Well, here I am. Alone in a dorm room. I can’t even say, like some here, that it takes me back to my college days. My son was born toward the end of my first quarter of college. In fact, I remember being bummed that I missed the last class of my Poetry Writing course because I was in the hospital giving birth. Not bummed in a strong sense. In most respects, I was so high on life, so overwhelmed with the joy of motherhood, but there was this little part of me that thought, darn, if he’d just waited two more days.
Though it is sort of strange…and well, amazingly quiet here in this room, I’m feeling at home already. It helped to spread my things all over the room right away. I plopped my yoga mat down between the two tiny twin beds (eeny, meeny…) and practiced a short sequence to relax. I mixed up some flow/breath moves with some staying with the pose right up to my own edge, and then just a little over. I brought a flat metal votive holder and a sage candle, which is now lit and burning next to me. I’m walking around barefoot.
There have certainly been some awkward, anxious moments in this day. I mean, wow, I’m so excited to begin, yet so blind as to what is about to unfold for me. It doesn’t matter how many pieces of paper I read detailing my daily schedule over the next eleven or so days, there are still questions, concerns, hopes, and fears rattling around in my brain. Not one person that I interacted with today after hugging my mother and thanking her for the lift, is someone that I knew prior to today. There’s just bound to be some awkwardness in that. The two hour dinner on the patio was wonderful, but we’re all still new, uncertain, warming up for what’s to come and I felt that.
I will be sharing in this blog the specifics of the work—and play—here in my first residency at the Rainier Writer’s Workshop, but today, I’d like to start broader, and dig down and ask myself WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE? It ‘s the sort of question that one must ask occasionally, so as not to wind up lost along the way.
1. I’m here to network. To meet other writers, make new friends, and build relationships that will support my writing life.
2. I’m here to be a better writer. In order to do this, I’ve got to listen, reflect, and practice.
3. I’m here to learn. Whatever I can. Writing specific or otherwise.
That sums it up pretty well. Stay tuned.
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Some past posts to keep you making time:
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone