I lie down and get back up only minutes later. I close my eyes and then open them. I’m filled up and emptied out at the same time. Exhausted and yet energized.
I’m on my way home from Vermont College of Fine Arts after 8 days of a residency full of lectures on the wonder of the sentence and the state of the story. Readings of poems, stories, and creative nonfiction. New faces and new words. And more books and ideas and craft than I had when I arrived.
It was a winter wonder land.
Good to hear you survived the cold northland. 🙂 I hope you get your exhausted energy balanced quickly at home.
Thanks, Linda. I came home to the cold southland: 26 degrees right now.
Oh, I’m so, so jealous!!! Oh, sentences, how I love thee! 🙂 I would love to hear more!
Annie, Robert Vivian gave this lecture. It was not what I was expecting, but it was wonder-full–all about sound and place and training the ear to listen for what is not quite there.
Sounds fun! I believe I told you about Stacy Nyikos, who’s in your program and part of my Book Review Club. She started last summer, I think. I met yet another student, Anna Boll, who actually lives in my town in Maine. Anyway, look out for them as I think you’d like them. What a small world!
Thanks, Sarah. It’s always nice to have connections when arriving in a new place. I will definitely look for them this summer.
I hope it was all you imagined it to be and more.
It was, Lisa. Thanks. I believe VC’s focus on craft and on the choices available to me as a writer is exactly what I needed at this point in my writing.
I think I have the post-residency blues, a weird funk that besets me upon re-entry. All I wanted to do today was rest, but I felt restless. I wrote a blog post this afternoon that contained this line: “I cannot tell if I am full or empty.” Hearing that it’s not just me makes me feel better somehow.
(I’m so glad to have met you!)
Hi, Jenna-
Nice to have met you and to see you here. It’s interesting that we both had the same weirdly contradictory sensation of wanting to rest and being restless.
Today, however, I only want to be caught up. I’m scurrying around unpacking and folding laundry, de-piling the piles, answering comments and emails, making order out of disorder. Not that I can be finished, but I want to feel as if I have the space to move forward tomorrow.
Thanks for your comment!
Love the contradictions in this post – they work so nicely.
Sounds like a wonderful week.
Thanks for reading, Jennifer. After two full nights of sleep, I’m beginning to feel less like a contradiction and more like a person : )