The Joy of Finishing

In 2022, I read a blog somewhere on WordPress about the Japanese 72 microseasons. This had me falling into a rabbit hole about an idea for a manuscript. That year I set out to write a poem every five days about the world around me. Most often these poems were written while in nature and drawing from how the man made world collides with the natural world, how we influence each other.

My goal was to have it done in a year, but life happens as did the seasonal affect disorder which made the creation of poems in the fall and winter the hardest. This morning, with notes from those times, I finished the last two poems of the collection.

There is a certain joy in the process of finishing. I sort of beat myself up when I couldn’t complete it in a year and in younger times, I would have abandoned the project all together, but this time I was determined to see it through no matter how long it took. This morning I thought I had seven poems to write to finish, but when I combed through my files, I found there were only two remaining. That is a joy too.

I am going to ride this high all day. I also received copies of my new book “Little Graveyards” this morning. I worked on signing a bunch to send back to the publisher and I am excited to share it with the world. This book was also an exercise in finishing and patience. It is filled with poems that span my 20 years as a bedside nurse and all the pain and suffering I collected there. The book is still available for pre-order through Roadside Press.

Read. Write. Support small press writers, independent book stores, and local artists. We all have something to say if you listen hard enough. Thanks for reading.

Aleathia