The First Rule of Avoidance Club Is You Say Why It's Hard

Plus a Poets' Solstice Zoom Reading (tonight!), Green Fingerless Gloves, Whole Cloth Reading Series in Vancouver, Ali Blythe's Stedfast, Rajiv Mohabir's Whale Aria

Hi Friends,

It’s a misty day in Vancouver, grades are turned in, and I’m about to bake a cake.

But first, I want to share one of my most useful discoveries of the past few months: Avoidance Club.

Are there things you’ve been meaning to do that have somehow just not happened? Do you have a handful of “shame email” at the bottom of your inbox where the longer you wait, the harder it gets to reply? If so, read on.

How to Do Avoidance Club

Gather with one or more supportive people who are committed to confronting avoided things in a way that will move forward and release shame.

The Steps:

1. Name something you’ve been avoiding and say why it feels hard.

2. Decide to either take one step closer to completing this thing (it can be a very small step!) or delete it from your to-do list FOREVER.

3. Act! Either delete the thing forever or take that small step forward. Then maybe another step. A friend can help! Sometimes things are easier to do exactly because they aren’t OURS and we don’t have the accumulated weight of having avoided them. You can stick with one thing or just take that first step and move on to something else.

4. Schedule a next meeting when you will pick things back up. Make a plan either A) to take an action in between and report back for encouragement or B) not to move on things (and not to feel bad about it!).

Our cat Mousekin sitting in some Legos: “Everything is fine. These Legos are very comfortable. I’m not avoiding anything.” Sure, Mousekin.

As my friend Austen observed after a recent meeting, “The saying why it feels hard part is really important!”

A thing on our list might feel hard because:

• The next step is ambiguous

• We feel shame that we haven’t already taken care of it

• We’re nervous about how other people will respond (I was convinced that doctors would both 1) berate me for waiting so long to seek medical advice AND 2) berate me for wasting their time for a non-issue. Fun brain!)

• We’ve just developed some kind of block because of kicking it down the to-do list repeatedly

• We need help but we’re not sure who to ask or how

• We don’t really need to do the thing; instead, we need support in deciding not to do the thing

• We’ve prioritized other things in a way that totally makes sense but we still magically believe we should be able to do everything

• It IS hard (but will be easier when we’ve said why and have a friend cheering us on)

I’ve been thinking recently about how even the most competent people I know have things they avoid, or need weird little hacks and rituals and rewards to get them to do their neglected tasks (but sometimes also the impressive meaningful work that they love). I used to think these were things to outgrow. No longer.

Somehow, telling a nonjudgmental person why something is hard can unlock that thing, release the shame, make it possible.

Here are some of the things Austen and I have done at Avoidance Club:

• Complete tedious work training videos with quizzes

• Answer awkward emails

• Unbox and hang up art (and take the boxes to the recycling!)

• Make medical appointments

• Draft difficult sections of writing projects

The first time we did Avoidance Club, I offered them a gin and tonic and then realized I didn’t have any ice in my freezer and hacked a passionfruit popsicle into pieces and used it instead of ice. It was delicious! This is the spirit of Avoidance Club: find a way.

And then there’s my daughter Vesper’s to-do list, which requires no Avoidance Club.

The holidays are coming, and I hope you have some time for deep rest and connection (and maybe some of the things on Vesper’s list like “sweet treet edvenchr” or “qwiet cumftrBl snugl,” but if you’re looking for a New Year’s Resolution, you could do worse than texting a friend to see if they want to start an Avoidance Club.

Poets’ Solstice Reading Tonight (via Zoom)

Do you ever feel like poems don’t include enough cleaning the gunge out of the sink trap and wiping snotty noses?

If so, you might want to tune in via Zoom this afternoon/evening.

At 5 pm in Vancouver, I’ll be settling into my office in an otherwise empty department building to read a selection from Bernadette Mayer’s Midwinter Day (a book that’s extra special to me because it was the focus of my first peer-reviewed article and I spent a LOT of time rereading and thinking about it) and a selection from Midwinter Constellation (an homage to Mayer co-written in Google docs!). I’ll also be knitting a green fingerless glove I need to finish for my mom before Christmas while others read.

It would be a pleasure to have you with us from wherever you happen to be—knitting along, or washing dishes, or wrapping presents, or sitting with a candle to celebrate the return of the light. These books are funny, intimate, messy good company.

Poets' Solstice: Readings from Midwinter Day and Midwinter Constellation

Thursday, December 21, 2023
9a China | 5p Pacific | 6p Mountain | 7p Central | 8p Eastern
Zoom registration required: https://shorturl.at/pqyEZ 

The Whole Cloth Reading Series

Speaking of readings, along with Elee Kraljii Gardiner , I’ve revived the dormant Whole Cloth Reading Series.

An experience in deep listening, each Whole Cloth Reading Series event features a single poet who reads an entire book of poems from cover to cover. While poets devote immense craft to shaping a book, public readings tend to favor selections and excerpts. Uniting writer and audience in a celebration of expansive and unhurried attention, this series creates a rare environment for the investigation of poetry, sound, delivery, and reciprocity. Each event features a transformative (short!) book and concludes in time for a cordial reception and conversation.

Our first reader this past November was Ali Blythe, who read his new book Stedfast. This book! It takes John Keats’ “Bright star, would I were stedfast as though art” and breaks it into pieces with each piece becoming the title of a tight luminous poem. Fans of Keats and/or queer love poems, don’t sleep on this one. A beautiful side benefit was that students in my grad poetry class who attended the reading kept returning to the touchstone of how Ali talked about writing in couplets as a generative constraint.

If you’re in Vancouver (or you enjoy hearing a whole book of poems read cover-to-cover via livestream), sign up to get updates and information about future events.

Our next reading will be on February 13th when Rajiv Mohabir reads Whale Aria.

Now I’m off to start Samin Nosrat’s Cardamom-Almond Tea Cake, possibly the best cake ever. Let me know if you want the recipe.

Yours in poetry, cake, and nonjudgmental support,

Bronwen