I apologize (to myself) for not keeping up on my blog writing. Trying to negotiate full-time teaching life with my writing life
has been a struggle.
When I went back to work in September I thought I could marry the two lives. This has proven problematic to say the least.
They don’t want to talk to each other let alone live in the same space. It’s too much like a polygamous situation. I can keep each life in a separate house on my property, and I certainly love them both. But how do I treat them equally?
What about my needs?
So if it can’t be a marriage, maybe it’s just about the sex. The teaching life is languorous Sunday morning lovemaking. The writing life is up against the wall intense.
No. That metaphor is just too weird. Maybe they are like two stomachs. I need to feed them both, and when one gets empty the other just has to wait its turn.
No. I gain weight instead of progress either way.
Here at The Garrison Institute, where the train cries across the Hudson River and the monastic rooms call for peace, none of these analogies work. Just having the moments to contemplate these ideas is a gift.
The property itself is magical. One writing retreat over a weekend and I have been here forever; I never left. Somehow time lets us push her around a bit, and we can get a week’s worth of thinking and writing done from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.
I have room in my heart for both teaching and writing. I just have to make room in my life. Scooch over sleep. I’ve got work to do.
Thank you Robert Polito and Adam Fitzgerald, for this important weekend. I will carry your words with me.
Thank you Rozanne Gold. I understand now why they are called writing “retreats.”
“Along the Margins of Voice: Writing, Reading & Performance in the 21st Century” November 30-December 2, 2018
I loved all your metaphors!