Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida

Road Trip 2015

I’m fat with poetry.

Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida: five days of workshops with Carolyn  Forché’ readings by Carolyn, Nick Flynn, and Benjamin Percy at night; meals all together sitting at small enough round tables; participants from all over the US, and one (dear friend!) from The Netherlands; a conference with editor Jeffrey Shotts from Graywolf Press about my poems, which he’d read before our conference, which he’d made notes on in green ink,in which he’d found no clunkers, about which he worried over my penchant for narrative and encouraged a liberal smattering of lyricism if at all possible in the final project to counter my propensity for density, and during which he referred to my “chops,” “high level of writing,” and gave me certain invaluable keys which may well unlock doors I’d bolted for no good reason (see me gliding from his table in the library to Carolyn’s in the music studio. See me glowing.)

Carolyn Forché is:

a Sherpa guiding her students up, over, across, through

generous, incredibly generous

funny, relaxed, beautiful

knows writing, writers, tips, pitfalls and

willingly, easily, clearly shares all this

respectful, incredibly respectful

an enthusiastic, intuitive, organized, interested teacher who teaches much more than poetry (although teaching poetry well is a big fucking deal)

humble, even after a lifetime of being at the top of her game.

worth every penny any of us spent getting to  the ACA to attend to her and receive her attention to us.

I’m home again with my brother, our three inside cats, four outside cats, and Blossom the dog, who outdid herself this time in her welcome performance. Every time I look at our giant Applehead Siamese, Sam, I find him staring at me as if he would pin me to the house, never to leave it again. My suitcases have yellow elephants on them and the elephants like to go, but Drago has put them back up in the attic; they’ll have to be patient. For five years now I’ve started the new year with a writer’s workshop. It’s my vacation of choice and I appreciate that I’ve been a lucky duck to be able to do these trips. A hermit of sorts, I’ve loved my busy weeks of meeting new people, participants and guides, listening to polished work from astonishing voices, chatting amiably around tables with men and women who choose to be students for a week in the midst of their full-flung lives, and the peaceful road trips I’ve had driving through back roads and small towns. Here’s a bit of contemplating my navel for you: I kick back, daydream, relax, wake-up, pull from within, push myself out there.

“may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.” 
― E.E. Cummings

“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon

Road Trip, October 2014

View from my hotel room

Last week:

I drove to Viera, Florida to spend time with Kathy, a friend I’ve often talked with, but hadn’t seen since 2006. I knew it would be as if no time at all had passed and that’s exactly how it was. I feel like I’ve been injected with a massive, nourishing, dose of connection. My emotional health is sturdier, my supply of appreciation is refreshed, my regard for my friend, always high, has risen. We’ve lived through much of the whole boomer enchilada in the years since we’ve known each other and I’ve decided we’ve done well. We carry on with grace and courage. I happen to think most of us do, you know, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, good friends help!

I met more Florida Democrats: Kathy’s friends in Viera. I now live in an area nicknamed the Redneck Riviera, the Florida Panhandle, a place replete with white sand beaches, mega-churches, and Republicans. I practice tolerance, almost always, but I’m an aging hippie, artsy-fartsy, New York Liberal and it’s delightful whenever I can say what I think without getting frowned at and prayed over. Plus, Kathy’s friends live on a lake popular with all kinds of seabirds. There was a giant Great Blue Heron resting peacefully right outside their screen door while we were talking politics.

I was a Groupie for three days. I’d never been a Groupie before, but there you go. This road trip to see Kathy seemed like a good time to include a poetry festival if I could find one that fit my plans. Sure enough, Anhinga Press was holding a timely festival and it would even be on the way home, you know, if I went home via Tampa. So I registered for three days at the swanky Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay and settled in to attend days and nights of poetry.  I heard some extraordinary poems read beautifully, talked to friendly writers, editors, and teachers from all over the country, and generally got a big kick out of the biggest hotel I’ve ever stayed in. The last night they held a banquet and I toddled to that, too. And at the banquet the penny finally dropped that I was the only poet there who had not been published by Anhinga Press. Anhinga has been a successful small press for forty years and that’s what they were gathered to celebrate. The event was open to the public, but I was the only public! Huh. No wonder I kept getting asked about my connection to Anhinga! After the speeches, after eating one of the best desserts I’ve ever had in my life, (cinnamon ice cream and a chocolate extravagance) I slipped away without ado. I was only sorry I didn’t say good-by to David Kirby, who I’d had a weeklong workshop with a couple of years ago and I adore, but it couldn’t be helped. Shyness, finally, overwhelmed me. Back in my room I made a cup of tea and thought about things and decided it was all good, after all. But…

I got pissed-off by one thing during this road trip. I’d signed up for a manuscript conference; I’ve had six or seven conferences with various writers over the last few years and they have all helped me immensely with my own writing. This conference did not go well for me. I’m not going to whinge here, but after the hour I spent with this woman I decided I hated poetry, skipped the next session of readings, took a walk, gazed at more sensational seabirds, and ate a big, healthy, breakfast. By afternoon I was happy to listen to poetry again, felt my proper age, and knew I’d keep working on my new book.

  

Departure      

Strawberry blond! That’s the shade the maple is this year.  I tried for just that color once, didn’t I? Don’t think I managed it, Marnie thought as she approached the house from the paddock. She missed their horses, as she did during every morning walk she’d taken since they’d sold them. Oh, damn this being old!  Marnie wiped mud off her boots on the back doormat and went through to the kitchen where her sister-in-law was drinking coffee and talking, talking, talking to Stephen.

“ I will worry, Steve! I fly in three hours and I haven’t convinced you stubborn fools to sell this place and join me in Ocala. You’ll molder up here in this lonely place, missing all the fun, and I suppose I’m just to take that answer as final and be on my worrying way. Really, I could wring your wrinkled old necks.”

Stephen answered, “We have a home we love and don’t play bridge, nor do we want to learn. Accept it as our happy choice, Ellen. We don’t want to sell. We are as deeply rooted here as the white pines around us.”

They drove Ellen to Albany for her flight to Florida. Ellen’s travel outfit made her look twice as plump, bundled up as she was against the “horrid” cold of October in the mountains, with a cotton blouse and slacks under all the woolies for the return to her beloved southern sun. Sandals were tucked into her carry-on.

During the drive home, Marnie relaxed, relieved the yearly siege was over. After all, they’d been settled in the country since closing their pediatric clinic almost eighteen years ago.  Why ever should they “retire” again? And in Florida?

“You’d better drive, dear.” Stephen’s voice woke her. “I’m dangerously sleepy.”

After they changed seats, Stephen fell deeply asleep. Marnie took his hand and gasped at his cold skin. His fingers had a blue tinge. So, she thought, it’s time already.

Just past five, she helped him into bed and gave him another nitro to put under his tongue. He was pale, clammy, and, she sensed, in much more pain than he’d admitted to. She left him briefly to see to a few things she needed to do, but soon came upstairs bearing a tray with a bottle of champagne, two flutes, and their stash of pills.

They toasted each other, their long, mostly happy lives, and their determination to go together. Marnie had left letters for Ellen and their three children for the postman to pick up in the morning-letters written by both of them earlier that month, after she’d learned that her cancer was back. There was one to the police as well. They washed down their sedatives with the vintage champagne, even got a little giggly, then snuggled under the covers. Whatever came next, they would be Marnie and Stephen, together and themselves, ready to meet it. Or, as the case might be, Marnie thought, not themselves at all, but then, what would it matter?

Taking Stock

Taking Stock

Lovely, lovely, lovely,
my cat’s furry belly.

My mind’s got some fluff
but she copes well enough.

I've foundered in Florida with its heat and humidity,
palms and shells and churchy stupidity.

I have a sick heart and I do less and less,
but I finally own a fine French writing desk.

I could use a cruise, a steadier step,
a long walk in Paris with Johnny Depp.

It appears gone for good are dramas and bothers,
threats and therapists and drunk, needy lovers.

Nina

(Think summer.)

Art Coop

Nina, wearing a Mexican-flavored dress with a flounced voile skirt, fanned herself with a brochure about the Art Coop, sucked an ice cube, lolled in the armchair they’d given her when she’d first arrived. She’d been the warm-up act, the only poet, for the night’s open-air performance. Nina thought about removing her wide leather belt but didn’t want to make the effort. She was all but done in by heat, humidity, by August in Florida.

The second musician, who was a kid dressed in a plain black t-shirt and low-slung, baggy jeans, finally started. He sat on a low chair inches from Nina’s sandaled feet. She wasn’t expecting much. His teenaged girlfriend had been an annoying chatterbox since they’d sat down.

After a few nervous, jokey remarks, the boy checked the tuning of his glossy black guitar and played the first of several original, solo instrumentals. Nina closed her eyes and laid her head back against the scratchy fabric of the old chair. All the stuff taking shots at her that night- her drunken AWOL brother, her chest pain, the surprise of a friend’s rude behavior, discovering, mid-read, that she had the wrong version of a poem in her hands-disappeared. Nina swam through a cool sea of guitar notes, afloat and happy with the luxury of listening to extravagant talent on a steamy summer night.

Soul-Soothing Seaport

On Friday, October 5, a nurse told me over the phone that I did not have cancer. She gave me this news without shouting, She was casual, downright breezy when she informed me that "everything looks fine." What an odd thing. I've never been in a position to tell someone they did not have cancer, but knowing myself as I do, I imagine that if I were, I would be pretty damn excited when I delivered the news. Oh, well. We don't need nurses at the other end of the phone to share our joy, do we? But wouldn't it be a fine thing if they did?

So. Knowing I did not in fact have to face dealing with cancer, I decided I'd better do something about my dog-my heart, "Baby," (she came to me with the name) an impossibly sweet Maltese, had not been eating for a week. I would search for signs that my fourteen year old dog was just "off her food." Baby, too, did her best to deny the state of her affairs. She put on an eager show when it was time for a walk, our routine demonstrations of mutual love and friendship seemed almost normal on both our parts-I didn't let her know I was worried, and she tried to hide how badly she was feeling. We managed until I got the biopsy report, and then it seemed like my dog and I both knew it was time to pay the piper. Baby not eating was a clear, serious, extradordinary signal that all was not well with her health. So I took her to the vet that day. And later that day, because she had acute renal failure and wouldn't recover, I held her while she was euthanized.

If you love a pet, you know how I felt when she died. If you don't, or never have, you will not understand and there's simply nothing I can do about that. So be it.

A week later I took a short trip, by myself, to the small seaport town of Apalachacola. I stayed in an elegant Edwardian B & B for two nights and enjoyed the off-season ambiance and incredible October weather. The second afternoon I drove to St. George Island, across two fabulous bridges from Apalach, a drive covered in fifteen minutes, walked on the nearly empty beach on the Gulf of Mexico, and said good-by to my dog.

Seafood, antique shops, privately run bookstores, coffe houses, all these favorite things helped ease me into acceptance. Baby had driven from Maryland to Florida with me when I made the trip to try and get my sick mother's medications straightened out. She'd waited while I climbed in the window of a drunken brother's apartment so that I could see if he was still breathing, and when I opened the door for her, she insisted that he wake up and smile at us. A few years later, when I left my husband, Baby drove south with me again, and settled into our lives as care-givers of elderly parents. She was my assistant, providing the daily dose of comic relief.

Enough! Anyone reading this who understands, understands. Of course I was delighted to find out I didn't have cancer, although I still felt, and feel lousy, but it was almost unbearable to then hold my dog while she received her lethal injection. I am hoping life does not offer two such experiences in the same day again.

As far as the travel diary portion of this blog entry goes, Apalachicola is a gem, The Coombs House Inn a gracious, tasteful retreat, and there simply isn't weather any better than sunny October days on the Florida panhandle, If there is someone you need to say good-by to, or someone you need to share some loveliness with, I heartily recomment Apalachacola-home to the inventor of air-conditioning and 90% of the country's oysters-Florida