My goal heading into April was to write a poem a day. April was to be this magical month of poetry making—living and breathing verse.

While I was dreaming poems, the main hot water line underneath my kitchen was wearing away in the cement slab, waiting for the right morning to burst.

And it did.

In all, many things were damaged or lost: downstairs carpet, wood laminate floors across our kitchen/family room, pantry destroyed, cabinets damaged, tons of drywall damage, and we don’t even want to discuss the plumbing bill. It took the plumber four days to fix it (four days without hot water, and four days with water here and there), and five days for the water mitigation folks to dry out the mess with their 15 industrial fans, dehumidifier, and air scrapper.

During the weeklong struggle to gain some normalcy in our house, find other ways of living without hot water and a functioning kitchen something happened.

I let go.

At some point I was upset, exhausted, and crying about how ugly things looked and caught myself. How dare I mourn material possessions. Life is so fragile and fleeting, it demands our full attention and participation—material things mean nothing in the full account of our lives. Never will I die wishing I had a pretty, showroom kitchen, or swoon-worthy, pinterest ready floors. Sure, those things are nice, but none of them make me, my family, or help me write poems.

Yes poems. During all of this, my one comfort and grounding place was a quick walk out to my garden with notebook and pencil.

And that is what this post is really about.

When I learned to really let go.

April In Photos:

I didn’t write a poem a day. Not even close. But somehow, thirty days later, I have thirty poems. Thirty poems that I love. Thirty poems that are the start of something bigger, deeper, and authentically my voice. Thirty poems in a new series I never knew I was strong enough to contain or write.

That difficult Friday I tearfully prayed for detachment to material things. I prayed for that burden of want to be lifted and replaced with a deeper gratitude I thought I had, but felt slipping away. Mostly, I prayed for peace and acceptance of what is.

At one point, I stopped praying and crying and said a prayer of gratitude for realizing my attachment to material things. I thought I had moved beyond that, but this, this showed me otherwise.

I did not expect to find inner peace, but I did.

As I began to further detach from the material situation and focus on all the wonderful things I am grateful for daily, I was reminded of how powerfully healing, nourishing and strengthening writing is for me.

And what unfolded from then on was a greater acceptance and contentment of myself as a writer. Sure, there are things I’d like to improve, grow at, and learn more of while writing poetry, but when I took a step back and acknowledged what I was writing, and how much each poem was my very best, I felt peace. The same peace I felt when I accepted what had become of my kitchen.

My poetry, like my home, is a work in progress. It isn’t perfect, but it is my very best.

That right there—my very best—that is everything.

What more can we pull from ourselves than the very best we have?

If you come to my house while we are rebuilding I won’t apologize that the white carpet is stained beyond repair and cut, that there is faded linoleum in the kitchen, that drywall is cut out of some walls, and the bottom of the kitchen cabinets are swollen. I’ll welcome you to my work in progress home.

If you read my poems I won’t apologize for not using complicated forms, or whine about my inability to fully grasp and write verse. I’m not completely there yet. I won’t apologize or make excuses for my images, or the odd words here and there that sound misplaced, or those moments when the poem doesn’t ring true. I’ll welcome you to my work in progress writing.

This April turned out to be magical and poetic. I fell in love with poetry, wrote thirty poems, and found my voice. I found a way to talk about my father’s suicide, his addiction. And most importantly, I discovered more empathy and compassion for him than I’ve ever felt in the past 32 years since his decision.

I’ve shed so much this April—material attachment, insecurity, bad pipes, uncertainty about my poems, perfectionism, shame of my father’s illness and death. The copper pipes have come undone in me and I am flooded with who I am.

I am a poet, a wonderful woman in progress.

There’s another thing I’ve learned this month that will feed my writing for years to come—your best today does not limit tomorrow’s greatness, it fuels it. There is always more greatness to come, if you just show up today with all you got and fight the good fight.

So, I’m showing up with my mechanical pencils, my blue notebook and I’m writing the hell out of this life. It all. I’m honoring my life and the words I’ve been gifted. I’m fighting the good fight, which includes loving myself as I am.

I hope the pipes burst in you and that you flood the world with all your magic!

All love,

k