FIELD NOTES, JANUARY 2026
- This poem¹ by John Newlove:
2. December 30, 2026: a quiet day with little to do. Drank two cups of coffee in the morning, then read on the old orange chair for an hour or so. Tidied the kitchen, made a pot of turkey soup, went for a walk when the rains cleared in the evening. Thought about endings and beginnings.
3. These quotes by Virginia Woolf:
“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves
“I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.”
― Virginia Woolf
“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three, 1923-1928
4. I realized the other day that I haven’t written a poem since sometime early last year. I had been so caught up getting Salt Bones off the ground, and then working on fiction projects, that I hadn’t made space for poetry. I also think I hadn’t felt the need—often, poems come when I’m trying to figure something out, and life has been straightforward (read: uneventful) in the past year. I’m trying to decide if this is a good thing or not.
5. These photos of my office in the late afternoon sun²:
6. These horoscopes, for January 17th and my birthday, respectively:
7. January 16, 2026: an unseasonably warm day for January. Coffee with a friend, then on to my grandparents’ house. Grandpa was working in the yard, his jacket hung over the back of the rock wall; grandma was in the basement, going through her fabric stash. When we drank coffee at the kitchen table, we talked about birds, about zinnias, about people aging and becoming unrecognizable.
8. This screenshot³ from my notes app:
9. Lately I’ve been thinking about just how much I enjoy writing these little letters to you, and in all their forms (blog posts, field notes, the monthly archive, the logbook), I can’t seem to choose one that I enjoy above the others. They’re all unique in their way, and all bring joy in different forms—I’m taking this as a good sign.
10. This month’s bibliomancy: a line from “Summer Solstice” by George Bowering, found within 15 Canadian Poets x2:
“The grass needs cutting, part of it
is yellow, it is dying of starvation, hell
it will be back next year, somewhere
else, & so will we, will we?”
FOOTNOTES
¹ This happens to be one of my favourite poems of all time, and I couldn’t tell you why. I first read it in 15 Canadian Poets x2 after picking a copy up at the local thrift store. I found it by flipping the book open at random and haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
² Listen, I know it’s not good for the planet to be this warm in January, but it’s still nice to have a bit of sun streaming through the windows after months of cloud and rain. I do love stormy weather, but I’m also a gardener, and sun makes me think of everything I’ll be planting in the coming months.
³ I made this little legend up for my weather scarf. At first there was a five degree span, but now there’s only four; the way it was before, I didn’t think I’d hit red or orange all that often, and that made me sad.
—Catherine
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