December 10, 2007
Monday

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way — things I had no words for.
                              — Georgia O’Keeffe, 1887-1986
                                   American artist

A few hours ago I fiddled with a few phrases in the short story I’ve been working with (half of which was created since I arrived in Wyoming), saved the changes, attached the document to an e-mail, and sent it to the members of my writing group for our session on Tuesday, December 18. That is the last bit of fiction work I will do before I leave. It’s time to start packing up and moving out.

This morning we residents gave the staff and each other a tour of our studios. It was the first time any of us had been in each other’s spaces during this whole month. “Tour” here, especially for the writers, means that everyone crowded into the work space and the resident gave an outline of her process and the work she accomplished during the stay.

I was able to report that I have produced 50 pages of longhand “moodling” work in my private journal — meandering prose that primes the pump — 3000 new words for my novel and 2500 new words for a short story that shook itself loose from the novel material, and 25 (and counting) more-or-less well-developed personal essays (about 15,000 words) for this site. That is astonishing production for me. By contrast, in July I wrote 15 pages of that meandering stuff, four not very interesting pieces for Markings, and a 1500 word short-short story.

So I’m sorting and stacking now, filing the clips about the man at the Fifth Street Exit and making sure I have the ordering information for the books I found in Jentel’s collection that I want to have in my own (among them Deep West: A Literary Tour of Wyoming.) It surprised me to realize today that I have not bought any books, neither for myself nor for others. It was beer and boots this trip. The case of Alaskan Amber has already arrived at home. The cowboy boots are on their way. (The beer is being shared. The boots are not.)

The picture above shows three things that have sustained me here, as talismans, as charms. The Fontanini figurine I brought from home. It represents the woman at the well who says of Jesus, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did” (John 4:29) It reminds me who I am and whose I am. The rock at her feet is the piece of clinker I picked up on my first walk here. It has kept me anchored in this place and in this time.

And the fluffy thing spilling its rainbow of turquoise and orange and gold and green across the desk is a scarf I bought for $7 at Albertsons supermarket on the first shopping trip the day after I arrived. It was hanging on an endcap near the soup and the soda, and its colors caught my eye. Despite the fact that I brought with me an expensive handwoven red wool hat I got in Vermont and my favorite turquoise silk sweater, it is this cheap polyester scarf that I have worn every single day here. At first I wound it around my neck because I was cold. But as I adjusted to the climate and no longer needed to bundle up, I continued to wear it, draping it around myself like a prayer shawl while I read and wrote and knitted and thought.

These three elements — the statue, the stone, and the scarf — will be the last things I pack on Thursday morning and the first things I get out on Thursday night. I can already see them in place at home. The statue and the stone I’ll put on a green plate that I think will complement the colors. The scarf I will drape on the arm of the chair where I sit each morning to start the day. I’ll put it on, and touch the stone, and be ready to start a new day in another annus mirabilis in this wonderful life of mine, mindful of the things I have no words for.

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