Coming down into Detroit, at first the sun was setting above this thick blanket of clouds that stretched indefinitely and it was gorgeous, it really looked like I was looking directly at a sheep, and everything was a little bluish but it was still bright out.

Then we descended through the clouds and it felt like we were submerged underwater and I kept trying to take a breath to reassure myself that I wasn’t really drowning. And then I suddenly saw a sliver of sunset and realized that I could see again and we were in between two cloud blankets — a field of clouds above us, a field of clouds below us, and we hovered in between with a hot pink sliver of sun.

Did you know that there can be two layers of clouds with space in between? It was surreal. And still bright because of the sunset.

And then we descended through this second cloud layer and I took lots of breaths again, unable to focus, my eyes filled with clouds.

And then very suddenly it was  dark outside and we were looking over Detroit with all its lights on.

______

Steve picked me up at the airport and we drove home, together again, home again. After spending two weeks without someone, having that surreal experience of knowing someone you love only by their voice, and then returning and finding that that voice is attached to a body, it’s a head-spinner.

We went in the house and I whispered hello to the cats, barely perciptible. The dogs were locked in our bedroom, and when Steve walked in the bedroom door you could hear Moby already moaning, moaning like a human bound with duct tape. I don’t know if he smelled me or just knew that I was home. He bounded out to meet me, desperately. He fell to my feet and rolled over and rolled back up and licked my face and moaned and fell down again, trying so hard not to jump on me and unable to fully obey Steve’s orders that he blared from above while we huddled below in a puddle of tongues. Joon pranced and licked, pranced and licked, pranced and licked, pranced and licked.

I’ve read that dogs don’t know time — you can be gone an hour or a week and they won’t know the difference. That’s not true.

Moby has been at my feet ever since, making up for lost time.

November 23rd, 2009 | Category: happening, house, pet | Leave a comment

Last night the resident visual artists opened their studio doors so we could all walk around from building to building, studio to studio, getting a quick sense of what they’ve been thinking about during their time here. When I first got here, I really wished I’d come for visual art — I wanted to be making something tangible, to see progress and visual questioning, and to get to think visually instead of trudging through all this language. I was envious of their big, beautiful studios and appetizing art supplies. I forgot that impulse once I got more deeply into my writing, and in the end I think I’m glad I came for writing. Still, walking around their studios last night, it made me eager to get back to my studio at home.

November 19th, 2009 | Category: drawing, happening | Leave a comment

I came to the Vermont Studio Center thinking I perhaps had a few poems that I liked. I am leaving tomorrow morning with 9 poem-draft-drafts, 4 poem-drafts, and 14 poems that I like enough to send out to journals. It’s not that I wrote them all here — I wrote two from scratch material here, and one poem-draft-draft here. It’s that I came here not sure if I was a writer, or if what I’d been writing all year was really material that the world needed. Now I see that everything in my life really is material, and these scraps of things I was writing all year I have been given the chance to turn whole. I didn’t know how to move anything past the draft stage for the past year and a half. I think I was too much in crisis mode to polish. I needed to write, but I couldn’t push it to the professional point — or I needed to write, but I didn’t know how to push it past the draft writing that only I needed into a piece that the world could also access.

I came here not sure what sort of artist I am. I’m leaving with a much better understanding of why I make what I make, why it matters to me, and how it can be pushed — and also with a lot more questions. I know that there’s something I love about poetry, and also something I love about creative nonfiction, and about drawing. I came here feeling like somewhat of a fraud, hovering between all these worlds without dipping my feet fully into any. But now I see that I can do all of it. It just takes doing it. And while I’ve been feeling like a fraud, I had about 20 poems hiding in my journals all year long. And while I’ve been feeling like a fraud, I have a creative nonfiction manuscript that is complete (or at least for now), has an agent, and will someday hopefully soon be published. Making work can feel like time is moving backwards sometimes, but stepping back like this, printing out all these papers and seeing the sum of it, it’s proof that work is getting done even when it doesn’t feel like it is. I can leave here tomorrow knowing that I write, that I should write, and that there are a lot of projects inside of me, and that I don’t need to limit myself to one genre. I’m also leaving with a series of poems that I have to accept as a gift and keep pushing into a larger manuscript. That means that I actually am working on my second manuscript–I’m leaving being able to say that.

I came here not knowing how to be a professional writer. Now I know more which journals might accept my work and that I should submit to journals much more often. I know more that I really do have connections to all these artists, and they value what I have to say. And that the writing world really isn’t that big, and there’s room for me in it. And I know now much more securely that what I do is valid. Seeing all these artists sitting at their desks each day, staring out the window until a word comes, or spending the day reading, waiting, or spending the day researching, all these things are valid and necessary. It’s been hard in my life to say I’m a writer and an artist when people ask me what I do. Because I don’t go to my studio everyday, sometimes I write from home, because I’m not ever sure exactly what I’m writing, because the whole process is so mysterious, and because my publications are few. And because life has been difficult. It’s easier to talk about what I do in verbs than nouns — to say that I just graduated and I’m working on a book while raising dogs and kids and waiting for a baby — never mind I graduated two years ago and I don’t work on that particular book each day anymore. Coming here, surrounded by all these fascinating people doing what I do, it helps me to feel legit.

I came here in a crisis mode, hunkered down, afraid of flying bricks. I am leaving here no longer in crisis mode. I went through a lot in the past year and a half, but I feel that that chapter is over. After I wrote recently that I wasn’t sure what I was getting out of this blog format, I went back through the blog and read every single entry. And I realized that, one, there’s a lot of material there, and, two, that I went through a lot. I went through a lot, and meanwhile I was punishing myself for not pushing my work to a new level, but I don’t know if I could have then. I went through a lot and it’s over now.

As a sidenote, I have to say that for some reason I love to write and put images in this space. Sometimes poetry for me, at least right now, isn’t capacious enough. In this space I have all these questions that I’m grappling with in real time, plus I can publish photographs, and drawings, and notes, thoughts, poem-drafts, quotes from the outside world, all these things. It’s all material, I’m seeing here that it’s all material for future projects, even if I don’t know how. And most likely it’s unprofessional to have an online journal, but I like having it. It’s energy-giving. So at least for now it’s working for me.

I came here feeling a bit skittish of people, and feeling isolated. I’m leaving tomorrow feeling very connected to this group. For all my bad feelings about artists coming in, here are a bunch of genuinely kind people. The writers were especially close, and I’ve never been so confident that I was safe. There’s no sense of underlying judgment or threat here. I walk back to my room alone in the dark and all I have to think about is the beauty of the sky. Once when we were crossing the street and a car came, two people grabbed me to make sure I made it fast enough, though I was fine. Then one grabbed my arm to make sure I didn’t trip over something. I couldn’t go on a hike, it was just going to be too long and too uphill, and one of them brought me back a piece of a pine tree. I rarely had to bus my own plate. I’ve already had several offers to help me carry my suitcase to the shuttle bus tomorrow. I’m not asking for this sort of attention, I swear I’m not, but people here are attentive to one another. For all the reasons that I can’t wait to go home tomorrow, I’m still sad to see this group separate. We’ll never all be together again, and there was a dynamic that helped us truly coalesce the way that only some groups do.

It’s hard to see how something has changed you sometimes until time has passed. Probably there will be other ways, but these are the ways I can see right now. Going into the next phase in my life, I have a much more solid sense of myself as an individual and as a writer.

Walking out of my bedroom in the morning, the ground frosted, this is what I’ll miss.

November 19th, 2009 | Category: happening | Comments (2)

I was part of a small group reading last night and I was the first to read. It’s really so informal, and these people at VSC are the best audience — attentive, respectful, warm, open. But of course I was a little bit nervous just because the lights are low, there’s a bright light on me, there’s a speaker, and I have ten minutes — and when I’m a little nervous, my heart beats a little faster and my blood is coursing through my body at a more rapid pace. And I already have that, I already have all this extra blood and my lungs are so compressed.

I sent eight poems to Steve over email and I asked him to pick four — I asked him to just do a cold read and see which ones stuck out to him and I’d read those. But I should have known that he would pick the ones that were the hardest, or the bravest: poems about dogs puking, fears of pregnancy, and strange fur rituals. I was happy to read those, though, because, like in Iron Chef (which we watched once in a hotel room in Seattle), you are rewarded for taking risks.

But I also chose one poem that had the risk of being too difficult to read. In the poem I’m running around the room with string, encircling objects I love, running around some more, encircling some more objects that I love, until the house is a cat’s cradle. But that means that the poem is running, too, and the places to breathe are few. Hm, I should have thought about that a little more. I just envisioned Catherine Zeta-Jones singing at the Oscars 40 weeks pregnant. If she can do it..

The reading was going fine, and then I got to that poem and about halfway through I heard my voice shake and then my throat made this sound that was perhaps a death rattle and I could hear the blood pushing at my eardrums. That’s how much I couldn’t breathe. I took a breath, I kept going on, but then it happened again near the end of the poem, the sound of blood in my eardrums and then I sort of choked on my own lack of oxygen. I had to stop and quickly explain and take a big breath, and then I finished the poem, relieved to be done. I went from totally calm to running a marathon inside the length of one half-page. That’s what it’s like to read in public while a baby’s feet are kicking at your lungs. I’ll have to work on that. But I don’t think I would be kicked off Iron Chef, so I went back to my room and collapsed into my bed in peace.

November 18th, 2009 | Category: happening, the baby thing | Leave a comment

I feel such a part of this community here. Most of the time I don’t even notice that I’m pregnant and then someone will bring it up. I let a visiting artist into the writing studios today and really I should recognize her, she was introduced to all of us and she’s special, she’s an established artist and seems wonderful, but I didn’t recognize her at all. I’ve see you around. You look like you’re about to give birth any minute, is what she said to me. I’m not used to being the one that people notice. It’s not good for my art even how much I’ve tried to stay invisible — small work, short poems, titles that don’t call too much attention to themselves. I can’t hide now, though. But still I feel like I’m part of this group. And then I was realizing today that there are so many ways that this experience is different because I’m pregnant. Ways that I was sort of denying. It’s not that while pregnant I think about my differences from my past self constantly, but when I tally them up I realize that there just happens to be a lot. But I just live with them and mostly I don’t notice. I like the contrast of my really feeling like my old self in comparison to the list of how I’m not.

i walk so slowly it’s as if i’m underwater. i love to walk, so i do, but i don’t make it very far. i notice that when people are behind me walking to the cafeteria, they catch up with me very quickly. if i try to match their pace, i have to walk at a speed that feels abnormally fast.

food going down in small fragments, so i burp and gurgle every so often. food that burns as if hot bread were stuck in my throat.

leaning way back to digest.

hair thicker, and somehow wavier.

eyes sunken.

pale. green, almost.

sitting up so straight, so positively straight, i must be leaning back, because of my back.

a back that aches while sitting so most of the time i’m stuffing a sweatshirt behind me so i’m sitting with a thick arch in my back, my stomach sticking way out. i always have to remember to bring an extra shirt with me wherever i go.

unable to sit perched sideways for long — my computer has to be directly in front of me as i type or everything starts to hurt.

sitting way back makes me look uninvolved, like i’m listening passively to people as they speak. as i type, i have to lean back, which makes me feel less invested in what i’m typing.

an always sort-of stuffy nose, so i am conscious of my nose for a lot of the day and sniff a lot.

sporadic sleep.

nightmares, nightmares. my brain does not fully belong to me and thoughts feel like toxins that stay with me through too much of the morning and then return to me when i enter my bed again.

i’m just thicker. thicker thighs and face and of course stomach.

i am more sensitive. and more cranky.

i am more forgetful. the world makes less sense to me. i don’t fully trust i’ve really looked both ways before i cross the street.

my energy goes up and down very quickly. and with it my moods.

i’m on the lookout for pain. any pulling or weird feeling in my stomach sends me into high alert. it’s not that pain hurts more than before the pregnancy, it’s that the pain might mean something awful so it suddenly is so much louder.

i get incredibly thirsty. if i’m thirsty and i can’t drink a whole lot of water then i feel truthfully like i might pass out.

i inspect all the food in the cafeteria too thoroughly. what cheese might not be pasteurized and if i don’t know then is it worth the risk. how much caffeine is in that earl gray tea and is it worth the risk. does the salad bar look fresh enough, do those olives look like they’re from a can. i eye longingly the soda machine but so far i’ve refrained.

there’s wine at most events. people get louder or quieter or an altered, less self-conscious, less-edited version of themselves. i become the watcher of their changes and not the participant.

how many times i’ve run to the bathroom in a day.

i feel stylish, i have layers and colors i love, i’m surrounded by people who are stylish and i see myself reflected in them. then i’ll catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and realize that i look very undone, uncomposed, and swollen. pants fit funny, with my pelvis tilted back to make room for the baby. my body’s posture is more of an S than ever before. shirts don’t fit all the way over my belly. oh, i am not actually stylish. i just look tired. but the most stylish woman in the residency, wow, she’s pretty, she came over to tell me that i looked good and that she hopes she looks this good when she’s pregnant. here i was intimidated by her, for no reason. well, for how far along you are, i mean, she added. oh.

November 16th, 2009 | Category: happening, the baby thing | Leave a comment

So we adapt. I don’t notice the shower-head is moldy anymore. I don’t mind the construction noise. I don’t feel bad for myself that I can’t drink organic milk here.

I felt humbled today: walking downtown with a pillow case full of laundry, heading over for my date with Suds ‘n’ Dry for the afternoon. We residents with our VSC mugs and artsy scarves stick out pretty badly in a relatively rural low-income town.

The lights from outside light up my room at night, so I shut both the blinds and the curtains, and I’ve loved the ritual now of waking up in darkness, amazed at what time it is if it’s really so dark, then buttoning back up the curtains and twisting open the blinds. The grounds are covered with frost, everything reflecting light.

Someone keeps slamming the door at 4:30 in the morning, so I put on ambient noise.

When we travel, I have moments of being afraid that I won’t have these details in my life that seem to hold my identity: the ritual of morning walks or a specific coffee or the exact right kind of tea. It makes me a little anxious to leave for a long time, especially when we’ve traveled to another country, because none of the things that are my comforts will be with me. But it’s never a problem. We always just make do.

It makes me realize that, for all the horror stories people like to arm me with for what it will be like when the baby comes, like anything else we’ll adapt.

(Though a woman here very kindly came over to me on my birthday and gave me her aluminum water bottle because she knew that I didn’t like to drink out of plastic. I was willing to adapt, but I love how she was helping me bring my values that I hold at home to this place. Wow, that’s nice. People are so warm sometimes. I barely know her and she gave me a present. I’ve been impressed with the people here and their humanity. My brother says that maybe we should walk around pretending that everyone is our best friend, but they just have amnesia so they’ve momentarily forgotten.)

November 13th, 2009 | Category: happening | Leave a comment

It’s interesting and strange that I am conspicuously different. Maybe everyone feels that. But people stare at me here. Introductory questions focus on my stomach.

No one can be mean to a pregnant lady. I am instantly read, I think, to be a good person, and a stare quickly becomes a hello. One man takes my plates for me when I’m done eating.

Part of me feels like this is a small gift I can give to this place, to show that a pregnant peer can do this thing, too–can make work, exist away from home, eat the food that’s doled out to us, sleep in a rickety twin bed, and oversocialize.

Steve said that I could rob a bank now and then go in hiding for a couple of months and re-emerge out when the baby’s born. He says I look that different and that I should capitalize on it somehow.

My sister said the same thing about people she met when they were pregnant: when she finally saw them not-pregnant, she could get a better sense of who they were, and their features returned to themselves. Oh, that’s what you really look like.

I see that my face is different since becoming pregnant. My eyes deeper-set, darker underneath, my face more swollen, my nose sort-of swollen, breathing out of my mouth, my skin much paler, my hair thicker. I’m not sure if these people would recognize me in a couple of months.

In the cafeteria when I’m walking by, people make way. They step way back or they scoot their chairs up as close to the dining table as possible, as if I were five feet wide.

I’ve felt less pregnant here, though, than previously in the pregnancy. I try to move like everyone else, as flexibly and as quickly. With a prop in front of my stomach like in the movies, I could seem not-pregnant.

The baby is getting bigger and this is how I know: when it moves, not only do I feel it but I can see it. I watch my stomach move around, become asymmetrical, cone-shaped sometimes and then something pokes up in the upper left quadrant. All this visual shifting. It’s subtle, but sometimes I wonder if anyone else is watching.

November 13th, 2009 | Category: happening, the baby thing | Leave a comment

Me and my brother turn 30 today.

November 11th, 2009 | Category: happening | Leave a comment

Some images of the world here.

The bridge connecting the vermont studio center to the town is currently under construction, so the images have an extra detail of bright orange plastic and a very tall crane. Bridges are serious business.

I am settling much more into this life. So far the days actually feel too short. I had feared the opposite. There are so many starts in my studio, all this hope, so much that I want to work on, I sometimes feel a shortness of breath, I want to get as much done as possible. There’s magic here, we’re all under a spell of creativity and productivity, I have to make the most of it, and figure out how to bring some of this magic home with me.

My bedroom in Pearl House:

Pearl House:

Construction at vsc:

The Maverick Writing Studios are in the background, that long gray building.

Maverick Writing Studios:

My studio:

November 10th, 2009 | Category: happening | Leave a comment