Where are you lately?

JUKE is 2 years old! We're discussing where we've been lately, and you're invited to join in...

Hey everyone! We have a bunch of new subscribers, so let me explain how this works. Every three months, I ask all our Juke contributors to answer a question for me. For example, last October, I asked everybody “What are you listening to?” and then in January, it was "What are you eating lately?"

To celebrate spring (and Juke’s 2nd birthday!) we’re all answering my favorite question— “Where are you lately?” It’s my favorite because you can go ANYWHERE from this question. You can talk about travels or about sitting still. You can talk about your mental landscape, your metaphysical landscape… just about anything, really.

Everyone takes the smorgasbord question differently. Everyone responds with a different level of seriousness or brevity. That’s half the fun. The other half is when our readers jump into the comment section and join in! So, once you’ve read what we have to say, please put your own two cents into the comment section.

I’ll start…

Tonya Morton:

I could talk about all the places I've travelled lately. It's been a crazy month, really, and I've been all over the place. But rather than talk about places I've gone, I'd prefer to talk about a place I return to. Each morning when I'm headed to work, I walk the same route along the dark windows of the boutiques on Bleecker Street. I look into the dog store and the Matcha tea shop on Christopher. I usually manage not to buy a croissant at Patisserie Claude on West 4th. And when I reach 6th Avenue, I look up at the new foreign titles on the marquee at the IFC Center before descending down into the subway. 

I push through the turnstile, then it's a swift walk down a long tiled corridor, past the downtown A, C, E foot traffic and a jog down two more sets of stairs to the B,D,F,M platform as I hear a train approaching the station. Is it the D? I hit the platform out of breath to (hopefully) watch an F or a B train pulling out of the station. 

A few minutes' wait against the white tile wall. Around me, other passengers are looking at their phones. Other commuters are antsy in slacks, with their laptop bags slung over their shoulders. They are staring down the tunnel, looking for the lights of an approaching train. Finally, the D arrives and I train my eye to the seats inside the cars as they pass, looking for the one particular seat I want. North side, by the window. If I can get that seat, then it’s a good day. I sit down, wait out two underground stops, and then the train begins to rise onto the Manhattan Bridge.

No matter what else is going on, no matter what else is on my mind, if the day begins like this, I’m doing well…

(Hint: if the video doesn’t play in your email, click on it to open the page online.)

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Damon Falke:

Lately I have been watching the snow melt. The first snowless patch of ground formed in front of my house around two weeks ago. Day by day, little by little the snow will recede. Beneath the snow is what I suppose is grass, slumped over, saturated, colorless as it is. In another month, maybe two months, this narrow patch of snow-free ground will extend through the entire yard, all the way to the sea, and across the mountains and valleys on the other side of the house. A green is coming that seems almost impossible. Two kilometers down the road there are tjelden standing beside the sea. I passed them while driving home a few days ago. These birds are a sign of spring, a sign that warmer days coming. More birds, more light. Two nights ago, I went into the basement to see if there was salmon in the freezer. There was no salmon, but the sky still held a little light, and this was after 9 pm. I stayed outside on the porch to watch the night fall. Everything was quiet. Friends were on their way back to America. There is something in this moment I want to keep and to keep going. Hard to say what that is. Maybe just this—this night and the tjelden down the road and the snow melting from the yard the way it does this time of year, the way it does here.  

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Sue Cauhape:

Living in a virtual world, visiting friends on emails and Facebook. Long-lost people from high school or my job at the newspaper now join my Friends lists. Photos of my grands remind me there's still something wonderful to live for. I scroll past angry faces on the news sites and dive into Substack, a neighborhood I want to move to permanently. It's a safe place where snark is non-existent, critique rare but constructive, and the writing and artwork inspires me to find joy beyond the screen.  

When my eyes blur, I set the laptop on the chair-side table and reach into the basket for the Word Puzzles magazine, inking in Brick-by-Bricks, Crosswords, and Cryptograms, pretending to be a spy breaking codes. My mind makes up stories for each puzzle. Sometimes I read a book, though my mind wanders completely off track at the sight of a particular word. Boing! Like a spring into another dimension. For some reason, I don't have that problem when I read an article on the screen. Does this mean I'm more engaged? 

At last, my fingers itch to knit and a movie DVD adds to the pleasure. I juggle the laptop on the arm of the chair while I glance between steamy love scenes and checking for dropped stitches. My DVD collection grows as my yarn collection disappears. The chair has become the support system for all my favorite activities; but when I get up, my legs falter, my posture creaks into proper alignment, and I need to hobble to the other end of the house just to wake up the muscles. My chair and laptop are killing me slowly each day. 

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Paul Vlachos:

Where am I lately?

Another one of these maddening, but utterly reasonable, questions from the Editor-In-Chief.

Where am I lately? First thought - my body or my mind? Choose one.

Second thought - where am I right now? Because I strive to be in the moment. It’s almost ALWAYS better in the now than it is to dwell on the past, even the joyous past, and certainly better than my own apocalyptic future-tripping. A wise person I knew once said, “Don’t live in the wreckage of the future.” I try not to. And I try. And I try.

Anyway, I’m trying to be in the moment for my own sanity. RIGHT NOW, I’m at my desk, trying not to judge the seemingly effortless drivel erupting from my keyboard. I’m in New York City. I’m in the United States of America. I’m on Planet Earth. That’s all I can say with certainty, but it’s a lot when you think about it.

Lately? You mean the past week or so? The past month? I WAS in Florida, then had to make an unexpected speed run to Kansas, where I hung out a lot in Pratt, home to the beautiful Lemon Park, which is filled with trees and pungent piles of leaves that Santo sanctified with his special powers. Lots of time in Coldwater, Kansas, then Wichita, then that big blur between the Arkansas and Hudson Rivers.

And after that, it’s been a whole lot of downtown Manhattan, Northern New Jersey and the couch. Lots of time on the couch, collapsing after I return from everywhere else.

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Tabby Ivy:

  Detail of a painting in progress. Photo by Tabby Ivy

Where am I, lately? 

I am trying to find my creative groove. 

I haven’t painted since moving to Oregon last September.

Painting isn’t like getting back on the horse after falling off, or riding a bike after being away from it for years.  You just don’t pick up where you left off.  It’s a mental thing. 

I can tell it will take time for me to find the ease that comes when the painting is really working. Those blissful moments where the piece seems to paint itself. I am not there yet, but each session spent in the studio is getting me closer to it. 

I am working on a body of work for a September show in Bigfork, Montana. The first couple paintings didn’t come easily. I wondered if I had totally lost the ability to paint anything, as it took time and effort to get the work to fit my intension for them. I now have five paintings under my belt and with each one I can feel my voice and intention for the paintings finally coming together. I am more confident as I approach the work and feeling a connection with my practice once again. I am getting out of the way, and able to hear what the painting is telling me it needs, which is getting me ever closer to that very happy place.

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Ned Mudd:

Wherever I was this time last year, I’m still there. 

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Anthony Head:

Juke’s terrific founder, Tonya Morton, likes to email these occasional questions to her contributors. I admire her for that. It’s actually quite human of her to try and tease out a sense of the big picture from the very people who make Juke so poignant. No machine would do that.

She always apologizes for sending out a group email, which is rather unnecessary because we are her group of contributors. I think of Tonya like Dorothy Parker, suddenly hitting upon a curious question along with the desire for the entire Algonquin Round Table to respond to it. Would Dorothy get up from her gin martini and walk around to Robert Benchley and Alexander Woollcott and Edna Ferber and Harold Ross and Beatrice Kaufman and George Kaufman et cetera, et cetera asking each the question individually?

It matters not to Tonya what is actually written in response. Don’t misunderstand my meaning; she’s expecting sincerity and cleverness (this is Juke after all). But I believe it’s the participation that truly counts. And I must believe that for purely selfish reasons. You see, I’ve let too much time pass since my last contribution to Juke—and yet I’m still being asked the questions, therefore confirming that I still have a seat at the Table.

And so the answer is easy and comforting: I’m right here.

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Russell Rowland:

Today I find myself a little bit lost. After publishing seven books, I have been unable to get the two I’ve been working on for the past six or seven years published. It’s been difficult to even find anyone to read them. It tells you a lot about the publishing world that despite my kind of track record, with reviews in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and blurbs from many literary giants, agents and editors don’t even answer my emails.

So I do what writers have done for centuries. I keep writing. I focus on the work and remember that I have no control over the outcome. And I find new ways to express myself, with a new podcast, and a column in one of our local publications. I never thought I’d be a non-fiction writer, because every time I tried to write an essay, I couldn’t figure out how to finish. I was always much more comfortable in the world of fiction, where you get to make shit up.

I will never complain, considering the fact that I’ve had way more opportunities than most people who pursue this profession. But it sometimes feels as if it would be nice to just get a year or two where you don’t feel as if you’re scrambling for every morsel. But it is the nature of the business.

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Patrick McCarty:

Two Augusts ago, I opened my eyes and found myself alone under dark clouds, looking out through a parched valley filled with dust and shards of every color.   I picked up handfuls of dust and watched as the wind blew it through my fingers.  I walked for miles through this field of debris, kicking chunks and shards like stones and watching them bounce off into the shadows of high cliffs, their clatter across the ground the only sound.  Every now and then I came across what looked like molten metal that had been poured into cracks and holes of something else and hardened in place before the shattering.  There were thousands of these metal forms strewn about, with nothing remaining of the shapes into which they were poured.  I did not want these metal forms, so I left them where they lay.

After a great distance, I stopped, realizing all of this dust and debris, shards and bits of metal were important somehow.  I began, right there in the middle of nothing, to pile up all the shards and chunks I could find, leaving the metal to rust in its time. I began to see patterns in the debris. I spent ages trying different assemblies until a number of the chunks fit together to make something I didn’t quite recognize.  I began sweeping the dust into small piles as well – the dingy and grey particles blowing away with the wind, leaving dust of every bright color behind.  Some of the colors were so blindingly bright I could not look directly at them.  I found some water and mixed it with the dust piles, then spread the mixture into the cracks between the chunks of debris I had pieced together.  Sometimes chunks would fall off, and I would kick them into the shadows. 

When I had assembled together all the dust and debris that seemed like it belonged, I looked at what I had made and did not recognize it at all.  But I knew it was mine, and that it was me.  I reached out and rested my left hand on the object.  It shrank down so small it fit into my hand.  I put the object in my pocket like a pebble from a lake shore, dusted off my clothes and walked onward.  I am not certain what this object is, but I carry it with me still.  It is mine.  It is me.  That is where I am now.  Walking onward, seeking to understand.

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Jodie Meyn:

It’s funny you should ask, because my Substack is called You are Here which always ends up being a moving target. I’ve always worried that that wasn’t a good enough title but then it always seems to suit because you can’t argue with where you are. 

I remember choosing my wedding dress (20+ years ago) and realizing that I was dressing up as all of these possible personalities.  The dress I finally chose was one that I thought I could live with no matter who I showed up as that day.  I realized my husband was that guy too - someone able to find me where ever my personality GPS might be pinging. 

But to be precise, right now, I’m at the intersection of my kids ages. I’m at the corner of being a better cook and not ever knowing what to make for dinner. I’m working part-time at my old teaching career and looking for what’s next. I’m at the stoplight of graying hair and feeling bad about my neck. At the yellow light of cool and at the green light of who cares. I’m changing lanes between yay and boo several times a day.  But I guess this is moving forward. I am here. 

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Rebekah Wilkins-Pepiton:

Spring came early to the Inland Northwest this year. I anticipate the explosion of cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, and then finally apple blossoms each year. I think if you listen really closely you can even hear the flowers as they open to the sun. As of this weekend, I am in the backyard with the chickens, digging up last year's garden and making space for something new. 

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