20190611.0430

I wrote on 11 June in this webspace in each of the following years: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. The last, again, is a short poem in a cycle of them, bearing no real explication on its own. The 2017 is a vaguely Shakespearean sonnet, though I do not claim writerly skill to equal that of Billy Shakes. The 2016 is a bit of free verse, and the 2015 a report on current circumstances. The 2014 was a reflection on my inability to watch the San Antonio Spurs play basketball if I want them to win; I know it ascribes entirely too much agency to me to be accurate, but it was still an interesting thing on which to think at the time.
Looking at the 2015 piece, I remember being paid to read popular novels and write them up. When it was available, it was good work, and I miss it. It played to my strengths, after all--if nothing else, I can read swiftly and well. And, at $100 plus the cost of the book for each job, with me able to do three or four a week, it was a welcome addition to the family finances. It still would be, though I think I could probably only do two each week at this point. Still, I could find ways to use an additional $200 each week. I think most people could. I wonder whatever happened that made it dry up...
Looking at the 2017 piece, with its typical English-language sonnet form, I recognize again that it is something of a paean to the Texas Hill Country, where I grew up and where I live again. (I am not likely to move away from it again, though I do travel away from it from time to time.) It does make reference to other places I have lived: southwestern Louisiana; New York City; and Stillwater, Oklahoma. And it does so obliquely, not naming the places, but giving descriptions of them that take on a mildly riddling function. Louisiana only emerges from the lines for those familiar with its physical and cultural geography. New York City only comes across for those who've heard of Manhattanhenge and are familiar with the squared-off layout of many of New York County's streets. Stillwater pops out for those familiar with a musical and the relatively recent geological instability of the place (occasioned by fracking, as is clear to me and many others, even if denied by some).
Overt, though, is my reaffirmation of belonging in the Hill Country. When my family came here more than thirty years ago, it was because we had been battered. When I returned, bringing my family with me, in 2016, it was because I had been beaten. I continue to recover, if in different ways than recovery often looks here. I have to think it is something about this place that allows me to do so.