Dear Friends:

A few weeks ago I was at Starbuck’s at 45th and Lamar in Austin, back in the gray chairs I wrote about last spring, when I realized I was bored. The spot had long been my favorite place to write – the floor to ceiling windows and wide spaces between the tables gave me a sense of spaciousness that extended to my writing – but already it had become merely habit to schlep myself there in the early afternoon. I looked around at the half dozen people who roosted there daily, reading their newspapers and their paperback novels and, because I live in Texas, their bibles, and I wondered if they were in the same rut.

I had just submitted another twenty-five pages of my book to my agent (I sent forty pages earlier this summer), which I completed during the ten day period my daughter was home from summer camp, meaning I spent ten days shuttling between my writing studio and the neighborhood pool, sitting at coffee shops editing for hours and then running home to oversee art experiments and baking projects. When I completed the work I promised my agent, I hit the send button with a sense of relief, but instead of giving myself a well-deserved day off or at the very least a nice meal out, I immediately set to work editing a series of documents I promised to a friend for a grant proposal. And when I’d finished with those, I moved on to prepare for a phone interview I had the following morning. I could have stopped there as I had only a few items left on my to-do list and plenty of time to complete them before leaving for a retreat in Taos. I could have used a nap, or even better, a massage, but instead I hauled myself to Starbuck’s on automatic pilot, applying caffeine to my rotting brain. Under different circumstances, I might have gone for a walk to clear my mind, but it was stinking hot outside and even the short sprint from my front door to my car left me wilted.

It was August—and not just any August. The temperatures had climbed past 100 degrees nearly every day since June, and we had next to no rain. My lawn was a toasty golden brown and the leaves on my cedar elm were dry and shriveled. The earth was parched and so was I.

Last August I had the good fortune to spend two weeks in New Mexico, the first week on a silent retreat in Taos and the second hanging out with my family in Santa Fe. During the retreat, while other folks filled up notebooks, I spent every moment of free time sitting on the white Adirondack chair outside my room, staring into the distance. I did not write and I did not worry about it. It occurs to me now that Europeans go on holiday for the entire month of August because they know something that we production-minded Americans resist: the mind and the body need to rest and, if we pay attention, the seasons tell us when.

Here is another reason I go limp in August: it follows June and July, which at least for me are the most energetic and creative months of the year (look at your garden and you can see the connection to the seasons). Summer conferences and travel are added stimuli and I’m usually going full tilt by the time July gets going. Last June I got ramped up after the Agents and Editors Conference in Austin. This year I felt my adrenalin rise while I was in New York on a research and writing mission. Unlike past trips to New York, when I jammed six meetings into a single day, I spread out my appointments leaving long blocks of empty time for writing. On the first day I found an outdoor spot in a café near my girlfriend’s apartment and parked myself there for two hours. I opened my notebook and began writing from where I was—in Manhattan, at a café, sitting outside with a cup of coffee, letting the energy of the city run through me. After a few pages I found myself writing about old boyfriends and realized I had a new essay on my hands. Then, without thinking about it, I began writing about my treatment for functional hypoglycemia and a number of other ailments and thought that might make a nice essay as well. When I got started with my appointments, I had new energy and information for my book and I wrote about that, too. All week I juggled the three projects as I wandered the city, finding new cafes to write in between meetings. By the end of the week I had filled two notebooks. And while I didn’t have the same long stretches of time to myself when I returned to Austin, the energy propelled me for quite a while, until I turned in those last twenty-five pages to my agent. And then it was August.

Nutritionists talk about eating with the seasons. It’s good for the body and it’s good for the earth. I’m proposing that we write with the seasons as well, or at least be mindful of their messages. On the East Coast and in the Midwest, the changing of the seasons is dramatic and evident. But in the Sunbelt you have to look beyond the temperatures. In the fall, you can’t even rely on the color of the leaves as they start to change some time in November and continue through February, which is very confusing. And of course there is next to no snow in the winter, so we’re left to our own to respond to the dark months.

With that awareness of the changing seasons, I’m planning a retreat with on December 5th, to prepare for the solstice. While the media gives us the message that we should party and shop all winter, we’ll check in with ourselves and listen for what the season is really calling for (i.e. long afternoons in front of the fireplace--with a notebook, of course). Information about the retreat is now posted on the Writers’ League of Texas website: http://writersleague.org/programs/classes.html#goldman. I hope to see many of you there.

This month’s quotation is a haiku by Basho, translated in A Zen Wave, Basho’s Haiku and Zen, by Robert Aitken:

Bidding Farewell,
Bidden goodbye,
I walked into
The autumn of Kiso.

Writing Topics:
Planting seeds
I walked into . . .


A few events you might want to take note of if you live in Austin:

1) On September 11, 2009 at 7 pm., contributors to A Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, will read and answer questions at BookWoman. Robert Shapard, editor of the W.W. Norton anthology series Sudden Fiction and Flash Fiction, will be among the participants.

2) Inhabiting Your Life, a women’s writing workshop, led by Leilani Rose and Carolyn Blankenship. A day of writing and sharing, using a variety of insightful and provocative writing prompts to encourage participants to more fully inhabit their lives and to live more mindfully. October 24, 2009, 9 am - 4 pm. For more information, contact Carolyn at cb@io.com or Leilani at lrose11@austin.rr.com.


If you have a writing related event in the area, please let me know and I’ll do my best to post it here.

I think that’s it for now. Keep your hands moving.

My best to each of you.

Saundra