What Keeps Me Going

A Fine Line Press Collection

I am pleased to have found 18 spirited stalwarts writing keenly about keeping going, and I’m equally gratified to see so many different styles, including diary form, blank verse, prose-poetry, memoir, Japanese haibun, an essay with haiku and other poems, and even some descriptions of keeping going in Covid lockdown. The diversity of interests that these writers have in their lives is also inspiring. I sincerely hope, once you start reading, that you will want to keep reading, a pleasurable activity helping you to keep going!

Below are a few examples of what keeps the writers going in “What Keeps Me Going”.

Graham Bathgate, Kerikeri, New Zealand, November 2021

 

Appreciate every glorious, challenging, difficult, rewarding, happy moment we get. Each one is unique, and we just don’t know how many we are going to get – so let’s not waste any of them! Keep going!  One Thing is Curiosity, Margaret Stewart

We each go separately for our sunset walk on the beach, a place of succour through many a crisis, helping me put things in perspective, Mount Fuji hovering on the horizon … During lockdown, on our walks we enjoyed the smiling eyes of the faces hidden by masks, the occasional conversations. They have kept us going in more ways than simple exercise.    Green Tea and a Pickled Plum, Catharine Nagashima

We must strive to belong in our actions and our commitments, celebrate and laugh together, and sing for all we are worth. Let the music play!  Passion with Purpose, Charles Harter

At the moment I’m juggling several writing and editing deadlines … then there’s choir and cabaret practice, three shifts a week at my wife’s medical practice, builders renovating my study, replacing weedy grass with river stones, installing a new circling concrete driveway, new recipes to try … and writing some poems. Haibun in Times of Plague, David Gilbey

The Indian Ocean is a short walk from our house and never fails to lift the spirits whatever the season … . Time spent in the beautiful south-west of Western Australia delights and refreshes me, especially in spring, the season that is perhaps nature’s greatest gift … .   What Gets Me Up in the Morning, Margaret Wilkes

Among several routines, such as cycling, writing, connecting and reading obituaries to tweak my endgame, and of course delaying my own obituary being written … all that keeps me going!
Keeping Going Forward by Planning Backward, Barry Natusch