Reading on June 10 at Bruce's Garden!

Not a very fancy blog post, but wanted to tell you that I will be reading on June 10 at the lovely Bruce's Garden in Isham Park as part of a wonderful Midweek Literary Reading Series curated by Carmel McMahon up here in Inwood. The event starts at 7pm.

I am happy to be reading with Geoff Wisner, who has a great map of the site where we will be reading on his website (so by all means check him out). He'll be reading from one published book, African Lives, and another forthcoming book, Thoreau's Wildflowers. Both sound great.

I will be reading excerpts of various types of writing, not sure precisely what yet, but there's a really good chance I will read an excerpt from The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick and Jani, so if you want to boast of being the First Ever People to hear me read from this (half-way edited - so close to done I can taste it) book in a public forum, this is your best - and indeed only - chance.

(Yes, I did read a very short bit to other writers at Vermont Studio Center, but that was a private workshop-type situation.)

I may also be reading some bits from the William James Project stage text '...whatever God is', this blog and some other prose inspired by the history of the location.

There will be - between Geoff reading and me reading - refreshments.

Bruce's Garden is gorgeous. It's summer. You know you've always wanted to take the A train to end of the line to 207th Street, get off at the front of the train, take a left at Edison's Cleaners, follow the path up the steps to the Northeast corner of Isham Park to hear some authors read what they have been killing themselves to write...So...

What's not to like?

and plus: Thoreau!

Back from the Green Mountains of Vermont

Wow, that was kind of amazing.

Just went on a two week writing retreat at Vermont Studio Center, where I edited 80K words of my book in 2 weeks. I laid groundwork for this in NYC (about 50K in 6 weeks), but managed to really motor through a little more than half the book while there.

I wish I could have stayed for the month, because might have had an edited book at the end, but I'm hoping to use momentum from that extraordinary time to move through the second half. Also, hoping to get back up there ASAP.

I was affirmed, through the sheer ability to work so long and so hard, in the work itself, and also through meeting other writers with challenging projects, who were both inspiring and encouraging.

On Friday night, I read aloud a couple pages to my fellow writers, which was a first for this book. Haven't shown it to anyone for 4 1/2 years. I was moved by their response, and was taken aback by how emotional I felt reading the section I did. I knew I felt for Dick and Jani, but I didn't realize how much until I started reading aloud.

So, I feel much more confident, like I do have a book on my hands, and this is invaluable to see me through to its completion.

Wish me luck in keeping up the momentum (though I could not work at the level I did those 2 weeks here without exploding - I think I can ramp up my focus here). I don't want to dismiss the work I've done here in NYC either, because in many ways it was the hardest bit.  However, at the retreat I got through the section/s of the book I felt were going to take the most out of me emotionally, and that was a wise choice.

I hit a wall only once, and did my laundry. When I returned to the studio (after also having kvetched to some fellow writers) - bam - could work again.

Our studios looked out over a river, so with the window open, the sound of the water running through the stones and mini-rapids soothed my soul.  There is a deep internal expansiveness on offer at VSC, and I feel so grateful to have experienced it. They even offered Kripalu yoga two times a week, so I was in heaven. And good food!

I am now back in Inwood, it's hot and I left behind some folks I really liked meeting in Vermont (including visual artists - with some of whom I hope to collaborate on future performance projects), but I also returned to John, my beloved Canadian and Ugo, my beloved rescue cat. My little family who were happy to see me. That's truly special, too.

I'm feeling pretty damn grateful right now and just plain old lucky. There have been many hard roads leading to where I am now, and those roads are - whether I like it or not - why I can write this damn book in the first place. Those roads are also how I know what a gem John is - true love is the best gift ever. That combined with meaningful work is life's jackpot as far as I can tell.

Thanks to all of you have been and are supporting me through this process. I think I have one last push to get this over the finish line - at least stage one finish line - a readable draft.

On my way to Vermont writing retreat

On the train - my happy place. I love traveling on rails, watching the world go by at ground level - even the rickety-ass, diesel, opposite of high-speed rail trains that we have in this infrastructure-challenged country. There is the strange way in which nature meets with a gutted-out manufacturing base (empty buildings, glass smashed in or in some cases old factory buildings converted to use as software company headquarters). Today is a light green and blue day.

The light green of new trees and leaves...some bright buds in trees, many cat tails, ponds, lakes, rivers, sky a pale blue with cumulus clouds, some white, some grey...the route is from NYC to Waterbury Stowe, VT, via Connecticut. One feature of route has been going through the town where I went to high-school for the first time since the earl 80s. It looks the same, and that was a surprise. But New England has that genius for some kind of odd stability even within all the changes of fortune of this country, various sectors, etc...I am from New England - all over New England - so most places have some resonance. And most places look the same.  The exceptions are the cities, like Providence, Portland and Boston, all of which were falling apart in the 1960s and 70s and now are swankier, artsier, hipstery-er...richer. So poorer people move out further and further...don't want to sully the Views.

The forests look the same, many of the buildings were gutted out already by the 70s, the train runs no faster, perhaps slower. The one place I have spent very little time is the place I am going: Vermont. Home of our One and Only progressive candidate for president...Bernie Sanders...

Speaking of which (and as if on cue going over one)....a moment to acknowledge the ancient, rusty bridges. The ones built - I'm guessing - during the 1930s (the last time there was any infrastructure money spent on the country as a whole - and which probably need maintenance, but I do hope stay the same structurally). I forget at times how Connecticut - even Connecticut, when outside either NYC suburbs or certain factory-heavy areas - can have a mysterious charm. It reminds me now of Girl Scout camp (dreaded Girl Scout camp) where we would go on endless canoe trips along rivers and streams...me somehow rowing us into the branches of swamp-trees - having as usual a tenuous relationship to my physical reality...I think that's changed, but then...Oy. I did get glasses when I was 13, so do wonder how long I couldn't see properly...or perhaps it was just being dissociated or perhaps I'm not wired right...all of these things are possible.

Just put on Eno's Another Green World, which is kind of like a movie sound track for this kind of journey. Damn, I do love traveling.

I am on my way to the writer's retreat. This train ride is my sacred transition time. This is why I like trains. You can think, write, see, read, walk...you don't have to drive or be stuck in a car seat or a plane looking over everything as if the world were a toy board game. And - as mentioned prior - in the US, they take a lot of time...which for a journey like this is kind of perfect.

I was sad leaving home and leaving my beloved John and Ugo (my cat). I was glad to feel sad, because it makes me realize that I finally Do have a home. A place to which to return. Someone I will miss a lot and who will miss me. This means I am finally connected to the world somehow, not just an untethered being bouncing around like a random electron or whatever. To be connected but to be able to travel and do something I need to do, both, seems like impossible bounty. A true gift. I think this is something normal to most people, so my saying it this way probably seems odd...but growing up people left me behind or took me to different places many times, so anytime I left a place, there was a good chance I would not return, or - if I did - it would have changed a lot. So, my first relationship as an adult was basically a mutual hostage situation wherein neither of us were allowed to move. That was doomed to fail and it did. My second one was in response to this and involved both of us moving here and there and not being together enough, which was also doomed to fail - and did. My current relationship, my lovely, unexpected, late in life, glorious marriage with John is the final Goldilocks one: "just right." We are connected always but journeys are possible.

I do feel lonely in moments, though...but I think that is part of the writing process. Loneliness. There's no way out of that bit. I am fairly certain if there was, I would have found it by now. It's like a sound barrier you have to walk through to get to the place where you can focus in the way that is necessary to do the deep sea diving necessary. Sometimes I can do that in crowds, sometimes I need solitude. Sometimes when alone it can feel like I'm surrounded by others, so it's not even about physically being alone, it's about being willing to BE alone.

I am hoping to get a lot of work done on the book in the two weeks in Vermont. I kind of wish I had the full month, but the timing of this retreat was perfect in terms of being smack in the middle of the editing process. In terms of being separated from my beloved man and much-loved cat and home, it'll be about the most I want/can cope with right now. I get so locked into the past as it is in this book - and New England is nothing if not My Past (though not northern Vermont, so that's good) - that at times I really need a tangible reminder of my present.

We are stopped in Springfield, Massachusetts now, where I believe my good friend Dave lives...another blast from the past.

Which reminds me.

Yesterday, I was walking under the canopy of cherry trees in Central Park, watching the pink petals rain down in the gentle breeze to carpet the dirt path. I was supposed to go Do Things, but I just stopped. Just plopped down on the ground and sat and watched the petals fall. I felt so peaceful, like I was touching a place I first touched when I was 17 and at the summer program where I met my friend Dave. One day, near the end of the 5 weeks of the arts program, I was on my way to Do Something, and instead of Doing whatever it was, I just took a turn and walked in a different direction. I looked at what was around me, the trees, houses and such. I had no idea where I was, and I didn't care. I was surprised to find that I was high on the fact that I had Diverted from The Plan...I associate that walk with the beginning of my real life, my adult like - the one where I get to make choices.

Now, for me anyway, it's easy to lose track of that part of me and get sucked into Plans to Do Things and forget to just turn in a different direction, walk somewhere unfamiliar or just stop, sit, watch and wonder. I wasn't lost yesterday. I know Central Park pretty well these days, but I stopped the course of pre-planned events. Sometimes a shift in time is as good as shift in space.

I felt like I began my retreat right then, in the middle of Manhattan, especially when I lay back and my head had an accidental yet oddly comfortable pillow made by a root of one of the cherry trees. I felt connected again to this deeper self, the one I can hear when I am quiet enough; the one that when I let it lead, things work out better than when I ignore it, yet because it's invisible and appears to have zero to do with the practical, it's easy to overlook.

This was also a good reminder that while going to Vermont will be lovely and helpful, I have Access to that part of me always. It is not site-specific (!)

OK, we're leaving Springfield now, to Northampton next...think I'll wrap this up...

Time to sink into the book...

In praise of slowness

So I did get back to the editing. It's going more slowly, but I'm also happier with the results. Been combing through the first hundred pages over and over again - kind of like a knotty bit of hair - needs to be brushed a number of times through to untangle, but if you pull too hard it'll just resist. The returns need to be gentle. The hand needs to be patient. Then the strands gives way.

I've found more cuts, added some bits, and am hearing Dick & Jani's voices more clearly with each pass. I don't know if this will make the rest of the book editing go more quickly or not, but I've surrendered to the pace.

On what would have been Dick's 100th birthday (April 27), I was accepted to Vermont Studio Center for a residency. I could only accept the two week slot (May 10-23), but after panicking about it (what I have taken to referring to as New York agoraphobia), I said yes and then was - and am - delighted at the choice. Everyone I know who has been there, has loved it - it sounds like Kripalu for writers and artists. Will tell you more about it when I'm there, but this opportunity feels like a huge gift from the universe.

I am now preparing for that retreat time, which will be more of a sprint than a marathon. I realized that to be able to do what I want there, I need to be well-rested going in - and need to prepare my papers and such to bring up what I need. I put together a PhD in four weeks in the Orkney Islands in Scotland in 2009, and the first two chapters for upgrade (which I then revised entirely) I wrote in two weeks in September 2006 (also on the Orkney Island)s. Vermont is not nearly as remote, but on the plus side, all my meals will be taken care of and there's a yoga studio, meditation room and a bunch of other weirdos running around. I hope not to be distracted by same. I can find a certain kind of focus when I am all alone that I'm not certain I ever find when anyone else is around, but will do my best. When the balance of alone time with people concentrating on their creative tasks, there can be a kind of wind underneath one's sails, which I hope to experience. I've never been on an art/writing retreat before, so we'll see. The other ones were self-made and done alone.

I would love to finish the revision in Vermont, and hope to make a lot of headway, but need to remember what I've written earlier here, that some of this just Takes Time and two weeks isn't a lot of time.

No matter what, I am fairly confident I'll get a lot more done there when that is all I need to do and surrounded by so much beauty and quiet. Or maybe I'll just fall asleep. Who knows?

In other news, I've had an endless tooth odyssey, which involves waiting for a root canal and such, when all I thought I had agreed to was something much simpler...I won't go into all the gory details, except to mention that the filling that was removed and is in process of being restored was put in in the 1970s, around the same time of the material in the book that I am editing. This has had an interesting effect emotionally - not all pleasant - but of course any openings are good - even they involve teeth and pain. Thawing frozen places is not pleasant whether physical or emotional and sometimes they seem to weirdly intersect.

Spring is springing, and that, too, is generally a bittersweet time (touched on in last post), but overall it is quite beautiful after such a long, hard winter. Now to take a walk in the sun with my beloved....

Speaking of which, I want to give a shout out to John, who is supporting my retreat time even though neither of us like to be separated. I've never been in this situation before, where I can both leave and know someone will be home when I get back (and not have gone off with someone else) and know that the person at home will care that I have returned and have missed me when I'm gone. This may seem like a basic thing, but for me it's a first, and a deeply healing one. Love is an astonishing thing.