Lush green world!
Hello all!
The end of June here is always a sea of green. My office is up in the treetops (it is not, however, a treehouse, though I would like that), and there trees are heavy with leaves in all directions. It's a bit of a challenge to work, when what I want to do is laze about on the porch and listen to the birds all summer long and read books and do nothing whatsoever else. Books! I just finished Best American Poetry 2008 (I know, I'm a little behind), and LOVED IT. There is some absolutely divine stuff in there this year, which is a great comfort, because I absolutely hated last year's volume. Also reading Louise Erdrich's newest book, A Plague of Doves, which is positively delicious. If I could, I'd do nothing but read it all day long. I have become deeply lazy of late, and it's helping nothing at all. But so it goes.
Work goes on at a bit of a mad pace, laziness or not. I'm trying to wrap a finished draft of the 1st 100 pages of the new novel by August 1, and am having periodic annoying crises of faith about the thing, which are most interruptive and unhelpful and aggravating. I keep muttering E.L. Doctorow's very comforting quote: "Writing is like driving through the fog at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." I can seriously only see as far as the headlights on this thing, but am hoping to hell I'm actually making the trip. Also at work on the first of the two books I'm writing for Hazelden, which is great fun. And I am being harassed by four poems. It's good there's four of them, at least; this way, when one bothers me too severely I can switch over to the next, and in this fashion I intend to finish them all. At this point, it's beginning to look like an actual manuscript of poetry is taking shape. Lordy, it's only taken me fifteen years. Good grief.
Up next: I'm covering the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Do you have Fringe Festivals where you are? I know there's a great one in New York, and another fabulous one in Scotland--where else? The Fringe is a madcap 10 days of new theater that run from 10 a.m. to midnight, one after another, all over the city. The serious Fringe goers take their vacation that week, and spend all their time zipping from one show to the next, trying to hit some five shows a day, which is a major undertaking, and a little hard on the brain, but extremely fun all around. So this year I'll be one of them, and will be posting blogs on the whole experience as I go. I cannot WAIT. Some years ago, the Jfeffrey and I hosted an insane Fringe party on closing night. I think we managed to pack about 250 people into every room of our house, the yard, the deck, and the lawn, and we're thinking of doing it again, because we are crazy.
Lately I'm thinking a lot about memory. It keeps appearing as a theme in my poems, and on this windy warm morning I'm thinking about those luscious summer days I spent as a kid by the lake at my grandmother's house. Living in a bathing suit and covered head to toe in sand and falling into dead-sleep naps in the afternoon while the curtains lifted and fell on the breeze. Lying on my belly on the living room floor, reading book after book that I'd lugged home from the public library. Those were summers I fell in love with Joan Didion and C.S. Lewis--a curious pair--and wound up with a face-print of the green and blue shag rug on my cheek. Summer was a much slower time back then--it seemed to go completely still, while the heat grew oppressive and time didn't maybe pass at all. Nowadays, I'm sharply aware of how quickly summer passes in these parts--a month already gone, and me still racing to keep up with the work I need to get done. Every summer I swear I'll take next summer off, and maybe some summer I will, and then I'll go up to my grandmother's house and lie face-down on the floor and read Joan Didion all over again.
So here's hoping some of you at least can let time slow down these summer days, and savor each one. Keep body and soul and mind healthy, all of you, and write and write and write some more...
Peace,
Marya
The end of June here is always a sea of green. My office is up in the treetops (it is not, however, a treehouse, though I would like that), and there trees are heavy with leaves in all directions. It's a bit of a challenge to work, when what I want to do is laze about on the porch and listen to the birds all summer long and read books and do nothing whatsoever else. Books! I just finished Best American Poetry 2008 (I know, I'm a little behind), and LOVED IT. There is some absolutely divine stuff in there this year, which is a great comfort, because I absolutely hated last year's volume. Also reading Louise Erdrich's newest book, A Plague of Doves, which is positively delicious. If I could, I'd do nothing but read it all day long. I have become deeply lazy of late, and it's helping nothing at all. But so it goes.
Work goes on at a bit of a mad pace, laziness or not. I'm trying to wrap a finished draft of the 1st 100 pages of the new novel by August 1, and am having periodic annoying crises of faith about the thing, which are most interruptive and unhelpful and aggravating. I keep muttering E.L. Doctorow's very comforting quote: "Writing is like driving through the fog at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." I can seriously only see as far as the headlights on this thing, but am hoping to hell I'm actually making the trip. Also at work on the first of the two books I'm writing for Hazelden, which is great fun. And I am being harassed by four poems. It's good there's four of them, at least; this way, when one bothers me too severely I can switch over to the next, and in this fashion I intend to finish them all. At this point, it's beginning to look like an actual manuscript of poetry is taking shape. Lordy, it's only taken me fifteen years. Good grief.
Up next: I'm covering the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Do you have Fringe Festivals where you are? I know there's a great one in New York, and another fabulous one in Scotland--where else? The Fringe is a madcap 10 days of new theater that run from 10 a.m. to midnight, one after another, all over the city. The serious Fringe goers take their vacation that week, and spend all their time zipping from one show to the next, trying to hit some five shows a day, which is a major undertaking, and a little hard on the brain, but extremely fun all around. So this year I'll be one of them, and will be posting blogs on the whole experience as I go. I cannot WAIT. Some years ago, the Jfeffrey and I hosted an insane Fringe party on closing night. I think we managed to pack about 250 people into every room of our house, the yard, the deck, and the lawn, and we're thinking of doing it again, because we are crazy.
Lately I'm thinking a lot about memory. It keeps appearing as a theme in my poems, and on this windy warm morning I'm thinking about those luscious summer days I spent as a kid by the lake at my grandmother's house. Living in a bathing suit and covered head to toe in sand and falling into dead-sleep naps in the afternoon while the curtains lifted and fell on the breeze. Lying on my belly on the living room floor, reading book after book that I'd lugged home from the public library. Those were summers I fell in love with Joan Didion and C.S. Lewis--a curious pair--and wound up with a face-print of the green and blue shag rug on my cheek. Summer was a much slower time back then--it seemed to go completely still, while the heat grew oppressive and time didn't maybe pass at all. Nowadays, I'm sharply aware of how quickly summer passes in these parts--a month already gone, and me still racing to keep up with the work I need to get done. Every summer I swear I'll take next summer off, and maybe some summer I will, and then I'll go up to my grandmother's house and lie face-down on the floor and read Joan Didion all over again.
So here's hoping some of you at least can let time slow down these summer days, and savor each one. Keep body and soul and mind healthy, all of you, and write and write and write some more...
Peace,
Marya
Comments