Check-In: More so a Warmup for my CW Workshop, 9/2/25

     At the time of writing it is 9:34pm, I have Hejira by Joni Mitchell spinning on my turntable and I’m slamming my head against the wall trying to write something profound.

It’s my first workshop of the year this week, due Thursday, and I’m applying much more pressure to myself than necessary, as I usually do when it comes to this sort of thing. As I usually do with nearly everything I do. And yet I still remain in the mediocre! My record has a regular crackling emanating from it and it’s really pissing me off. I need to clean my needle and the vinyl. Whatever.

    Joni Mitchell is my mother’s artist but I’m always reminded of my nana—my maternal grandmother—when I hear her. It’s funny, because my mother and my nana could not be more separate individuals. Or at least they want to be, but as with every toxic mother-daughter duo they are unfortunate parallels of each other.

    When I listen to Joni Mitchell I am reminded of early Sunday mornings sprawled out across my nana’s green itchy carpet, that of which was formally my papa Mick’s before he passed. Sunlight painted the soft, stretched skin that enveloped my overgrown body, and PBSKids babbled in the background. The staunch smell of tradition wafted throughout the house—the smell of roses and potpourri. The scent follows my nana where ever she happens to find herself.

    My papa and nana were divorced, she lived in Mansfield before his death but moved into his home in Deveaux soon after his passing due to the steep decline of the Mansfield area. (I live in Toledo, for reference. These are all places in my city.) I miss the Mansfield house, though the memory is only fuzzy outlines. I think I had friends there. I had a tree I sat under with my cousin while we ate lemon pudding in the summer, hiding from the heat. There was a swing we laid on together, pretending to sleep but giggling too much to keep the hanging bench still. I think someone renovated it. I wouldn’t recognize it.

    Conclusions have never been my strong-suit. At the time of writing it is 10:04pm and I have a poem to write. Talk to you soon enough, goodnight.