2021: Best of the Year

Because life is sweeter when the senses receive our attention in daily life. I've reviewed my Sensorium posts over the past year and here's the Best of 2021....

Taste: cinnamon rolls; mango lime tanjin; avocado toast with olive oil and nigella seeds; vampire’s feast; Sagrantino

Sight: The Folio Society edition of Middlemarch, a gorgeous shiny spring green, caslon font, white space, creamy pages; valleys with wonderful modulations of light and shadow

Touch: the heft of a book; petals; mossy stone

Sound: Zoë Keating Into the Trees, Escape Artist, Optimist; thump, thump, thump; snoozles

Smell: Vixen, For Strange Women -- woods, black pepper, coffee, ambrette; Black Forest --four varieties of fir trees

Extra: imaginal cells; St Roch Patron St. of Dogs; "the ghostly stag in a pale fantastic world"; reading in a well-tended garden on a sunny summer afternoon before a wedding party

Story ideas: the dogs of Middlemarch: Monk, Fly, Brownie, Fag; a solarpunk letter carrier mystery

In dream: bathing in a deep bathtub of wild picked herbs and flowers—marigold color, chrysanthemum, a purple with an old woman to absorb her wisdom in a dark cave (but not wild picked?); electric blue and pink cats

A jolt of joy: happy dog, relaxed open mouth; a pleasant scent, a whiff of joy; sun breaks; sitting in the sun; a sip of water; a family’s first dog; a well-crafted line; dogs in pjs, dogs in sweaters; "You are a poem..."; Sam’s home!; under covers; a dog appears in a story; a high roll

Quotable:

"Nothing stops her search/for something. Hearts could break or mend/however badly as she reads, tiny/valves doing their best,/the blood flow. Yours. Mine." — Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter on Loan in America, The Anti-Grief, Marianne Boruch

"but here we still are, sitting at a small/round table in the dark, drinking/darkness from our glasses,/growing dizzy with darkness,/past midnight now, the date turned over/" — White Flower, Red Flower, Mortal Trash Poems, Kim Addonizio

"It’s alright/if you fall out of love with being alive, but rise again tomorrow/with French pop songs and fresh croissants, wear all your gold/" — Traci Brimhall, Contender, Come Slumberless to the Land of Nod

Comments

Thoughts on "Depression Hates a Moving Target": What I Mean by Relatable

Relatable — I used this word in my reviews of Depression Hates a Moving Target by Nita Sweeney on Goodreads and Amazon . It's a nice word, but overused of late. So, it feels lazy. What do I mean? I connected with this book. It made me reflect more on my own first marathon experience. It made me want to put on my running shoes and head out the door again. In fact, I did. Now, typically, my mental health doesn't hinder my ability to do the stuff I want to do and my body flies under the radar. Still, I also felt goofy stepping out in my running gear a lot of the time. I didn't see myself as a "runner" or an athlete. And, I had no idea if I could run 13 miles let alone 26.2 when I started. More to the point, could I stay moving for the 4+ hours straight it would take to complete the marathon? To do the training mileage, I knew I'd have to run through streets and trails on my own and that made me nervous, too. Waves of grief wash us to strange shores. Whe...

What is Solarpunk? Good question, great answers from our community

What is solarpunk? My fellow Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers authors Commando Jugendstil and Tales from The EV Studio put together this video for the Turin International Book Fair . It features editors and authors from the solarpunk community sharing their thoughts. Together we're imagining optimistic futures based on renewable energy. My soundbite was: "Solarpunk futures are — green spaces with clean water that are pedestrian, collective, feminist, creative communities. And they include non-human animals. " Mary "solarpunk" Shelley cat did a great job (at 6:15) helping from her rather ridiculous cat tree which she absolutely loves. And what better time to wear this solar-colored "Veganism is Feminism" tee from The Herbivore Clothing Company . Seriously. I'm holding a stack of solarpunk books: Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers edited by Sarena Ulibarri which includes my story "Watch Out, Red Crusher!". Wings of R...

Springy story review: "State Change" by Ken Liu

Why it springs to mind: You'll never look at an ice cube the same way again. Where read: In the 2014 Hugo award-winning Lightspeed Magazine , August. Length: 5,194 words Summary: A woman has an ice cube for a soul. Memorable: How the story invites us to think about the shape of our soul, how it (or our perception of it) influences us and how it changes. What ordinary every day object would your soul be? A silver spoon, a beech stick? A great party conversation starter, this. Quote: “All life is an experiment." Notable: The protagonist Rina is an avid reader (always a good choice). Pairs well with: T.S. Elliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay Origin: The story was written in 24 hours based on a writing prompt. (See Author Spotlight: Ken Liu ) About the author: Ken Liu’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings , the first in a fantasy series The Dandelion Dynasty, is due out from Saga Press ( a new Simon & Schuster imprint ) in 2015.

Shel Graves' Sensorium

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