata says she “explores haunted places, past memories, and hidden feelings and symbols,” which really is the essence of Sleeping with Ghosts.
“Photography has this unique quality of something real and intangible,” she says, “…something that I find difficult to speak about. It is the language of ghosts.”
For the cover, I accented Malgorzata’s photograph with a cluster of stardust that appears in several places within the book. It’s from a series of images in a Lunar Calendar collection by Lana Elanor that includes stars, moons, and constellations.
Elanor is an independent artist from Ukraine who now lives in Tulum, Mexico. She is “a meditative person passionate about art, travel, and the study of the conscious and unconscious mind.”
About her work she says, “I’ve loved creating art for as long as I can remember myself. Only beauty itself is a catalyst for the awakening of this world, so I’m totally in love with the concept to make this place more beautiful than it was when we got here.”
The illustrations that introduce each chapter, and entice the reader from the Table of Contents, are by Ukrainian artist Michael Rayback. I connected with Michael about his art in 2022, and we were both excited to include his work in my book. But Michael lives in Kyiv, and our last correspondence was several months after Russia invaded Ukraine.
I check his social media from time to time, to see if he is back online, but unfortunately, we have not reconnected. When I think of him, I remember this quote I saw on one of his sites:
“Art is self-expression, therefore all that you see here is a part of me. I know many languages of self-expression. I like drawing, I love photo art, cinema is one of the main parts of my life, I like cooking tasty and healthy food. I wake up at five in the morning to be alone and tune in for a new day, and the sun tells me that I’m doing everything right and inspires me to new creativity. I do yoga and meditate. All this helps me to explore myself, I learn something new every day, and every day I try to be a little better.”
Something we can all aspire to, right?
I do hope you appreciate the collaborative nature of Sleeping with Ghosts. Please visit these artists online and discover more of their work!
Malgorzata Maj (Mrągowo, Poland)
www.sarachmet.com
Lana Elanor (Tulum, Mexico)
www.etsy.com/shop/LanaElanor
Michael Rayback (Kyiv, Ukraine)
www.creativemarket.com/michaelrayback
Photos from each artist’s social media bios.
This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.
He’s talking about London,
shows me his collection of
vintage rock and roll posters,
slides close to tell me his stories
and his warm breath stirs me
despite what I’ve learned
about this kind of trespass,
so I lean in for a while
listen up close
and pretend I have every right
I deserve this
I need this
press up against the idea
until the alarm goes off
for a fourth or fifth time
and I have to shake off the thought
that slow delicious thought
and start the day.
Poem ©2024, Jen Payne
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts
My mother, who is easily insulted, often remembers the time a therapist called her a storyteller. Mom recounts the comment as one might an injustice, and she twists and elongates the word “storyteller” to make it sound as painful as it felt for her.
What’s the old saying? The truth hurts.
That’s the funny thing about my mother’s story — she IS a storyteller. Long before neurodivergent was a word, my mother was making her way through life with the only tools she had, and one of those was storytelling. Often and on repeat. It’s how she relates to the world and people around her.
I have a friend whose mother was also a storyteller. She had a degree in drama, was in numerous theatrical productions, taught children how to act and perform, and went on to start a successful annual storytelling festival. She also found connection in telling stories.
The act of storytelling is as diverse as these two examples and includes four primary forms: oral, visual, written, and digital. Within each of those forms, there are a myriad of vehicles: books and magazines, visual arts, stage, radio, film, television, video, internet.
Consider all of the ways storytelling comes into your own life! It’s part of the fabric of who we are. Think about it! What would we be without our fairytales, folktales, fables, religions, and mythologies? We are built on story!
And quite literally. This is what social scientist Brené Brown, says about storytelling in her book Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.
“We are wired for story. In a culture of scarcity and perfectionism, there’s a surprisingly simple reason we want to own, integrate, and share our stories….We do this because we feel the most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories — it’s in our biology. The idea of storytelling has become ubiquitous. It’s a platform for everything from creative movements to marketing strategies. But the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zack has found that hearing a story — a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end — causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.”
Like my mother, I’m also a storyteller. I frequently use analogy and story not only to talk about my own experiences, but to say, “I understand yours, too. Let’s talk about it.” It was Brené Brown who gave me the courage to tell those stories on paper, and who inspired several of my books, including my new collection of poems, Sleeping with Ghosts.
That book, Rising Strong, still sits on my coffee table — dogeared and well-worn — as a reminder to be brave, to show up, and to keep telling my stories. The book ends with her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted,” which I’ll share with you here as inspiration for you to tell your own stories because what you have to say — no matter how you say it — is important!
Photo by Kool Shooters/Pexels. Brown, Brené. Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. United States: Random House Publishing Group, 2017.
This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.
*scroll all the way to the bottom of the blog post
Today, the Sleeping with Ghosts WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour stop features a really thoughtful BOOK REVIEW by Kaecey McCormick:
If you’re ready to take a thoughtful, heartfelt stroll through memory and meaning, Sleeping with Ghosts is absolutely worth your time. Jen’s gentle but honest voice will stay with you long after the last page is turned.
He shows up as Derek Shepherd,
of course…
I’m re-binging Grey’s Anatomy after all,
from the top
all 435 episodes
Call it
guilty pleasure
comfort food
insulation
election distraction
Anyhow…
he shows up as Derek Shepherd,
and he is the person I remember
warm and charming and happy
and he loves me
It feels green and shady
like home
familiar and safe
and where I’m supposed to be
Until I offer him a cup of coffee
and he says
“That’s OK, we have some in the car”
and I know she’s outside waiting
I mean, she’s freaking Isabella Rossellini
except she’s
Zoë Saldaña
Thandie Newton
tall, thin, athletic
academic
catholic
the anti-me
in every way possible
I feel in my heart
this incredible disappointment
as I search methodically for
the old worn copy of
Gulliver’s Travels
that he’s asked to borrow
and I can’t help but wonder
even in that dreamspace
why he looks like Derek Shepherd,
why he wants to read Jonathan Swift
and why the book I pull from the shelf is
my hardcover copy of Walden instead
it’s my favorite,
the one with the margin notes
from my Dad in pencil, ALL CAPS
it was one of the things
they had in common
except my Dad’s notes were
smart and thoughtful,
and “Derek’s” were critical
mean and pedantic
As I walk him to the elevator
and say goodbye, again,
I realize how easily I am moving,
how my body feels just fine,
familiar and safe
and where I’m supposed to be
and while I might feel disappointed
still, sometimes,
I am happy to have been set free
loosened from what bound me there
in that small, small place
where I could hardly ever breathe
Nobody knows where they might end up
Nobody knows
Nobody knows where they might wake up
Nobody knows
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts
For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him… — Plato
Ghosts, Muses, Inspiration, Universe, God. Call it what you will — there is another layer of this world that we live in, and if you can quiet your mind, sometimes, you can hear it and be inspired by it!
As I was finishing up the manuscript for Sleeping with Ghosts, my editor and I both agreed something was missing. While I loved the final poem “Missing Banksy,” its alluded message about impermanence wasn’t quite strong enough to hold up the end of the book. But what would? I had no idea!
When I get stuck like that and can’t find answers — about my writing or about life in general — I like to walk in the woods. It’s where I can settle my mind, slow down the busy-ness, and sometimes…sometimes…hear ghosts.
On this particular walk, I started out at the trailhead by asking the Universe to help me find a final poem, a final message for the book. Often, I can entice Inspiration with a request like that, and this time, it responded in the voice of my Dad.
It’s not the first time my Dad’s ghost has spoken to me. He told me to PAY ATTENTION on I-95 once and saved me from a pretty awful accident; he often shows up unexpectedly as a hawk with a call of I AM HERE; and he responded to my poem query with a series of questions that became the poem “The Final Ghost.”
But connecting with our ghosts can be challenging! There is so much noise in the world today — we’re busier than ever, more distracted by things, more seduced by technologies. There are so many things demanding our attention, how can we possibly hear Ghosts, listen to Muses, or tune into our Inspiration?
One of my all-time favorite movies is Contact with Jodi Foster. The scene I think about often is when she is in the portal pod that’s been reconfigured with an anchored chair and seat belt — things to keep her rooted in place as she travels across space through wormholes. But as she starts her journey, the chair and seat belt cause more harm than good. She may be OK to Go, but they keep her too firmly in place. It’s only when she releases what holds her down that she projects openly forward.
In the same way, listening to your Ghosts requires that you release what’s holding you back.
For Jodi Foster’s character Ellie Arroway, what was holding her back was physically obvious. For me, I know that my biggest obstacle is technology and how it eats up my time and siphons my attention span.
So, what gets in the way of listening to your Ghosts?
Just this weekend, I talked with a woman who told me in a whispered voice how she stopped listening to her Ghosts because it seemed a little scary. And I have a friend who is a phenomenal painter, but she often ignores her Inspiration because it feels too powerful, almost possibly un-godlike.
But the idea of listening to Ghosts or Inspiration or Muses reaches far back into human history.
Did you know that “the word inspiration ultimately derives from the Greek for ‘God-breathed’ or ‘divinely breathed into.’ In Greek myth, inspiration is a gift of the muses, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory).”
Similarly, “the Oxford English Dictionary defines inspiration as “a breathing in or infusion of some idea, purpose, etc. into the mind; the suggestion, awakening, or creation of some feeling or impulse, especially of an exalted kind.”
In his article “How to Find Inspiration, the Psychology and Philosophy of Inspiration,” writer and philosopher Neel Burton offers seven 7 simple strategies to encourage inspiration:
1. Wake up when your body tells you to.
2. Complete your dreams.
3. Eliminate distractions, especially the tedious ones.
4. Don’t try to rush or force things.
5. Be curious.
6. Break the routine.
7. Make a start.
I will add two more to that list:
8. Read Neel’s article (click here)
and…
9. Listen to your amazing, wonderful, chatty Ghosts.
You never know what they have to say or in what creative direction they might take you!
This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.
Today, the Sleeping with Ghosts WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour stop features a BOOK REVIEW by Beverley A Baird:
I would highly recommend Payne’s poetry memoir. Love fills its pages, and the words conjure intriguing images. There are so many special poems that I’m sure you will fall in love with, just as I did. So many lines as well, that you will remember and come back to.
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things…
We all have ghosts — those lingering memories that resurface when a song comes on, when a certain scent fills the air, or when we wander in our dreams. Those are the kinds of ghosts that appear in Sleeping with Ghosts — the memories of moments and people who have wandered into my own life, the lovers and soulmates and muses to whom the book is dedicated.
As I was gathering the poems for this book, I kept hearing the phrase “I am a part of all that I have met.” It’s a line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,” in which the protagonist reflects on his life and sees the fabric that is woven between him and his experiences. That is the essence of Sleeping with Ghosts, we are all connected — by memory, by story, by experience. To emphasize that, readers will find common phrases, themes, and symbols repeated throughout the chapters and stories in the book — a weaving of love, hope, and loss. (Humor, too.)
In total, there are 14 chapters in the book, including seven primary ghosts about whom I’ve written most frequently. These are the stories that captured my attention (and my heart) and left a shadow of memory long enough for me to step into now and then, to revisit and repurpose them into poems. The seven ghosts include a first love, the last love, secret encounters, and those defining moments that come from living life with an open heart.
There are two chapters dedicated to my muses — the people who have inspired my life in a variety of ways, including life-long friends and cherished mentors — and a chapter that narrates the Ephemera of life’s encounters.
My favorite section of the book is called Dreamwork. It’s a collection of 12 poems presented like an inquiry or analysis with dated entries that note the particular ghosts as they reappear in dream form. These dream-ghosts are the wistful spirits of What If or Might Have Been, Ulysses’ “untravell’d world whose margin fades.” I truly believe that dreams offer all of us an opportunity to reconnect with our memories, heal old wounds, and reinterpret moments in new and helpful ways.
I hope this book, as a whole, offers readers a chance to see things in new ways. That in the shadowy corners of their own memories, they might conjure up the “something more, A bringer of new things…” for themselves.
Remember, we all have ghosts. Give them a direct line to your Muse, and you never know what will happen!
Photo from Pexels, Lisa Fotios.
This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.
If the world were a sound, it would be flipping through all of the channels on a radio really fast. Announcers and DJs, commercials and music genres overlapping in the same way our 21st-century tasks seem to layer upon themselves.
We’re always busy, there’s always something else to be managed, and the To Do list is never-ending — one crossed-off item seemingly births two or three more. Work, family, and home responsibilities line up like a song queue on a commercial-free weekend — endless.
If you’re a creative type, like I am, though, you need to turn down the volume sometimes. All of that noise — all of those weighty expectations —stifle our ideas and muffle our creative voice.
And while a Vacation can be helpful sometimes, that’s a different genre of time off, usually involving a barrage of activities, schedules, attractions, must-dos, and must-sees. What’s more beneficial to your creative spirit is a Retreat.
What’s the difference?
I like to think of Retreat as all about the R words, like: Relax, Rest, Regroup, Restore, Reflect, Reset, Roam, Read, Recharge, Replenish. Get the idea?
It’s time without any expectations or To Do lists, and time “off the grid,” if you can stand it.
According to an article by executive coach Rebecca Zucker in the Harvard Business Review, taking time off has reverberating positive effects on your sleep, memory, concentration, mood, and stress level.
Time off, she explains, “can allow you to tune out much of this external noise and tune back into your true self. You can start to separate the striver part of you, let go of your ego, and reacquaint yourself with the essence of who you really are…feel a sense of peace…and do things that bring you joy.”
How’s that for motivation?
For the last 12 years, I’ve taken a week-long Retreat on the shores of Cape Cod. I spend my time reading books, walking by the water, and taking long afternoon naps. I eat simple meals, spend time in nature, write some poetry, and remember how to breathe deeply again. I try to make it a quiet experience — time for rest and reflection, not a tourist jaunt or food tour.
Of course, not everyone has the time or resources to take off by themselves for a whole week. Sometimes I don’t either. Sometimes, an overnight at a hotel with a good book and a picnic basket of food is time enough. A Sunday drive down the highway with the radio on and the windows open can clear my head as much as a long walk by the ocean. And always, a morning hike in the quiet woods reminds me that somewhere beneath all the layers of noise, my creative voice is waiting for her opportunity to sing!
What’s your ideal Retreat? Can you think of two or three ways — grand and small — that you can tune back into your creative spirit?
[1] Zucker, Rebecca; “How Taking a Vacation Improves Your Well-Being,” Harvard Business Review, July 19, 2023.
This essay was originally featured in the WOW! Women on Writing national Blog Tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings.
Today’s WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour stop features a BOOK REVIEW by Shoe’s Seeds & Stories:
These are poems to savor, even when they are heartbreaking, whether Payne is writing about New Hampshire in 1992 (I can picture the hidden meadow of lupines, the strawberry moon, the breathtaking stars), a terminal romance in “The Wrong Impression”, or baking a cake in “Real Plums, Imaginary Cake” (the title is a nod to novelist Mary McCarthy’s quote about writing: “I am putting real plums in an imaginary cake.’) I appreciate that Payne not only writes about lovers but also about friendship, such as in the poems “When the Mania Collapses in On Itself Again” and “Love They Neighbor as Thyself”. I enjoyed meeting the ghosts Payne introduces in the memoir, and I think you will too.
Today, I talk with more Charity Howard at Chit Chat with Charity. You might remember her from the “Power of Writing Through Poetry, Memories” review she did of Sleeping with Ghosts last week. Today, we chat interview-style. Check it out!
JEN: Hi Charity.
Thank you for being part of the WOW! Women on Writing blog tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts, and for taking the time to ask some good questions!
What is your favorite part of your book and why?
JEN: I love that Sleeping with Ghosts is not just a book of poetry or a memoir, but it’s also a visual experience. The stunning cover photo, by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, captures the mood of the book so perfectly. The artwork by Michael Rayback and Lana Elanor illustrates the themes of the individual chapters and adds a bit of whimsy to the pages.
And while I love all of the poems, I think my favorite part is the Table of Contents and how it tells the story of the book at a glance. I like how it’s not just a block of text with page numbers, but a cipher for how to read the book. It feels like one of those maps you find at the beginning of adventure books or a legend that tells you how to travel forward.
What is your biggest inspiration for this poetry and musings book? Or perhaps the poem that stands out the most for you?
JEN: First and foremost, I am a storyteller. It’s how I relate to the world, how I communicate experience and understanding. I talk in story…remember the time?
Many of the poems and musings in this book are stories that live inside me already. But it’s not like I am thinking about, or “dwelling on” things, all the time. The stories just get primed to come to the surface sometimes.
It’s like when you hear an old song on the radio or smell a certain perfume in the air, and it reminds you of a memory? As a writer, I am able to follow those memories and pull out a poem or a short story.
A good example of this, and one of my favorite poems in the book, is called “Chester, 1 a.m.” I was driving down the highway when the Jethro Tull song Bourée came on the radio, and I was immediately transported back many, many years to this short, sweet memory…
CHESTER, 1:00 A.M.
You will always be blue flannel,
a plaid hard crush against skin,
Bourée on a flute in the dark,
and the taste of unseen spirits.
Your sudden kiss,
the punch-drunk dance
against kitchen counter —
what did you want from me
in that brief romance?
I still wonder.
That’s how inspiration works for me. My muse shows up in many forms with suggestions for which way to take my writing next. And I follow.
What is your advice for poets as they write their inspired work?
JEN: Listen to your Muses, not your Critics!
Your Critics are going to tell you how to write and what to write. They’ll tell you what’s good and bad, correct and incorrect. They’ll be rather black-and-white about things.
Your Muses, on the other hand, are creative and wild, and they love to color outside of the lines. Play with that and with them, and just follow your heart.
Be brave enough to tell your story the way you want to tell it!
What do you feel is the most important part of your writing process?
JEN: Making time for it. Period.
We’re all so busy with so many things that need to get done in a day. But that creative process, the process of expression, is so important to our well-being. As important as movement or rest or nourishment.
And just like those things, you have to make time for your creative work.
I am a notoriously early riser, and I will often spend the first few hours of my day writing. I love the quiet of the early morning before everything is awake and noisy again.
A 3 a.m. start works really well for me, but you have to find what works for you. Maybe it’s the other side of the clock midnight-writing, or an hour at a coffee shop with your laptop.
Remember, your creativity is a gift, and it’s important that you give it time to exist and prosper.
What would you say to describe your book to help entice readers to pick it up?
JEN: One of my readers — who is also a ghost in the book — once said my writing is “funny, sad, sexy, maddening.”
Sleeping with Ghosts is a time-traveling memoir that introduces readers to some charming characters — star-crossed teenagers, secret lovers, and long-term loves. It’s about romance, heartbreak, dreams, found love and lost love, memories. It’s also a book filled with story, inspiration, creativity, and pages and pages of beautiful muses without whom this book (and I) might not exist.
Today, I talk with Kaecey McCormick at Some Thoughts: Everything Creativity, who writes: “I’m thrilled to bring author Jen Payne to the blog today in an interview to discuss life, writing, and her new book, Sleeping with Ghosts. Earlier this month, I hosted a Community Poetry & Prose Night with the theme “The Ghosts We Carry,” and Jen’s book is a wonderful example of how we can be “haunted” by so much and how these “ghosts” show up in our writing.
Kaecey: Jen, welcome! I’m thrilled to chat about your new book, Sleeping with Ghosts. The way you blend genres in this collection is fascinating. Sleeping with Ghosts is described as a ‘time-traveling memoir’ into the heart and mind of a poet. What inspired you to choose this format, and what challenges did you face in crafting such a unique narrative?
Jen: Hi Kaecey. Thanks for being part of the Sleeping with Ghosts blog tour!
Like you, I’m not only a writer and poet, I’m also a blogger. I’ve been writing and creating at Random Acts of Writing (randomactsofwriting.net) since 2010. That name, it turns out, was spot-on! My creative work shifts from poetry and flash nonfiction, to essay and photo essay.
As readers will find in Sleeping with Ghosts, I also write a lot of memoir pieces.
The poems in the book have been written over the past 10-15 years, but they cover a time span of 40! From that perspective, time traveling becomes a natural consequence! (It helps that I’m also a closet Trekkie and a bit of a sci-fi nerd.)
I find I have an acute memory for what I call “defining moments” — those places in time when something shifts or changes, times that you bookmark to remember. I am easily able to slip back into those moments and recall the feelings, the conversations, my surroundings. And then I write!
As happened in my previous books of poetry, Evidence of Flossing and Waiting Out the Storm, the poems in Sleeping with Ghosts gathered themselves quite naturally. As soon as I set the intention to create this book, the poems and chapters, and their organization was very clear. The biggest challenge, I suppose, was making sure that the ghosts each got their own say, and that their stories were told to completion.
Kaecey: I can imagine that covering a time span of 40 years meant some “ghostly” challenges! You did a wonderful job making sure each voice was heard. Much of your writing in this collection reflects on past relationships or experiences. I’m wondering, was there a defining memory or experience that sparked the creation of Sleeping with Ghosts? How did it start and how did the concept evolve from that initial inspiration?
Jen: Indirectly, yes.
I’ve been a writer all my life: journalist, copy editor, freelance writer, marketing wordsmith. I started my own graphic design and marketing business, Words by Jen, when I was 27, and spent a great deal of time writing for other people.
But the year I turned 40, I reconnected with someone I had been deeply, crazy in love with. We hadn’t spoken in 15 years, and our reconnection felt monumental and…karmic.
When it didn’t work out (again), everything broke wide open for me. I had to find a way to write from that place, from that broken-hearted, emotional, vulnerable place. That’s really when I began writing the good stuff!
(Actually, you can read about the whole experience in my book Water Under the Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story.)
Kaecey: It’s amazing how those difficult experiences can spark our creativity. And speaking of difficult, your work often explores themes of memory, creativity, and loss. How do you navigate writing about such personal experiences while still making them resonate universally? What advice do you have for poets and other writers who are tackling big themes like grief?
Jen: I think I write about my own experiences because I have to — it’s how I process things, how I connect with the world. Not to be cliche, but writing is my love language.
I’m a bit of an introvert, so writing and storytelling are my way of sharing, of having a conversation, of participating.
I’m not sure I intentionally try to make my work resonate universally, so much as the stories are universal. We all experience these moments —right? The broken heart, the unrequited love, the death of a friend, the relationship we need to leave.
But not everyone has the courage to talk about their experiences. It’s hard work talking about disappointment, broken hearts, loss, and grief.
What inspired me most to write from the heart, to be brave about it, was Brené Brown’s book Rising Strong. In it, she writes, “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.”
So my advice to writers tackling the big life themes would be a) read Brené’sbook, and then b) be brave and write!
Kaecey: Love that. I’m a Brené Brown fan! So yes! And I appreciate what you just said about our stories as universal human experiences. You’ve also written about our connection to the natural world, and in previous interviews, you mentioned the “alchemy” of emotions, nature, and creativity. I’m hoping you can elaborate on how this idea informs your writing, whether that’s in the language and imagery itself or as part of your process, particularly in this new book, Sleeping with Ghosts?
Jen: There is a certain kind of magic that happens when we can step out of our day-to-day and let new information come in. For me, that very often happens when I walk in the woods or on the beach. For others, the magic happens in meditation or after physical activity.
We’re all so busy these days. And when we’re not busy with actual work — job, house, family, life — we’re regularly seduced by technology and our scrolling, binging culture. Creativity requires us to get away from all of that. How can we hear our Muses when everything else is demanding our attention?
I think it’s important for writers and artists to find those things that let them reconnect with their creative voice. One poet I know recently went on a week-long silent mediation, and when I marveled at that to his wife, she said “That’s him. I prefer moving meditation, like tai chi or yoga.”
For me, being in nature is a critical component of my writing. Whether it’s a regular walk at my favorite nature preserve or a week-long writing retreat by the water — I need that time away to process through the stories and the things I want to say.
And yes, very often there is an overlap of my connection with nature and the imagery and language in my writing, including Sleeping with Ghosts. Of course!
My book Waiting Out the Storm was a very personal tribute to a dear friend who died suddenly. I found the most comfort being in nature, and witnessing how life and death and rebirth play out all around us. Nature was my solace.
That’s what I mean by alchemy — we are part of a much larger universe than our day-to-day. If we can be open to that, give ourselves time and space to come back to our awareness of that, it can infuse our writing and our sense of self in pretty amazing ways!
Kaecey: Beautifully put, Jen. And so helpful for other writers to read about that part of the process. Speaking of process, I feel like, as writers, we’re often surprised by something in our work or in the process itself. Maybe you start a poem about the lipstick case you lost and end up writing about the death of your cat. Maybe you want to write about the sunlight and you end up writing about your toddler’s whining. (Or maybe that’s just me!) In looking back at your journey with Sleeping with Ghosts, what has been the most surprising or rewarding aspect of creating this collection and sharing it with others?
Jen: This is a great question. Our writing can come as a surprise sometimes, can’t it?
One of the most surprising things about Sleeping with Ghosts for me has been how these poems assume their own personality, and almost innately tell the story of each particular ghost…despite the fact that they were written at different times over the past 15 years.
The ghost in I Am a Rock/I Am an Island is unrequited loved no matter when I write about it — in the moment or 10 years later. The ghost in Seeing Red is angry all the time — then and even now.
The other surprising thing — and probably my favorite part about writing this book — is that the ghosts found ways to speak to me. They often showed up to remind me about a moment or a conversation that should be included. Sometimes they needed a final say — and they would chime in while I was on a walk or they’d show up in a dream. “Sleeping in Truro” was one ghost’s final say-so, and “Dear Jenny” was a ghost who appeared just months before the book went to press. When I asked the ghosts to give me a final poem for the book, they sent my Dad who asked, “Did you love?”
I did, I have…and now I get to share that with my readers!
Kaecey: “Did you love?” What a beautiful question and how wonderful to be able to answer in the way that you did! Jen, thank you so much for being here with me today. It’s be a joy to talk to you about writing, life, and your inspiration!
Jen: Kaecey, thank you for these thoughtful questions and the chance to dig a little deeper into the inspiration and ghosts in Sleeping with Ghosts! I appreciate it!
Guilford Art Center is excited to welcome local authors Julie Fitzpatrick, Mary O’Connor, Jen Payne, and Catherine Steinberg to our Authors in The Shop series hosted by Three Chairs Publishing. For four Saturdays in November, authors will be in The Shop signing books and talking with Holiday Expo shoppers from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 9
Come celebrate the launch of Catherine Steinberg’s new bookEating Chocolate and Watching the Moon — Spiritual Awakening through Loss and Karmic Resolution
Saturday, November 16
Learn about the ghosts in Jen Payne’s new book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings
Saturday, November 23
Explore everyday ways to boost personal creativity with Mary O’Connor’s new book Say Yes! to Your Creative Self
Saturday, November 30
Discover the colorful Church on the Screen, A Sunday Series of Poems by Julie Fitzpatrick
This is a great opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with local authors and to get a head start on your holiday shopping. Refreshments will be served.
Be sure to make time to explore Holiday Expo 2024! The Shop and Gallery at Guilford Art Center are filled with holiday gifts from local and American artists, makers and designers; craft categories include accessories, candles, cards, ceramics, clothing, fiber art, glass, homewares, jewelry, leather, Christmas ornaments, soaps, specialty foods, stationery…as well as signed books from our guest authors.
Three Chairs Publishing, owned by Jen Payne, focuses on creative conversations in print. It was inspired by a quote from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society,” which speaks to the connections we can make — for ourselves, for our friends and loved ones, and in our community — through creative efforts like writing, art making, and photography. Current titles include From My Button Box: Collected Essays in a Pandemic Time by Judith Bruder, Say Yes! to Your Creative Self by Mary O’Connor, and Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings by Jen Payne. Many of its books are available for purchase at Guilford Art Center. To find out more, visit 3chairspublishing.com.
Authors in The Shop at Guilford Art Center and Holiday Expo are free and open to the public. Guilford Art Center is located at 411 Church Street, Guilford, off I-95, exit 58. The Shop is open 7 days a week, Monday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sunday 12:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Catherine Nogas Steinberg, LMFT earned a B.A. degree from Mount Holyoke College and
an M.A. degree from the University of Connecticut. She has over forty years of psychotherapy experience with individuals, couples, families and groups in Guilford, Connecticut. Catherine is also a shamanic practitioner, artist, and workshop/retreat facilitator in Connecticut and New Mexico. A central theme in her work is empowering women to become who they truly want to be. Since 2015, Catherine has an ongoing exhibit at Mercy by the Sea in Madison of thirteen paintings depicting aspects of the Divine Feminine called The Mary Paintings. She has created The Mary Cards which are copies of the paintings accompanied by meditations she has written for each one. Catherine has also been a member of the Shoreline Arts Trail since 2005. Eating Chocolate & Watching the Moon is her first book. Visit http://www.catherinensteinberg.com for more information.
Jen Payne is a wearer of many hats —photographer, zinester, book designer, blogger, and owner of Words by Jen in Branford. As a poet and author, she writes often about our relationship with nature, creativity, spirituality, and the bravery of storytelling. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including the 2024 Connecticut Literary Anthology, the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology, Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, Sunspot Literary Journal, and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health. She has published four previous books under the imprint Three Chairs Publishing: Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, Waiting Out the Storm, and Water Under the Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story. She writes regularly at http://www.randomactsofwriting.net.
Mary O’Connor is the author of two books centered on finding joy in life: Passing Shadows and Life Is Full of Sweet Spots, as well as Dreams of a Wingless Child, a collection of award-winning inspirational poetry. Drawn to the serenity and beauty of the natural world, Mary often complements her writings with visual photographic images as well as with her paintings in watercolor and acrylics. Her work has been exhibited by area art associations, and her people and pet portraits are treasured by individual owners. A popular public speaker and workshop facilitator, Mary has taught poetry writing at the York Correctional Institution for Women, Niantic, Connecticut, served as a docent at the Florence Griswold Museum of art in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and in numerous community volunteer positions. She lives along the Connecticut shoreline where she creates much of her work. See more of her work at http://www.mary-oconnor.com.
Julie Fitzpatrick is a writer/actor/theater teacher who has acted Off-Broadway, regionally, and in TV/short film. She is a member of The Playwrights Circle, Guilford Poets Guild, The CT Chapter of the League of Professional Theatre Women and Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. Her poetry has been published by Chariot Press, Wingless Dreamer, Poets’ Choice, and Allegory Ridge. She is the author of the one woman show 77 U-Turn and the book Church on the Screen: A Sunday Series of Pandemic Poetry. Julie co-directs Wheel Life Theatre Troupe, teaches Acting for Adults and Create Your Own Solo Show classes through Legacy Theatre, and has directed talent shows at Calvin Leete Elementary and Baldwin Middle School. She is also a mentor to young talent through Shoreline Arts Alliance. For more info, please visit www.juliefitzpatrick.com.
by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts
I started my business, Words by Jen, in 1993. It was a part-time effort at first, offering writing and “desktop publishing” services to a small-but-growing list of local businesses, artists, and non-profits. By 1996, I had moved my office from the second bedroom of an apartment to commercial office space and was ready to leave my job at a local print shop to dedicate my time to my own work.
Back then — pre-Google and social media— one of the best ways to market a business was to have a listing in the phone book. Phone books, for those of you who might not know, were kept in every household and included all of the landline phone numbers in your town. There was a white pages section for home phone numbers and a yellow pages section for business phone numbers and advertising.
In the fall of 1995, I placed a yellow page ad in a phone book that would be in every home within 20 miles of my office.
The very first phone call I received was from a woman named Dale Carlson. Dale was a well-known New York City author who had moved to a shoreline town here in Connecticut and started her own, small publishing company, Bick Publishing House.
We met over coffee at a local breakfast spot, and had a very long conversation about how we might work together. She was as curious about me and Words by Jen as I was about the strong force of a woman sitting across the table from me.
Dale was 60 years old when we met, with an impressive resume of writing and publishing experience. She’d written more than two dozen books at the time, had been published by Atheneum Books, Doubleday, and Simon & Schuster, and was the winner of both an ALA Notable Book Award and the Christopher Award.
She had traveled all over the world, practiced yoga and meditation, was an advocate for folks with mental illness and addiction, read voraciously, and had recently become a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.
I, on the other hand, was barely 30 and just starting out in my career…and my life. I must have seemed so young and naïve to her. Still, something clicked for both of us and we agreed to draw up a contract for “book design and marketing services.”
From that first meeting, Dale and I went on to create more than 30 books, from her first series of wildlife rehabilitation manuals in the late 1990s to her final book OUT OF ORDER: Young Adult Manual of Mental Illness and Recovery.
We started on that journey together before independent publishing was a thing, before print-on-demand and Amazon and self-publishing. Dale had taken us out to the leading edge of this new industry, and it was an amazing ride!
She knew, for example, Jan Nathan — the founder of Publishers Marketing Association (PMA) which became the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Her books were edited by Ann Maurer, who had a long history of editing for well-known publishers, and our team included Jean Karl from Atheneum and award-winning artists like cover designer Greg Sammons and illustrator Carol Nicklaus.
During our time together, I gathered a set of design and publishing tools that still serve me well today, including a well-worn copy of The Chicago Manual of Style that Dale gave me all those years ago. From her, I learned about book industry standards for design,how to edit and organize content professionally, what makes for a good cover design and effective back cover content, how to position a book properly for booksellers and libraries, and so much more.
Ask me what inspired me to write books and how I came to start my own publishing company — Three Chairs Publishing — and I will tell you about the 25+ years that Dale and I worked together: the long hours of editing around her kitchen table, selecting art and cover designs, developing a house style, and promoting her books.
The skills I learned from her then I apply now to my own books, and to the growing list of self-published authors I get to work with as Words by Jen. All total, I have had the privilege of shepherding well over 150 books out into the world, from Dale’s books and my own, to a long list of poetry, art, history, fiction, and non-fiction titles.
And to think it all started with that yellow page ad, all so many years ago!
Photo: Jen and her mentor, Dale Carlson, at the launch of Jen’s first book, Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, in 2014. Sleeping with Ghosts is her fifth book under the imprint of Three Chairs Publishing.
The specter
I never reveal
is in the line next to me
and I step back
as if to disappear
behind a display
only an illusion
funny, we were here
the last time I saw him
and he called out
across the parking lot
an apology that seemed sincere
but somehow haunting
I still hear it
The fraught words
admission of the time
he went a little crazy
so much I left lights on
and locked doors
listened for creaking floors
the ghost of a threat
Photo by Plato Terentev. Poem ©2024 Jen Payne.
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
Today, I talk with Tracey Lampley about “How One Phone Call in 1996 Led to a Life of Self-Pubishing.”
I’m afraid I stayed too late in dreams
this lovely autumn morning
turned and turned and turned again
because I was flying
Flying!
and I didn’t want to land,
become pedestrian
in the pursuits of the day
I wanted to keep flying
over the black sand beach
where it started
over the incoming tide
its waves no longer at my feet
over the jetty
where people stood and stared
I want to stay with the
monstrous effort of lifting,
of pushing the air like water
higher and higher
as if I was drowning before
and
perhaps
I was
Perhaps that —
all of that —
was just drowning
and this is rebirth
pushing and pushing and pushing
forward or up or through
blankets puddled on the floor
sun streaming through the window
the morning roaring
Get Up!
no matter that I already am
Photo by Nadin Sh. Poem ©2024 Jen Payne.
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
“It feels both extremely personal and universal. Despite the poems drawing on Payne’s experiences, many times I felt as if she had looked through a magic lens at my past relationships and emotions.”
Thanks goes out to Jodi Webb for this sweet review of Sleeping with Ghosts on Words by Webb. Jodi’s review is part of the month-long WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour.
The review says my poems are accessible
and I know that is a gold star
on something so easily otherwise considered
not something one reads on the fly
though quite the contrary, one does or one can
I do anyhow
keep a dog-eared volume
within easy reach for a metered pause
now and then and again
The volumes change-out of course
famous old school to popular lowercase
he said, she said, now more they saids,
collections and anthologies and
the short-but-sweet chaps
Which is not to say they all get gold stars
some enhance my furrowed brow,
deepen the lines that live there,
make me close-up a book with a clap
some even, I confess, make me feel small
stupid, insipid, imposter
Like the time that Rogue Poet
infiltrated my writing group
and made us all feel somehow lacking
somehow not good enough
somehow not even poets
Like the time the Queen Bee
sat in the front row and watched
the little drone vibrate so much the mic shook
and the poems fell sharp and hard to the ground
and her look — just her look — said
you are not something one reads at all
ever, not even on the fly
I wonder sometimes if they were real,
the Rogue and the Queen Bee,
and not some amalgamation of my self
and all of her inner critics —
you are a fabrication, imitator, mutt
with no pedigree for poetry
stop now please
But someone — or someones —
think I am deserving of a gold star
5 stars sometimes too
with accolades and atta girls
and just enough kindness to make me feel
momentarily monumentally poetic.
Photo by ArtHouse.
If you like this poem, you’ll love the poems in my new book…
by Jodi Webb
WOW: Jen, welcome back to WOW! Women on Writing with your fifth book Sleeping with Ghosts. What inspired you to write about past relationships?
JEN: Hi Jodi. Thanks for welcoming me back to WOW! I loved working with all of you for Evidence of Flossing and am happy to be back for Sleeping with Ghosts.
What inspired this new book and its focus on past relationships? Good question. I have always had an acute ability to recall moments in time — I call them “defining moments.” You know, the point in time when something shifts or that you bookmark to remember later? As a writer, those “defining moments” are a pretty fertile source of inspiration for all of my work, most especially when it comes to writing memoir and poetry.
I think it’s called autobiographical memory — like photographic memory, but related to people, conversations, emotions, and interactions. I can easily find and settle down into memories and re- experience them in order to write about them. Sometimes I consciously rummage around to find something interesting, but often, the memories just show up — like ghosts — and ask to be written about.
I’m also a storyteller by nature. I frequently use analogy and story not only to talk about my own experiences, but to say, “I understand yours, too. Let’s talk about it.”
WOW:This book of poetry if so personal. Have you ever found it difficult to write about relationships featured in your poetry?
JEN: Some of these poems were definitely a challenge to write. There’s often sadness or grief knotted up in a memory. So when I untangle it to tell the story, those emotions resurface. But it’s more cathartic than difficult.
Other poems come more easily, welcoming the chance to reconnect with a love story, or remember moments with a dear friend, or find counsel from cherished mentors.
Have you read Brené Brown’s book Rising Strong? It’s one of my most dogeared books. She talks about being brave, showing up, telling our stories. It ends with her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted”:
We are the authors of our lives.
We write our own daring endings.
We craft love from heartbreak,
compassion from shame,
grace from disappointment,
courage from failure.
Showing up is our power.
Story is our way home. Truth is our song.
We are the brave and broken hearted.
We are rising strong.
I love that!
I have to tell you…a side story…that the process of revisiting the ghosts in this book was fascinating. I had two amazing editors who read and critiqued every chapter, poem by poem. I spent hours with each of them, reviewing and reconsidering. It gave me the chance to dive deep into those past stories and live with the ghosts again for a while. That was an incredible experience — to be steeped in memory like that — it was visceral. Heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.
The insights and time from these two women were a true gift. The book is enormously more powerful as a result.
WOW:I am in awe of poets because I simply don’t have that lyrical talent. Tell us a little about how a poem is born. Does it come out in a rush of words or do you have to fight to create each line?
JEN: I know that some poets anguish over poems for weeks and months. To be honest? I don’t have that kind of patience. On the rare occasion when I do anguish, I end up with an over-kneaded poem that’s too tough and lost its original flavor.
I always say the poems “show up,” which is what it really feels like. Something will trigger a memory or offer up the first line…and whoosh…there’s the poem!
Ok, it’s not that quick of a process. I probably spend at least an hour or two on a poem — write, rework, read it out loud a few times, rework some more, repeat. Sometimes I go back later and edit, but not much and not often.
The poem that took the longest to write in Sleeping with Ghosts was probably “Under His Spell.” That took a few days, mostly because it’s a rhyming poem, and I don’t often rhyme. (In general, I resist writing to [poetic] form…though I’ve been challenged recently to give it a try.)
“Dear Jenny,” one of my favorites, took almost no time at all. That one showed up as if I was channeling the ghost himself and just transcribing his words. Like magic!
Poetry always kind of feels like magic to me.
WOW:A magic that is out of reach for so many of us. So tell us, how do you curate a poetry book? Do you select a topic and write poems, do you look at poems you’ve already written and perceive a common thread or is it some combination of the two?
JEN: Would you believe I’ve had the title of this book in my mind for more than 10 years? I even saved the cover art and artist’s name in a file for safekeeping!
The poems span about 20 years of work. The curating of them was fairly straightforward when it came to the ghost chapters — the seven ghosts are seven of those defining moments for me, with plenty of poems written over the years. But there were other poems — like the small pieces of stories you find in the Ephemera chapter, or the ghosts that reappear in Dreamwork — that needed to be included.
My favorite chapter to put together was Muses — these are the women who have shaped and continue to shape my life. It felt important to include them.
Most of the poems were already written, but about a dozen of them are new, written specifically for the book or because of the book. The very last poem I wrote for Ghosts is called “The Poet at Midnight,” which describes, in a sense, what the curating often feels like — a wandering through old memories and the discovery of which ones we hold onto.
WOW:Fascinating! I love the idea that you saved that image, knowing that someday there would be a book to go with it. Let’s take a peek at your life beyond poetry.In addition to a poetry and prose writer, you are also an artist, photographer, graphic designer (let me know if I’ve forgotten anything). Do you have a favorite creative outlet?
JEN: Writer, artist, photographer, graphic designer, yes. Also blogger and zinester…business owner (Words by Jen) and publisher (Three Chairs Publishing).
I don’t think I see them as individual roles, so much as tools I use for my Creativity. And I don’t have a favorite, really. Sometimes I love poetry — like in April when I write a poem a day for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), and sometimes I’m all about creating the next zine. It’s more like whichever burner is fired up is the one I’m cooking on today — LOL!
I need to create. It’s my raison d’être — who I am and how I move around in this world.
I’m just lucky that I get to participate in the creative process all day long, either for my clients or with my own various ideas and projects.
WOW:What a lovely life to lead. You mentioned being a zinester. Could you tell us a little more about MANIFEST (zine)?
JEN: The zine is like storytelling lite!
I had always dreamed of doing installation art — in my “spare time.” LOL! — like large spaces filled with words and visuals that visitors could walk through and experience. As an alternative, I came up with the idea of doing a zine that could hold the same ideas on a much smaller scale.
I had published another zine back in the early 90s, so I was familiar with the format and the (fabulous) zine community. It just felt like the perfect venue for my essays and poetry, and my other creative pursuits, like collage and photography.
MANIFEST comes out quarterly with a different theme for each issue. It has covered topics like change and transition, solitude, the pandemic, time and time travel — sometimes politics, like gun control and women’s rights. I just mailed issue #15 called Write, about finding inspiration.
WOW: So where are you finding inspiration? What are you working on now?
JEN:Mostly, right now, I’m working on shepherding Sleeping with Ghosts out into the world. So there’s a lot of publicity work and events to prepare for, including my blog tour with you!
But I also have the next issue of MANIFEST (zine) in process, and I’m trying to decide if I should resurrect an old manuscript or start fresh with a new project of essays and poems. Maybe also a podcast?
I guess we’ll have to wait to find out, right? Folks can follow along on my blog and social media for all of the latest HERE.
Thank you for your time, Jodi. It’s been great to talk with you!
WOW:And you. I’ll let you get back to your being creative and your WOW blog tour with Sleeping with Ghosts.
I am very excited to participating in my second WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour!
For four weeks in October and November, Sleeping with Ghosts will be featured on close to two dozen blogs and websites across the country with book reviews, guest posts, book giveaways, spotlights, and interviews.
It all starts on Monday, October 14 with an interview on the Women on Writing blog The Muffin. I hope you’ll follow along!
WOW! Women on Writing is a global organization, designed to support women’s creativity, energy, blood, sweat and tears, throughout all stages of the writing process.
Its concept is unique, as it fills in the missing gap between writing websites and women’s magazines. WOW! is dedicated to raising the overall standards within the writing community, and devote an active profile within writing industry associations, organizations and websites.
They actively contribute to the love, enjoyment and excitement of producing quality writing — so that the reader in all of us will never want for good material, in any form.
For more about WOW! visit www.wow-womenonwriting.com
The girl in the mirror takes on the twisted shape required to put on earrings — it’s a learned posture: how to do deft work without consideration.
I watch as she decorates herself with the green peridot pair I loved so much and notice the favorite pullover I wore once on a whale trip off the coast of Cape Cod.
The girl is familiar — the eyes mostly, since they are all I choose to look at usually. Those hardly change at all, except when a certain mood hits and they momentarily turn as green as those earrings.
Still, we look at each other sometimes — this girl and I — and we have that kind of silent eye conversation you can only have with people who know you well enough.
Most often it’s a this will have to do rolled-eyes thing she’s perfected. A slight lopsided smirk as if to say…something. I don’t know what.
God, she’s had that lopsided smirk since kindergarten. With a picture to prove it. It seems ironic, sardonic, sarcastic. At five-years-old?
It’s either the smile-smirk of an old soul or a poet, I can’t decide. Reborn or born that way?
But five was a long time ago. Time enough to let smirk lines coexist with laugh lines and that what the fuck indent between her brows.
Has she been perplexed all this time? Since five? Or is circular? Does she come around to understanding now and then? Belief, faith, confidence. Then adrift, nonplussed, confused.
There are days I recognize the all of that. Can see the well-roundedness to her reflections. And days I don’t.
Days I don’t even want to look — use my peripheral senses to pat down the cowlick and add a little color to her cheeks. There, there — a small comfort before we go about our day.
Photo & poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
It’s OK that you drank the Kool-Aid, love.
You needed something
to get you through these last long years,
and the booze just wasn’t cutting it,
we both knew that.
So god it is…
I just wish it was a gentler god,
not an angry one, or judgmental,
not one locked in a house built on dogma
reeking of sins and incense.
I don’t know…if it was me,
I’d want to get to know the god who made the woods
and all its weird and wild creatures,
the one who filled up the ocean and dropped in
whales and welks and narwals,
the one who paints rainbows across the sky
and doesn’t care who takes offense.
I’d want to find a god to suture old wounds
and tug at the threads of trauma
that keep some of us from a fully woven life…
Kool-Aid comes in all flavors, darling
but I prefer mine good and sweet, oh yeah!
Photo & poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
The air smells of wild grapes and skunk
but I don’t dare walk to the curb
to see if the devil has taken another one,
my heart is already broken so much
the weight of its bits and pieces
is pain now living in my bones —
so I ignore all of that
and stand barefoot in the damp grass
soothe the catbird worrying
with a tick tick tick of tongue
I learned from my grandfather
who loved birds enough to sing to them
but not much else, I don’t think
except maybe whiskey
— and guns —
the devil comes in all forms, doesn’t he?
angry men and scared men,
men with a throttle between their legs
so blind with power they don’t slow down
to spare the skunk, her mouthful of sweet grapes,
the joyous morning that could have been.
Photo & poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
Don’t Miss Authors in Conversation: Poets Jen Payne and Julie Fitzpatrick discuss Sleeping with Ghosts at Breakwater Books, October 13
Three Chairs Publishing is pleased to announce the publication of its newest book, Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings by Branford, Connecticut poet Jen Payne. Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams.
Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves slowly, chapter by chapter, in this wistfully reflective, time-traveling memoir that Branford Poet Laureate Judith Liebmann, Ph.D. calls “Beautifully crafted and luminous…an intimate and unforgettable journey of love found and lost, the joys of creativity, and the power of memory.”
Sleeping with Ghosts will be the subject of the Breakwater Books AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION event on Sunday, October 13 (5pm) with Payne and Guilford performer and poet Julie Fitzpatrick. Join them for a convivial exploration of the ghosts and stories from the book. In additional to reading selected poems, the two — who recently collaborated on Fitzpatrick’s poetry book Church on the Screen — will talk about the creative process and the experience of making books.
Come enjoy poetry, creative conversation, and sweet treats during this author event and book signing. Registration is required for the Breakwater event, and books will be available for purchase the night of the event. Please register now at tinyurl.com/ytbujx4h, or visit EVENTS on the Breakwater Books website, breakwaterbooks.net. (Please note there is a $5.50 charge to register, but on the night of the event, you will get a $5 Breakwater Bucks store credit to use any time.)
Sleeping with Ghosts will be featured in a national WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour beginning October 14, and Payne is part of an Authors in the Shop series planned at Guilford Art Center in November. Details can be found here.
Copies of Sleeping with Ghosts (5.5 x 8.5, paperback, 182 pages, $20.00) will be available at Breakwater Books (81 Whitfield Street, Guilford) and the Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford) in October, or pre-order your copy from our Etsy Shop now.
SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS
POEMS & MUSINGS
by Jen Payne
$20.00
Books ship in early October.
They hardly slow down for me
solitary on the side of the road
walking before the heat rises,
so what of her, anyway?
There have been so many this year
one bunny, two bunny…
I count like my grandbaby advises
three bunny, four bunny…
Dead bunny.
Wonder if the driver slowed at all,
considered his violation,
said a prayer if not for her
then for the three babes
one bunny, two bunny…
asleep in the down
dreaming of their mum
and mornings in dewed grass.
But what of her anyway?
She, no matter,
just a long red stripe
over which I step this morning
— there but for the grace of god —
wary of the next car coming
light speed around the bend.
Photo & poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
I see them on the side of the road
have to hold back tears or
suffer similar fate —
we are merciless these days
our endless race
to get from here to there
nevermind the casualties —
so I file them away with
Roadside Tragedies
too much to bear for any family
until they reappear in a dream
their sweet furred selves,
mom and her babes
masked and giggling
running circles on
a green shag carpet that
could be grass or forest
or pillowed green moss
a soft landing for heartache,
respite from the cruelties
of our hard, brutal world
©2024 Jen Payne. Photo from U.S. Fish and Wildlife. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
You, my friend,
are on the wrong side
of history
and someday,
years from now,
they’ll write about you
like they’ve written about
your kind before.
They’ll include photos
of your red hats,
and your fandom flags.
They’ll roll clips
of the playground bully,
the fakes and fools,
your lockstep hate,
the idolatry and rhetoric
that set the fate of your country
— and your offspring —
at the edge of a wild precipice.
They’ll speculate
at the types of personalities
who were more easily duped,
who followed out of fear
or inferiority,
weak mindedness or
— worse —
some base interpretation of god,
and they’ll make comparisons
to the evil we used to read in books,
the ones our families fought wars for,
and they’ll shake their heads,
scorn your poor decisions,
scorn you and
the long, sad wake of your ignorance.
©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
Come the day when your god
falls out of favor
what then?
When you must
face Mecca five times a day,
obey the Buddhist Precepts
posted in your schoolroom,
worship the Golden Plates,
honor a Saturday sabbath,
abstain from
sex
coffee
alcohol
smoking
pork
pornography
swearing
gambling
dairy
shellfish
modern medicine
electricity
music
dancing?
abstain too from
the worship of false prophets
your idolatry of
evil men and criminals
what then?
©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
I want to wake up
thinking about my To Do list
or the last slice of Zuppardi’s pizza
I’ll have for breakfast.
I want to turn over and pet the cat
glance at the book I’m reading
and think about Sunday:
coffee, book, cat
and that’s that.
I want to lie for a while
and plan out the road trip
we wanted to take —
its next leg from Wyoming
up and around and down
to California if we can —
wonder at how we’ve managed
all these years like that
and when we will again.
I want to rest easy
in this wide, soft bed
in this comfortable, quiet home
knowing I have taken good care
of it and myself enough
to outlast the Zeitgeist
roaring outside my window.
But instead I wake too early
wondering if I should stockpile Ramen,
learn how to shoot a pistol,
hoard enough barbiturates
for me and the cat,
consider my escape route
if I should be so lucky.
©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
He tows the party line
so hard now
I expect to see rope burns
in hands that held me.
So hard now
his gestures of hate
in hands that held me —
how blind was I?
His gestures of hate
he holds so firmly —
how blind was I?
Those hands I loved.
He holds so firmly
I expect to see rope burns;
those hands I loved…
he tows the party line.
A pantoum poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
The poems in the
new literary review
are long winded
like me and my
menopausal middle
(or end)
wide and seemingly
without boundary
word upon word upon word
they
write and write and write
until what?
until the train of thought (finally) subsides or
the ink runs out or
the smooth gray lead breaks or
the ribbon runs dry
Wait!
Does technology even have an end point
Does it ever run out?
save for the
Who came up with the idea of a
battery-operated keyboard anyway?
I confess the poems are so long
three pages, six pages, eight pages
I can’t even read them…
my glasses run out of patience
Is that bad? Does that make me a poeta non grata?
What little I can read / bear / swallow
are full up with words
in LONG POEM form
like the exercise of writing
a 500-word essay in school
gathering flowery fragments of tethered expressions joined by marks intended to separate elements and clarify meaning
onto the page
It’s me, I’m the problem. It’s me.
This stew of hormones and ego
fear and frustration
resistance
even in the face of its futility
Please don’t make me fit into this form
wear spanx
abstain from ice cream
suck in my belly
while I
write and write and write
until I’m as out-of-breath as me
post core workout
post parking lot incline
post headline skimming
post anticipating the bleak future that lies ahead
“The long poem is just right for our confounding, fractured age”
writes a woman named Tess I do not know
Perhaps that explains it:
poets wanting to sink into this epic age
“represent the sheer unmanageable scale, the vast and messy confusion, the epic ambivalence, of the 21st century”
while I am pen-wielding and at-the-ready
to slip out the back door and tell you
about the voles who have taken up residence here
in this hundred-year-old cottage
built by a family who wanted nothing more
than a place to enjoy their summers —
listen to bullfrogs in the pond
and watch fireflies dance over the edge
of the mossy granite ledge
where now I plant iris
and wait to catch a glimpse
of the bobcat who only once visited my yard, but still…
But still…ness
is what is required
in these monstrous days
when even poets can’t sit idle
or wax nostalgic about bobcats
and large bowls of ice cream
or plain old simpler times
charged instead to take up the pen and the sword
write and write and write
until the margins explode
or we do
Poem ©2024 Jen Payne with references to an article by Tess Somervell in PSYCHE. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
It had become meager,
the smallest portions of love
metered out in tiny bowls,
with tiny spoons even,
in gestures that implied
generosity
and she would smile
at the novelty of
the dollhouse scale
into which she had settled;
it was a full-face smile
so her eyes could close
pretend she didn’t see it all
for what it was
which was
just enough to hold her
feet glued down
in the pretense of it
the pretending
it was all enough
that stingy love
to which he couldn’t even
give a name
because that would be too much
don’t go fishing
he chastised
when she said she loved him
one last time,
trying to reel in the catch
she knew she had to throw back
before she got so small
she disappeared.
Poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
Was I the only one to pray for you
before the sun fully arrived
to take you back to summer ashes
or sky burial, feted by crowsong
Was I the only one to remember your face
masked among morning shadows,
wondering if the cat and I could see you —
it was just yesterday, my sweet friend
Was I the only one to tend to you
roadside ravaged and alone,
laying you down in soft green comfort
a gathering of god-words at your feet.
Photo by Anne Desch. Poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
The chipmunk,
through no fault of his own,
sat trailside wounded
perhaps I interrupted his prayer —
final words on the wind —
but he startled slowly
and limped across my path
with labored breath
into the shady solace
of honeysuckle
as I whispered comfort
in a soft, quiet voice
stayed a while as witness
found myself still thinking
about that chipmunk
through no fault of his own
wounded, trailside
as the blue car crashed
more silently than you might think
into the white minivan
on the busy byway
pieces of metal flying
in front of me, wondering
did he die without fear
quietly — there — in sweet release?
Poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
Deep in the woods
a spider casts her story
across my eyelids
invites an intricate dream
of fine woven memory
raindrops as sweet wine, and
stars come down to glisten, listen
eavesdrop into her delicate days
the tightrope balance
of patience and power
the writhe and wriggle
in her sacred dance,
even she wonders sometimes
what stories they have to tell —
the ant, the fly, the beetle —
but pays no mind
for hunger is deep
and instinctive,
she whispers,
it knows small mercy.
Photo by Phil Kallahar. Poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
Writing guru Natalie Goldberg advises: “Say what you want to say. Don’t worry if it’s correct, polite, appropriate. Just let it rip.” And author Neil Gaiman suggests, “This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.” Explore what it is about writing — about creating — that has us so frequently stymied. Ask yourself: Why can’t we Just Do It?
INGREDIENTS: collage, color scans, digital art, ephemera, essays, original photographs, poetry, quotes, vintage artwork. With thanks to Emily Dickinson, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Grey’s Anatomy, Madge Kennedy, the New York Zoological Society, Oliver Twist, Harry Potter, Natasha Pulley, and Taylor Swift.
16-page, Full Color 4.75″ square booklet and a curated Spotify playlist. Cost: $8.00.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
MANIFEST (zine) issue #15, WRITE, is on its ways to the printer and should mail sometime in June! I hope you’ll consider supporting this creative project by subscribing today! Your subscription of $25.00 gets you the next 4 issues of MANIFEST (zine).
“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
— Mary Oliver
“I have a room all to myself; it is nature.” — Henry David Thoreau
Wild Geese
By Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Photos ©2024, Jen Payne
“Hope is radical openness for surprise — for the unimaginable. If that is the attitude with which we look, listen, and open all of our senses, we enter into a meaningful relationship with whatever Life offers us at a given moment.” — Brother David Steindl-Rast
Photos ©2024, Jen Payne
“I began to make plans for what my future might be—what once felt like a mad dash to the end of a cliff now felt like an interesting path in a beautiful wood that may or may not lead to the top of a mountain. And yes, the chances of my arrival at that destination were uncertain, but oh! What a mountain! And oh! What a view! And what a pleasure it was to keep moving forward.” ― Kelly Barnhill, When Women Were Dragons
Photos ©2024, Jen Payne
“Anytime we approach a state of awe, we are in relationship with divinity. We are awake.” — The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Book
Photos ©2024, Jen Payne
“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now
Photos ©2024, Jen Payne
In celebration of my blog’s 14th Anniversary, I offer you these 14 Fun Facts about Random Acts of Writing…
1. Random Acts of Writing is followed by more than 1,700 people around the world, including my high school English teacher who reminded me, early on, that it was important to keep my writing universal so more people could understand and appreciate it.
2. In total, there have been close to 37,000 visits to Random Acts of Writing and more than 110,000 distinct views since 2010.
3. According to WordPress, most folks like to read the blog on Mondays at 11:00 a.m. That’s…random.
4. My most popular post ever is “Something More Important Than Fear,” which was featured on WordPress’ home page and garnered 2,000 views. My most popular post in the past year was “Road Trip Big Bend: Big Bend National Park.” Both, ironically, about Texas.
5. Travel is often featured here on Random Acts of Writing, with frequent posts about Texas, France, Cape Cod, day trips, and the awesomeness that is the American Road Trip.
6. Alice in Wonderland makes regular visits to this blog, as do Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and my Dad. But it was Gene Kelly who starred in the opening number back in 2010.
7. As a graphic designer as well as a writer, I know the importance of images. That’s why there have been more than 3,000 images posted, including famous and obscure artwork and original photography.
8. Random Acts of Writing is a fifth generation creative effort that has its roots in the 1980s zine culture. The Latest News was its first incarnation, which I published from 1989 – 1996.
9. It turns out, I am an internet research geek. Many of the posts you read are infused with details from Google Books, Wiki Art, the Library of Congress, Wikipedia, Bible Hub, and Quote Investigator. I once spent four totally nerdy hours on Google Patents and had to stop because my mouse hand cramped up.
10. The intention of Random Acts of Writing has shape-shifted over the years, but its most-talked-about topics include creativity, books, nature, spirituality, and poetry.
11. Every April since 2015, I have attempted to write a poem a day for National Poetry Month. You can see all of the results here.
12. All of that writing — more than 2,000 posts — led to the publication of four books: LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, Waiting Out the Storm, and Water Under the Bridge: A Sort of Love Story.
13. All of that writing has also fed my quarterly publication called MANIFEST (zine) and my new book, Sleeping with Ghosts, coming out this fall!
14. This is the 14th time I have written an anniversary post, each of which has ended with gratitude to YOU, my readers, for your Comments, your Likes, and your support since 2010. It has been a blessing to share this journey and this ongoing conversation with you.
Love, Jen
Three Chairs Publishing is psyched to present MANIFEST (zine) issue #14: You Mean a Woman Can Open It?
As a woman born in the late 60s, there’s never been any question that I can be whatever I want to be. It’s what my parents and teachers taught me. It’s what my role models in the 70s and 80s demonstrated for me — Mary Tyler Moore, Marlo Thomas, Judy Blume, Madeleine Blaise, Madonna, Jane Fonda. And it’s how I’ve lived my life since I was old enough to make my own decisions about things — how I work and play, where I live and love, what I do and how. My own terms. My own expectations.
Of course, that doesn’t sit well with some folks. Mostly male folks of a certain genre. And there have always been attempts to keep me “in my place” — verbally, physically, financially, and so forth. But like so many countless women, I have persevered and succeeded, despite the obstacles and objections.
YOU MEAN A WOMAN CAN OPEN IT? is in honor of ALL the women who can, who do, and who keep on doing — who persist — no matter what.
INGREDIENTS: collaged elements, color copies, color scans, digital art, ephemera, essays, original photographs, poetry, quotes, vintage artwork. With thanks to the voices of #metoo, Ruth Orkin, Man Ray, Augustin Pajou, Céline (Melle-T), Bethany Armitage, Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, Carol Nicklaus, Elizabeth Warren, and Wonder Woman.
20-page, Full Color 5×7 booklet, free bookmark, and a curated Spotify playlist, Cost: $8.00 or subscribe and get 4 issues for $25.00.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
Here are two points of fact…
1. The Law of Attraction says that positive thoughts bring positive results into a person’s life, while negative thoughts bring negative outcomes.
and
2. Humans are unable to look away from a train wreck.
I point this out because there is energy in thought. And there is energy in where we put our focus. This is the concept behind prayer as much as the Law of Attraction.
I want to remind you of this — remind all of us — as we head into that contentious and energetic conflict we call Election Season.
Donald Trump and the MAGA zeitgeist is a train wreck of epic proportion, and it’s hard to look away. It’s hard not to watch the video clips and stare at the headlines in agony; not to gasp, mock, or tremble with horror at the hypocrisy and hate spewing forth; not to share “look what they’re doing now” posts on social media.
Believe it or not, all of that — those reactions — are actually innate human responses. Watching disasters — like staring at a car accident when you drive by, watching news broadcasts about tornadoes, or fixating on Trump’s behavior — triggers our survival instincts.
Our brains are wired to perceive potential danger, analyze and interpret the situation, decide if we should fight or flight.
And studies have shown that we are also prone to what is called “negative bias.”
One study published by the American Psychological Association found that we react to and learn more from our negative experiences than we do positive ones. ‘Humans are prone to negative bias and negative potency,’ explains psychologist Dr. Renee Carr. ‘Negative bias is the tendency to automatically give more attention to a negative event and negative information than positive information or events.”(1)
This explains why we know more about Trump’s criminal activities and abhorrent behaviors than we do about all of the good news in our country and around the world.
• Here Are 16 Good News Stories To Give You Hope in 2024
• Yes, there’s some good news as 2024 gets underway
• 24 good things already happening in 2024
I bet you didn’t click on any of those links. That’s part of the negative bias. We’re likely more interested in what other angry things I have to say about Trump than we are that deforestation is decreasing in the Amazon Rainforest, that formerly endangered species like the American bald eagle and the humpback whale are recovering, that there’s a new malaria vaccine about to change the face of public health in Africa.(2)
Negative bias isn’t all bad. “The healthy component of watching disasters is that it is a coping mechanism,” says clinical psychologist Dr. John Mayer. “We can become incubated emotionally by watching disasters and this helps us cope with hardships in our lives. Looking at disasters stimulates our empathy and we are programmed as humans to be empathetic — it is a key psychosocial condition that makes us social human beings.”(3)
But let’s come back to the Law of Attraction. As the book explains:
The Law of Attraction says: That which is like unto itself, is drawn. When you say birds of a feather flock together, you are actually talking about the Law of Attraction. You see it evidenced when you wake up feeling unhappy, and then throughout the day things get worse and worse….You see the Law of Attraction evidenced in your society when you see that one who speaks most about illness has illness; when you see that the one who speaks most about prosperity has prosperity.(4)
We are what we think. We attract that on which we focus.
“As you observe things on the television or in the newspaper, that, because you do not want them, make you feel negative emotion — you hinder your allowance of what you do want.”(5)
While that negative bias — focusing on the negative — is a good coping mechanism, it also means we’re investing our time and thoughts in seeing all of what is wrong and bad, and not what is good and possible. The negative gets all of the attention, and the algorithm of what we see and how we perceive things gets skewed.
So let’s bring this home — to 2024 and the election season.
The more we focus on Trump and the tsunami of fear and hatred, the more our energy — our emotional energy, our thought energy — is projected in that direction. The more we think about something, the more we attract it. Not to mention the fact that the more we read his headlines and share his news, the more free air time and advertising we’re giving him and his campaign.
In an ideal world, there would be a setting to block how much Trump news shows on our feeds. Like Parental Controls, only maybe called Peace of Mind Controls?
Because the more bandwidth he gets, the less there is for headlines about all of the good things happening here in the U.S. and across the world. And the less we see and share the good news, the harder it is to have faith that things will get better, to have hope for our future as a country, and ultimately, as a race.
Think there’s not enough good news to share? Then check out the Good News Network with positive and uplifting stories about conservation efforts, medical and scientific achievements, people making a difference, and all of the good things happening around the world and right here in the United States!
Namaste.
1 – “The Science Behind Why We Can’t Look Away From Tragedy,” by Danielle Page.
2 – “24 Good Things Already Happening in 2024,” by Chris Taylor on January 5, 2024.
3 – “The Science Behind Why We Can’t Look Away From Tragedy”
4 – Hicks, Esther., Hicks, Jerry. The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham. United Kingdom: Hay House, 2006.
5 – Ibid.
Photo by Victor Freitas, Pexels. Essay ©2024, Jen Payne.
I remember the first time I was ever gobsmacked by art. Do you?
My WHOA! moment was back in the early 80s at Amherst College’s Mead Art Museum. I was wandering one of the galleries clockwise and came first, unmoved, to Thomas Cole’s painting The Present showing a castle in ruins, abandoned and backlit by a sunrise or sunset. But it was his second painting, The Past, that stopped me in my tracks. It depicted the same castle and landscape, only at some mythical point in the past, broad daylight, with throngs of people and a jousting tournament in play.
I remember the paired paintings — and my reaction to them — vividly, to this day.
I love when art MOVES us like that. Makes us stop, gasp, internalize it. Carry it with us, decades later. For me, it’s Rodin’s Crouching Woman at the Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden in D.C., Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss at the Louvre, Shepard Fairey’s Arab Woman at the ICA in Boston, Van Gogh’s Starry Night at Yale.
With that same sense of a visceral experience, I spent several hours at the Yale Art Gallery again this weekend. Maybe it was the fact that it was my first time in a large museum since COVID, or that I spent the day with a friend who was equally enthralled and inspired by the energy of the space and the vast amount of famous and fantastic art — but I left full up with awe and appreciation, and a deep gnawing urge to create something WHOA myself!
Here are some sights from the Gallery…
Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.
— William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze
I knew it was coming. In that same way the slight rumble in the sky tells you there’s a storm coming, the telltale first cough told me Sick was about to arrive.
It started on a Friday, early in the morning. By noon, I was enthusiastically coughing, by three, I was losing my voice and canceling dinner and weekend plans.
Dr. Google confirmed it was not one, RSV, and a COVID test outruled the other. So I gathered my potions — wild cherry bark syrup, Throat Coat® tea, slippery elm lozenges, magical immune support tablets — and took to the couch.
Sick transformed pretty quicky into bronchitis. There were some days I swear I was about to meet a lung in person for all of the coughing. I sounded like a Muppet and, thanks to a round of pinkeye, looked like a zombie for most of December.
And while I missed the month-long fray of holidays activities, I also missed the month-long fray of holidays activities. Instead, I rested…a lot.
I took it easy. And I napped. And I slept. And I sat on the couch and read books. And I watched all eight of the Harry Potter movies (again). And then I slept, again.
Even Work took a back seat to Sick for the month. Lots of things did. But, it turns out, being sick was just what the doctor ordered.
In the past month, I’ve managed to reset my nervous system that’s been in fight-or-flight mode for a very long time. I feel calm and centered in a way I have not since the quiet days of 2020.
I have not set my alarm clock since December 1, and my sleep routine feels balanced and healthy. It turns out, I need NINE hours of sleep, not six — and if I allow it, my body sleeps and wakes in an easy natural rhythm.
If I allow it, I move around in an easy, natural rhythm, too. I remember this rhythm — it’s the beat I dance to when I’m on retreat or vacation, when I listen to my inner music that says: go for a long walk, you need a nap, take some time off.
I suspect we all need more rest than we allow ourselves. We all need more time on the couch with books and comfort movies. Now, in these precarious times more than ever.
Question: is it possible that the only resolution for 2024 is REST?
©2023, Jen Payne
I’ve been doing the Goodreads Reading Challenge for 10 years now, and this is the sixth year I’ve successfully met my personal goal of reading 50 books — 52 actually! This year’s statistics, according to Goodreads’ My Year in Books, included 14,328 pages read with an average book length of 276 pages. The shortest book, clocking in at 52 pages, was Marigold and Rose by Louise Glück, and the longest, at 676 pages, was Habibi, a gorgeous graphic novel by Craig Thompson.
Some of my highest rated books, with five stars, were also some of my favorites: From My Button Box: Collected Essays in a Pandemic Time (Judith Bruder), Leaving Time (Jodi Picoult), The Book of Longings (Sue Monk Kidd), The Invisible Hour (Alice Hoffman), Julia and the Shark and The Dance Tree (Kiran Millwood Hargrave), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), The Book of Lost Names (Kristin Harmel), November 9 and Verity (Colleen Hoover), The Paris Library (Janet Skeslien Charles), and Other Birds (Sarah Addison Allen).
For better or for worse, I often find book inspiration from List Challenge, and I am so tempted to consider reading Rory Gilmore’s Reading List or the 100 Books to Read Before You Die or Books to Read to Be Considered Well Read. But I much more prefer wandering the shelves at the library or following breadcrumbs from this book to the next.
My next pile for 2024 includes not so much books as authors. I want to read more Jodi Picoult because we’ve only just met this year. Also Ann Patchett, John Green, and Isabel Allende.
How about you? What have you been reading lately? And what are you looking forward to in 2024?
“All these migrants crossing the border! They’re destroying our country!” she proclaims, just arrived from Christmas mass, where the whole congregation rejoiced the arrival of Jesus. The hypocrisy shocks me silent, my heart screaming “Jesus was a migrant, for Christ’s sake.” The next chapter in this merry-making-gift-giving story includes his parents’ flight from oppression, how they sought refuge in a foreign country to find a better life for their child. Or didn’t you read that far? Do your holiday prayers exclude empathy and compassion, do unto others, Matthew 25? Did you forget the ALL of the purpose of the child?
©2023, Jen Payne. IMAGE: Flight Into Egypt, by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1923.
In these post-pandemic days with the black veil of politics, wars, mass shootings, and climate change draped over our collective humanity, I suspect we are all suffering, in some way, from what clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Dr. Scott Eilers, calls “ambiguous grief.” It’s the realization that something you always thought you’d have will never come to be, or mourning the loss of an alternate version of yourself — or Your World — that will never exist. This small zine touches on that big subject through seven poignant poems.
Color, mini booklet + Inserts and a curated Spotify playlist, Cost: $8.00 or subscribe and get 4 issues for $25.00.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
I am sitting on my screen porch in the Love & Relationships bagua of my house eating Liangfen. Called “Rice Bean Jello” on the menu, it is a bowl of delicate, translucent noodles served with cilantro and chili oil; a Sichuan dish sometimes called “heartbreaking jelly noodles.”
If you feel sad or heartbreaking, go and taste it,
then your sadness will go with the wind
since it is too spicy, so that
all the feeling you have is a spicy taste.
I ordered Liangfen for just this moment — Sunday lunch on my screen porch and quiet meditations on Love & Relationships — part of a mindful evaluation process a friend and I are working through this fall.
It is not surprising to me that the Love & Relationships bagua of my home — the far right corner of the nine-squared feng shui map — is a screen porch. A place where seasons come and go, where winds shift and conditions often change.
And so, the Liangfen and its intention to chase away sadness are good company as I take inventory of Love & Relationships, and honor all of the changes that line up in multiple columns on what I call my Loss List.
If I were more inspired, the Loss List could probably be one of those fancy word clouds, but for now it’s just a long list; the friends, clients, loves, acquaintances, advisors, and communities to which I am no longer attached. The people and places no longer part of my present — or my future.
Sometimes, I want to point fingers, blame the pandemic, firmer boundaries, age and natural attrition, poor choices, humans. Other times, I just want someone to validate the losses with a giant YES stamp, I GET IT.
This is grief of course — heavy, messy, capricious GRIEF that breezes in and out of my days like the unpredictable breezes from Long Island Sound.
And there’s a lot of it — like climate changing levels of grief. The kind that shifts the ground, floods your reserves, erodes hope. Or…maybe it’s the kind that burns off the detritus in a blazing firestorm to eventually become beautiful new growth?
But I’m not there yet.
Today, I’m sitting on my screen porch enjoying the first chilly afternoon of fall, there’s a hawk bearing witness to my tears, the cause of which is only this bowl of Liangfen — just heartbreakingly spicy enough for a quiet reckoning.
Essay ©2023, Jen Payne. Click here to read more from Jen. Click here for more on Liangfen from China Sichuan Food.
randomactsofwriting.net