After the retreat
Things that stayed with me, and things I left behind
It’s been about a month since my artist residency in Maine. The ten days I spent in the mountains with limited cell service are already starting to feel like a surreal dream. As a full-time worker and a parent of two young kids, the transition back to my “real” life was immediate and unrelenting. I went from heating up a can of soup just for myself to once again meal prepping for a family of four. My boys seemed to have grown inexplicably quickly, both physically and mentally. Our 5-year-old went off training wheels on his bicycle. The 3-year-old can sing the theme song to Galaxy Express 999. The two boys attend different schools, and their fall breaks were staggered, meaning none of us have had any consistency in the past few weeks.
I’ve tried my best to live each day in this new body that has experienced a writing retreat, so as to have made my time there worthwhile. In my head, I keep replaying the conversations I had with my poet friend Jen, while we swam in the lake or roasted marshmallows on a makeshift bonfire. Now, when I take out the garbage at night, I make sure to look up at the stars. I think I am friendlier to spiders as a result of living in a cabin filled with them.
As for my writing practice, I admit that I’m still a few chapters short of finishing my manuscript, and I’m a long ways to go before really establishing myself as “an author.” Contrary to what a stereotypical writer might look like, I was not at the desk for hours on end writing until my fingers hurt; instead I spent a lot of my time studying the trees and the wind patterns out my window. When I did focus on my art, I came up with more ideas on how to edit rather than what to write.
On my last day, I discovered a few notebooks in my cabin, filled with notes by the artists who stayed there before me. The earliest entry was from 2015, with a simple meal log: pancakes, goat cheese salad, roast chicken. Another artist offered a sketch of flowers. Someone else made a list of wild animals they saw: beavers, woodchucks, a moose. Most of the artists wrote their entries on their last day. They were scribbled with a sense of urgency, always starting with a version of: “I can’t believe it’s over.”
Some of them left tips for future residents. “I think this cabin is haunted.” “Use bug spray.” “There are mice in the kitchen.” “Go swim in the lake.”
People made confessions to their unknown readers. “I got lonely.” “I kept burning my food.” “This may have been the only week in my entire life when I’ve lived alone, in 56 years.” “It has been a joy to keep to no one’s schedule but my own.” “I did nothing and accomplished even less.”
As I was reading these entries, I had already packed up my belongings, dressed in the clothes I would wear on the flight back to Nashville. I wept while flipping through the pages, perhaps out of gratitude, but also, like the artists before me, with disbelief that the residency was officially over. I scribbled my own letter in this log, echoing the others’ observations and sentiments, adding nothing particularly new.
I thought about how these artists and I are all repeating the same cycle, and how there are so many of us out there who are actively working in our own ways. We end up in places like Hewnoaks with grand expectations, and instead end up leaving with surprising insights about nature and rest. Even if I had stayed there longer, I probably would have accomplished the same amount of work anyway.
This season, both in terms of this fall but also in this season of life, I find myself especially busy. I hope to continue attending residencies like this from time to time, but for now, I sit here in acceptance of what the ten days gave me, what they will give to future artists in that very cabin, and the goal of continuing to work each day so that I can earn my spot again one day, even if it’s decades from now.
The Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra just kicked off its 20th season, and I am incredibly proud to have played a small part in it as a board member. We have a brand new logo, photos by the ever-talented Joe Gomez, and an incredible lineup of performances between now and May 2024. I’ll be in attendance tomorrow (Tuesday) to display written pieces by students from The Porch’s Words & Music program (see example below)!
On Wednesday, October 18 at The Foundry, I will be co-MC’ing the Asian Fall Harvest Festival. This special event—featured as a Critic’s Pick in the Nashville Scene—is a collaboration between The Porch, the Nashville AAPI Writers, API Middle Tennessee, and Shoes Off Nashville. Inspired by the Mid-Autumn Festival that happens throughout many Asian cultures, this unique concert experience fuses live music, storytelling, and crafted dishes from local Asian-owned businesses in Nashville. There will be a Boba Bar Happy Hour, mooncakes, japchae, and more. Get tickets here!
Coming up on Wednesday, November 8, I’ll be in Washington, DC to co-MC an event for the U.S.-Japan Council’s Annual Conference. It’s been amazing getting to know other Japanese and Japanese-American artists through USJC, and I’m excited to share the stage with them all. There will be traditional Japanese dancing, a presentation about the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto, clips from Japanese-American documentaries, demos from JA-produced operas, and more. I’ll be reading an excerpt from my novel, which depicts the unexpected parallels between Japan and the American South.
