I’m going home tomorrow.

Feeling sad but also very excited to see P and the kids. It’s been hard being away for so long.

I feel the need to wrap this residency experience up in a neat little package of words, but at the same time resist doing that because there has been nothing neat or expected about my time here. I think I’ll leave the retrospective for later tonight or even tomorrow or next week, after I’ve had some time to process.

Today, I’m not going to work. I had a great burst of energy and focus mid week and am feeling a little fried. Instead, I am just going to wander around, talk to the lovely people I’ve met here, see the grounds a bit and finish a lovely book I’ve been reading called The Strength and Delicacy of Lace, which is a collection of letters between James Wright and Leslie Marmon Silko, and which documents their very tender friendship in the years before he died. It has made me feel wistful both for his poems and for real letters, delivered by post and written in the hand of someone who loves me.

I would say this book has inspired me to write letters myself, and that would be true, but I know myself well enough not to expect this inspiration to translate onto the page. But then again, who knows? Maybe I’ll surprise myself.

This place has certainly been all about surprises–of the mind, body and imagination.