Swimming Alone, Dining Together and More Pie

Swimming Alone

I don't know about other writers, but I do know that I need some sort of daily physical activity other than typing (picking my cuticles while I wait for the next line to emerge doesn't count). For me, that form of activity is swimming, and on the days I don't swim, I try to walk. Magical things happen when you leave your computer and start to move. Your brain doesn't shut off exactly, but it does relax and when your brain relaxes, I've found creativity really kicks in. It's often after a good workout that I do my best writing. 

Anyhow, I love to swim outside during the summer, so I was happy to discover the Steinhart Park Pool here in Nebraska City. One dollar entitles you to swim laps from noon to 1 p.m. I went for the first time Wednesday and for the entire hour, I was the only swimmer in a seven-lane, fifty-meter pool. I asked the lifeguard afterward if this was the exception rather than the norm. "Nope," she said. "Hardly anyone swims laps." 

That's the pool. Steinhart Lodge, built in 1949, overlooks the pool. It's part of Arbor Day festivities here in Nebraska City, which is the home of the Arbor Day Foundation.

Dining Together

For the past two nights, the other residents and I have done dinner together. On Wednesday, we went to a Mexican resident, El Portal, for dinner and drinks and last night, we cooked out on our patio. Erica, one of the visual artists in residence, made a delicious salsa from ingredients she'd bought that afternoon at a small farm market. The other visual artist, Neva, grilled brats and corn on the cob (also fresh from the farm market). Food has never tasted better.

Pie and More Pie

This has to be the pie capital of the world! There were five--count 'em--five kinds of pies on display at the farm market and more to be found at Arbor Day Farm, where they grow apples and grapes. Not all of them are as towering as Chris' (see earlier entry), but they're all tasty.

I'm on the next to the last chapter of the first draft of my novel. Have also drafted a couple new poems that might be keepers.

Killer Tired, Pie, and Thrift Shops

Greetings from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Arts Center in Nebraska City, Nebraska, my home away from home for the next couple weeks. That's our front entrance 

(above) and the window immediately to the right is our living room and kitchen. It's across the street from the First Baptist Church, whose sign is currently featuring the message: "You think life is exciting -- wait 'til you die." 

There's a poem there someplace . . . Stephen Dunn would know what to do with it, I'm sure.

Yesterday, I finally got to do what I'm supposed to be doing for the next two weeks, which is write. I wrote four pages on the first draft of the novel I've been working on (and off for the past couple years) and scribbled some wannabe poems in my notebook. I did all this despite being killer tired, but it was the good kind of tired where, if I wanted to, I could have crawled in bed for a serious nap or else done a power quickie. Contrast that with the bad kind of tired, which hits you midway through a tough day at work so that by 1 p.m. you're thinking that if someone offered you the choice of a nap or a million bucks, you'd take the nap. 

I'm thinking that driving halfway across the country is exhilarating, but also way tiring. So I wrote a lot and yawned a lot. I also moved around a lot, which helped. I moved from my office to my bedroom where I sat on the bed and typed and then to the patio where the stray kitten kept me company. He also kept me awake by periodically pouncing on my toes, perhaps thinking that they were some kind of exotic white sausage.

Yesterday was also the birthday of Denise, the center's director, so the four resident artists along with Denise and Pat, the center's assistant director, walked up to Chris's Cafe for pie and coffee to celebrate. The chocolate and lemon meringue pies were architectural wonders--in fact, they brought to mind the photos I've seen of the opera house in Sydney, Australia. In a word, towering! Afterward, the other artists and I walked down the street to a thrift store where I bought this full-length Ralph Lauren sweater coat for three dollars. I now have a reason to look forward to fall.

After two days of clouds and showers, the sun is out: I plan to write all morning and then go for a swim. 

From the Mississippi to the Missouri ...

Greetings from Nebraska City, Nebraska, where I'm spending the next couple of weeks on a writing residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. There are four of us in residence right now, five if you count the stray kitten that sleeps on my patio: two painters, a composer and me. I'm not sure yet what the kitten's talent is.

After fueling up at a great breakfast buffet at the Kingsley Inn, I started on the third and final leg of my journey on Sunday. I'd contemplated driving north to DesMoines to see Edward Hopper's "Automat" at the art museum. But a glance at the map convinced me that it was too far out of my way and after nearly sixteen hours of driving in the previous two days, I wanted just to get there. And so, after a walk along the Mississippi River, I headed out on Highway Two, a scenic two-lane highway that crosses the state from east to west. Along the way, I saw only two McDonald's (good), hills and wildflowers (even better) and too many wild turkeys to count--the bird, not the drink. The wild turkeys I saw tended to huddle in gangs by the side of the road and glare at me--somewhat malevolently, I thought.  That could have been because I was the only car on the road for miles. I also saw a quail or two and dozens of hawks dive-bombing the farmer's fields in search of small mammals. Iowa Public Radio broadcasted both hours of Bob Edward's show--a real treat to hear, as we don't get it in Rochester. I also listened to the Cardinals get thrashed by the Phillies in Philadelphia and lots of Foreigner-Journey-Kansas-Boston on an oldies station. More than a feeling . . . 

I stopped for gas in a small town where the gas station bathroom featured a sign on the door designating it as a safe place in a tornado-- somewhat ironic, since the tornado action during the weekend was in Western New York. 

After that beautiful drive across Iowa, I crossed the Missouri River into Nebraska City, Nebraska, around 3:30 in the afternoon and checked in at the Lied Lodge & Conference Center. 

As stated in their literature, the lodge is environmentally friendly, heated and cooled with renewable fuelwood that's grown on the grounds. It's also gorgeous, if you like Stickley furniture and Craftsman decor, which I do. The lobby (pictured here) was a nice place to sit and type on my computer. As an added bonus, students from the University of Nebraska's low residency MFA program are currently in residence here and there are faculty lectures each night. I hope to catch William Trowbridge's lecture on Thursday--he's the author of The Complete Kong, which contains one of my favorite poems, "Kong Looks Back on His Tryout With the Bears." 

More about that and the residency tomorrow.

Greetings from the road

Greetings from Fort Madison, Iowa! I'm officially west of the Mississippi River by about a hundred yards, having crossed over from Illinois last night. I'm on my way to Nebraska City, Nebraska, for a two-week residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts where I hope to draft more poems and finish a first draft of my novel. Rather than fly into Omaha, I decided to make the journey part of the experience and write about it.

Friday, I drove from Rochester to my father's house in Michigan (above) and yesterday, I made the drive from Michigan to Fort Madison. It's a little off the (very) beaten path of Interstate 80, but the drive here was much more scenic, if longer. I listened to two baseball games on the radio--the Cubs beat the Reds in an early afternoon game and the Tigers came back in ninth to tie the game and win in extra innings. I was chasing the game on the White Sox network and needless to say, the announcers were less than pleased that the White Sox essentially blew a chance to pick up a game on the Tigers.

I'm staying at the Kingsley Inn in Fort Madison, an old Victorian building built in the 1850s that faces the river. It's named after Alpha Kingsley, an army officer from Vermont who supervised the building of the actual Fort Madison. One of my ancestors on the Freligh side, John Henry Freligh was also from Vermont and he became a riverboat captain on the Mississippi. Not to hard to imagine that passed this way a time or two.

I'm off to find breakfast and take some pictures of the river, which I'll post tomorrow.

Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July from the North Coast! This is the first of a series of posts from my new blog, named for my book of poems, Sort of Gone, published in February 2008 by Turning Point Books in Cincinnati, but also named for the state of mind writers enter when they're working well. You're there in whatever place you're writing--home desk, Starbucks, bed--but you're sort of gone to whatever place one goes to when you're writing. 

I can't think of a place I'd rather be!