Tag Archives: Glen Workshop

Then the music begins

Posted on by under Creating Place

On its own, there was nothing special about the room. In fact, it was the antithesis of special: Generic and drab, it looked like hundreds of other tired, 1960s-era college dorm lobbies, furnished to withstand the antics of students whose parents weren’t on hand to tell them to keep their sneakers and snacks off the furniture.

But in that room, tucked around the corner, was a piano. And when China played that piano, everything about the room changed.

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It was June 2012, and I was on the campus of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts for a weeklong of Glen writing workshop with Lauren Winner. Staying in a dorm for the first time in 20 years made me feel a bit like a teen again, brimming with that same sense of nervous excitement. Who were all of the people I caught glimpses of as they came and went from their rooms down the hall? Which ones would I be hugging fiercely by the end of the week, as we said goodbye?

That first evening—after dinner, the opening talk, and a welcome reception—many retreated to their rooms to recover from a long day of travel. But the extrovert in me knew that going to my room would lead to nothing more than a predictable evening: checking email, doing some reading, then falling asleep. If I wanted to open up my evening to surprise and possibility, I needed to venture into a public space: the dorm lobby.

Those who had been to the Glen before and understood how things “worked” had already started to gather. Plastic cups and bottles of wine were set out on the marred coffee table, and several institutional couches had been pulled up close. Bags of pretzels and popcorn were opened, and much talking and introducing ensued. I introduced myself to people, but mostly observed, holding back—waiting to feel myself soften into this new space.

It wasn’t until a few people began begging a woman named China to play the piano, and she finally agreed, that I felt at home. China’s music filled the room—not just with sound, but with energy, each particle of air vibrating in a way that reminded me “I’m alive, I’m a creative being, and it is good.”

*    *    *    *    *

pianomovingNow it is four years later, and China—China who is from Denver, who I met in Massachusetts then spent another Glen Workshop week with in Santa Fe last summer—is in my living room in Central Illinois, moving a piano. (To be accurate, she is supervising the moving of a piano.)

The piano had belonged to my grandmother. During my childhood, the piano’s home was a cabin in the woods of Northern Michigan, where my grandma’s expert playing inspired many sing-alongs. Tonight, China will play that piano, at a house concert we’re hosting for her band Alright Alright.

Life has been scooting along so frantically as of late that it takes my mind a moment to accept the wonderful reality: China and I are together again, this time in my home, with our husbands and children. Now we know one another as mothers and wives, and also as creative women who labor with the words and stories we must tell. As we hug and laugh and both talk at once, rushing around to prepare the space for this new joint venture, I sense our understandings of one another rounding out. But our friendship also feels the same—full of goofiness and grace, with flashes of depth that root us over breadths of geography and time.

We move the piano from its place by the front stairwell across the living room to the fireplace. The Danish modern armchair my husband likes to sit in after work is moved to the living room’s opposite corner, making room for a variety of guitars and China’s husband Seth, who will play them. Katelin, the band’s third member, sets up a small drum set and a ukelele and guitar to the left of the piano, near our tall bookshelf. I arrange dining room chairs on the rug and on the stage’s “wings”—the sunroom that opens to the east of the piano and the dining room to the west. Extension cords are run from outlets, power strips and amps are plugged in, spot lights are directed. The room has been transformed.

Soon, friends begin to arrive. Wine is poured. Introductions are made. Then China begins playing the piano. The space is complete.

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To see what I could see

Posted on by under Alone in Place

I had travelled more than a thousand miles to be surrounded by people, yet there I was, alone on a hard red-dirt trail in the Santa Fe National Forest.

To be clear, I was “alone on purpose,” as Nicole Morgan so deftly phrased it in her recent guest post. But following through on this intentional aloneness had taken great willpower. By choosing to set off solo on a hike that afternoon I was voluntarily leaving behind the potential of great conversations and new friendships—the very experiences I had in mind when I devoted a week of time and a sum of money to attend a Glen West writing workshop.

Many people at the Glen arrive in search of space and time to think and write, but as a full-time solitary writer who longs throughout the year for “colleagues,” I went to the Glen to fill that space and time with people. I needed a break from being alone with my thoughts and words, and during my first three days there I had accomplished just that. The mornings’ inspiring conversations in my non-fiction writing workshop transitioned into lunch hours sitting with authors I’ve long admired. Afternoons spent around courtyard tables, hearing about writing projects others were working on, gave way to more conversations over dinner, followed by engaging author and artist talks. Each night found me fighting the need for sleep as the extroverts and night owls gathered for more talk and laughter over whisky or wine, late into the night.

By that Thursday afternoon I had reached a state of “satisfyingly full” and knew some solitude (beyond the fast-asleep kind) would be good for me. It was one of those moments of awareness that separates childhood from adulthood: when you know that something—maybe eating those greens or getting up early to exercise—is important for your wellbeing, so you do it even though you don’t really want to.

I didn’t really want to be alone, but I knew it would be good for me, so I set out on the nearby Atalaya Trail to see what gift Aloneness might have for me in the midst of so much togetherness.

photo (9)The hard-packed ground was dry and gravelly, a shade of burnt, orangey-red that might as well be called New Mexico Red. I passed by Juniper and piñon, cacti, yuccas, and sagebrush, breathing in a heavenly-yet-foreign blend of scents that added a new layer to my aloneness: I was alone in an unfamiliar land.

As I continued walking, I began to wonder what range of unfamiliar creatures might call this arid region home (rattlesnakes? scorpions?). Then I recalled the coyotes whose sparring the night before had awoken me in my narrow dorm room bed, the windows open to the cool night air. Suddenly, alone took on multiple layers of meaning: I was not only by myself, far from others, but I was 7,000 feet above sea level in a foreign land, surrounded by potential dangers. The cell phone in my pocket didn’t even have service. I began anxiously singing, for company:

The bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountain—
to see what it could see.

I couldn’t remember what the bear saw, so I stopped singing and walking to just breathe—to calm the tinge of fear I felt and focus my mind on the quiet and the beauty that was all around me.

After walking a bit further, I reached a trio of wooden plank steps that carried the trail up and over a gravel road. Turning around, I lowered myself onto one of the steps, opening my water bottle and taking in the view below, the path I had just walked. The college campus, where all of those conversations and friendships had taken root the days before, looked small, but there it was, waiting.

I pulled my journal out of my backpack, turning to a page where I had taken a few notes while the poet Scott Cairns had read to us an evening or two before. A line from his poem “Draw Near” had especially captivated me:

For near is where you’ll meet what you have wandered far to find.

I had traveled all the way to New Mexico to be with other writers and artists—I needed new conversations and different perspectives to help reframe the story within me. Then I had traveled up this mountain for time and space alone, in a land so different from the one I know that I couldn’t help but be aware, notice, and respond—not intellectually but viscerally. And all of those miles, all of that wandering both with others and alone, had helped me meet what is very near, in my heart.

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Welcome: We’re Glad You’re Here

Posted on by under Welcome to You Are Here

“Seeing your photographs last night reminded me of home,” I stammered, shifting my weight to balance my cafeteria tray. I didn’t want to inconvenience the famous man who stood before me, but I needed to say thank you. He smiled graciously. “We come from the same kind of place then,” he agreed. “Yes,” I said, glancing at the steam rising from his clumpy yellow eggs, “and thank you.”

As we nodded and smiled and walked off to our respective tables, I thought about his photographs–photos that saw light in the crumbling walls, vacant houses, and highway overpasses of urban Cincinnati. It was strange how these images of rust-belt decay sparked a kind of nostalgia for my own city of Pittsburgh.

I sat to eat, looking out over the high desert of Santa Fe. “And we are so far away from home,” I said quietly, my mind stretching over the unfamiliar landscape and gathering myself and mr. famous photographer together under this one thought.

****

It was August, and I was in Santa Fe for the Glen West conference, a week bringing together artists who desire to integrate faith with art. We were a motley and spirited crew—writers, musicians, painters, poets, and photographers from zip codes across the U.S. and beyond. We were old and young. Some of us were well-established in our fields, others were just beginning to explore, and many of us were somewhere in-between.

We were, in so many ways, from all over the place.

The larger crowd was divided into groups, according to our workshops. On the first morning I entered my class and met a group of writers. We were all working on creative non-fiction, and most of us were just-a-little-bit nervous. We settled in as we introduced ourselves around the table.

Among our class of fourteen: Sam from Dallas. I would later call him “my first friend from Texas” and liked him all the more when I saw a Flannery O’Conner book tucked between the seats of his SUV. Kristin from Urbana, Illinios. At first her writing talent and experience intimidated the heck out of me, but when we discovered mutual friends I found a kindred spirit. Mary, living between D.C. and Arizona. Her gentle demeanor hid her radical convictions and extensive background in non-profit leadership. As soon as she introduced herself I was determined to get to know her. And finally Lisa from Memphis, whose enthusiastic southern drawl spilled from her mouth and charmed the whole class, “Y’all, I am so thrilled to be here.”

I did not know it at the time, but these four people would become not only friends, but co-conspirators.

****

Our conspiracy was born at a museum cafe over too-sweet Chai milkshakes and green bottles of Perrier. We were talking about blogging, and then we were talking about our frustrations with blogging: It could be lonely. It felt like a popularity contest. It was a lot of weight for one person to carry. It was hard to stay motivated. It was like writing into a void instead of having a conversation.

And I remember when Kristin asked it:

What if we were to blog together?  

Our eyes lit up, and ideas spilled out as naturally as Lisa’s southern drawl. A map began to form in our collective imagination, with little push-pins sticking up from Memphis, Dallas, Pittsburgh, D.C. and Urbana. We could write from our particular places on common themes. We could tell stories. We could respond to one another. We could discover shared threads while digging into our own spots on the map.

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We could call it, “You are here.”

“And”, (this was Kristin again) “I know this guy.  Well, I don’t exactly know his name because he never wears his nametag, but I’ve had two conversations with him, and he’s a writer from Alaska.  He strikes me as someone who might be a good fit.”

We nodded, and agreed that Kristin could approach “Alaska-guy.”

Jonathan

His name is Jonathan, and he said yes (with only minor coercion).

In October we’ll begin by introducing ourselves and our places, posting about “Where We Are” and “Where We Came From.”  November will be about food, and in December we’ll talk about what it means to be “Out of Place.” Look for several posts every week from a group of writers who are quickly becoming some of my favorite people across four time zones.

And so for Mary from D.C., Kristin from Urbana, Sam from Dallas, Lisa from Memphis, and Jonathan from Anchorage; and for myself, Jen from Pittsburgh, I would just like to say: 

We are here.  You are here.  And here we go.