Chicago Spring

spring2015

Once again, I’ve fallen behind with blogging. The year began cold and chaotic. Winter lingered and lingered. We had a few brief breaks of warmth and sunshine, but far too many grey, blustery, snowy days in March for my liking.

In Chicago: City on the Make, Nelson Algren wrote, “Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring.”

It’s true.

Chicago does seem to have a reluctant Spring–as if the season is too delicate. Chicago appears to want to go straight from the gray grit of Winter to the sunny swelter of Summer. BUT there are usually a few rare days in May when Chicago’s Spring is glorious and green.

I’m waiting.

The first few signs are appearing: pussy willows have their catkins, the magnolia buds are bright white or pink against still bare branches.

The sight of blossoms against the sky calls to mind one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, E.E. Cummings. Here’s a part of it:

“here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”

I’m going to attempt to blog with greater regularity as part of my revamped writing routine–a few minutes to warm up and then leave the day behind before shifting into one of the two books I’m working on (more on that later).

I’ve got things to catch up on here, but if I write a bit each day, I should get caught up pretty quickly.

Here’s to a day of catching up. I hope that your Monday is peaceful and productive.

Published by Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than 20 years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Valya is the author of MOTHER CHRISTMAS, THE SILENCE OF TREES, and the founding editor of CONCLAVE: A Journal of Character. Along with Stephen H. Segal, she is the co-author of FORKING GOOD: An Unofficial Cookbook for Fans of The Good Place and GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), and co-founder of the Wyrd Words storytelling laboratory. Valya earned her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium. You can find her on Twitter @valya and on Mastodon.social @valya

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