Well, I've done it once more and felt the restless urge to try my hand at this bloggy thing again, only somewhere else.
http://laelefanteria.blogspot.com/
I don't know why. I guess I like the feeling of a fresh start.
A small recap:
This year has been much about change-- relationship shifts, health and lifestyle adjustments, and mostly an enormous surge of writing that's sort of twisted things around in my head. I was invited to read at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts , where my poem, Taking my Baptism, was chosen for web publication (you can read it at the link). Near the end of the year, I was the recipient of the Gertrude Claytor Poetry Prize through the Academy of American Poets for a small collection of five poems. These accomplishments, while not the most important aspects of my MFA experience, provided just the validation and bolstering effect of acknowledgment to balance out the ever-growing stack of rejection letters, and the constant ebb of self-doubt around this whole Trying To Make It As A Writer business. Far more important in my first year was the harnessing of an understanding with my work, and deeper connection with myself and what makes me write what I write. I have two solid collections at their halfway points (one a series based on the beautiful but often surreal experience of an all-girls' camp and education; the other based on what I've affectionately dubbed "The Dead Dad Stuff"), and have a handful of prose pieces that don't make me cringe. These are all good things.
This summer things have mostly hit their stride: I run most mornings, then over a bowl of almond-butter-and-oatmeal write for three hours in my cubicle at the Taubman Museum of Art. In the afternoon I drink tea and attend meetings, and pull together layouts and budgets for my Big Project there. In the evenings there are some MFA boys and usually a movie, accompanied by some delicious home-cooked meal a crazy companion of mine might slap together (I'm a little gun-shy when it comes to cooking for others.. akin to my anxiety over performing any kind of mental math on command). At night I read until I can't hold my eyes open any longer and try not to murder my overly-vocal cat in a sleep-drunk rage.
It feels good to form my erratic behavior into a routine, and on Mondays I feel myself falling into it much as one might collapse into a warm old duvet. While much of what whirls around in my brain still feels manic and nervous, knowing that I can run and write daily despite my 40 hour work week has an almost immediate calming effect. As does good food. Which is also what my summer has been about:
Let's see how I keep up with things over at La Elefanteria 2.