Back at the lake: on cats, finals week, and writing.

This weekend I drove to Michigan in order to bring my cat to my sister. I’ll divulge the reasons later, once I know the details of my summer. Suffice it to say, right now I’m sitting in my sister’s living room with Coconut on my lap, wondering just how I’m going to leave her here. This morning she jumped up on my bed and curled up under my chin, flipping her head upside down so that her ears were flat on the blanket. It’s too endearing to have a critter belong to me like this, and I’m going to miss our moments together over the next few months. But she’s in good hands with my sister.

I didn’t really have time this week to make an eight-hour road trip with a cat. Finals are next week, and my to do list looks like this:
-write 40 pages by Wednesday.
-read lots for class on Thursday.
-write a sample syllabus for Friday.
-grade 50 essays by Friday.
-give a final on Friday, then grade it.
-drive home to Pittsburgh sometime before Thursday.
-feed self food.

In addition to all that, the Festival of Faith and Writing was at Calvin College this weekend. My first festival was during my freshman year of high school, when I heard Madeleine L’Engle and Annie Dillard speak, and I’ve been drawn to it ever since. So after I dropped Coconut off, I drove to Calvin to hear Yann Martel speak about faith in the creation of his novel Life of Pi. Then, on Saturday morning, Kathleen Norris spoke about acedia in the lives of monks and everyone else in the world. Apparently, it’s the 8th “bad thought” (otherwise known as the seven deadly sins). K.Norris has been one of my favorite authors ever since I read Dakota, and I’m using her as a model for writing in my own writing. To be able to hear these speeches was such a treat! I am now primed to face the “tyranny of the blank page” in my own 40 pages. (It’s also called the “democracy of the blank page.” Chew on that for awhile.)

In this visit to the Festival, I did something I never did in my previous visits--I made connections to further my career after the MFA. Here’s that list:
-talk with a former professor about qualifications for professors at my alma mater.
-discover a new online literary/theology magazine based in Seattle.
-introduce myself to editors of a literary journal I already subscribe to.
-pitch an essay about Coconut and Jesus to these editors (they liked it).
-meet up with a friend from another MFA program.
-be introduced to friend’s editor, who gave me her card.
-grade 25 of the 50 essays while sitting in the sun.
This, apparently, is what conferences are for: networking. Cool. All these things that we talk about in the MFA program—editors, agents, pitching-a-story—and I did them all on a minor level in one day. Cool.

It’s cool, but at the same time, I’m recognizing just the incredible amount of work it is to be a writer and/or a professor. And I also see that I’m on the right track. Right now, at the end of one year in an MFA program, I know where my writing needs work, I know how to get it there, and I know how to get it out into the ambiguous world of print. It’s a good thing I like hard work.

And if there’s any real world application to finals week, knowing that you could potentially publish one of the essays of the 40 pages is a good one.

I am now going to disappear into my parents’ house and get all this stuff done. No cats. No people. Weak phone service.



Oh—and Tulip Update: when I left Pittsburgh, 1/3-1/2 the tulips were in bloom. West Michigan’s tulips are in the bulb stage—and Tulip Time is two weeks away. Yay spring!