The First Writing Residency

Dear Residency,

When I walked onto 'campus' for the first time, all my past images of French writers freezing in a small cafe in Paris left my mind.  Writers get to work in the Sun!  Not only do writers get to write in the sun, but they get to live at a resort for ten days!  You must be kidding me, I thought, but it was true.

It started my new adventure feeling like I was preparing for a birth.  I packed a bag, filled with things I thought I might need.  I was in denial that I was actually going to be away from my family for so long.  When my husband asked me if I knew what my flight number was off the top of my head, I simply could not tell him.

There was fear, as there normally might be when something amazing is about to happen.  Will I be like everyone else I was about to meet?  Would my crazy side freak people out?  Would I get all the reading done before workshop?  Were my pieces actually worth reading?

Within a couple of hours I started to meet people.  I got to sit by a fire, in the sunshine, drinking ice water with people who already felt like friends.  I had known a few of them on facebook and even some of them in my classes on blackboard.  What I did not know, was that I would cry so much.  I never thought a graduation of students I had known for ten days would actually make me sad. 

Being a writer really forces a person to feel a part of a secret world that one thinks nobody understands.  People aren't mean about it, they just have a glazed over look when one starts to describe the experience.  Then, one steps into a world where everyone understands, there is a common language, and nothing is the same again. 

It is so easy to forget that even though writers might enjoy alone time, they too appreciate community.  Being without kids allowed me to participate in a world I have not experienced in nine years.  I love my children.  Leaving them, for a week of writing, was really difficult.  However, remembering that sometimes I get to be just me, was really quite nice. 

So enough of the sappy stuff.  What happened to me?  I learned that comments about my work was very helpful!  I also learned that all the articles about an MFA being worthless are not entirely true.  I have changed my entire manuscript because of really important feedback.  It was good to stop hitting the pretend wall I had created for my own work.  Writing in a writer's community was way more fun than mumbling through thoughts alone.  Other writers are really cool.  The brain can collect a lot of information in ten days, but beware of the fact that the day you get home might surprise you.

Just like after a birth, one might be really tired and extremely emotional.  I must have cried a couple of times for not real reason.  Mommy never stopped being mommy, but somehow, I am different.  We all are.  Being home felt like an out of body experience at first.  Our house felt foreign even though I had barely been away.  At the same time, everything was the same. 

Do you ever recover from your first residency?  Are you going to be hooked for life on being around writers all the time?  These are questions I look forward to learning more about.  Residency, you have become a new best friend. 

Until June,
Marion