My residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
ended a month ago. While I was there, a friend and fellow writer sent me an
email. She was working on a lecture/essay about the challenges of maintaining
balance in our lives as artists. At that moment, I put the email aside. Nothing
was farther from my mind. I was the person I was meant to be, rising early
without an alarm, doing yoga in my pajamas, dressing, then walking slowly out
to the barn and my studio, carrying a half a grapefruit, a boiled egg, both of
which I’d picked up in the dining room, entering and leaving, wordlessly. I’d
walk past a paddock where horses ambled, their breath coming in ruffled snorts.
At my studio, I’d insert my key into the lock, then enter the stillness I’d
left the evening before. In a nearby kitchen, I’d plug in the electric kettle,
and as water heated, I’d look out a window and watch bluebirds. After brewing
my first strong cup of my day, I’d sit alone at an outside table or in my studio
where I’d already pulled a big old broken down overstuffed chair to a window.
There, I’d eat my egg, perhaps some fruit, maybe crackers with peanut butter or
cheese. Surrounded by silence, I’d watch the sky, and all this time I would not
have spoken a single word, so that when finally I’d take up my pen or go to my
computer, the subconscious writing, my brain had done the night before was
waiting and ready to pour forth.
Nights, after dinner when I’d walk down the long front
drive, I’d seen a sign: “Entering the Real World.” The VCCA is an alternate
world. A different world. Now, I wonder, is what feels like balance to me it’s
opposite? Since I first learned about them in high school, I’ve been drawn to
utopian communities, Brook Farm, the Transcendental community outside of
Boston, the Shakers. I was the kid who loved camp. Now, I love the VCCA or
retreats of my own making when I travel abroad, rent a room, research and
write. When I write, I enter what my friend and fellow writer, Alexander Chee
calls a fugue state. Alex says, “… when you enter the fugue state required for
making art, you can’t really be a normal person. The good news is that at a
colony, you’re not expected to—you’re expected to be civil to other colonists
and respectful, but not normal. It’s a huge relief.” And I might add that
travelling solo, knowing no one affords that same freedom and relief.
So here I am one month later, back in the real world, and
I’m juggling, tossing balls up into the air: doctor and dentist appointments,
commitments to family, to friends, to Sam, my standard poodle. I’m doing yoga, hiking
into the mountains, walking, daily, swimming, gardening, travelling—and I’m
reading and writing. My life is rich and full. Yet, I yearn for the VCCA where
I live in a fugue state twenty-four seven. At home I enter that state for short
periods. That, I suppose is real life. As for balance—which I perceive as
equilibrium—that’s not me. I juggle; I totter. And I dream.
