We Salute at the Threshold of the North Sea

Blink, and you'd miss it. It's already here, the end of the program. Today was our last class, last workshop. About half the class was already gone and what was left was this tasty reduction-- the core group that's been giving each other feedback all year. It was a nice, productive workshop. I think we all got a lot out of it. 


Afterwards, we went to lunch. Later, we'll play pool with Don Paterson. And I think that the only reason I'm not filled with anxiety about savoring these last bits is because I don't have to leave. I think if I was only allowed to stay the one year, I'd be a wreck. Because, at least for me, it's not enough. I feel like I just got here. And that I'm just starting something. 


Which is, of course, because I am. In a lot of ways, I'm just beginning the real work I came here to do-- a lot of which was writing, but a lot of which was something bigger than that in my life. A feeling I wanted to have about the world and my place and my work's place in the world. I wanted to feel on solid ground again about what I do and what I think about what I do. The value in what I do. 


It's easy to let other people assign value to what you do. If you have anything public, and you go on the internet, it's very easy to see the value that other people assign to what you create. But I was raised in a Buddhist organization who's name means Value Creation. And I can't help but want to go back to that. To just keep creating whatever value I can in whatever way I can. 


And like the great agent Sara Douglas once told me, the greatest of decisions you can make in your career is deciding who to listen to. I've pared it down to just those I need. And I trust that all the rest will fall into place somewhere within this time I've carved out for myself-- here on the North Sea, in Edinburgh, and all the other places of the world where I'll be looking for valuable stories. 


This was sort of The Song for everyone when we got here, but I think it's better now than it was then. Sometimes, I think about where I'd be emotionally, mentally, whatever, if I had stayed in New York. But in the end...  I just think this:

And if I hadn’t come now

To the coast to disappear

I may have died in a land-slide

Of the rocks, and hopes and fears.

So swim until you can’t see land.