The Poem

Well, it came in the mail today and I’m so thrilled with the way Spin-off Magazine showcased my poem. Plus they sent me several copies and they’ve put it on their website, so I can let friends, and family know where they can find it. http://www.spinningdaily.com/blogs/spinoff/archive/2012/02/24/spin-off-spring-2012.aspx

 I smile every time I think about how this little poem came about. Years ago, many, many years ago, I watched a spinner spinning wool in the mall. I wanted to stay there watching but I had kids and a mother wanting to move on, get shopping, eating, going.

But something about spinning touched me. I couldn’t explain the why and heaven knows, at that time, I had enough to keep me busy. Still, that seed rooted itself.

Years later, after the kids were older, I finally began my writing in earnest again and took my youngest two boys to an old time rendezvous to do a little research for a western historical book I was writing while showing my sons what life was like way back when. A woman was demonstrating spinning in one of the cabins at the Fort Buenaventura Campgrounds. I was again struck with the soothing rhythm, the tactile experience. I promised myself, someday, I’d own a spinning wheel and learn to spin.

Many years later I sold an essay to Birds and Bloom, my first published piece, payment $200.00. I bought an beautiful silver beech spinning wheel and paid to have it finished and assembled. Then I spent four weeks trying to learn to spin. I say try because it’s so much more complicated than it looks. It takes time to learn to keep the right tension, get the yarn even and thin, get that easy rhythm. And it marvels me that that is only the beginning of the process of making clothing and textiles. I’ve learned such an appreciation for what women, our predecessors, did to provide food and clothing for a family.

Jump ahead years later when I took a poetry workshop. One challenge was to write a poem about a skill or hobby. I’d always planned to write about my experience spinning. Such a tactile, sense-filled pursuit and I always felt the art so like writing, somehow. 

The Cashmere Life was born almost whole as if it had been waiting to be written.

I took a chance sending in the poem. I’ve never seen a poem in Spin-off through all the years I’ve read it, especially on the end page. I had a, what the heck, moment, figuring a poem was every bit as relevant as an essay would be. You know: nothing ventured. I had given up just a week before I heard. After all, it had been nine months.

The other day as I was getting my teeth cleaned, my hygienist asked how the writing was going. I mentioned my little poem coming out in Spin-off.

“It might be a magazine not everyone will see.” I said. “But still, I’m published and I’m so proud of it. They made it look so good.”

“What is Spin-off?” she asked.

“A magazine about spinning.”

“The exercise?” she asked.

“No, spinning yarn.”

“People still do that?” The shock on her face was priceless.

Well, yes they do, in fact, my sister was in a craft store the other day and happened to mention my poem in the magazine. The lady immediately asked, “Is your sister in one of our spinning groups?” Not at all impressed by the publishing accomplishment. Isn’t perspective wonderful?

That made me smile, somehow. Still does.

I wished I had written my bio for the poem differently: Toni Gilbert of Ogden, Utah spins yarn, short stories, essays, novels, and poetry.

Anyway, the whole experience with the poem had make me realize how grateful I am to be a writer. To feel passionate about doing something and doing something I love. Having something like that is more powerful than getting published, however great that is. It keeps me feeling alive and excited to start my day, keeps me too busy to worry about the little things.

When I look back on my life, I realize writing and reading has done that and saved me so many times. Through lonely parenthood, railroad widowhood, financial trouble, marriage ups and downs, family dust-ups and heartbreaks.

Oh, the teen that was me with a broken heart (every month or so, the drama) with tears, candles hunched over my father’s old roll-top desk writing tear-stained poetry, the overworked, sleep deprived mother, the empty-nester. I hope my father knows about this poem. It was his dream, too, to be published in a national magazine.