day 12

There is something to be said about this experience, the first time around. I have never done a residency like this before. I've done three years of Cave Canem now, three summers, rather, three weeks. Essentially my time here at Soul Mountain is the sum of my time at Cave Canem, except the time passes differently here. It is a different experience, a lonely existence.

Maybe it is I am reverting to what brought me to writing in the first place, loneliness. And maybe it is I am afraid of that space, having felt that I successfully left it for this life of constant people around me, of constant love. I always say of Cave Canem that it is my big family that I always wanted. There is/has been always someone around me from that family..or someone I am trying to get into this family.

There are Cave Canem family members here, but it is different. We are not required/expected to interact with each other. So this voyage is one done alone. As with most things I embark on, I am noticing, I begin a thing with such exuberance, such momentum, such excitement, that I am unaware of the impending danger. I don't see the caution signs or the beware, rocky roads ahead sign. I just keep driving with the wind in my face, the sun on my shoulder, my arm out the window. And then the gas light comes on. And then the wilderness and all I've got with me is a pack of cigarettes and a half-empty bottle of water...and no cars for hours or miles.

It's day 12. I have 8 more days to go. I have reached a wilderness of sorts. Maybe it is because energy has shifted in the house? One of the residents left yesterday, so today was a new day in this same place. It was different. I woke up with a headache that I couldn't explain. I woke up, ate breakfast, finished this book I was reading, and went back to sleep until lunch time. I woke up from lunch time and sat around with a couple of books and beginnings of poems that have yet to formalize into actual poems. All except for one. One about the body. I have tricked myself into thinking/believing the one about solitude is a poem, but it's not, really. I pretend it is. Right now, I have written 32 poems in 12 days. I guess there is a breaking point for the body/mind? Maybe I have reached it. Then, what to do for these last 8 days? Maybe this is opening a space for the novel. Maybe. We'll see what words come to me tomorrow.