Memoirous

October   Books litter the bed, leaves the lawn. It lightly rains. Fall has come: unpatterned, in the shedding leaves.   The maples ripen. Apples come home crisp in bags. This pear tastes good. It rains lightly on the random leaf patterns.   The nimbus is spread above our island. Rain lightly patters on un- shed leaves. The books of fall litter the bed. I’m still high from reading Nathan Kernan’s A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler. Mental illness permeated his adult years—but also he was bound by the seasons. So many of his poems contain seasonal observations. This one hints at relationships: our island; at love: the bed; at unrequited loneliness: dreary autumn rain. For Schuyler there were rings of friendship—but also failed romances. There was getting older; memories of bygone days; unfulfilled dreams. October holds all of this. Goodbye October.

  All the leaves came down   All it takes is one storm                         A fierce wind                                     And one night   A shaking of the boughs                         A rattling of the bones                                     To surrender   Add to that, cold                ...

Guess what? I’ve run out of updates. I always paused my updates and scheduled them for once a month. Yes, I ignored the warnings until I was forced to reckon—just like when merging into one lane during highway construction, I’ll wait until I’ve run out of road. Thus, here I am at a juncture. I have to upgrade my computer to something that runs Windows 11, which means a new computer. Now, to be fair, this was inevitable as my laptop was 9 years old, the processor approximately 10, the exclamation/number 1 key was defunct (I used the number keypad to get around this) and the screen needed warm up time. But I LOVED IT. It worked. It words processed. I wrote novels, articles, short stories, flash on it. The laptop went with me from Chicago to Oregon to Michigan. Just like my bike, I see the computer as an extension of me and my identity. How does one trade that in? It’s old just like me, limping along. The new one should arrive just in time for my birthday—hopefully we can both a...

A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler Nathan Kernan Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2025 Finishing A Day Like Any Other is like saying goodbye to a dear friend. Indeed, it is over 450 pages of a LIFE. A life like no other. Really. I used to think that Jimmy and I were a lot alike, that we could have been friends—had I gone to NYC in 1982 instead of Chicago. Instead, I met a lot of people like Jimmy. But, no, after reading the book, I see we are not at all alike. I think it’s the poetry I could relate to. So accessible. That made me feel I was sitting there in his SRO having a chat, the noise from the busy NY city streets floating up to us through a dingy window. His city poems, the ones describing flowers, his pastoral ones from Vermont, Great Spruce Head Island, etc. The ease of the “Morning of the Poem”, which, according to the biography took many mornings. Just like the long poem “A Few Days” was composed over several months. I need to keep the biography—not a critica...

  Girl, 1983 Linn Ullmann, translated from Norwegian by Martin Aitken W.W, Norton & Company, 2024, original 2021   “A masterpiece. It pushes the fused power of memoir and story to a new dimension.” Ali Smith I’ve read Ali Smith—along with a whole slew of other authors that blurbed the book: Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, Roxana Robinson, Claire Messud. This is a power field of influencers, all praising Girl, 1983. But, it is the Smith endorsement that caught my attention. You see, memoir and story are the cornerstones of my Freeze Frame: Micro-Memoir workshop. Also, the 1980s is hot right now. There’s been a flashback to that era of glam, neons, and discothèques. Raving all night long before AIDS, the pandemic, before fractious politics. Maybe not AIDS—it’s at the door, knocking. The memories and vignettes are built around tension, a secret, a blurry photograph that keeps the narrator awake at night, from enjoying life, caught in a confluence of guilt and questions...

Now for something different. I’ve discovered a YouTube channel that is super soothing—even when she gets lost, which she definitely does and is very transparent about, but in a happy-go-lucky kind of way. Susanna Thornton is a freelancer and videographer from the UK. She is an optimist. “Oh, dear, it’s starting to rain.” “It’s certainly hard-going.” “There’s a head wind.” “I can’t seem to find water and shelter and night is falling.” All of these predicaments I’ve faced as a solo cyclist but without her cheerful attitude. Is it British stiff upper lip or putting on a face for her viewers? I have a feeling she was born this way—with an outlook that finds beauty in the sublime and in the experience of freedom cycling brings. She easily conveys this to her audience. That’s why the films are so addicting. I need optimism, I need to feel freedom; I long for the open road. Especially after getting back from hiking the Kungsleden in northern Sweden. Folks ask me if I miss it, a...

This has been a long time coming—and, even now, I’m not sure how to proceed. This is not my first rodeo, but I’m at a time/point in life where I feel very fragile. About EVERYTHING. You see, I’m a Woman of a Certain Age. I want you to order the book, I want you to read the collection, I want you to love/like it. I’m a bit lost. Yes, there’s social media, the immediacy of emails. There’s even the option of paid advertising, but how does one really get eyes on something when it seems everyday life is sucking all the energy out of us? I wish it were easier—like being famous already, like an influencer, like having Oprah as a best friend (fill in the blank). The stories range from long to short, biographical to purely made up shit, from oldest to newest. But they are all Woman centric. I had a young male reader tell me they made him cry—not all of them, but a few. He was definitely inspired, he said. Let me know if you are influencer, a professor, a friend and I can link you to...

My days in Skene were centered around Ulrika and her family. Time here is very fluid and the most important thing is to relax, because eventually something will happen, people will gather their things, start a project at midnight, or simply sit around a table as the room grows dark and they light candles while we continue to chat. I've come to find over my years of travel that the people I collect and know are not “typical.” Yesterday started with a typical Swedish breakfast at a point sometime before noon. Typical in the sense that they emptied out the refrigerator onto the table. There were tea choices, juice options, and, of course, 3 or 4 cheeses, meats, and fish tin tins along with spreads and an array of toppings. Then there was the bread–three or four different kinds. There is no stopping the Swedish breakfast train. After eating we went to the second-hand store. It's not just me, but everyone loves to get a deal. I found more things for my daughter and grandsons. Then w...

I leave for home tomorrow, Sept. 9, so today was a free day. My friend Ulrika and I drove up yesterday because she wanted the car for a retreat she was going on with other 1st and 2nd year students in her Deaconess course. We arrived last night after 8, after a long car ride. She showed me around –good thing, because we had very little time this a.m. to say goodbye. But first, I have to write about our intruder last night. The school allows distance students to board, giving them space in music practice rooms. It's basically a room with a bed, piano, and amp. It's located in a basement off a long cement reinforced hallway. Sort of like the basement of a gym. We're across from bathrooms, sauna, and shower. The door handle has a keypad on it. When we were about to go to bed, Ulrika asked me, Should I lock the door? There's a tumbler, which I'm not sure if it overrides the key code. One can also use a key. Anyway, she didn't turn the lock. I was about to say, maybe...

When Ulrika mentioned we would leave early, I had my own idea. She just meant before 2 pm. AFTER the Swedish breakfast. They had prepared their camper or caravan for me to sleep in. It was absolutely perfect. My own potty, electric cooker for tea, and a cozy bed. I felt like the New Zealand author Janet Frame in the dramatized bio movie, Angel at my Table (very last scene). So because we had such a late dinner, this a.m. we had what was intended as our after dinner (last night's) snack. Nevertheless, a full smorgasbord. Ulrika said before we depart (noon?) we'll have a second breakfast with eggs and bacon to hopefully catch up. I'm personally not sure I can eat a second breakfast after all that I had at the ender/starter meal. After eating again we left for Stockholm around 2. We stopped at a roadside plaza for the restroom and to climb around in an abandoned castle. I know, not what you'd expect in the US. It was modest, with a tower and several rooms, built in the mid...

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The huts All are beautifully situated and well stocked. You might be able to get away without bringing an inflatable pillow or sleeping bag–those items were more necessary on my night train from Ostersund to Stockholm. Anyway, there is provided on the mattress (adequate, no need to supplement with a Thermarest) a pillow and comforter. I was there very end of August til September 1, and I was too warm in my room at night I hiked without a stove, fuel, pot. This saved greatly on weight. I thought, from reading trip diaries and YouTube that I might want a mid-day warm up, a hot lunch. No. I kept going and my stops to refuel were tortilla sandwiches from the cheese, meat, and cucumber I bought at the Coop grocery at the Stockholm Central train station. More about food under those reflections. The huts also provide propane to heat up water, etc. Every other hut sold pantry items. From hut to hut, the layout was basically the same. Except not really. And this is embarrassing. I only spent a ...

  Riding Bikes at Night in October was accepted nearly a year ago and I had to wait until now for it to come out—But it is worth the wait. Again, the piece was something not quite new and not quite poetry: A prose poem? Maybe. Riding Bikes is out in Ink in Thirds. It is flash memoir of a nighttime ride in Chicago with a couple from France who was staying with me via Couchsurfing. We left the bonfire we’d made in the sideyard and got on our bikes to ride the Lakefront Trail. The moon, a harvest moon?, was huge in the sky. It was a Stonehenge hanging there between two highrises as we pedaled into downtown. It was one of those sublime moments where you are happy to be alive and experiencing life. An excerpt from: we ride the lakefront path in semi-darkness past the golf course the tennis courts the batting cages the dog park the quiet zoo streets deserted, riding into the heart of the city as if it were a full moon photo by Barry Butler

  Friday, September 5 Tranas to Boras to Skene, meeting up with Ulrika. This a.m Lotta came downstairs in her robe saying she was going to jump in the lake. I declined to join her. She relished the idea it would be cold. These Nords! So calm, so practical. Let's see. I started my trip picking up a package at my hostel from Lotta of trekking poles and a folding knife and a nondescript envelope of money. Approximately $50 cash, since I couldn't get any in the States before leaving. I was to pay her back after getting to Tranas and pulling out currency. My train left Stockholm station so early, my plan was to open the package before boarding and leave the box for trash. I was reminded of the opening to the old TV show, Mission Impossible, my mission if I chose to accept it, was to hike Kungsleden. I accept. So my trip began with intrigue, the feeling of subterfuge, working undercover. Lotta's mission if she chose to accept it was to get me to the bus station in Granna on time ...

Fringe Festival, Tranås An enclave of aficionados of the NY School (poetry) Before leaving for the Kungsleden, before leaving home, I’d prepared my Tranås   at the Fringe workshop on Micro-Memoir. Once in Tranås   at my friend’s house, she even printed off my workshop notes: It went out the window. It was the participants that directed the discussion. And, very early on, it became apparent that 1) I’d, indeed, prepared well and 2) the focus of my talk on the New York School of Poets was EXACTLY spot on. I know, it sounds ridiculous and even I questioned what I was doing. Why talk about poetry when the title of the talk was Micro-Memoir? Then, if not confusing enough, why bring in obscure American poets? Over a smorgasbord breakfast my friend in Tranås   had said, I’m not familiar with the literary term—flash. It seems it isn’t a thing over here. Hmmm. The bedrock of my seminar was shredded. I’d have to scrap everything. But once at the library and in the m...

The rain drummed on the rooftop the night before; I fell asleep to the sound of rain, thinking I'm glad I'm not out in it or trying to get somewhere. My entire Kungsleden had been rain-free. I awoke on Wednesday to clear blue skies checkered with some fluffy white clouds. I expected standing water after the amount it rained the day before, but the pavement only retained a few dark traces that would soon dry up. Lotta had a plan for the day. We ate breakfast, again, little sandwiches on homemade seedy bread along with tea. Their house is situated uphill right next to a lake. Lotta said it used to be a small hotel and in fact famous writers used to stay here. It is, indeed, idyllic. She said one well-known poet is said to have stayed here who died of syphilis. I said I hope I do not have his bed. We shared a laugh. Yesterday because I was tired and at that moment the rain was merely a drizzle we went to a thrift store. That's how I look for unique items to bring home. The cas...