You can view a recording of this post here.
When my sweet dad died last fall, it lit a flame under me to finally get the poetry collection I had been working on for a few years into print. That wasn’t something my dad would have been waiting for, but I know if I could have put a book with my name along the spine into his hands, he would have been immensely proud. My dad had dementia but he never forgot the love and pride he had in all of us.
I can see his lips lifting in a smile as he tenderly held my book in his hands. I would read him some of the poems and he would nod along. I wouldn’t be sure if he was hearing or understanding the words but I would feel his presence in the stories my poems tell.
Many of them are about my experiences searching for home. There was nothing more important to my dad than home so I think many of the poems would have spoken to him. He worked hard to give our family a good home. The home he and my mother built set the standard for all the homes I sought to create and foster in the years after I left my childhood abode.
I never forgot that home or the ones I lived in since but something shifted when my husband and I abandoned urban life and moved to our cabin in a remote part of NW Ontario. The nearest community was very tight knit and the isolation of that and the pandemic created a pining for home and belonging I didn’t expect. This found it’s way into the poems I was writing and became the central theme of my poetry collection, Somewhere, My Home.
I brought this beautiful book baby into the world a couple of months ago and was raring to launch it full Indie Author – so without the Amazon platform. Just me, my book and my people.
I had barely ripped open my first box of books when I got news that my beautiful mother had lung cancer and then the petscan showed evidence of other cancers spreading throughout her body. She’s stage 4.
I knew things would have to shift but still in the glow of this milestone, I figured I could manage both my launch and my mother’s illness with some careful balancing and setting of boundaries.
I underestimated the power of grief – for the father I recently lost and the mother I may be losing now.
I shared this in the Story Republic, an online writing group that has become like family. I knew it was a safe place to land, which became even more evident when I received this note from my friend Garry.
Remember your exhaustion is not weakness. What you’re carrying is genuinely heavy. Some seasons ask more from us than we imagine we can give. Regarding your book, the thing to remember is the words and work it represents will always be there. It was born from years of noticing, feeling, paying attention, and careful curation. It’s not going anywhere.”
My book isn’t going anywhere – and for the time being neither am I.
My goal is still to put personally signed copies of every book I sell into the hands of my readers so whether that’s at a book event or market or you get a copy on my website, please know it’s coming to you with a lot of love. I love this book and I hope you will too.
I had planned to post a weekly poetry reading but that has been a challenge with other demands on my time and energy
So, I’d like to close with “The Sunny Room”, which is a poem inspired by and dedicated to my mom.
The sunny room
I visualize the garden
that used to sprawl
from this vantage point,
the sunny room;
memories of hoeing
straining, planting
along my mother’s
well-marked rows.
The garden long gone,
flowers and light remain
in my mind
where the scents and sounds
of small-town life
waft through,
pungent, ingrained
unforgettable.
The memory–
a spectacular yard,
rich and green,
massive trees
that did not stand
the test of time.
Their loss is
a lasting heartache.
66Somewhere, My Home
That room, a sunroom
where daylight streamed in
through the windows,
what does it hold
that makes me want
to return there now
even if only
in my mind?
The house sold,
gardening shears
hung up for good,
a final walk
through empty rooms.
Fifty years of memories
packed up, sold, given away.
Its memory evokes
the kind of
quiet communion I crave,
where I am only daughter
at the cusp
of what it’s like
to be a woman
in the world
where the sun
always emerges
through the clouds
and the rain.
Page 66, Somewhere, My Home by Leanne Fournier
