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Be
sure to visit the
Letter from Joyce Archives
Look for the February 2004 release of The Usual Rules in paperback!
The last days
of my writing retreat... The lessons of swimming... Heading home... (PLUS:
Another Mill Valley Memoir Workshop, My Youngest Son on Television! And
another never-before-seen chapter from my new memoir.)
October
25, 2008
Dear Friends,
As some of you know, I grew up in the state of New Hampshire, and spent most of the first forty years of my life there. The last twelve years, I've made my base in California, and, increasingly, in a little Mayan village in Guatemala, where I found myself going, when I wanted to locate quiet and stillness for writing. I've lost count of how many trips I've made, moving between these two places, over the last seven years. And not only trips to Guatemala or California either -- because over these same years I've spent time in Detroit and British Columbia and New Hampshire and New York City and Mexico and Italy and New Orleans and Maine. I have loved every place I've been -- or at least, I've always made good friends, had life-changing adventures, and learned new things. But there's a cost in all this moving around, too.
Somewhere along the line, the busyness of my life in the United States caught up with me, even on the shores of Lake Atitlan. I love it that the little writing workshop I started there has grown to include more writers and instructors, so many of whom have fallen in love with this spot, as I have. My garden expanded. I added on to my house, hired more helpers. I got a phone. I got internet service. I built a pizza oven for feeding my workshop students, and a vegetable garden, and a guest room for housing my fellow teachers, and a waterfall, just because I thought it would be a fun project, which it was. I started thinking: maybe we need chickens.
One thing I hadn't done so much of, until recently, however: write books. The irony has not escaped me, that the place I used to go to get away had become, for me, a place where I am often even busier than I am at home. (A place, too, where I spend a lot of time, in my workshops, happily engaged in helping other writers tell their stories.) But a couple of years had passed since I'd given myself the kind of space and uninterrupted time to complete a book (though I started a few).
So as I've mentioned, this past winter I applied to two different writing residencies. This past July 31, I headed off to New Hampshire to begin the first of these -- an eight week stint, at The MacDowell Colony. I'm now nearing the end of my second residency, in Saratoga Springs, New York, at Yaddo. I was fortunate to have been accepted at both.
This time I've had, in writing retreats, has been a huge gift, and one I have treasured every day. For nearly three months now, I've enjoyed the supreme luxury of not having to think about shopping for food, cooking, cleaning my house, maintaining my yard and my car, or most of the thousand things all of us do in the course of our normal lives, in the name of taking care of business. I wore the same four outfits. I stopped wearing makeup, and didn't color my hair until a good inch of grey showed at the roots (at which point, vanity got the better of me). With all that extra time on my hands, I got a lot of thinking done. Also a lot of working.
For almost three months now, my days have been occupied by very little besides writing. No doubt the fact that this was so is largely responsible for my productivity: I've now finished the first draft of a memoir (a chapter of which I sent to those of you who subscribe to this site) and as of today, have completed the revisions on a second book, a novel.
At MacDowell, I got to live and work in a beautiful little studio in the woods, where a series of wooden plaques mounted on the wall listed the names of every artist who'd been there before me. (A few were old friends. Many were writers whose works I know. I could look back to the names from sixty years ago and see the name of Aaron Copland penciled in. Evidently he composed work on the grand piano that sat near my desk.)
I got up early at MacDowell, fixed myself coffee, and got to work at a desk that looked out to nothing but woods and sky. No cars going by, no people or houses in sight -- though a family of deer stopped by every morning, and sometimes wild turkeys. Some mornings I made the mile-long hike through the woods to the main lodge to share breakfast (fresh eggs from the MacDowell chickens) with the other residents at the colony -- artists, poets, film makers, composers, some of them no older than my children... Then back to my studio for a day of work broken by the delivery, around noon, of a picnic basket with my lunch. Right through the month of September, when the first frost hit, and the water got too cold, I was knocking off work around 4 every afternoon to meet up with an intrepid group of fellow swimmers. Every day, the group of us headed to a pond a short ways away from the colony with a family of nesting loons on it.
I'm a slow swimmer, but a steady one. It took me forty minutes to complete my half-mile, but swimming time -- like pie-making time -- is also thinking time for me. Many of the decisions I've made about the writing I've been doing these last few months -- and a few decisions about my life, too -- came to me in the middle of Willard Pond. And, now, on the leaf-covered paths at Yaddo.
Every night -- first at MacDowell, now at Yaddo -- the work day has ended for me with a wonderful dinner, shared with the other artists, writers, composers, poets and playwrights in residence, and sometimes a presentation of someone's work -- a reading in the library or a visit to one of the artist's studios, or just conversation. It's something I've loved, being part of a community as we are here, and making so many good new friendships. (And in a smaller way, this is one of the things I like to think my writing workshops provide: a precious opportunity not only to be alone and focus on one's own work, but also, to take in the inspiration that comes from sharing work with others engaged in a similar kind of quest.)
I'll be heading back to California soon, to resume my life there, though I hope I can carry with me some of the lessons of my time away. To worry less about the little things that don't really matter, and choose to focus instead on the ones that do. To try and let no day go by in which I haven't walked, or swum -- moved my body, taken in the fresh air of the day, and the night sky. Never to check my email first thing, on the morning of a serious writing day, for instance. (You'd be surprised how well the world still carries on, when you don't.) To be patient and forgiving (two traits I struggle to acquire).
I'm not quite ready to tell you about the novel yet, except to say that I'm excited about it, and can't wait to share what I've written.
As for the memoir, what it's about is a little tricky to explain. (And for those of you who have taken writing classes and workshops with me, you may well remind me here, of something I always tell my writing students: You should be able to say what your book is about, in three sentences, maximum. If you can't, you've got more work to do. In my case, this is so.)
I will tell you that the memoir -- though partly about my part-time life in Guatemala over the course of these last seven years -- is, at its core, I think, about life of a parent, after her children have left (as the last of mine did, seven years ago). The book is my attempt to answer the question I've found myself grappling with these past seven years: What now? It's about letting go of one's children, finding new sources of meaning beyond parenthood, making peace with growing older (but not so much peace that I won't be coloring my roots, when I re-emerge into the world).
The memoir is also about the search for a partner and the challenge of making a relationship in this stage of life -- a very different undertaking than the one young people go through, when everyone is just starting out -- and the fierce independence that has left me, more often than not, a solo operator, since my divorce nineteen years ago.
When you are young, and you fall in love, you can -- if you are lucky, and wise -- form your lives together. When you are fifty four, you have a life. So does whomever you get together with. (At least, if he doesn't, that's a problem.) So the challenge becomes, how two people with history and baggage, and a strong sense of themselves, can put their lives together, still. I won't pretend I haven't had a hard time with that one over the years. It's one of the issues I think about, when I take these long walks of mine here at Yaddo, and why -- when I was at MacDowell -- my daily swim lasted forty five minutes.
It's fitting, I think, that I should be heading back to California soon, after five months on the road, spent writing these books of mine. Because at its core, I think, my memoir is about the search for home: meaning, not only a place to live, but a place to land. One thing I understand now, just a week from my 55th birthday, that I didn't understand at 35 or 40, is that I won't live forever. And though I feel great, and I'm still the first one on the dance floor and the last to leave it, and still swimming -- slowly, mind you -- across ponds, I also recognize the preciousness of my days now, and know they are finite. The challenge is, to locate what it is we care about most passionately in life. And then pursue it.
There's a Tom Paxton song I've always loved, "I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound." I may not go as far as to follow the advice offered up in that song -- "nail your shoes to the kitchen floor; lace them up and bar the door..." -- but I'm looking forward to coming in off the road, for a time at least -- putting away my suitcase, taking out my rolling pin -- and getting on with what I will optimistically call the second half of my life.
I want to thank all of you who took the time to read the chapter I sent out recently, from my new and not yet published memoir. I loved hearing your thoughts about "Red Shoes," and because they were so inspiring and encouraging, I've decided to share another chapter here. In this one, I experience the challenges of being a rich American -- as we all are, in a place like Guatemala -- in a very poor country. Because of the combined length of this letter and the chapter I'm sharing with you, they will arrive separately, so watch for another email from me within the next few hours.
For those of you who have been thinking about joining me at Lake Atitlan, I want you to know that we've still got places in both the February and March workshops. (Details posted on my website.) If you're on the fence, and have questions, by all means write to me, or to my wonderful and hugely-knowledgeable assistant, Melissa Vincel (an alumna of the Lake Atitlan Writing Workshop, now living in Cleveland). Email Melissa at writebythelake@joycemaynard.com, and she will call you if you'd like. If you can't join us yourself, but know someone who'd love an extraordinarily inspiring week at one of the most beautiful places on the planet, with a great group of teachers and a terrific community of fellow guests -- I hope you'll pass along our flyers about the workshop: February / March.
AND for those of you who can't make it to Lake Atitlan this winter to work with Ann Hood and me, I want to let you know I'll be hosting a One-Day Memoir Workshop at my home in Mill Valley, California, on December 6, 2008. It's always a terrific day -- starting with poppy seed cake and great coffee, with a great lunch, great company, individual attention to each writer's work, in a small, intimate setting by the fire. In the past, some of you have come from as far away as New York to join us (sometimes making a weekend of it, in beautiful Marin County). I'd love to see you there.
I cannot resist adding here, for those of you who are television fans -- and those of you who are not, too -- that my younger son, Will Bethel, will be the guest star on the CBS drama, Cold Case, tomorrow (Sunday, Oct. 26) at 9pm EST. I gather he plays a Marine officer. You will be able to tell who he is: I know, without watching, he's the most lovable person on the show.
And finally, I want to remind everyone reading this letter to vote on November 4. These are hugely challenging times. We have much work to do. It begins by making sure our voices are heard.
With friendship,
RECOMMEND JOYCEMAYNARD.COM TO A FRIEND
