So while the government has shut down, figured I'd celebrate some nice anniversaries. Yesterday technically (Sept. 30) I arrived back in NYC two years ago. My stuff arrived a couple months later, but I started teaching at Bronx Community College the next day. It was quite a whirlwind. I wrote about it here of course, and someday when I have the time, I'll go back and read what I wrote.
I'm sorry to have not written a post in a while, but it's been kinda busy with teaching and some other exciting projects hopefully coming to fruition and visiting my mother in Maine for her birthday. John was able to visit two times this past month, so that was great, too. More than great actually...I miss him so terribly right now. I cannot believe - still - that it takes 7-8 months for him to get a visa Even Though We're Married and he's from Canada (Canada, people! Canada?!). Now with the government shut down, God only knows...
However, in other news, one of the reasons John came down again this month was to go to the doctor with me regarding fertility issues, and as can be expected at 50, things are not looking good in that area. I was sad about that, however it was good to get the information. We can't afford the crazy expensive alternatives, so decided it was time to let the idea of having a child go.
Then, in the way things tend to work in my life, as soon as I've accepted something, another avenue appears. When flying back from Maine to NYC, my seat mate told me that he and his partner had just adopted a gorgeous little baby girl. I asked him how that had worked and apparently it was through the foster system. I had no idea adoptions ever occurred that way, but assumed there was some type of fee. No, there isn't. He was very encouraging. He and his partner are gay and assumed there would be prejudice, which there wasn't. I asked him if they'd think I was too old and he said no. He said that their case workers asked them to send friends their way and he gave me his contact details, which was quite generous. So, a possibility appears. Amazing, right? Will keep you all posted...
Meanwhile, I have not been able to work on the grandmothers book in way too long. I look forward to the day I can return to it. Life has just been full to bursting with other things.
It's late so I'm going to keep this short, but I want to say: hooray for being married for 3 months! While I will be far happier when we can finally live together, I still count July 1, 2013 as the happiest & best day of my life so far. I think the only day that will beat that will be the day John and I can actually live together permanently. I know - I ask for so much....
As for my 2 years in NYC, wow. I am so glad I moved back here, even though the government is insane and America is...what it is...NYC is my home and always will be. The one place in the UK I miss so much it makes my teeth hurt is the Orkney Islands (the islands north of Scotland). I am hoping to get back there to visit as soon as possible. I delayed that this year because of love & borders and would make that choice again, but my dearest hope is that I can return soon with John.
But, overall, life is good. I have found true love with another human being and am finding that allows me to reach out for the work I love, too. I've never felt so strong in my life, because no matter what I try, I know that love is there, so nothing is life or death. It's a glorious feeling and one I've never experienced until now. Wish I had managed to find it earlier in my life, but so entirely grateful it's come my way at all.
I wish this for everyone, because it feels like the meaning of life, if such a term even encompasses what I want to say - maybe more like touching the infinite in the manifest world. The miracle of unconditional love.
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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Today marks three months that Julia and I have been married; and I continue to be amazed at how profoundly deep my love for Julia extends as it continues to grow, unabated. My love for her is now far more expansive than my mind can encompass, so, I can only surrender to the deep feelings I have for her and revel in the way they enwrap me entirely. This is a totally new experience for me and one which now completely defines what my life has been until now, as well as what my life will be from now on.
ReplyDeletePerhaps most cannot appreciate what Julia is wishing for her blog readers in hoping some of you might find this in your lives, too; but, if any of you do find this in your lives (and I too hope that you all do) then you will realize that, really, this does make up for all lost time: it is time rediscovered, a different kind of time in which everything becomes other than it had been fleetingly and retroactively through instead just becoming the rush toward finding this at last, where everything before finally fits into its place and one can say nothing need have been different at any point in one's life in that everything has finally found fruition in this.
Oh and Julia neglected to mention that during my last visit Home with her, we saw Evan Parker at "The Stone" (http://thestonenyc.com/) and spent the entire show holding hands, our faces fully just rapt grins and sparkling eyes. Great venue, outstanding show; and kudos to me for not bringing a camera along...