At Norcroft
Aug. 25th, 2005 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susanstinsonThese are a few notes from my time earlier this month at Norcroft, which is closing. It was founded by Joan Drury, whose small feminist press published my first two novels ten years ago. It was great to get to see her, to meet the other writers there, and to immerse myself in the novel. I was the only one of the sixty women who came this final year who had never been there before. I got a lot of writing done there, which was sensual, so satisfying and important to me. I'm working to keep the momentum going, which means I'm spending very little time on the internet.
Lutsen, Minnesota:
Just letting it fly tonight, almost midnight, sweet supper in the gazebo with the girls, shrimp and snap peas and zucchini and chicken, asparagus and ice cream with Mrs. Richardson's chocolate sauce, belting out Born Free and Delta Dawn and the theme from Fame and all down in the gazebo by the lake with the dragonflies zzzing about over the water. That last afternoon, I finally lay down in the hammock (plenty strong enough to hold me) and the chicadee hopped down and perched on the rope, looking at me, little birds above me in the fir, something like quail rising with a thrum of wings in the near woods.
Lake, black flashlight, yellow pad, moths: Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich, which is one of the crucial books of my youth. I was writing in a shed named after her, so picked it up on the shelf there again and read the epigram she used:
I go where I love and where I am loved,
into the snow;
I go to the things I love
with no thought of duty or pity
HD, The Flowering of the Rod
And from Rich's poem, Origin and History of Consciousness
No one lives in this room
without confronting the whiteness of the wall
behind the poems, planks of books,
photographs of dead heroines.
Without contemplating last and late
the true nature of poetry. The drive
to connect. The dream of a common language.
I got a lot done there. There was a tiny bug on the edge of one of my manilla folders. I could hear the lake. The shed had a broad pine desk, built in, same wood as the walls, facing windows. There was a wastebasket, a small wicker table, a thermos, a chair with a soft blanket, a floor lamp, overhead light, desk lamp, some of Adrienne's books, a clock, tissues, dictionary, thesaurus, screen door, stool, sound of the leaves, the lake, sound of the water.
I saw what might have been a marmot, a fox, a coyote, a deer, a loon (and heard them). There was such a richness of birds after the rain. I came out of the bathhouse wearing just a tank top and some flipflops to a flashing in the sky, left my towel on the porch, put on some jeans and took my flashlight down the stairs to the lake, and saw the Northern Lights, which I thought was lightning far over the water. There were strange shapes and colors, strangely silent, with an intermittent rhythm and distance to it, but the light was so hot that it made the lake look on fire. The Perseids, too (that night and others), little moon, so many shooting stars, pin points trailing across the dark, and also wider streaks of light. I was a little scared, didn't know what else might be behind the dark. There was so much rustling in the trees. The sublime pulls me so hard.
Lutsen, Minnesota:
Just letting it fly tonight, almost midnight, sweet supper in the gazebo with the girls, shrimp and snap peas and zucchini and chicken, asparagus and ice cream with Mrs. Richardson's chocolate sauce, belting out Born Free and Delta Dawn and the theme from Fame and all down in the gazebo by the lake with the dragonflies zzzing about over the water. That last afternoon, I finally lay down in the hammock (plenty strong enough to hold me) and the chicadee hopped down and perched on the rope, looking at me, little birds above me in the fir, something like quail rising with a thrum of wings in the near woods.
Lake, black flashlight, yellow pad, moths: Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich, which is one of the crucial books of my youth. I was writing in a shed named after her, so picked it up on the shelf there again and read the epigram she used:
I go where I love and where I am loved,
into the snow;
I go to the things I love
with no thought of duty or pity
HD, The Flowering of the Rod
And from Rich's poem, Origin and History of Consciousness
No one lives in this room
without confronting the whiteness of the wall
behind the poems, planks of books,
photographs of dead heroines.
Without contemplating last and late
the true nature of poetry. The drive
to connect. The dream of a common language.
I got a lot done there. There was a tiny bug on the edge of one of my manilla folders. I could hear the lake. The shed had a broad pine desk, built in, same wood as the walls, facing windows. There was a wastebasket, a small wicker table, a thermos, a chair with a soft blanket, a floor lamp, overhead light, desk lamp, some of Adrienne's books, a clock, tissues, dictionary, thesaurus, screen door, stool, sound of the leaves, the lake, sound of the water.
I saw what might have been a marmot, a fox, a coyote, a deer, a loon (and heard them). There was such a richness of birds after the rain. I came out of the bathhouse wearing just a tank top and some flipflops to a flashing in the sky, left my towel on the porch, put on some jeans and took my flashlight down the stairs to the lake, and saw the Northern Lights, which I thought was lightning far over the water. There were strange shapes and colors, strangely silent, with an intermittent rhythm and distance to it, but the light was so hot that it made the lake look on fire. The Perseids, too (that night and others), little moon, so many shooting stars, pin points trailing across the dark, and also wider streaks of light. I was a little scared, didn't know what else might be behind the dark. There was so much rustling in the trees. The sublime pulls me so hard.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-25 04:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-25 04:39 am (UTC)I just had more language here that are some of the things I'm telling myself to help me get a good hunk of the novel done over the next few months, but realized that they're more internal. Yep, it is, it's good for me to stay off the internet.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-25 04:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-25 04:26 am (UTC)Soul o soul o deathless
Soul o soul o come
Come, come to Delos
come and be done
done with all longing
pure and alone
As much as I doubt purity love company, and listen to Stanley Kunitz also saying in my head (What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire), HD gets me, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-25 04:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-27 01:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-25 05:11 am (UTC)Here's to Joan Drury...such a wonderful supporter of so many women writers.
Here's to you and lots more time and space to write!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-27 01:23 pm (UTC)The Cottages at Hedgebrook might be a place to try if you're still dreaming of a women's writing residency.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-25 08:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-27 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-29 11:11 pm (UTC)