This morning I cried on the subway while reading a book. I am not ashamed of this because a. it is a very good book b. it is not unusual and generally acceptable to cry in public in nyc and c. I am pregnant. Pregnancy makes me want to cry but I have less to cry about recently, so I have found myself welling up about less personal circumstances: e.g. listening to music, hearing about the misfortune of the friend of a friend, or when an adorable British child is cut from Junior Bakeoff.
Among the epic griefs of the pandemic, struggling with infertility for nearly three years gave me plenty to cry about. But in the last few months I have conceived a child, finished a book, become a finalist in a poetry contest, been accepted into a residency, and been offered a job with my alma mater that aligns spookily with the trajectory I hope the rest of my life will continue to barrel down. This good news has had a book quote echoing through my head:
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
What I am learning is that the verb “want” in that sentence has much more to do with action than prayer. The poems moving forward in the contest have been rejected swiftly by a dozen other journals. The job was born from much insistence and patience. And the baby, my God, this baby took a lot of actionable wanting.
When I first read The Alchemist in high school I misread this quote to mean that all it took to get something was to hope for it. Hope is good, but The Alchemist isn’t one of the most read books in the world because it’s about a boy who sits and hopes for 160 pages. He walks and he asks and he searches and he journeys to the Pyramids of Giza, for goodness sake. He doesn’t wait, he wants, and that is why it’s a story worth reading.
Over the weekend a friends asked me what two hobbies I wouldn’t allow my future child to get into. I responded jokingly with “ice hockey and crystal meth” (on account of brain injury and other obvious health hazards). They asked, “What if they want to be a child actor.” And I thought, then I would be proud. Of course there are several reasons to worry for them going down that path, but I would be proud because that would mean they were brave enough to want big, to want for the rest of their lives. Writing, like wanting, is a vulnerable act and frankly, it is a lot of work before there is any recognition or pay off. But it is never boring and eventually the universe obliges, and it is much sweeter to be so involved in the gifts it bestows.
News:
🚨Fledgling Workshops always takes a little summer break so I can work on other writing opportunities. Registration for workshops beginning in August will open in June. Enter your email on this page to be tipped off a week early.
Wondering what I’ll be up to this summer? In June I’ll join the Juniper Institute, a writing residency in Amherst, MA, as a resident on their creative nonfiction track. And in July I’ll be working at the Vermont College of Fine Arts summer residency on the Colorado College campus in Colorado Springs.
💻Lunch Breaks will still run all summer on a slightly abbreviated schedule. Keep scrolling and become a paid member to keep up the habit of writing with a community all summer long!
📝Fledgling’s last online Happy Hour will be this Thursday. This summer Happy Hours will take place in person in the Fledgling HQ backyard. These monthly community workshops will be open to all past Fledgling participants!! Free for Nest paid subscribers, $20 suggested donation for others. Look out for a registration link hitting your inbox at the start of June.
Prompts:
Turn your phone on airplane mode. Choose a prompt. Write to it for 10 minutes. If you want to keep going, keep going. If you like what you write, reply it back to me and maybe see it in the newsletter next month...
May always feels to me like a transition time in the best way. Consider these two transitory prompts as we make our way into June.
In the spirit of the sonnet below, write your own piece about noon. What happens or has happened at noon time? Describe the particular feeling of that middle time of day. How is noon experienced in the senses?
Write about a move. Moving to New York City, to college, or to a new childhood home. What is that first evening like in a new place? Try to capture all the weirdness, freshness, excitement, and fear in it by zooming in on details like objects and light. (Do the outlets work? Does the light from a subway train flash through the window every few minutes?)
And lastly, something to read:
a poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, #19 from The House of Life a sonnet sequence.
Silent Noon
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,--
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:--
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.
Find out how to join the May Happy Hour focused on Character and Desire below!
(Tuesday, May 25, 6-7:45 pm EST on Zoom)
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Fledgling Writers Nest to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.