Derby Party Planning
I’ve gone back to my novel THE HOUSE AT HOPE’S END after no publisher in New York wanted it. I’ve aged out of that market, finally. I had a long run. I wanted to update it and make it better before I start submitting it to independent presses. When I’m away from any piece of writing for a time, I see ways to improve it. I’ve revised ten chapters to far. No poems this week, as all my energy and creativity are going into the revision.
Last year I couldn’t hold my June juried intensive poetry workshop that I hold every year here in Wellfleet. I postponed it twice before giving up. I do definitely intend to hold it this year [unless Gov Baker closes the borders again] and have secured venues for the morning sessions. But for the first time ever, three poets have dropped out as time goes by. I usually have one poet drop out in May when 15 poems are due and so is the rest of the fee. It gets very real then. This is the first year I have had three poets drop out before the 2nd part of the fee is due. I always have two alternates. I added them. But a third just this week! Some are afraid of flying, some have no money for the workshop fees because Covid put them out of work. One has health issues now. I’m insisting they all be fully vaccinated. I assume we’ll have to do a ZOOM reading instead of a live event at the library, as we have done every other year of the workshop.
For many years, we have given a Kentucky Derby party that early May afternoon, generally 20-22 friends. We have not given a party since Covid struck -- no Derby party, no birthday parties for us or friends no workshop party as no workshop, no Solstice party in December. We could not hold our usual Pesach seder or our Rosh Hashonah seder. We had begun to see a few very careful friends, one or one couple at a time, usually several weeks after a visit. We saw friends in that way during warm weather as we could sit ten feet apart on the sun porch.
This year we’re giving our first party since the 2019 Solstice party. It will be modest, only 7 guests, all vaccinated. Finger food and Woody makes his great mint juleps. We will also have to buy mint for the first Derby party ever. Woody dug up the over run and weedy mint bed to order to make three narrow raised beds for me to fill with flowers attractive to pollinators. We have to make a new mint bed in a contained space this spring –contained because left on its own, mint will take over an area and smother whatever you were trying to grow there.
i’m the one who always wants to give parties. Woody grew up with a father who hated other people coming into his house – freeloaders! invaders! When my parents had people over or went to someone else’s gathering, ose were the only times when I could be sure my parents didn’t fight and were on their company behavior. Friends thought them a happy couple; I saw their misery. So we have different experiences of social gatherings in the home. Everybody involved this time is quite excited at even a small very limited party after so long in entire or partial isolation.
Myself, I have found one of the most liberating things about being fully vaccinated is being able to use public bathrooms again. Where I could go was strictly limited by how far I could get without using a toilet, not that I went anyplace for months. That was one reason I let my license expire. AAA closed their office in Dennis during Covid. That’s I have always gone for license renewal and could get to and from safely. But not Hyannis, which was high risk anyhow.