All Hallows, All Saints

In moments, I am going to leave to drive over to Tieton, Washington, to attend the LitFuse 2008 poetry workshops. I signed up because Tieton is both beautiful and also the town where my mother grew up. Add poetry, and how can I refuse? Plus, Lorna Dee Cervantes is teaching a master class.

I didn't check the rest of the schedule until yesterday, when I saw that the focus of this year's workshop is Dia de los Muertos and writing about the dead.

?!?

I feel like all I've done is write about the dead. Not exactly true, but that's how I feel. Why was I going to spend a weekend focusing on it. Could I spend a weekend focusing on it?

Then I realized that most of my poems have been about death and grief and loss, the experience of the living after death. Very few poems have been about the dead, for the dead (two, though, for my grandparents who lived in Tieton).

So I'm embarking on something new after all. It's exciting.

Now, it's time to gas up and go.