Things I Learned at my First MFA Residency

Ten days on an island with one hundred writers? Yeah, I learned some things.

Name, semester and genre are the equivalent of name, rank and serial number. Meet, greet, repeat.

Daisy, first semester, non-fiction.

Big siblings are the best. Even when they break a foot, they still look out for you.

You have to get up pretty early in the morning to get a hot shower in before breakfast.
 
Do NOT go near the sea wall. 

Chuck Johnson is not who you think he is.

If you have a question, best to ask Mother Hastings.

You can get up at 10:00am to jump in the water on New Year's Day, or you can get up at 10:30am and run down to the water in time to watch your classmates do it.

It is possible to get a nap in somewhere between meals, seminars, workshops and readings.
 

Photo by Erin Corriveau

Getting up in front of a large group of writers to read my work is still scary, but not impossible. 

Writing is a solitary act, but being in an MFA program is not. There is always someone to talk with, confide in, ask questions of and receive answers from, beginning at breakfast and lasting well into the evening social time.  When the residency is over and everyone has gone home, we're still encouraging each other.

I'm a writer.

Facing the Page

I started a new piece this week as part of my first packet for school. It came out of a writing prompt in one of my seminars, and it's been floating around in my head since I got back from the residency, so I decided to go with it. I spent three days on it, one for each page I ended up with before sending it to E for some initial feedback. She reminded me that I was doing that thing again. I was glossing over a lot of things, leaving out details that end up being questions in the reader's mind in order to get the scene over with quickly. I'll spend the next few days fleshing it out and turn these three pages into at least five. I've got to really go back to that moment and get it all down. I'm afraid. This isn't a funny story about my mother or sweet memory about my father. This one is mostly me and it's not pretty. But I can do it. I have to do it. I will do it.

A Change in Me

"1/9/10. A new year, a new decade, a fresh start. A chance to believe in myself, believe in what other people see in me. I don't think I've ever been stronger, and yet there is that little bit in the back of my mind that doubts. It may never go away, especially not late at night when it is just me and my thoughts. I imagine it would be worse if not for the medicine. I still can't believe I waited so long to begin that process. I was afraid of the change it would bring. Who am I if not that weak, scared girl I've been for so long? Who am I to try something that might actually work, might make it easier to get through the tough days and the easy days? I was afraid to be even remotely happy. But I am getting there. I am learning."

"1/24/10. Change is good when you know what the change is going to be. I still don't know what my big change is going to be, but I sense it coming."

The change I sensed a year ago? It came. It's here. I'm writing this piece from my dorm room at the MFA residency I started seven days ago. Me. In an MFA program. For writing.

I didn't even know I wanted this until E sent me a link to the program on facebook. She gave me the information, answered my questions, arranged for a campus visit. She nudged me as only very few people can nudge me.

I knew I wanted this before I arrived at Enders Island. I submitted my application and transcripts the night before I visited the program in July. Spending a day on the island meeting people and sitting in on classes only made me want it more. I gave myself a month to get recommendations and a portfolio together.

I was scared. The last thing I wanted (or thought I wanted) this badly didn't happen. And it took a long time to get over it. If I failed at this...I didn't want to think about it. But I got it.

The first couple of days were overwhelming. There are all these people. All these writers. I felt like a phony. At least I had my big sis and E. After some seminars and workshops I began to feel better. I've made some friends. I've started to participate. I've read some of my work in front of faculty and students. Here's the most important thing I've learned so far: I'm a writer. I'm part of a community of writers. I'm not alone.

The residency ends on Thursday, but this is my beginning. I'm ready to do the work.

Interview

Dear Daddy,

I'm working on this thing, the grad school/MFA thing and I have so many questions for you, but you aren't here to help me on this one. Well, you're not here here, but you're around. I know you are. I don't know for sure what my project is going to be, but I have an inkling. I want to tell my story, our story, the story of how I got here. I'm beginning to realize that I can't tell my side without knowing some of yours, even if I don't end up sharing that part with the world, because you're part of me, a big part. You and Mami and Pete and Ia. My story begins with all of you. The fact that you left Cuba and came here, to the states. That I was born here instead of there. My story begins in 1968, even though I was born in 1972. Maybe it begins even earlier.

So, I have some questions and I'm putting them out there to you, wherever you are, instead of Mami because I have a feeling you'll send me the answers in your own way. And, about Mami, in the seven years since you've gone, she's barely said a peep about the time before you all came here. Oh, she's still talking, telling it like it is and letting us know what she really thinks all the time. But unless we give her a drink or two...well, that one Thanksgiving she mentioned something about you hiding people in the house and not telling her, but other than that, she's been as tight-lipped about your life, her life back there as you were.

You never talked about it. You were born and raised in another country, got married (twice), had kids (three before me) and left that country (under some duress from what I understand) and I only know what I know because Ia told me some things when I was in my twenties. She was only seven or eight when you all left, so I still don't have the full picture. I know I didn't ask. All those times we were together in the car, at the lab, in the hospital and at home, I never asked. That's my fault. I was too caught up in being a kid - playing with my Barbies, reading my books, growing up, planning my escape - to even consider that I had everything because you gave up so much.

But that's the thing. I don't even know exactly what you gave up. I know now that you left our extended family behind knowing you might never see them again, but I didn't understand what it meant when I was a kid because no one talked about it. Everybody drank about it, (El ano que viene, estamos en Cuba, next year we'll be in Cuba), and told stories about this relative (mi primo Fulanito, cousin whathisname) or that neighbor (Menganito de la esquina, whathisname from the corner) from back home, but I never heard "The night I left Cuba..."

I want to know. I want to know what it was like before the revolution. I want to know how you met my mother. Legend says you were fixing her teeth, she says you met at a dance before that happened. How long before you married? What was it like in those few months before everything changed? What was it like for you those nine years before you left? How did you and Mami make that choice? How did you tell your kids? How did you say goodbye to your mother?

Whenever I'm at Ia's, I look at those photos of you - at thirteen posing with your parents and siblings, as a newlywed smiling and sipping champagne, as a young father standing with your wife and children - and I miss you even more. I wish I could have a drink with you, turn on the tape recorder and listen to every story you kept tucked away.

You always told a great story. With your help, I'm hoping I can tell one too. Maybe we can work on Mami together?

Message

I went to see a medium last month in hopes of hearing from my father. I walked in, shook her hand, wrote my name and birth date on a card. She told me my numbers, my signs (stars, moons, the works) and what all of that meant. She told me things that reassured me about the path I'm on now. And she told me that since I'm a Gemini, I get “a double helping,” whatever that means.

At the end of our hour together, she asked if I had any questions. “Is my dad around?” She closed her eyes, “Tell me his name.” “Domingo.” And then he was there. Here's some of what she said he said:

“His message to you is don't settle. He's behind you 100%. He's encouraging you, he's giving you a little nudge, saying 'you can do this, you can do this'. Ask him for help. You're a little bit hesitant to ask him because he worked so hard here.”

She was right. I talk to my father a lot, but I don't ask him for help.The last time I asked my father for money was in the spring of 1993. The money I made at my summer job ran out before I finished buying all of my books. I needed $70. I didn't want to ask, but my first work study paycheck wouldn't come through until after the class had started.

“How many books will that buy?”

“One book.”

“$70 for one book!”

He wired the money that day. I still own the Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (in Middle English). He always tried to give me what I needed and even though he didn't go to college or really understand what I was studying, he supported, encouraged and helped me. And he still does. All I have to do is ask.