Progress

Would it be cliché to say this is my life right now? This is the interior of my mind? Probably.  I already said that in my last post. The hole, you know. The Maw.

What’s it mean to have a hole in your soul? Does it mean you are unhappy?  That’s not right. It may be more accurate to speak in terms of “taking it down to the studs.” And why not? Shouldn’t one “take it down to the studs” every now and then in life? Midlife is famous for this sort of thing.

To continue the cliché, let me rewind ten days to an accomplishment. This one is up there with marriage and childbirth: the completion of my MFA. I already over-shared with my colleagues about how long it took me to get to the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. As an intro to my graduate class, I told the story of how I’d always heard it was the best, since I was 22, back when I would tell myself, Well, I can always write. As if writing of any kind could be a fall back plan, an Option 2, or anything remotely close to a ‘Sure Thing.’ I even admitted to the attendees of my class that I was rejected from all sorts of full residency programs when I was 25, and that I sent away multiple times for the admission materials to WWC, but then filed them for almost two decades, because I didn’t think I’d get in, I had no one to recommend me, and there was that graduate class you had to teach on some aspect of the craft of writing. I can teach composition; I can teach The Odyssey to 18-year-old honor students. But the craft of writing?

Here is something shocking: it was fun. Residency itself, ten days sequestered with other poets and writers, is not what I’d call fun. There were fun moments, but mostly this last one was by far the weirdest and most difficult, not only because of short timer’s syndrome, or Senioritis. The anxiety over these performances didn’t help: the graduate class and the reading. There is also the lonely sense that none of the new people want to talk to you because they’re never going to see you again. I felt some of that when I was a “freshman.” But mostly at residency I’ve been acutely aware of the neediness of our type of people, the way we all struggle with the desire to be seen and the need to be invisible. Most writers I know live with this duality. Any situation that isn’t solitary is full to bursting with these conflicting forces. I don’t know what this is. Damaged chromosomes? Improperly loved when young? Extreme sensitivity? An aversion to vulnerability? Most likely it’s a combination of all of the above. At residency we walk amongst each other for ten days, sensing this very recognizable need in everyone we see, even the faculty, I’d venture to guess. We feel it on a cellular level, as writers tend to feel things. It’s excruciating. Exhausting.  Enlightening. Beyond description.

I can’t believe I’ll never do it again. It’s in the past. There is relief in saying that, but even more there is profound pride at the accomplishment. And this undeniable, eager look towards the future: this is not an ending. Oh, no. This is very much a beginning.