Interesting to come back to a place, it makes it feel more like home. Ugo the rescue cat was quite happy when I came back, purring and rubbing up against me, following me around the house and he gets along with Marietta as well. This is wonderful.
Had a fairly unevent-filled plane ride, which is the kind you want - marked papers on the endless A train from Howard Beach to 207th and then went to a meeting about the play reading at the cafe we all love.
Marietta is still here so we're having a slumber party tonight, which is really the only way to describe it when you have a guest in a studio apartment.
Finished marking stuff and now need to go over lesson for tomorrow. Marietta doing the same for her students. Peaceful up here dotted every once in a while with loud Dominican music coming from a passing car.
Oh, the most notable thing about the day of possible use to you: I started reading The Liar's Club by Mary Karr. It is extraordinary. A memoir written by a poet. She has raised the bar, well, I guess I should say she is holding up the bar along with Joan Didion, who originally raised the bar and now hurls it past us mere mortals. Didion is in the stratosphere right now and can only be admired like a shooting star or a meteor shower. Karr is about 7 years older than me but in my vicinity, so I can relate to her better and hope to learn from her more easily. She also comes from chaos and has found her way through that, personally and as an artist. Another reason I can relate to her.
I read these women and hope to learn from them. I need to learn from them to make anything worth reading out of the various writing projects I am attempting.
For now though back to the vagaries of non-verbal communication, the better to explain Chapter 6 in the text book to my students...verbally.
Welcome to my blog..
"We struggle with dream figures and our blows fall on living faces." Maurice Merleau-Ponty
I am now transitioning into being married again with a new surname (Barclay-Morton). John is transitioning from Canada to NYC and as of June 2014 has a green card. So transition continues, but now from sad to happy, from loss to love...from a sense of alienation to a sense of being at home in the world.
As of September 2013 I started teaching writing as an adjunct professor at Fordham University, which I have discovered I love with an almost irrational passion. While was blessed for the opportunity, after four years of being an adjunct, the lack of pay combined with heavy work load stopped working, so have transferred this teaching passion to private workshops in NYC and working with writers one on one, which I adore. I will die a happy person if I never have to grade an assignment ever again. As of 2018, I also started leading writing retreats to my beloved Orkney Islands. If you ever want two weeks that will restore your soul and give you time and space to write, get in touch. I am leading two retreats this year in July and September.
I worked full time on the book thanks to a successful crowd-funding campaign in May 2014 and completed it at two residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Wisdom House in summer 2015. I have done some revisions and am shopping it around to agents and publishers now, along with a new book recently completed.
I now work full-time as a freelance writer, writing workshop leader, coach, editor and writing retreat leader. Contact me if you are interested in any of these services.
Not sure when transition ends, if it ever does. As the saying goes, the only difference between a sad ending and a happy ending is where you stop rolling the film.
For professional information, publications, etc., go to my linked in profile and website for Barclay Morton Editorial & Design. My Twitter account is @wilhelminapitfa. You can find me on Facebook under my full name Julia Lee Barclay-Morton. More about my grandmothers' book: The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani
In 2017, I launched a website Our Grandmothers, Our Selves, which has stories about many people's grandmothers. Please check it out. You can also contact me through that site.
In May, I directed my newest play, On the edge of/a cure, and have finally updated my publications list, which now includes an award-winning chapbook of my short-story White shoe lady, which you can find on the sidebar. I also have become a certified yoga instructor in the Kripalu lineage. What a year!
And FINALLY, I have created a website, which I hope you will visit, The Unadapted Ones. I will keep this blog site up, since it is a record of over 8 years of my life, but will eventually be blogging more at the website, so if you want to know what I am up to with my writing, teaching, retreats and so on, the site is the place to check (and to subscribe for updates). After eight years I realized, no, I'm never turning into One Thing. So The Unadapted Ones embraces the multiplicity that comprises whomever I am, which seems to always be shifting. That may in fact be reality for everyone, but will speak for myself here. So, do visit there and thanks for coming here, too. Glad to meet you on the journey...
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