Thank you, Readers

Thank you, dear Blog readers, for your loyal support of my blog. Please know I’m most appreciative of your devoted friendship. Here is my “worse than fruitcake” holiday letter.

2020  pulled a fast one over me. When it came in as Year of the Rat, and my being born in the Year of the Rat, I expected a super wondrous year. You are on your way out, 2020,  leaving us a pandemic unimaginable. I won’t allow you to have the last sneer, so here it is, a celebration of 2020 inspite of…

We have been in locked down since March. I’ve filled the gas tank of my Honda only twice since March. All purchases are being delivered to our porch which go through a sanitizing process. All meals are prepared by me. My hair makes me look like a witch, a great savings on new wardrobes, manicures and pedicures. Have lost all social graces and have been dressing above my waist for ZOOM appearances. And Amazon has become my Santa Claus, dropping off packages and boxes weekly.

My plans to be in the Monarch Festival parade in Hawaii with my literary mouse Wordsworth was cancelled. Book signings for my 15^th book, Echoes of Kapoho, in Hawaii and Sacramento were cancelled. Speaking engagements, all cancelled.

Managed to do a virtual reading of my two children’s books for the Hawaii Alzheimer’s Assoc. Did a virtual lecture/writing workshop for caregivers,  poetry readings for the Northern CA Publishers/authors. My two interviews on my work with caregivers appeared in two newsletters. All this without leaving my home office. And I facilitate my monthly poetry writing sessions for caregivers  through ZOOM.

The saving grace for 2020:

1. My fifth Wordsworth the Poet children’s book was accepted for publication.
2. My first two Wordsworth books have been made into a musical stage play, now scheduled for 2022 due to the pandemic at the U of Hawaii theater in Hilo, HI. I’ve read the script, heard the music and I’m speechless at the talented creators.
3. Nice surprise in September: My Echoes of Kapoho book was awarded the Best in Fiction Memoirs by Northern CA Publishers/Authors.
4. My book #16^th was published. Title: The Kindergarten Dropout of Kapoho. A few stories from my Kapoho book was published; to be used in a memoir writing project by my publisher. Do get in touch with Watermark Publishing if you wish to write and publish your memoirs under guidance.
5. Have had poems and stories published in two anthologies by the Northern CA Publishers/Authors: one on Travel and the other on Holidays.
6. In December, five of my poems were published in an anthology published by the Human and Nature Center: University of Chicago Press. Title: What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want To Be? This international organization of scientists and scholars work at preserving our human and natural resources. I’m the simple poet.
7. This year reminded me why we teach. To former students and parents, thank you for getting in touch. A former first grader from Michigan, now in Maryland, even sewed me face masks. I’m sorry I lost a former talented first grader musician to the Corona virus as I did a dear friend in NYC. 

I’ve never read so many books, about 50 books at this writing. Shows you how much time I have on my hands. My book club adds titles I would never have read. Red built me a little “gym” in the backyard, a covered structure where I use the treadmill, listening to NPR or CD’s of music of my era, and a massage table to do more exercises. I stopped walking around the neighborhood after a man tried to rob me of my mask in April.

California is in a dire state so it looks like another year of lock –  down. What a strange way to end my holiday greetings to you. Wear your mask, get vaccinated and stay safe and sane. And may the new year bring us a bright light at the end of the tunnel and may we all live safely and kindly ever after. And 2020, get out of the way, please, so we can welcome in the new year with renewed hope. Take good care. Frances