Wisdom versus Adventure: How I Decided Not to go to AWP

Finally I get to write this blog post! Last Friday, both my computers developed problems. Yes, on the same day. You'd think having two computers would mean a backup plan. I spent hours trying to fix things myself and hours on the phone with Microsoft, and hours stuck with configuration failure reboots. Given the almost unique ability of computers to get the calmest person banging his/her head on the wall, I am so grateful for all this attention on wisdom and personal development audios of late. Some deep breathing and mindfulness practice helped get me through yet another configuration failure (and hence hours of lost work time) this evening.

Yes, returning to the breath, focusing on the breath, as a perpetually available meditation, is one commonality among all the different sources of advice.

It helped me more too, eventually. I mentioned agonizing over a decision and finding it extremely hard to settle one way or the other. I was hoping to go to the enormous AWP Writers' Convention in Seattle at the end of February. So enticing! Especially being enrolled in a low-residency MFA, with all my cohorts scattered all over the country, I have many beloved fellow travelers and mentors whom I only see once a year. Add to that the opportunity to meet many of my "writer crushes" and inspirations. Add to that a mind-bogglingly rich array of panels, talks, readings, for over twelve hours of each of the three days, so that at every session there are probably at least four you don't want to miss. An opportunity to learn so much, be so stimulated, in such a short space of time. Even the possibility of catching up with friends in the Seattle area who are not at the conference. I had free admission as a student in my program (although of course the flight down and hotel are far from free). How could I not go?

Well, on the other hand. Stability. My eternal frontier. Still settling after a two-month trip last fall. I've submitted my Critical Paper (yay! Early!) but still have a Creative Thesis to finish revising and make as good as possible for an MFA! Two new job projects both of which require an initial learning curve. Good habits under installation (instillation?)
And, as I confessed, I'm the smallest I've been in a very long time. I really think I'm doing okay, but I must admit I'm not brimming over with excess energy. If I have a 9-5 day in town I generally have to spend most of the next day on the couch. And that's a 9-5 day of mostly one-on-one interactions in a small town. AWP would be three consecutive twelve-plus-hour days around 11,000 writers!
My healthcare providers voted "don't go." As did friends.
I asked for a dream, and got a clear "don't go."
I asked explicitly in my soulful journaling practice, wherein I connect with my spirit guide /subconscious/angel/what you will. She said "don't go."

And yet, there I was searching for a flight, all ready to go!

And I agonized. Why did I ask for guidance if I wasn't willing to heed it? Was I asking for guidance in order to do the opposite? This went on for almost two weeks, hanging in the balance. I didn't want to abuse the guidance I'd been given. I didn't want to abuse the hospitality of my program by turning down the conference ticket. I didn't want to admit to being physically weak.

I think many of us are rebels, or are inexorably drawn to risk as opposed to wisdom. There must be an evolutionary balance there. It wouldn't be called "wisdom" if it weren't advantageous. On the other hand, if no one pushed out of their comfort zone, how would we ever evolve? On the other other hand, since my tendency is always to push beyond my comfort zone, my eventual decision not to go was actually an evolution beyond my status quo. 

With all my recent talk of paradox, this is the sublimest paradox of all, that taking a risk/pushing beyond the comfort zone would have been staying in my comfort zone, doing what I'd always done (Einstein's definition of insanity).

So, if I wish to, I can feel a sense of adventure as a result of having chosen not to go. Staying where I can continue to nurture these good new habits and practices, and not putting myself in an environment and schedule that would surely bury me, is adventure of a new kind; is evolution. 

This decision is also recognition of the magic that is receipt of guiding dreams and channeling of guidance from beyond in my journaling practice.

That sounds new and adventurous to me!

I'd love to hear others' learning stories like this. Thank you for letting me share. 

Edited to add: here's another really cool connection that came in the decision process; I can't believe I forgot to mention it. Someone made the point that to 90% of people, if you serve them a meal and tell them it's "healthy," they will immediately have an expectation of "yuck/joyless/unsatisfying." The point, in that context, was obviously that it's important to describe food in aesthetic terms that engage the senses alluringly--beautiful, vibrant, delicious, succulent. But the parallel with my difficulty in making what I knew was the right decision was striking. "This would be the wise thing to do." "Yuck boiled kale." Yes, I was being a brat.  But no more so than anyone who thinks healthy and delicious don't go together. There's more to be said on this; in fact, it's one of my biggest life lessons. We shall return to this.

Writing Residency and Body Image/Food

About the Residency and some frank talk about me, since it is my blog. Speaking of blog: You would have thought I'd have an effective comments system well worked out by now, especially considering what a desideratum it has long been for me. I apologize for the continued woes. WordPress did not offer what I was hoping for, and the plugin I installed hoping to solve the problem has made it worse if anything. I will work on it but please bear with me, because I'm at...

The Rainier Writing Workshop's 2013 Residency--a week of intense learning, sharing, co-teaching, interacting...basically a time when even if you're an introvert you can enjoy going out at night. Morning talks crystal sharp and pealing with laughter in informal atmosphere...

Surrounded by people who also think this (picture) is hysterically funny and also took a photo of it:

...and, most of the time, we're in intimate workshops and seminars in which the most acute of critiquing or seminar-ing is compounded with the loveliest congeniality.

There have been a few times I've felt critiquing hasn't been sharp enough from certain quarters. On the other hand, my work came up for workshop yesterday and one of the two faculty leaders expressed some very serious reservations about it, the vocabulary becoming stronger as the workshop went on. But there was no gall, neither given nor taken--this was objective, if passionate, discussion of work being taken seriously. Truthfully, though, I could feel that were it not for my meds I'd have been in pieces. But I could balance that faculty member's interpretations with many thoughtful readings from other faculty and students that gave me a more hopeful picture. Any one opinion is just one opinion. Even better: knowing that my own fragile ego might have exaggerated some parts of what I heard and minimized something positive, I checked in with one of my cohorts who had been in the same workshop. She reminded me of some very positive things the faculty member had also said and that I had not paid attention to. Somehow it's easy to ignore what you're good at and only focus on the points of criticism.

I've already met with my mentor for the thesis year. She is a phenomenal writer of both poetry and nonfiction and also happens to be a great teacher. Several conceptual aspects of my work for this year fell into place so naturally at our meeting that it felt very auspicious for what's to come. 

Oh, and we both have big hair.

An epiphany that came for me today: the traditional line people draw of "fact and/or/versus fiction" is vicious both for fiction writing (cannot reflect facts) and for creative nonfiction writing (can only be the facts). So, I propose we disband fact and fiction and allow other dichotomies to emerge.

Okay. Now to Ela, Food, and Body. Last night and this morning, small groups of lovely people, it felt fine (although my guts reminded me afterwards that it wasn't fine). I confess, the food and body thing is torture. One sad thing is how similar it has been each year, although this year may be the worst for various reasons. I need to look like I'm eating but I'm mortified if I look like I'm eating. I don't want to eat anything but I need to stay functional.

We're all self conscious in some way. So. My thighs look gigantic, my belly bloated, my chin doubled. How can I even appear in public?

My belly is a beast of unnatural and prodigious appetites.

I was warned I might have unusual cravings as my body seeks iron after recent massive blood loss. And so. I have no appetite, but I'm afraid of what I start when I start eating. And I'm craving salt, which I never usually eat or desire. One day, I snuck to the cafeteria and bought a small bag of chips, as self consciously as a teenager buying condoms for the first time. Back in my room, I shook them out onto a napkin and made three piles, so that each transgression would only be about 50 calories. I put one pile back in the foil pouch and one into an old oatmeal packet, clamped the crimped edges under a book. I ate a luxurious few of the third pile just as they were, and crumbled the rest into applesauce, to dilute the craved salt.

Most of my favorite foods don't taste good. I have a metallic taste in my mouth. If I eat, it gets worse. If I don't eat, it gets worse. 

For the group meals, the catering's awareness of gluten free and nondairy has improved exponentially. Which means fewer excuses for me not to eat, or to bring my safe foods to eat. Still, every time I let them feed me it's a scary act of surrender and I always don't feel well afterwards--there's always something that doesn't agree. On the other hand, I brought so much of my own food here, but even feeding myself a lot of the time, that heap is diminishing so imperceptibly...and I thought I'd calculated it fairly well. 

Calories counting in my head all the time, the bestial belly reprimanded all the time. Grapes taste so good now, but they do not satisfy the hunger urge and meanwhile they add and add to the calorie count. Which means, help my guts to be more roilsome and noisome than any in the history of humanity.

My question for you writers out there: what could I do to the above litany of complaints so that people would be laughing along? Or are you laughing already?

If I could just be a bee enjoying the late clover...

Seeing Bats, Hearing Voices (in Tacoma, at the Rainier Writing Workshop)

During this wonderful time of getting to know people and being fantastically stimulated as a writer, I've been so cautious around all the shared meals. Night before last, finally, something got me. Mid-way through Dinty Moore's hilarious and yet depth-plumbing reading about death and family, I realized that I was in for a night of shakes, hot and cold sweats, frequent trips to the bathroom.

Despite this, I spent some of the evening at the North Pacific Coffee Club, as I have almost every night, talking, appreciating, getting to know people better. It took my mind off the sickness, the bathroom was close by, I wouldn't have missed the conversation. Still, I left early, hoping to sleep it off.

Harstad Hall's corridors are long and bare, with a "T" at each end. When I came in, a bat the size of a starling was flying back and forth down the hall...

...knocking around in one "T" or other for a few moments, then making another lap of the corridor. Anxious. Swooping low, frantic. I opened the end door wide and tried to usher it out, but I banged the door on the wall and it fled to the opposite end. I tried to herd it toward an open window. It ducked out under my outstretched arm. On my fourth lap of the corridor, I listened at doors for voices and found two people in the ladies' room, asked them for help. One of them was horrified at the very thought of a bat; the other was willing to help me try to trap it, but really thought that calling Campus Security would be the thing to do.

So, I went downstairs and called Campus Security. Five minutes later, three kids showed up with walkie talkies dangling from their belts and heavy flashlights in their hands. One also wielded a butterfly net. They came upstairs with me: no sign of the bat. They started opening doors and shining lights in, although I assured them that the bat wouldn't have gone through a closed door.

As soon as they left to check the next floor up, here came the bat again, making its frantic laps of the corridor. I called out to them and went up the next flight of stairs as fast as my nauseated state allowed. As I stepped onto the third floor landing, the bat shot past my right ear and continued up the stairwell. I couldn't find the "Campus Security" folks and I didn't know where the bat was anymore either, so I just gave up and went to bed.

As I tossed between hot sweats and chills, flicking in and out of dreams like a mid-afternoon drunk surfing channels, voices started to intrude, loud, animated, back from the bar after closing time. The next time I had to get up for the bathroom, I determined I'd ask them to tone it down. I stepped out into the corridor. Silence. No one was there at all.

Back in bed, there were the voices again. And then I remembered Mary Blew's craft talk that morning, in which she quoted from "Crazy." The second-person protagonist, in the early stages of a psychotic break, is convinced that the downstairs neighbors, and eventually everyone else, are talking--about her--all the time. I realized that the voices were intensifying with my hot sweats and receding with my chills. I strained to distinguish words: yes, of course they were talking about me! Yes, of course they were all in my head. And what about the bat?

The morning brought some clarity. My guts were no longer in 'repel invaders' mode and the world looked more like itself again. There had indeed been a 'post-bar-closing' gathering in the first-floor lounge, directly beneath my room but not directly beneath the corridor.

And what about the bat? This morning, someone came down saying there was a bat in the third-floor bathroom. And the front desk folks were on the phone to Campus Security once again.