Category: writing

• Should I Stay or Should I Go?

  Posted at 4:13 pm by Ellen Austin-Li, on December 21, 2020

  

  Smoke 
  
  All I want is a tiny cottage
  on the Dingle Peninsula. I could live 
  in peace on this windswept green. 
  America doesn’t own me anymore. 
  I’d rather fly to family via Aer Lingus than drive 
  up Ohio, across Pennsylvania, to New York. 
  I’m done passing the billboards
  on 71N in Ohio, the Ten Commandments
  split between two canvases alongside
  the barn, the Confederate flag painted
  on its roof. I don’t wish to be reminded
  by the sign on the trip back that “Hell Is Real.” 
  Hell, yeah, it’s real. America is aflame.
  With each wildfire season, the West 
  gets torched, fueled by the superheat 
  of our heedless need. Cities are coals of unrest, 
  Black sons & daughters gunned-down as if prey.
  Give me the Wild Atlantic Way,
  Ireland’s west coast instead. Let me puzzle
  the Gaelic posted above the English,
  let me turn into a pebbled drive 
  beside my pastel-painted home, let the hearth
  be spirited with peat. Near the coast, 
  standing stones frame a doorway 
  the ancients believed you pass through 
  into another world. My ancestors fled 
  Ireland because they were starving, I hunger
  for this place to belong. 
  
  - published Nov. 27th, 2020, by Indolent Books in "Transitions: Poems in the Afterglow."
  https://www.indolentbooks.com/transition-poems-in-the-afterglow-11-27-20-ellen-austin-li/?fbclid=IwAR1VGkrMCTlm7qhPxaG2lX4d0ZUSlrBBvLKzmwQ5mOyS6fAhzZ6H_hQrMbA
  

  ---

  To say 2020 has been a challenging year for us all is an understatement. No real news there. For many of us, the state of our socio-political landscape only adds to the stress of trying to navigate the pandemic. For me, feelings of hopelessness and simply being discouraged by the level of willing complicity in perpetuating systemic racism, coupled with an unwillingness to commit to behavioral changes that would meaningfully address climate change, create a tipping point. I know I am not alone in feeling overwhelmed. As a poet, I believe bearing witness to these fraught times plays a dual role, both as an encapsulation of this time and as a balm for myself and others. It’s important to know we are not alone, maybe even more so while the pandemic separates us. 

  A year ago this past May, I made my first trip to Ireland—the land of my ancestors (most of them, anyway). The physical beauty of this island—its vibrant greens riven with rough-hewn stone walls, its dramatic shorelines, especially on the West Coast along the Atlantic—drew me in. Even more magnetic were the stories associated with the ancient sites: the ring forts, the standing stones, the dolmens, the fairy forests. The other-worldliness felt familiar, as if I had participated in these stories before. I left Ireland reluctantly, feeling as if I had finally made it home. That feeling may just be the fanciful writer in me, but it stayed inside. I’m still writing about that trip today.

  It seems inevitable that Ireland would be the place I turned to (in this poem) when I felt so overwhelmed after the November election. The trauma over the past four years, culminating in this deadly pandemic’s gross mismanagement, which has unnecessarily cost far too many lives, and so many of my fellow Americans voted for the same leader? I don’t recognize my country anymore. Forgive me if our politics diverge, but even if they do, how can any of us believe that the murder of George Floyd (and so many more Black Americans) is not a call for a major change? And how can any of us choose to support climate change deniers when the evidence becomes more urgent every day? 

  I know that my home is here, in America, and that this is where I need to stay if I want to be part of the solution. But, sometimes, it helps to fantasize that I can run away to a place where I can live a simpler life, a place that offers more peace. In the short term, such psychic escape holds great allure. Dreaming of departure is a way to cope, maybe even express this anger that has nowhere else to go (save a poem). Putting the words down, articulating at least some of the frustration, offers relief. But naming the issues, ironically, reveals that I know what must be done. Awareness of the problem(s) is always the first step. The next one? What actions can I take to be part of the solution? 

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  Posted in poetry, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged cilmate change, Ireland, November election, racial justice

• Navigating Fear

  Posted at 9:41 pm by Ellen Austin-Li, on March 29, 2020

  

  “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

  Living through this pandemic, in a time of overwhelming fear, presents all of us with significant challenges. We, in the recovery community, have the opportunity to be of service to the world outside of our rooms (which currently happen to be virtual rooms on “Zoom”). We share the blessings of practice, sometimes years of practice, in navigating fear. We learn tools in recovery to help us live “life on life’s terms,” as we like to say, which helps us to stay sober. These same lessons can be applied by anyone who feels overwhelming fear, and that is the whole world right now.

  This writing isn’t to say that people in recovery no longer suffer from fear, or that we are immune to the same fear that others feel during this pandemic. Everyone is frightened right now — but, we have tools we can share with non-recovery folk, which may help get all of us to the other side.

  Has there ever been a better time to live by the Serenity Prayer? The first part of the Serenity Prayer reminds us that we need to accept what we cannot change. We have to accept the uncertainty of this time, as we do not have any control over how the Covid19 pandemic will unfold. I’ll admit, this has been a struggle for me, mainly because I have been stuck in anger directed at (my perception of) the federal government’s mismanagement of this crisis. Whether or not you agree with my political position is not essential — the point is, I cannot get to a place of acceptance, of serenity, if I allow resentment to take center stage. If I’m not the problem, there is no solution. I have to work on letting go of this anger. For me, that means praying for the people in the governmental institutions I am furious at right now to detoxify myself.

  For those of you who balk at the word “prayer,” let me assure you that I am not a religious person; I do, however, consider myself spiritual in that I believe there exists a power greater than myself. I’m an agnostic in recovery — and I know atheists, too — and I pray. Sometimes my prayer is as simple as please, give me the right words, or help X person do the right thing. I know from experience that prayer, over time, changes something in my brain. The circumstances that caused the resentment in the first place may not necessarily change, but I do. And that’s the name of the game: learning how to let go of overwhelming emotions that hinder your ability to not only cope with life, but to function.

  The next part in the Serenity Prayer, “the courage to change the things I can,” makes living with fear and uncertainty bearable. I can’t change the fact of this pandemic, but I can do my part to change what I can. I can decrease the chance of getting Covid19 by following the recommendations of health experts: practice social distancing, wash my hands frequently (for 20 seconds!), and not touch my face. These actions, in turn, help everyone else in the community by limiting the spread. I’m experiencing intense fear around the lack of PPE’s for healthcare workers, as I am married to one and have many working nurse friends (I’m a retired nurse). What can I do? I wish I knew how to sew, but I know people who do. I’ve shared information on social media about how to connect with organizations that are making masks. I’ve encouraged anyone with a stash of masks to consider a donation to their local hospital or nursing home. (Not all of your masks, as I understand the desire to have some for yourself, but there is info online about how to reuse masks for non-healthcare workers safely). That’s all I can do about PPEs, but it’s something.

  I can also be kind and loving within my own home, even though stress brings out the worst in all of us. I can apologize right away when I’ve said something hurtful and vow to myself to try to be better next time. It’s not about what other people say or do; it’s about what I say or do. I have control over my reactions in every interaction.

  The final part of the Serenity Prayer, “and the wisdom to know the difference,” tells us to look at and reevaluate our current responses. If I can’t get close to serenity, I know that I am probably confusing what I cannot change with what I can. The distinction isn’t as crucial as it is for me to stay in action mode. How I feel does not have the same consequences as what I do with these feelings. We are all fearful right now. We can take care of ourselves by acknowledging our fear but also by taking action — be it through prayer, walking, calling a friend (or a therapist, if needed), or practicing acts of kindness in our own homes. When we take care of ourselves, it ripples out towards others.

  Be safe, be well.

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  Posted in alcoholism/addiction, recovery, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged Covid19, Living with Fear

• Solstice: Where I Begin Again

  Posted at 4:14 pm by Ellen Austin-Li, on February 28, 2020

  

  Winter Solstice
   
  I.
  Dark
   
  One Christmas, my mother gifted me
  my childhood silhouette in a silver frame:
  a featureless profile in black, set against
  a white background. I recognized
  the weak chin and the errant curl flipped
  below my crown. What better self-portrait
  of youth than a faceless one, lips gapped
  as an accessory to take in more air?
  That little girl was all shadow, swallowed
  by the too-brightness around her.
  And she had no eyes — nothing to bring in
  the light right there in front of her
  as she turns away to face the coming
  of the longest night. She cannot see
  that this darkness means rebirth.
  On Winter Solstice the ancients say
  the sun is born. I wish I could cut
  an aperture in the dark form, save her
  from a lifetime of blindness.
   
  II.
  Light
   
  I open the mason jar, switch on
  the fairy lights — a string of fireflies
  animate as if it’s June and I’m capturing
  lightening bugs in the backyard.
  I screw on the metal lid and recall
  how the real ones flickered, then faded
  overnight. I lift this gift from a friend,
  unblinking, bold, brilliant: a beacon
  lit from the inside.
  And the stars start out on their cold slide through the dark.
  And the sun kicks inside the dark womb of the moon.
   
  * Italicized line from “Clear Night,” by Charles Wright

  Published in Anti-Heroin Chic, December, 2019

  ---

  Where I Begin Again

  Two months past the Winter Solstice, and I’m two months into my new life as a graduate student. Just a year ago, this plan was only a seed in my brain, but I followed the flow in a confluence of events and stumbled upon a graduate program in poetry that welcomed me into its fold: the Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College. All the check marks fit into my neat little boxes—excellent faculty, exciting writers-in-residence, reasonable price, and on a woodsy campus near my beloved Boston, where so much of my history resides.
  

  I could not have predicted the hold poetry took on my soul. Part prayer, part meditation, poetry is a lifestyle, a life force, central to meaning-making at this developmental stage (yes, we are always in a developmental stage!) when understanding where I’ve been and how I got here occupies the mind. For me, using poetry as a tool, I step into the future. What will I leave behind? Studying the craft of poetry gives some intention to this question. I intend to gain clarity around this with each piece I write.
  

  There are advantages to returning to school at age 62, one of them being a pure motivation to match my written work with my intention. I’m not bogged-down by ego-driven ambition. One could say that being a relatively new writer at my age precludes any sort of notoriety. I’m in this to learn. I am in the enviable position of a woman who has already paid her dues in the workplace, has raised two sons, and finds herself with the time and the means to begin again. A friend of mine noted that most people are winding down at my age, but I’m in a different position. My progress was slowed by downed trees. I am nearly 16 years sober, but it’s been a hard-fought journey. I am most grateful to have emerged from these woods—late, but not too late, never too late—to rejoin the world.
  

  Disadvantages do exist in this scenario: I am often befuddled by what it is I am trying to say. I bring to every new experience a lifetime of memories and preconceived notions. Some may call this experience wisdom, but sometimes it’s difficult to wade through the committee in my head to distill the center in a poem. Psychologists call the ability to weed through information to find what’s important, “saliency determination;” I must have a deficiency there, now that I’m “awake.” Everything seems important to me. Writing poetry forces clarity—an exercise, or rather a practice, in awareness. In this way, composing poems fits into the framework of recovery: it is a significant part of my spiritual life.
  

  I approach this work with a sense of gratitude. I’m grateful to have found, with fellow writers, an engaged community. By pursuing a graduate degree, my main hopes are continued growth and to be able to contribute, after so many years of absence, in a meaningful way. A new year, a new decade, a new life. This sun kicks inside the dark womb of the moon.

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  Posted in writing | 6 Comments | Tagged MFA programs, poetry, recovery

• Old Friends and Rare Places

  Posted at 4:37 pm by Ellen Austin-Li, on September 24, 2019

  

  Rendezvous at Round Lake
  
  Carved by an ancient glacier,
  its meromictic waters do not mix—
  this is the place we go
  where layers of sediment stratify in ribbons.
  
  Meromictic waters do not mix;
  within my childhood home, chilled
  layers of sediment remain stratified in ribbons,
  blue-green fingers stretch across the surface.
  
  When I am chilled inside my childhood home,
  I call for my golden friend,
  fingers stretch across the blue-green surface,
  warmer than my own blood.
  
  I call my friend of gold
  to the place we go —
  warmer than our blood,
  we are carved ancient as a glacier. 
  
  *Published in Green Briar Review, Winter 2019.
  
   http://www.greenbriarreview.com/Ellen-Austin-Li---Three-Poems.html 

  ---

  We should all be so lucky as to have a friend who has known us for most of our lives — the holder of our secrets, the person who understands the way we move in the world. They know our families and our history. I am fortunate to have many friends from different points in my life, including many I have known for a relatively short period of time, but there is something elemental about a lifelong friend. I can still recall the expression we sang in rounds when we were young: “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.” 
  

  I remember a scene in a Crocodile Dundee movie from the 1980s. Paul Hogan’s character, the Australian legend nicknamed Crocodile Dundee, shares his views with an American woman on seeing a shrink to discuss one’s problems; where he comes from, he says, “that’s what my mates are for.” While I’m certainly not advocating against therapy (I’ve been seeing a therapist for over twenty years), I count my old friendships as invaluable to my emotional well-being. No one understands what triggers me more than a childhood friend. I catalog my troubles in my mind to share on my next meet-up with my most trusted resource, the friendship of a lifetime.
  

  A few times a year, I travel home to visit family and friends in Upstate, N.Y.  A long time ago, a tradition developed between one of my dearest friends and me. We walk the path around Green and Round Lakes near where we grew up. There’s something about walking a wooded path alongside pristine water that makes words flow, especially when your companion requires no explanation of your ramblings and doesn’t judge your craziest thoughts. By the time our trek reaches the more secluded Round Lake, we are compelled to pause and look in unison at the still water and the trees reflected on its surface. I know I can speak for both of us when I say this is a moment of reverence — broken only when one of us decides we need yet another “selfie.” 
  

  Surrounded by old-growth forest, Green and Round Lakes are two of only a few lakes in the world deemed “meromictic,” meaning there is no seasonal mixing of the upper and lower water levels as with other lakes. These glacially-carved lakes are deep and stable: Green Lake is 195 feet deep and Round Lake is 180 feet deep. The unusual features of these lakes create an otherworldly aquamarine color to the water. Growing up in this area, I took this beauty for granted. 
  

  I know that there were also times that I took my friendships for granted. Many years ago, I received a card that said: “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” It’s worth it to hold these words close and to live by them. Our old friends will be with us long after our parents have gone — they are a rare treasure, deserving careful attention. It seems fitting that Round Lake, a rare place, is the scene of my rendezvous with my old friend. 
  

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  Posted in poetry, Uncategorized, writing | 0 Comments | Tagged Friendship, GreenLakes, poetry, Walking, writing

• Hymn for Agnostics

  Posted at 12:41 am by Ellen Austin-Li, on August 25, 2019

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• Hymn for Agnostics

  Posted at 12:39 am by Ellen Austin-Li, on August 25, 2019

   Hymn
  
  We must have our own version of a higher power.
  I find mine in the silence of snowflakes
  hushing over a city,
  or a divine moment like entering into fragrant woods
  stippled by sunlight.
  I, too, crave rain,
  when the mist kisses my skin,
  until I feel bathed like a newborn baby.
  I’m a sinner willing
  to be baptized again by a new God,
  tears couched in raindrops.
  Other times, sun’s heat penetrates me,
  cicadas buzz like electric currents in the air,
  energy jolting, or better put, power resurging,
  singing a hymn that I am 
  not a low hum but, 
  oh, so much more luminous
  than I once believed.  
  
  -inspired by Jeanne Wagner’s “Fanlight” 

  This poem is for people like me, who no longer (or perhaps never did) have an unshakable belief in God. Specifically, the “Capital G” God of organized religion. I was raised Roman Catholic, but my faith was chipped away by religious dogma. I mean no offense to anyone who follows this, or any other, faith tradition. A part of me feels envious of those who live with such certainty. I know that this is the definition of faith, this belief in something unknowable, but I simply do not possess it. Lack of faith presents a problem for those of us who realize that following a spiritual path is our only hope for recovery from a self-centered disease like alcoholism and/or addiction. 

  I find my proof of a higher power, if not a specific God, in the beauty of the natural world. How can we not help but wonder at the mystery we sense when we wander outside? It’s late August, and the tiny green berries on the “Beauty Berry Bush” have begun to turn purple; the invisible hands of its internal clock move mysteriously towards Fall. I recently saw a hummingbird visit the bright red blooms of the lantanas in my flower pots, sipping nectar from dozens of clusters as it hovered, its wings beating so fast they were nearly indistinguishable. The cicadas rip like buzz-saws all day long and then hand the baton to the crickets when the sun sinks. At night, when the crickets chorus so loudly, most of us don’t think to wonder about it at all— but, there must be millions of crickets chirping to generate this cacophony. (And did you know that only the male crickets are able to chirp, all in an effort to woo females?)

  I don’t have to sit in a church pew to know there is spiritual energy in the universe. For me, these small miracles are enough to bring me peace. 

  In the throes of my disease, I felt both worthless and hopeless, but this is no longer the truth. Today, I am free to be present for these moments in the everyday. When I notice the patterns and the beauty in nature, I am aware of the space I occupy — I’m part of this world, no more, no less. This is my hymn — I hope it helps others to find their own.  
  

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  Posted in alcoholism/addiction, poetry, recovery, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged Agnostics, higher power, prayer, recovery

• Awakening

  Posted at 6:29 pm by Ellen Austin-Li, on July 27, 2019

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• On Writing “Wild Hive”

  Posted at 6:49 pm by Ellen Austin-Li, on February 21, 2019

  Wild Hive
  
  A rumble summoned my husband last Spring 
  to rescue a beehive; he found it
  hung like a tongue abuzz with hunger,
  urgent hooligans hunkering around
  a honeyed crux. He clipped the bunched
  cluster, curried the tree branch, and dumped
  it into a hovel. 
  
  He had three hives at the beginning
  of winter, but only the mined line
  survived this time. He thinks 
  
                      there’s something in being wild 
                      that keeps things alive
  
  *"Wild Hive" was published in Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Fall 2018. 
   

  “Wild Hive” is the first poem in my poetry collection, Firefly. This book is an unfolding redemption story, as it paints the picture of my descent into alcoholism and addiction, as well as my struggle to live sober. I hope that “Wild Hive” introduces the reader to the sense of the bewilderment that permeates the mind of an addict. How did I get here? Why am I still alive? If it is my wild nature that helped me survive, what does it mean?
  

  My husband has been a beekeeper, an apiarist, for several years now. He possesses the mind of a scientist, so he studied all of the latest information on beekeeping; he has become quite the expert on all things related to honeybees. His enthusiasm has infected me as well. I have become as invested in the survival of our hives as he has—well, almost as invested. I’m sure the person who actually does the work of a beekeeper is the one most attached to the outcome.
  

  Two years ago this Spring, a couple who are good friends of ours called my husband. A swarm of honeybees had gathered in a tree near their home. Swarms occur for reproductive reasons; a queen bee leaves her hive, taking a number of workers with her, to form a new colony. Our friends had learned, probably from my husband, that it’s best to call a beekeeper to come and retrieve a swarm for their own hive collection rather than call an exterminator. With the honeybee population in decline, we need to respond to swarms in a way that protects them. So, off went my husband, garbed in his netted hat, to rescue his first swarm.
  

  The rescue unfolded just as described in the first stanza of “Wild Hive:” he clipped off the tree branch on which the swarm had clustered, dropped it into a cardboard box, and brought it home. At home, he used his smoker, an aluminum can that bears a striking resemblance to the Tin Man’s oil can in “The Wizard of Oz,” to blow smoke at the bees. The smoke masks the alarm pheromones of the bees, allowing a beekeeper to work around the hive without getting stung; in effect, the smoke stuns the bees into submission. In this way, my husband was able to get the wild bees settled into their new home.
  

  This “wild hive,” meaning a hive that was not cultivated for sale to beekeepers (yes, there is such a thing), but was instead formed in the wild, thrived. At that point, the wild hive constituted my husband’s third hive; they were safely ensconced in their own set of hive boxes.
  

  Most hives are lost over the winter months. Several theories have been posited on the causes of colony collapse disorder, such as the widespread use of pesticides, climate change, or mite infestation; most likely, it is a confluence of factors. When springtime arrives, beekeepers assess their losses—my husband has lost most of his hives each winter and needs to begin again with new bees each spring. The springtime following the first winter of the wild hive heralded a big surprise: the only hive of the three that made it through the winter was the rescued hive. Not only had it survived, but it had flourished.
  

  When my husband reported this news to me, I asked him why he thought the rescued swarm had made it through the winter when his other, more established, hives had not. He shrugged his shoulders and offered this considered response:  “Maybe there’s something about being wild that keeps things alive.”
  

  This comment resonated deeply with me; it incubated in my mind for several months, almost like the bees themselves, looking for a place to colonize. In a poetry workshop, the words of this poem spilled onto the page fully formed, as if they had been there all along. In this workshop, the facilitator read William Blake’s “The Tyger”—he prompted us to write a poem or an essay using sound in an inventive way. In one of those too-rare moments of poetic inspiration, this poem wrote itself.
  

  So, why did the words my husband had planted months before worm their way into my subconscious? For me, this message, which appears in the last two lines of ”Wild Hive,” voices what I have often wondered: how is it that I am still alive, given my wild past when I was blackout drinking and using drugs? At 20, I crashed my car while driving drunk into a barn on the side of the road. The accident happened in the middle of the night on a back-country road. We were lucky that another car happened upon us— my ex-boyfriend crawling along the side of the road with a shattered back; me, bleeding internally, pinned behind the steering wheel.  Unfortunately, there were many more years of risky behavior while drinking and using drugs. I did not get sober until over forty more years had passed.
  

  Why did I survive? It is unknowable, but it is a common question in the human condition. Why does one person live through a series of traumatic events while another dies young, having lived a short, blameless life? “Wild Hive” is not meant to posit an answer to this complex question, but instead reflect the seeming randomness of mortality. During the peaks of my disease, when I was filled with self-loathing, I didn’t want to continue living. I was too entrenched in the hopelessness of addiction to see a way out. I am grateful that I am now sober—on a good day, I see how my experiences may help another to recover. That is the meaning that I attach to my own survival; that is the way I make sense of this question.
  

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• 

  Author photo by Suz Fleming

• 

• Books

  

  Publication date: August 6th, 2021. Click on image for Finishing Line Press's bookstore

• Books

  

  Firefly is available for sale at Finishing Line Press or at Amazon.com

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