Uncertain

Life is uncertainty. That's a given. (Get it?)

I returned from Nebraska after a brief but great visit with my father and step-mom, and I feel renewed. To be completely honest, I didn't feel so great before I left. I felt numb a lot of the time, going through the motions. Not depressed, not sad. Just not much of anything. I explained this to a few folks, and they said it was likely burnout. Judging from the fact that the trip helped so much, I think they were on to something. I came back to some tough news, potentially scary news, but instead of feeling panic and instead of feeling nothing, I just felt okay. Some time to write: that's the cure.    

Below is a poem I wrote for and in honor of the Art Farm, a residency like no other. I recommend it to the hardest-core of hardcore writers (badasses only). Below that is some lit news and a short prompt. I wish you all a wonderful week.

BEING the FARM

We arrive, carry art on our backs or balance it on our heads

like books as we walk slow, sleepy circles in order to reach

the straight line time dances around, just ahead, and we

live in heat, for wind, with an ailing raccoon whose pupils

have narrowed with sunlight and the flies that clean their legs on our

swatters as they eye our compost—the mound of decay that gives life.

We work, painting walls, digging trenches, burying waste,

watching the leaking water with worried eyes and grubby

hands that, together, have raised a substantial roof; and we

wander, meeting those in town who know those

near town, who know those mothers and fathers of those

in surrounding towns, who know—all of them—Ed; therefore, us.

We live without time, find our way home, think back, send treasure maps,

reconnect and feel our roots pulling us back toward shared grounds where

Arctic winds, warmed by the reach to Nebraska, embrace and kiss corn 

as we remember walking the silky rows, beneath an expanse of blue and above

dust and clay that is thrust up by truck wheels and embedded beneath our skin as we

wave each other on by, growing smaller in reflective mirrors but no less a part of the farm. 

Here is a prompt based on my time at the Art Farm:

Write about excess. A character whose life is over-filled with stuff is forced to live without. How does s/he change? There is a lot of potential here to use humor.  

Literary news: New fiction is forthcoming in Per Contra (read the current issue for some great work!) and elsewhere. More soon... 

xo Jen 

A non-writing day at the writing residency

I’ve been at the Art Farm for six days, and I think I’ve seen every type of spider known to man. As of today, I have declared war on spiders, and after a nasty bite on my ankle I have no regret smashing one beneath my tennis shoe or even, since I’m a hardcore NE artist now, between my fingers if given the chance.

I’ve been walking the cornfields, on average 8 miles a day, and working the land. I haven’t been wearing any makeup, which is a sobering thing—amazing how ingrained that part of my routine was—and I’ve been making decisions based on the experience I’ll have, rather than the practical or easy thing to do (I don't have to squeeze twenty things into twenty minutes right now. I can do one thing, and that's okay.). There’s some life lesson here, I’m sure.

But I want to talk about Grand Island. I went into town with an artist-friend
who was planning to pick up two bison skulls that play some role in a traditional Native American sun dance, which, she says, she’s done ten years running. She invited me, but I don’t want to commit myself for so many days of my residency. That said, I was tempted and I was glad to spend a day with her to pick her brain a little. Experience is everything, and mine has been so limited in general.

We went to a thrift store that was open. The man who greeted us did so by saying they were closed. His wife yelled from the back, “Get them out of there! We’re closed.”

“But they’re just looking around,” he said in our defense. When I told the woman I was here from San Antonio, she softened and said that was a hell of a long way.

We went to more thrift stores after, then antique stores, metal recycling (see image), then plastic recycling (“1-7 only, not sure where you can get rid of anything but 1-7”), then the hardware, then Hi-V (the local grocery), and by the end of our travels I believe we may have seen all of downtown Grand Island.

One of the most notable stops was at Quality Industrial Sewing, where a man named Ron showed us a sewing machine that could penetrate eight layers of leather. My friend bought it, and in turn Ron showed us his back room, where he has restored three hot rods. He told us how the design for a bachelor’s car differed from that of a family man’s, and how his air conditioning was reserved for those cars, to keep them in good shape when we asked why it was nice and cool in that room but not where we entered (the official store part).

Finally, after some light grocery shopping, we went to an Antique Mall, where I bought a book that will find its way into my writing for many years to come, I believe. Here’s a short excerpt from the Manners at the Table section:

“Do not blow food to cool it. Do not pour hot drinks into saucers to cool them. Hold a bone on both ends with the tips of the fingers on both hands when it is necessary to pick it up. Do not let crumbs or liquids cling to the lips. Do not lick the lips conspicuously. Do not ask for something on another person’s plate…”

Or this one from The Attractive Figure:

“Our mode of living during this twentieth century has established the ideal figure for a woman as one that is slender without being scrawny; lithe, sure, and quick-moving. Women do things nowadays. They are champions at sports, they follow careers, they drive cars, they keep homes and personal interests thriving side by side. The fragile woman, or the woman with too much avoirdupois, cannot keep pace with the present mode of living.”

—Capper, Arthur (Editor), The Household Searchlight Homemaking Guide, 1937

This book tells one everything from how to properly eat vegetables to how to throw a successful “Hobo Get-together” party. My life is changed forever. (Talk about endless material!)

Verdict: Downtown Grand Island, which is the big city compared to Marquette, NE where I am staying, is charming. The people are kind and, more, content. I was struck, in fact, with how content everyone seemed, right down to the woman who didn’t want us shopping her thrift after-hours (but ended up letting us buy things after all). There are some parts of the US in which folks don’t always want to be elsewhere and where you can find antique gems and recycle with gusto while maintaining a slow and steady pace.

I enjoyed my non-writing day, my company, and the town of Grand Island so much, in fact, that I may have to have another non-writing day at some point during this residency.  

In residence

The Art Farm is its own world, one in which, I’m finding, artists and writers are forced to discover who they are and what they can handle. The owner, Ed, is an artist who spends half of his time in New York and half of his time here in Marquette, Nebraska, where the last census I could find put the population at around 226. Ed is stoic and hardworking, and his calm demeanor seems to quietly affect all of the residents here. So far, I have met musicians, painters, book binders, writers, and I will meet more artists over the next two weeks.

We work 12 hours a week, and so far my work has included erecting and moving scaffolding and helping to dig a hole for a new septic tank (glam-or-ous). I feel hearty. The landscape, however, is precisely as I pictured: rows of corn surround the art farm in four square mile blocks. I’ve taken to walk this four-mile loop mornings, before it gets too hot. I have a good chunk of my work out of the way for the week, so now I am digging into the writing.

I can’t say that I am uncomfortable, but it’s funny the things that I notice here I was not prepared for. One of my boxes hasn’t yet arrived, and it has my contacts and most of the food I shipped myself, and because I am one of the residents without a car, I have to rely on the kindness of others—and wise grocery shopping choices when I do go to town.

Survival aside, the social aspect is interesting. Everyone is nice, and the unexpected comes daily. There were a group of walkers led by “recovering politician” Ed Fallon, heading through yesterday. They are part of The Great March for Climate Action, and their route will take them from Los Angeles to Washington DC. They camped out on the grounds, all ages and shapes and personalities, all dedicated. They were very interesting folks, some of which gave up their jobs and even their homes to take this hike across the states to stand up for what they believe in. 

As for solitude, I have been finding it when I seek it out. The Farm House, where I’m staying, does not have internet, so staying there is a great place to work without much distraction. That said, I am staying on the second floor where there is supposedly and likely a ghost. She may prove a distraction.

I have been writing here and there. I wrote a piece about Rattle as an old man, an old man who walks around a park and who is covered in tattoos that tell, if not his life story, his life philosophy. He reconnects with some of his children in this piece. I am trying to revisit WE ARRIVE UNINVITED as well, since a few agents have been interested in it from reading the first 50 pages, then requesting the full have given me a "close but…" 

Writing is hard work, and there is little, if no, instant gratification. Likewise, restoring a 12,000 square foot family farm in rural Nebraska forces a person to slow down. In this way, both my writing and this residency demand that I stay in the moment and dedicate myself to the nature of right now. After all, when disconnected for the every-micro-second filled eWorld, one is reminded that nature ultimately rules, and we are the mercy of her rhythms and temperament. 

Enjoy your every moment in the week to come. -Jen