A Postcard from "Esther's Bath"
AKA, Chateau Orquevaux's Writers' Room
Summer came in literally so hot this week. My garret-mate, Stone, and I couldn't beat the stickiness of the heat… or the stings of the bees… or the wrath of the wasps up on the fourth floor— it was all beating us in fact, we were actually terrified. So we moved to the chateau’s ground floor to work alongside the other writers, a beautiful change of scenery:
It's our last week here and I'm equal parts devastated and grateful because it’s been three of the best weeks of my life. I feel so lucky to have spent some time away from my usual routines to notice what changes I want to make when this weeks-long flow state converts back into the solidity of regular life.
When I left BCG to start my MFA at Columbia last August, I took two weeks off in between thinking that it would be plenty of time to reset. I definitely rested, in those two weeks I didn't do a single bit of work— I didn't write, I didn't clean, I didn’t organize, I barely even checked my email. But I wouldn’t say that I “reset”. I didn't learn or unlearn anything, my days were packed exclusively with friends and fun. Then when school started, I applied the exact same habits I developed at work to school and called it "my" process when it's not the way I naturally work at all.
BCG has a reputation for overworking their employees (you know what you did), for better or worse. There really were times that it was for better, I felt my brain capacity grow in order to keep track of all my admin responsibilities and I learned how to speak the individual languages of the people I supported. But it's a constant mental workout to be weighing lots of tiny nuances every day, to do it quickly and then act on them. They really capitalize on that rule of "good" and "fast" so there's reason for their work to be very, very not “cheap”. Almost everyone there is working at 100% around the clock to produce an expensive product. I wasn't a consultant, so the pressure wasn't even on me as much as others, but it's hard not to get absorbed in that dynamic when it's the unsaid expectation.
I worked this way for five years so naturally the habits I developed there were going to be hard to break, but I didn't think I needed to. I applied the same “do more, faster” mentality to my first year of school and took pride in it, again, for better or worse. I worked fast and churned out a ton of new pages that I did my best with but… a shitty first draft is a shitty first draft. I revised a very small percentage of my initial work and quite honestly, most of what I wrote this past year I'm never going to get around to revising. At no point have I ever paused to ask myself, "Is this how I want to work?" until I came to Chateau Orquevaux and had the time and space to move toward a more joyful understanding of work.
I could write an entire essay about how I started to understand my own creative process more, but this is essentially the concept:
Before: Writing is writing new work 100% of the time.
After: Writing is a blend of drafting, revising, discussing, reading, painting, walking, laughing, dinner with friends, beaches, museums, music, wine, blankets in the grass, blankets on the couch, getting scorned, getting antsy, getting pissed off, animals! sunsets & sunrises, daisy crowns, tarot cards, ghosts, candles, so many candles, cold pizza for breakfast, boats, that one tree, flowers, sundresses, good stationary, good pens, bad handwriting on scraps of paper, the notes app, charms, traveling, typewriter aesthetic, romance, simplicity, mundanity, novelty, intentionality, lunch, clothes, perfume, windows, and everything else that acts as a vibrational basket to help gather that one, ultra-specific feeling that doesn't have words on it yet but it will soon.
Having a broader definition of what is worth spending time on makes work very fun. Now that "travel" is included in the "writing list", I didn't have a reason to feel guilty about spending a day away from my computer when our chateau group took a day trip to Troyes this past Saturday, an especially charming town and historical capital of Champagne that apparently Julius Caesar fancied too so he took it. When we arrived, I gave my inner slave driver a little "productivity fix" by running a few errands at the pharmacy and post office. Then it was back to work: a 3-hour lunch with friends before we hit an art museum, very "writing list". I was especially impressed with the Troyes Museum of Modern Art, a small but mighty museum with creative ways to interact with art and an excellent curation. It was there that I learned about a new favorite artist whose color palettes made me happier than any other artist's I've ever seen.
I give you, Maurice Marinot (1882-1960)-- Troyes local, painter, glass artist, master of modern aesthetics far ahead of his time:
If Maurice had lived today, he'd be MAJOR, right? Those glass vases?! And all the color he put in shadows?! That's the world I want to live in.
After the museum, we caught the train back to Orquevaux. As soon as we got back, a few friends and I immediately put on our bathing suits and went straight to the swimming pond to cool off. We ate dinner outside in our bathing suits, hair still wet, towels wrapped around our waists and felt the day's light finally turn from white hot to a cooler orange. We shared a bottle of wine as the sunset rolled in, making the sky bloom with pinkish-orange clouds and a dark gray in the distance that tempted the possibility of falling asleep to rain against our windows. We giggled at nothing in particular, just little things that happened throughout the day. None of it was ceremonial or serious, but it all felt holy.
I wish we had another few weeks here to have more of these nights, but it’s full wrap-up mode now. The next two days are dedicated to sharing the work we've made during our time here before we say “au revoir” on Sunday. It’s been incredible to see what everyone’s work has amounted to, and to share what I’ve been working on. Two nights ago, I hosted my first reading of a new play— a dark romcom set in a pre-apocalyptic future where the sun has nearly conquered the earth. It's fun though, I swear.
In other fun news, my first published poem just came out with Feral on June 30th! It’s available free online, they also have a print edition if you’re into that. Here it is straight from their latest issue themed “REVOLUTION”.
The Women Before Me
The women before me had visions too
that they did not live long enough to see.
A change invisible to the eye
of yesterday– defined hysterical,
ungrateful pipedreams of a sacred room
to call their own, a granted space to find
identity, if only privately.
The women before me had visions too
that they did not live long enough to see.
A choice to claim to keep their bodies well
beyond just that of black or herbal tea.
To cast a vote to last a longer stretch
than ones they spoke in proper company.
The women before me had visions too
that they did not live long enough to see.
Of digging for gold in their own heartbeat,
instead of in the names of men,
or in the dark pockets of their fathers.
Dreaming of the day their mind could alchemize
a thought into a glass of wine enjoyed beside
a fire with friends and family, all their own. Next week's postcard will be coming from somewhere in Spain! This Sunday I'll need to catch not only a train but also a plane, no impromptu shopping trips beforehand this time. Right? RIGHT?! Idk, I'm hoping not, we'll see.
Love always,
Izzie
Love the before vs. after juxtaposition. Sounds like a tremendous experience. Keep going!
Yay, you’re published! I am enjoying these posts so very much. I feel like I’m there. I’m so thrilled that you get to experience All Of This. This is such a good summation of The Job: “But it's a constant mental workout to be weighing lots of tiny nuances every day, to do it quickly and then act on them.” (from Alex Corhan)