Even in my search for the right job (angels singing, heavenly light busting through the clouds), I recently landed a great gig as a Writer-in-Residence at Children’s Hospital.  Sponsored by Seattle Arts & Lectures, who run the Writers in the Schools program here in Seattle, this pilot program has just begun. One other writer and I head to Children’s each week to work one on one with patients, hopefully helping them to craft poems and stories, and (at the very least) to get them excited about writing.

I’m honored to be a part of this program, but I’m also quite nervous. After one day in the hospital I think I may have already learned the most important lesson: be ready for anything. We never know who will be around or who will feel well enough to work. It might be a six year old or an 18 year old. They may already love to write or they may be afraid to. Every situation asks something different of us.

Day one, I strolled in with a bag of tricks—lesson plans, hands-on projects, paper, pens, etc.—a smile glued in place. I left having hardly touched the bulk of it. I ended up doing something I’ve never done before: writing spells with a seven year old. We got warmed up, the rhymes and rhythm of the words gaining momentum, until I suggested a form. Each spell would include the result of the spell before it as an initial ingredient. The game began to slip into a poem that turned over itself—one thing morphing musically into the next.

This role seems a hybrid of many types: teacher-poet-mentor-friend-listener. I can’t push a student the way I would in a traditional setting as there is already too much stress in the hospital environment. This program aims, at least in part, to offer some relief from that stress. The listener role comes naturally, and this helps with the notion of a mentorship, but how to teach writing there? How to teach writing anywhere? It’s a mysterious field and I’m doing my best to keep filling my bag of tricks with anything I can think of.

How do you prepare yourself for what you cannot expect?

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There will, inevitably, be more difficult challenges than what, or how, to teach. We may lose students. We may be witness to the hard life of others and have to bear some of that weight. And yet, these pieces don’t deter me at all. My only worry is that I won’t have enough to offer.

I can already see that the steep learning curve will take some time to grow through, but I’m extremely fortunate that the folks at Seattle Arts & Lectures work hard to create a community of writers and teachers—and the support is genuine.

Stay tuned for updates and wish me resourcefulness and the dynamic mind to react quickly to every situation.

I’ve been absent here, partly out of busy-ness, partly out of paralysis. I think I’m having a quarter-life crisis.

This past year has been filled with wonder and challenge. I’ve found myself inside the realm of fatherhood and further along with my vocation of writing. But now, more than ever, I don’t know what to do with my life. The village and a careful budget are allowing us to live happily now, but what next? We have dreams of a house and a bit of land, a place to stay for a while. And yet, neither Elie or I have aspirations for a job that will earn much of anything.

I’m a hard worker—resourceful and creative. Though, I typically refuse to accept the status quo, which often exaggerates the problem: most of my passions aren’t worth much money in this world.

I’ve been dreading the stress of the unwanted job, especially since I have known meaningful and enjoyable work. This worry has kept me up many nights and the answers are slow in coming.

What do I love doing that people will pay me for?

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I came across these amazing maps recently, a geological study of historical flood patterns of the Mississippi Meander Belt by Harold Fisk. The incredibly varied paths, each in a different color, look like a rainbow on drugs. (Or a rainbow that refused the status quo).

I’ve never been worried about the long run. I don’t see that worry starting up now. And I suppose it is nice to think of an established river being kind of manic, having run more courses than we can know. My map is barely started, but already looks like a young Mississippi whose potential certainly ignores the banks. Something will work out. It always does.

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Meanwhile, I’ve received my contributor copies of the current issues of Cincinnati Review and Prairie Schooner—you can read and hear the poems here, and be sure to let me know what you think.

p.s.—if you are in Seattle, I’ll be reading at the Richard Hugo House this Thursday, Dec. 3rd at 7pm. I am a brand new Writer-in-Residence at Children’s Hospital with Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writer’s in the Schools program and I’ll be sharing the stage with a few other current residents.

Those of you who know me know that I love to cook. It’s another creative outlet—a way to focus on the process of making. This love developed late, but it has come on strong in the past six or seven years. I wouldn’t admit to being a foodie by any means, and I’m certainly not a chef, but I do feel like a poet in the kitchen.

I take the striking pieces of the world—onions, garlic, olive oil, spinach and spices—things that call to be used, and I work them over, as in a poem, hoping the right words in the right order will knock someone over. I hope my poems, like the memory of a good meal will stay with a person.

I cook and write with intention, but I also search the cupboards and imagine the possible meal. I always improvise.

One of my favorite things is the reinvention of leftovers. Sure, they can been good cold or merely reheated, but leftovers seem a chance to take well-cooked food and make it new.

Two nights ago I made sweet potato and butternut squash soup. I roast the potatoes and squash and add them to the soup late, which I don’t puree. I like to mash it a bit, but leave the vegetables chunky to emphasize the heartiness of the meal. Soup next to the fireplace assures one that fall is indeed good.

Last night we had soup enough for two, but four mouths to feed. I drained a bit of the “broth,” added cottage cheese, parmesan, salt and a good deal of pepper and mixed it all together. Then I put a teaspoon of the sweet potato/squash mix in about 50 wonton wrappers and sealed them like ravioli. They boil for about two minutes, then cook in a little browned butter and, voilà, delicious homemade sweet-potato-butternut-squash pasta is served.

The thing is, like a poem’s revision, the second meal is often better than the first.

For years I hated the rain. Couldn’t stand winter. Wanted to be far south, warm, covered in sand and salt water, the blue sky swelling to the edges of what is visible.

Embarrassing fact: I regularly wore Hawaiian print shirts in middle and high school.

Fact of even greater embarrassment: I had frosted tips in my hair.

I’m still working to forgive myself this long gone lameness.

So what’s changed (besides, thankfully, my attire and hairstyle)? It seems, in my return to this abandoned homeland, that I have found the way to thrive in the wet dark winters.

Get outside. Especially in the worst of it.

We’ve made a regular practice of this—hiking in downpours, walking in the drizzle, paddling with numb hands under the gray gauze that typifies a Seattle sky.

And the fall has been amazing. I can’t get enough of the cool dark days. The flooding ravines and lingering smell of rot and slow growth. The striking pale blue sky after the clouds’ departure. Everything is crisp and lush at the same time.

Walking with River and Elle, paddling alone, sitting under the eave at the heaviest rains. I’ve had a good fill this fall. But I’m still hungry for more.

I’ve been a bachelor for nearly a week now while Elle and River have been enjoying family in Minnesota. I couldn’t have realized how much I would miss them—the chatter of baby talk and occasional crying, the boy’s smiles and Elle’s thoughtfulness about our current life. I miss the walks and the anticipation of spending time with my people.

I’ve been a good bachelor though, getting out of the house, mushroom hunting, dressing as a tomato for Halloween, writing, going to poetry readings, pushing an engineless truck up a hill with six other guys, etc.

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One of the highlights of the past week was my second-ever mushroom hunt. The day was dark under the cover of the trees and we walked slowly off trail with a sort of imperfect attention, that for a brief moment allows you to see something more clearly—an area that might be good for growth. Your eyes hover about the ground as you weave up and over down trees and wet boulders, and then you’re brushing away the duff and the warm color rises, as the chanterelles come light into your hands.

It’s a meditative act, not unlike berry picking. You can lose yourself in it and become a part of the background. And while I love longer journeys, this kind of wandering is a welcome respite from the destination-oriented mind of a hike.

In these woods I don’t have a map. I work a wide orientation of my position and then trust myself. At one point I took a break from the search, wandering far, crossing the delta-like split streams that come with heavy rain. I took no straight path and paused to grab some wild ginger. At the river I found a rock to lean against. The sound of water enveloped me entirely and I pulled a heel of bread from my bag, and looked around. “I could stay here,” I thought.

I imagined what I would do if I found myself lost here (I always do this in the woods). I spotted good shelter and thought I could risk drinking the water this far up the mountain. I had a little food and good clothing. When I finished my bread I got up slowly and wandered back toward the trail, once again knowing how few things we really need to get by.