Last Day in Fairbanks - Treasures

Remember the rainbow, the evening I arrived here two weeks ago, the torrential rain? Phil put my raingear in a box and mailed it up to me. It arrived yesterday, and for the past three days we've had clear blue skies and weather warmer than it ever gets in Homer! But the box was put in my hands just some minutes before I performed three poems at 'lunch bites,' the informal daily concert, and that loving connection was a sweet touch.


There are ripe saskatoonberries out front of where I'm staying - you can see what a bright day it is today from the photo!

Closeup of the berries:

I feel so blessed by the gift of not pushing myself. Yes, I'm tired, very tired, but I think anyone would be after two weeks of intense workshop. Instead of chastising myself for all that I haven't done, that I could have done whilst up here, for being a jury-rigged person and a flake, I am grateful for the wonderful opportunity to have done as much as I did. 

I think I've mentioned before how the turtle came to me as a totem earlier this year - no more the hare, slow, steady, protected. This sculpture on campus was a good reminder.

Spending two weeks with such inspiring people, doing something that feels so meaningful in every pore, is helping to instill the standing permission to accept that this is what I need to be doing, that this is a valid way to contribute to the world and to society. I'm letting go of the anxiety of preparing for the apocalypse.

This isn't a great shot of the class, but it has almost everyone. Funnily enough, that's my folder, travel mug, notebook and pens right in the foreground (no, not the soda)!

Another part of this generous feeling is the desire to support others on the path. Buying the books of the course professors felt like a wonderful gift to myself - and having them personally signed was an extra thrill! Then today, I visited the local independent bookstore - Gulliver's. Festival participants were all given a voucher for 10% off there, and I got a couple of books that will be treasured too. 

Pictured are 'The Man Back There' by David Crouse, 'Gorrill's Orchard' by Jeanne Clark, 'Just Breathe Normally,' 'Gnawed Bones,' 'Underground Rivers' and 'Greatest Hits' by Peggy Shumaker, - our three awesome professors - and 'Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon' by Pablo Neruda, translated by Stephen Mitchell, and 'The Wild Iris' by Louise Gluck (sorry can't find umlaut for the 'u'). When I got home, I gave myself the treat of reading one poem from each, aloud (David's stories, I've been devouring silently). The Neruda/Mitchell has the original Spanish facing the English, a format I love, and it was fun to wrap my tongue around the Spanish too. My Spanish isn't great, but getting to read the original definitely enhanced my sense of the poem.

I'd been thinking of Phil, and how my book-collecting tendencies don't necessarily suit him and how I hadn't been able to find a treasure to bring home for him. But on the way home I found two that he will love - beautifully preserved on the dry heat of the road pavement. I carried them home in my bosom - the only way I could think of to transport them intact by bike!

Little cases of beauty.
Aside from the 'stuff' and inspiration, I'm taking home months' worth of work, a refreshed palette of ways to look at the world, many new connections and the beginnings of some self-belief, of feeling 'on track.'

'A Bad Trip' - Something from the Writing Workshop

I haven't shared any of my writing from the Writing Workshop here yet - it must be time! I have been posting some of what I've been doing as comments on the Workshop's blog, so generously provided by Sue Ann Bowling.

Tomorrow is the last day of the workshop, and I'm messing up in ways that are unlike me. I got ink on a book that a professor loaned me and am mortified. I posted the piece I'm posting below on the workshop blog without editing it and am even more mortified - I just don't do things like that!  It's ok that it's a draft, not a polished piece, but it's not ok with me to post with glaring infelicities! And the way the blog is structured, you can't go back and fix it either. But I thought some folks who read my blog might enjoy this little snippet of a traveler's tale about my explorations in Cambodia five years ago, with the glaring infelicities tidied up. We had a visiting speaker discuss travel writing, and the relationship between reading/writing/travel - great discussion and food for thought. This little piece is in response to the assignment to write about:

A Bad Trip

I squeezed out of the bus at what I hoped was the southeast corner of Phnom Penh and looked for the transit center from which vehicles left for villages on the coast, although I had no clear idea of what this would look like. It soon became apparent that the giant swap-meet-come-junkyard on the other side of the four-lane road, barely visible through the traffic, was it. Once I'd negotiated the crossing, waving away the moto chauffeurs who cried 'lady, motor-cy,' I allowed myself to be accosted by someone selling rides out of town. 

I paid what seemed a reasonable fare, and hoped that my minimal Khmer was sending me where I was hoping to go. My ride was a two-door Toyota Tercel. The trunk was already full - it seemed I was a good match, with nothing but a small daypack and massing barely 90lbs. I clambered over the tipped-up driver's seat to squeeze myself in with a family of four; a smoochy pair of newlyweds rode shotgun. 

When we set off, I wondered whether the driver's horn was rigged to his gas pedal - he drove the car, but he rode the horn, and it seemed that every other similarly-loaded vehicle in the dense procession was rigged the same way. It was a continuous blare.

Our trip was punctuated within ten minutes, when the traffic, which had been moving at a reasonable speed, slammed to a halt, and the hood of the car slammed open, cracking the windshield, and stayed open so that none of us could see anything ahead. Nobody said a word. The driver kept on driving, until I seriously thought he intended to drive clear to Kampot with the hood in the windshield like that, and was earnestly relieved when he relinquished his spot in the line of traffic, jumped out, slammed the hood back down, and took to the horn again.

Once out of the greater urban bottleneck, we lost the traffic and soon found dirt roads lined with rice paddies and pools of gray-brown water in which naked children swam. The driver scarcely seemed to slow as the road rutted increasingly.The car had no suspension anyway. I gritted my teeth at my aching tailbone and was relieved that the mother of the family smiled so reassuringly whenever I was slammed against her.

I wondered why banana and papaya plants were not ubiquitous as they were in Thailand, where they could be seen even on railroad sidings, and whether the absence of this profusion of potentially cheap food was an index of the deeper poverty that was palpable here.

Kampot was smaller than I'd anticipated, the roads all umber dirt. I was dropped by the dusty traffic circle at the south end of what appeared to be the main road. The other passengers were to be dropped to their doorsteps here and there in town. Suddenly, I was alone. 

It was noon, searingly hot, no clouds in the sky yet but a taste of afternoon thunder in the air. Anybody with any sense was out of the heat - after the incessant, milling press of humanity in Phnom Penh it felt like a ghost town, although I would later learn that here too, if you sat quietly watching the river, someone would be pestering you within a minute.

I fished in my pack for food and a map, and ate the last of my eggfruit from the Psar oRusay - 'the Russian Market' in Phnom Penh - a huge multistory confusion of booths and vendors housed in what looked like a decrepit soccer stadium, while I tried to get my bearings. (At this point, the only name I had for 'eggfruit' was the Khmer -  'sodaa' that the vendor had taught me, although the crumbly, yolk-yellow, dry-sweet dense fruit matched everything I'd read about eggfruit. It had gotten squashed on the journey and was turning translucent, the dryness cloying. )

None of the streets were signed - not even in Khmer - so I wasn't confident of my bearings when I went in search of the tourist information office, but I did find the place I was looking for, a little farther from the crossroads market than I'd expected. It seemed deserted, like everywhere else. I called out a 'hello' and studied the white poster board of tourist activities, peeling red letters on peeling whitewash. As I hesitated, there was a throaty roar. Four dogs rushed out from the building next door, and began biting my legs.

New Addition/Welcome to the World, Anxieties of Progress, Makeshift Snacks

Welcome, Lyra!


I became an aunt yesterday! It sounds funny to say it like that, since I actually did nothing toward it, but yesterday the daughter of my brother and his wife, their first child, my mother's long-awaited first grandchild, was born!

Her name is Lyra, after the heroine of Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy - a feisty, passionate, free-thinking namesake indeed. I am so glad that she is with us now, and that my sister-in-law doesn't have to be pregnant in the hot weather in London anymore!

I wish my brother and sister-in-law the very best of joy and delight in their new role as parents. It seems to me that bringing a child into the world is a very courageous thing to do, and I've been so impressed by all the preparation they've done for it.

Meanwhile, back in Fairbanks

It's been beautifully warm and even sunny the past three days. The threatened thunderstorms never materialized. I'm feeling the incipient lump-in-the-throat because we only have two days left for the workshop - but that also means that in less than five days I'll see Phil again, to which I'm really looking forward.

Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity for a brief consultation with one of the professors about some of my work. I intentionally put forward some of my work that was less 'polished,' but still felt somewhat deflated after we took it apart! It validating my own critical sensibilities in part, because in most cases she flagged as needing more work precisely the parts with which I wasn't comfortable, but it was also a wake-up call in one case, where I had fallen into my trap of being lulled by beautiful sounds and not realizing that the image was not being conveyed for anyone else.

Perhaps it's something to do with having memorized all kinds of very long passages of Sanskrit and Latin at a very young age, without having a clue what they meant. I have a propensity to be so satisfied by sounds and rhythms, but to invite someone else to care about my poems, I need to provide more than that!

It seems so silly that whilst I wanted to have my work criticized, there was also a part of me that so wanted it to be already perfect, a work of genius. The cool thing is that I'm actually excited to work on making it better, which shows that the impulse and commitment are real, not posturing.

Running low on snacks, yesterday I soaked up some flax seeds, added shredded coconut and a bunch of spices, stevia, chlorella, a little carob, dehydrated in an intermittent oven...

- makeshift snack-food! I don't prefer the texture with whole flaxseeds - they work better as meal - but these are portable, won't melt or spoil, taste not stellar but fine.

I am aquiver with my desire to take 'the next step' with my writing practice, prepare for applying to MFA programs, etc, and with the anxious realization that I really need help with this - I really need a mentor to help me do my best with this. I am aiming to put aside the anxiety and just promise myself that it's going to happen, I'm going to find a great mentor, but I barely slept last night, exhausted as I am, for the excitement of it.

Speaking of anxious progress, here are two others that I saw on the way to class -

- with my tea mug for scale - must have been a very hungry caterpillar on that barren pavement!

Probably doing about 15 mph.

And for a different kind of progress - the official flower of Fairbanks is the showy delphinium - you see them in people's yards everywhere. But here are some that escaped and went feral on the roadside

The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

The days are just pouring by here. So much to learn, so much to take in, so much to think about.

I wrote yesterday about how liberating it is to be exploring the possibility that I don't in fact have to do everything all the time: that in fact I do much better biting off much smaller pieces of experience. That I can actually be relatively sane and healthy if I don't drive myself under by overextending myself. By a wonderful serendipity, late this afternoon we got to talking about creative energy that's driven by thinking about what we don't do - the Emily Dickinson quotation '"No" is the wildest word we consign to language,' and her practice of saying 'no' to all kinds of things in order to make room for her writing. 

This rings so true for me at the moment. I remember writing in a blog post some time ago about the richness of my inner horizons, contrasting that with Phil's perpetually eager outward embracing (although Phil would point out that I'm very good at spotting all kinds of things 'outside'). I'm feeling this inner richness strongly at the moment and it is a blessing. It's very thought-provoking that to some degree it should be predicated on 'saying "no."' Especially after I had as my email signature for years the Hafiz lines 'I rarely let the word 'no' escape my mouth/because it is so clear to me/that God has shouted 'yes! yes! yes!'/to every timeless movement in existence.' Of course it's a balance, of course you need some 'outer' to recharge the 'inner,' but I feel like I'm coming closer to that balance, without condemning myself because it's 'less' than I feel I 'should' be doing, for the first time. I really never used to say 'no' to anything.

I'm so grateful.

Up For This Week

I'm going to continue to make the best of this experience, and if that involves more resting, so be it. I hope to make it to one or two more concerts or shows, though. And I'll post impressions as they occur. 

Some more artwork from Chena Hot Springs - these earrings are made of gemstones and porcupine quills! Phil told me that porcupine quills were very commonly used in ornaments by natives - real easy to thread beads onto - but it was a new thing for me to see. Beautiful too.

Much love.

Mid-Festival - Chena Hot Springs

I took advantage of the shuttle bus to Chena Hot Springs today - the bounciest, roughest ride ever experienced on a paved road, darned near shook us all out of our seats several times!

Before we left, I found this little bird on the ground just outside a door to a building - maybe it had flown into the door and stunned itself. The picture gives no scale, silly me, but it was a tiny little bird - sat with plenty of room on the palm of my hand! I walked around with it for a while and it seemed quite content, and eventually flew away. I'm glad, as I wasn't sure what to do with it if it couldn't fly.

Chena Hot Springs contained a lot of cool things to look at, and most of the rest of this post will be sharing photos. I'm continuing to work on this lesson 'You don't have to do everything,' and am glad of it. There were several 'activities' that one could do at the resort, and I just went in the hot pool a couple times, walked around, sat and wrote for a while, people/plant/animal-watched - it was plenty!

This sculpture made of moose antlers greets you as you come in, as do a couple taro plants in pots - what are they doing out of Hawaii??

This is the rock pool itself - a pool of naturally heated, super-sulphurous water, it's about 105 degrees most of the way through and maybe 110 at the end to the left of the photo.

The locker rooms to get into the rock pool (as well as the indoor chlorinated pools in which I had no interest) featured showers with warm, sulphurous water so that you felt like you were showering in mashed up warm hard-boiled eggs! It wasn't particularly crowded, but you wouldn't have known that from the locker room. There was barely room to move in there - you had to line up to lift up an arm! I think it was partly poor design with all the lockers elbowed in a corner, and partly that the room was genuinely too small for what it needed to do.

Little Peeves

The woman at the front desk explained to me that the pool water contains a lot of bicarbonates and a lot of sulphur and that both of these can be hard on hearts that are not fully developed, which is why they don't allow under-18's into that pool. That's also why they warn that it can tarnish silver jewelry. Nice side-effect that it's a quiet area with no screaming and splashing. But then, the second time I went in the pool, a woman was in there with her baby! I wonder if she knew that the rule was supposed to protect infants, not just for the sake of having rules. Of course, I had my own skepticism about how the pool could be a bad thing, but that's simply skepticism meaning I need to research further. And going in the pool definitely had noticeable effects on my body (bluntly, I was extremely dehydrated, and then got 'the runs') so I could see how it might be hard on a baby.

That second time too, there were some guys who were jumping in and splashing (even though they were clearly over 18, haha), which was not very restful.

But worst of all, a woman was smoking in there! She was there with her husband and daughter, 50-something lean and langorous in her leopardskin bikini and dyed-blond hair scraped back in a ponytail, basking on a rock half out of the pool, semi-discreetly in a corner. But then she was in the pool with her husband, posing for photos, cigarette in hand! When she got back out on her rock, she handed the cigarette to her daughter while she climbed up, then took it back. Her own self-contained universe, like a force-field around her, so that I couldn't go up and articulate how angry this made me.

I found someplace else to go in the pool (she was at the hot end, which of course I was most drawn to), and found something else to look at, and thanked goodness that the wind was mostly blowing the smoke away.

Inspiring Gardens


The decor was all rustic/agricultural

- old farm equipment, the pump cranking the irrigation a central feature:

- but the nice thing was, this was for real. There were some great gardens here:
a beautiful, long herb bed

lemon balm, several mints, basil (!), tarragon, parsley;
A big veggie garden, mostly cole crops:

And then there was a garden with what looked like eggplant (no fruiting yet, corn (!) and squash

I love to cloud-watch. Can you see the face in this cloud, looking down at the rock pool?

love to all.

Botanical Garden, Farmers' Market, Photos, Tired!

We spent some of yesterday afternoon in the Botanical Garden at the university, and today I checked out the farmer's market in town and went to the Ice Show that was part of the festival. Nice to go to the Garden and see plants growing and then go to the market to feel out that whole vibe - I feel at home at a farmer's market wherever it is - just love them. Makes me nostalgic a little for California days when I was so involved in them. I managed to pick the three hour period in the day that it wasn't raining to be there, but got nicely soaked biking home from the ice show.

Energy update: I'm very, very tired. Indeed. Yesterday morning in one of the classes, I had to just accept that I wasn't going to work on the assignment at that time - my brain wouldn't do it. I made it up this morning so that's fine. I didn't write a post last night because I was too tired and because I had two software crashes in a row for my translation job and by the time I'd redone my work a third time it was later than I'd meant it to get. So much to share on here, though - the museum visit on Tuesday was pretty special too.

As you may remember from this post, I don't believe that a picture carries the whole story - it may speak a thousand words but until the words are formed into sentences, they're just an inscrutable mosaic like those refrigerator magnet words. 

But since I am so tired, and since I took some pictures, I'll share some now.

Giant cabbages Alaska Interior-style:

Kale for scale  - beautiful kale.

Here's a sea of marigold:

It was great to see so many honeybees - and at the farmers' market today were two honey vendors selling honey harvested this year. No one down in Homer's getting any honey so far this year - too wet and cold, too little nectar; I just read in the newsletter that many are feeding their bees: think I probably need to do that too. Anyhow, here are honeybees enjoying poppy...

...and speedwell in the salvia bed

I was very surprised to find malabar spinach, easy to grow in California and Hawaii, up here!

You can see chickweed enjoying the bed also. Lots of chickweed, shepherds purse, and other weeds in the beds - I was tempted to sit down and weed!

Now some farmers' market pictures. I enjoyed seeing tomatoes that had been grown almost-outdoors, in dirt with a hoophouse over it, and cucumbers and zucchini - can't grow any of that in Homer without serious protection.

The vendors at this next stall were speaking Russian - I'd noticed that compared to Homer, Fairbanks is very cosmopolitan (especially a lot of Indians as in from the Subcontinent, and lots more Black and Asian people than Homer) but that there isn't the huge population of Russian Old Believers that there is in Homer, with the women everywhere and unmistakeable in their headcovers and floor-length shiny satin dresses. 

This serious-looking pair of vendors are playing Irish folksongs! You can just see his flute, and she has a little squeezebox on her lap that you can' t see. I like the idea that they're just sitting there minding their stall and playing, as opposed to having to be out in the middle somewhere.

There were lots of beautiful craft products - wooden bowls, chairs, tables; petrified wood, glass beads, textiles. 

The Ice Show was a new experience for me. I'm impressed that a university would have its own Ice Arena - probably more often used for ice hockey than for this display of dancing. They started out with a group dance

...and then it seemed like just about every kid danced a solo. The littlest kids were just teensy! And they all performed well, but there were a few who were just amazing. My attempts at photographing them merely showed me that I'm no good at taking motion shots on ice - none of my pictures looked anything like they were supposed to!

I came home with broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes. Here's a 'still life' of fixing dinner (the first time I've cut up veggies since I got here, btw - so far I've just been eating carrots, lettuce and celery 'straight up' and slabbing off pieces of jicama and eating those 'straight up' too):

You can see broccoli peelings, pocketknife, tomato - and once again I used a to-go mug to keep tomatoes from getting smushed. Notebook and pen and hat in background. Cauliflower and broccoli chopped up marinating in apple cider vinegar and salt...

...and dressed up with tomatoes and the spirulina/sunflower seeds/nutritional yeast mix. Good stuff!

Art and Truth and their Part in Self-Care, Smoothies, Shopping

We had some time off this afternoon, as our profs are going to be doing a public reading this evening. This seems a good moment to take stock. In brief, I'm having a great time and feel like I'm managing really well. In fact, I feel pretty embarrassed to have bleated on so much to the ND, and everyone else, about my anxieties before coming here. When you really care deeply about something, that's the best motivation to keep yourself in good shape for it. And I'm starting to understand what the ND meant when he said that it's a good thing that I can't run myself down like I used to: if I walk too much or skip a snack, I'm in trouble instantly, which also makes it easier to correct. And thinking again about the whole relationship between 'art' and 'truth,' if I really work on the art of being at my best, then the face that I can present to the workshop as an excited, attentive, interested, motivated participant is true and unimpeded, and (although some conversations have been fractured as we walk up stairs and I get left behind) no one needs to know about my health problems! It feels good to think about this as both truth and art. 

Other elements of self-care have included asking for help more, and just bathing in the kindness and generosity of so many people. This afternoon, I got stranded by a bus, asked where to go to get picked up, and a woman gave me a ride to my next stop! I felt totally comfortable accepting, and just so grateful. It feels kind to myself too not to think so much about the huge volume of things that I 'used' to be able to do with a given amount of time - it's ok that riding the buses and doing a little shopping took all afternoon; it's ok that I'm not going to finish writing this before I have to go out to the faculty reading. 

As for energy in class, I can almost always be sure that my enthusiasm for the subject will carry me through - but that's partly because I want so much to be fully 'present' that I rest a lot in between times and do less of everything else. But I have the phosphatidylserine at the ready at all times too, and the rescue remedy. 

I have more experience than anybody at smiling through a sick stomach, but no matter how my guts are feeling, I have to have my smoothie in the morning. And there are some things I can do to make sure that they do better. Generally, traveling and being in a strange place upsets my stomach even more than usual, so I try to eat as close to what I normally eat as the circumstances allow - no weird surprises! I put a bunch of ginger powder in my smoothie too, which helps with the nausea. As I've said here before, ideally I prefer to mix my own superfoods and protein powders for smoothies. However, in this 'away from home' context, it's useful to have a composite powder with a bunch of enzymes, green powder and probiotics. I have 'Life's Basics Green' and Vega Shake'n'Go (the latter in chocolate flavor, so used with caution). But I still add the ginger powder, some flax meal, some freeze-dried acai powder (recommended by the ND as an energy boost without slamming my adrenals), and a little coconut oil. I've been sprouting lentils too, and having lots of algae. I also adjust my Magnesium and Vitamin C intake as necessary. And take all my supplements, hormones, etc.

My 'blender bottle,' with its ball whisk inside, has been very handy for shaking up the smoothies. And here it is later, being a carry-case for the two avocados I bought this afternoon! You can see the little ball whisk at the bottom, agreeably concertina-ing itself to accommodate them. I was pleased to get them home without mishap. It feels good to make use of all the space you've got when schlepping groceries carless!

I found these little superfood juices on sale at the supermarket this afternoon. 

Goji's great, and acai is on my 'helper' list right now, so I decided to get them to try, although being basically fruit juice (albeit no added sugar), they're way too much sugar for me. But I figured a couple tablespoons at a time wouldn't be a problem: the ND keeps telling me to relax about taking in a little sugar for the moment, as we can't really eradicate the yeast until the mercury is taken care of. 

Well, I had a little taste of each and they just taste incredibly sweet to me (I have very sensitive tastebuds anyway, but since I haven't been eating sugar for so long, anything concentrated like fruit juice is just over the top). So a tiny bit in a smoothie is probably the way to go.

I actually bought a pair of black 'converse' hi-tops today too! Weird thing to buy while grocery shopping, but since I was buying a bike lock to open up the 'biking' option, I needed some footwear to suit. Normally, I always wear my big, thick winter boots, every day, and of course that's the only footwear I brought here. And they really don't sit well on bike pedals!

If I wear regular shoes, my ankles will just drop me on the floor at any moment. (I gave up trying to go out wearing sneakers the day I almost hit my head on a toilet after an unpredictable and unprovoked ankle antic.)  The supermarket had converse on offer, and although it's nothing like the ankle support of my boots, I think it's enough that I could ride a bike somewhere and then walk around and not fall over. It's ironic (but very typical of me) that when I was in my teens, I always wanted a pair of converse hi-tops, and now when I finally buy a pair, it's entirely a practical motivation. 

But here's the silly thing: at checkout, the clerk forgot to take the security tag off (and I forgot to remind her), and I can't get it off! I dulled my pocket knife pretty good trying, right when I was needing to get out of here and go to the reading! Oh, the excitement! These little things really get me going.  So I guess I need to ask someone in class to loan me a hacksaw. Or go back to the store next free session (Saturday?) and get them to remove it. But now I can't find the receipt...

Nostalgic For Eagles, Writing Workshop Notes and Blog, Blogging Comments

Day 3 - I underdressed today - trusted the weather report and the pattern of the last two days, expected the morning rain to burn off to a sultry, humid afternoon. It rained all day, and at this latitude, without the sun shining it gets chilly quickly.

I'm staying on campus to attend the 8pm concert - a string quartet and a double reed group - did I mention how poignant it is being here amidst a big musicians' gathering? I chatted with the husband and wife at the core of the double reed group, called 'Obohio,' a couple days ago, and very friendly and welcoming they were too, but I told them I'd probably cry when I came to their concert. It's such a strange feeling, abutting my current self against the self that lived and breathed oboe and english horn all those years. More grist to my musing about natural habitat - this campus is so comfortable! I could get out of the rain, get some hot water for my tea, find a comfortable chair in the lounge of the student center, and an internet connection! 

Or I could go for a walk in the birch forest all around and feel the rain on my skin.

(this pic was taken yesterday, when it was sunny).

Rosehips everywhere - they intertwine very prettily with that vetch I showed yesterday:

I haven't seen a bald eagle for almost a week  - back home, they're our closest neighbors! There were some immense ravens flying to roost on the eaves of the building our classroom is in this afternoon, arrowing toward the building and then uplifting at the last minute, so it seemed, before piercing right through our windows. By the third time, I was sure they were ravens, but at first I wondered if they were juvenile eagles - never seen such big ravens before!

I'm so grateful for the energy, kindness and sincerity of our three professors for this course - Peggy Shumaker, David Crouse and Jeanne Clark. They manage to be simultaneously challenging and nurturing, and raise good questions as well as answering ours. 

This afternoon, they were joined by a local writer, Theresa Bakker, who offered insights from the inside of an MFA process and a moving meditation on the value of walking as part of the creative process. I've found her blog and look forward to following it henceforth!

Speaking of blogs, two things! First, thanks to Sue Ann Bowling, a Geophysicist emerita and newly-published science fiction writer, our workshop has its own blog! They're going to put up the day's exercises and are encouraging us to post our drafts in response. I may just do that too. The blog is at http://homecomingbook.wordpress.com/  (and I'm sorry, but I don't think I'd have recognized David Crouse from that photo!)  

Second, I want to try to say something that's been on my mind, coming out of a comment on my blog post of Monday. Averie wrote that she appreciates the comments I make on her blog and hadn't been as good about responding. I just want to say that while I really want people to read my blog and am really delighted and flattered and pleased and overjoyed when I get comments, I write comments on other people's blogs because I feel moved to do so, because I admire or otherwise feel moved to respond to what they say. I don't want this to constitute an obligation on them to comment back to me. I think it's too easy to end up in an all-consuming cycle of blog-hopping and reciprocity and would prefer not to have anyone feeling obligated. I write this blog because I love to do it, I write comments on other people's blogs for the same reason. When I have enough online time, I will do more than my 'fair share' of commenting, but that's just how I am - and sometimes I'm offline completely! When I get comments, I'm happy and grateful to know that someone has felt moved to respond.

Thanks so much, Averie and everyone else.