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August 28, 2006
Around the World in 60 Miles
I have been getting not-too-subtle hints about updating my blog. Sometimes, life is so rich and full, there is no time to write about it!
Since we last chatted, I spent 10 days on scenic Whidbey Island, teaching at the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA short-term residency program. My colleagues in the Writing for Children and Young Adults arm included Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen, Jane Kurtz, Brent Hartinger and Richard Jesse Watson. I feel so honored to be part of this program, the first MFA in the country sponsored by a community of writers, rather than a university. Stephanie, my other permanent faculty colleague, has inspired me to participate in the National Write A Novel in a Month program in November -- the novel she wrote last November sold in July in a two-book deal! Jane, her usual inspiring and generous self, seems pretty smitten with that new grand-daughter of hers. Richard helped break down walls of resistance to making art and plain old playing when he gave us all the task of storyboarding a picture book and then, the next day, illustrating a two-page spread with a variety of materials including elephant dung paper. Brent challenged us to write true but to stay fresh.
The Whidbey MFA program also allows the student -- and the faculty -- to explore other forms of writing. Bruce Holland Rogers inspired me to write two short stories, something I haven't done in twenty years. Check out his short story subscription site -- for about $10 a year, you can get three orginal short stories delivered to your email box each month. And Bruce writes each and every single one of those stories.
Susan Zwinger, nature writer extraordinaire, inspired me at last summer's residency to write day poems, a discipline I've continued to embrace. David Wagoner's poetry recitation led me to begin memorizing poems I love (starting with Robert Frost's "October"). Lisa Dale Norton pushed me to capture those shimmering moments and poet Carolyn Wright awed me with her knowledge of history and her mastery of language. I came home enriched. . .and exhausted.
But I wasn't allowed to rest for long. Four days after the residency, I packed up two pairs of tennies, my sleeping bag and lots of pink to join 2700 other people for the Seattle 3-Day Walk for the Cure. We walked from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon, uphill and down and uphill and uphill. It was an honor to be walking for this great cause and an honor to be walking with so many amazing folks. I met one young woman who was 18 months out from her last chemo treatment; she couldn't have been more than 30. She was walking even though, since signing up for the walk, she'd learned her husband was shipping out to Iraq today. I sat in the shower line next to a woman from Chicago who is a 6 year cancer survivor. And I walked next to many men wearing their late wives' pictures pinned to their backs. It was a good thing I packed kleenex as well as lots of socks. You may think you couldn't do this walk but if I could, you could. And, if you can't walk (it does take a lot of time to adequately train) donate next year. Or be one of those lovely people who stands on the street, cheering walkers as they pass through your neighborhood. Mist the passing walkers with sprinklers or squirt guns or, better yet, pass out Otter Pops or Popscicles.
If I were to give this last month or so a theme, I would call it "community." I basked in a community of writers on Whidbey Island, helping others to grow as they helped me to grow. I basked in a community of walkers, helping others to give as they helped me to give. Writing and walking: both require stretching, pacing and keeping your eyes open. Both are about being fully open to this crazy, messy, uphill-both-ways human existence.
Posted by kirby at August 28, 2006 07:32 PM
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