Planning the Garden, Dreaming the Harvest
It has been quite a long while since last I wrote on this blog. So much has changed since the day of the shortest light, and here we are now, in the year of the dragon, and for me and my family, feeling within us a rising gilding joy and anticipation for a baby to come.
I write this returning entry from the haven of the Baldwin Foundation, a private residency space, dreamed by Jacqueline Woodson and enacted by the foundation’s board. I applied over the summer after seeing a post from Denice Frohman who sung the praises of the space so much last year after being in residency that I was filled with wonder! I applied, knowing that I might be pregnant by the time I was accepted, and that I would have so many projects to juggle in the fall 2023, with closing out the Tres Golpes tour with Jasminne Mendez and Yesenia Montilla, a residency with Anaphora for a novel writing bootacmp, and doing the final reading for the National Book Foundation poetry category. I was definitely right! So when it came time to suggest dates, I proposed the last week that I would most likely be able to travel safely in a pregnancy, 31 weeks.
So here I am, in a place of refuge and peace, 31 weeks pregnant (unfortunately also negotiating the cough that just won’t quit me), and dreaming into the creative tasks I want to take on … as well as the rest I need.
I haven’t had a day off, a full day to my own thoughts since the summer, and I’ve desperately been craving that and here I have nearly a full (and delightly rainy) week!
Yesterday, the sun shown against the winter’s cold, teasing at spring, when I arrived, and surprisingly Jackie was here herself to greet me. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, but I arrived early and there were chores that needed doing so she had come up. My arrival just aligned … and in passing she noted that she would sign a book for my babies. I had to tell her the story of my goddaughter niece, who got into trouble at school for reading her book. She was reading, Brown Girl Dreaming, dog-earring the pages, when the sister at her school publicly accused her of stealing/defacing a library book and said that her parents would have to pay to replace it. She didn’t know how to respond and so she simply accepted what the teacher said, feeling shame. When she told my sister that she would need to pay for the book, she told the fuller story that the book actually wasn’t a library book; the book belonged to her. My sister reached out to me to ask if I had bought it for me - I’m the Titi who buys books - but this time it was her grandmother (who also buys books for the babies). My understanding is that the teacher ultimately apologized, but only privately to the child, even though the accusations happened in front of the whole class.
I told Jackie the story, and she signed 3 BOOKS to my goddaughter in addition to signing books for her sister and my babies (including the baby to come).
When I arrived, my contact, LaTonya had given me the tour and I could not stop (not that I tried) expressing all the wonder and glee at walking through places like the greenhouse - THERE’S A GREENHOUSE!!! - and seeing the wood burning fireplace in the kitchen AND the chef prepared meals that were waiting for me in the refrigerator, already labeled for the week and with all my dietary needs taken into account! AND THEN YOU ADD THE SIGNED BOOKS!!!!!!!
There aren’t enough exclamation points.
This may be my last residency in quite a while. Two children my partner could handle, especially as they get older, but with three, including an infant, I don’t expect to be traveling for this long for a few years except for my work in Maine at Stonecoast. And if this IS the last, then what a place for the opening of dreams. This is a place of walking within them.
Let me return to the title, though: planning the garden, dreaming the harvest.
I had planned on taking on the following projects while I was here:
doing my consultation feedbacks for a press
working on the Acentos Review anthology project
writing 2 chapters of the werewolf romance
writing 5 poems and sending out new work
apply for the NEA in poetry
I think that some of that will happen, perhaps all, but that I really want to also do some digital collage work with archival photos again, do a vision board for 2024 and start dreaming into upcoming commitments to 2025 (I just got a WONDERFUL reading invitation to AWP 2025), and maybe do some watercolor/oil pastel experiments. The last, especially with the rain, would allow me to do some natural world collaborations, I think. Maybe have some burnt edging, use of charcoal, interactions with dripping rain? Lots of options. I’ve also felt called to return to an old old old novel that I was working on ages ago, to see how I want to proceed with that.
I’m also a fan of resting and drinking so much tea for this still coughing body of mine.
So my day 1 plan:
Wednesday
Tea and rest
Vision board
Write 2 poems
2 consultations
1 chapter of werewolf romance
Charcoal and oil pastel afternoon/evening
Thursday
Tea and rest
Write 2 poems
2 consultations
Charcoal and oil pastel afternoon/evening
Friday
Tea and rest
Write 2 poems
2 consultations
1 chapter of werewolf romance
Acentos review .5 years
Charcoal and oil pastel afternoon/evening
Saturday
Tea and rest
Apply for NEA
Write 2 poems
2 consultations
werewolf romance outlining
return to YA novel and write a chapter for funsies
Acentos review .5 years
Charcoal and oil pastel afternoon/evening
Sunday
Tea and rest
Apply for NEA
Write 2 poems
2 consultations
return to YA novel and write a chapter for funsies
Acentos Review .5 years
Charcoal and oil pastel afternoon/evening
Monday (departure
Acentos Review .5 years
Drive home
Surprise the kids at a doc appointment
