I miss you, Bennington

The cozy little perch I fashioned for myself at Bennington, during the Winter residency.

Talky Time

Try hard (very hard!) to remain firm when your toddler tells you that instead of quiet time, he'd prefer "talky time."

And he happens to pronounce the words "talky time" in a way that instantly supersedes every funny thing you've ever heard.

Bennington by night

Conveys some of the magic of being at Bennington College.

What I'm reading (for the next five months)

Here's my reading list for my final term in Bennington's MFA program for giggles... 

(Note, it's half the length of a normal term's reading list because we're writing our theses and preparing a public lecture in the final term)

1…Dante Alighieri, Inferno

2…Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility or Emma

3…James Baldwin, Notes of A Native Son or Nobody Knows My Name

4…Roberto Bolano, By Night In Chile (novella)

5…J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country

6…Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

7…Junot Diaz, Drown

8…Flaubert, Madame Bovary

9…Mavis Gallant, Paris Stories

10..Marie Howe, In the Kingdom of Ordinary Time (poetry)

11..Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son

12..Denis Johnson, Incognito Lounge (poetry)

13..Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John

14..Antonya Nelson (still need to decide which one...suggestions?)

15..Muriel Spark, Public Image

We get to illuminate the human condition

Novelist Charles Bock came to speak at Bennington during the Winter residency.

And he leveled with us about hard it is to produce a novel, to find time to write along with all of the other responsibilities life has assigned us.

And then he said, but you know what? It's not really that hard. It's not that bad of a trade.

Because we get to illuminate the human condition.

Well, sure, when you put it that way, yeah, it's okay. It's more than okay.

Lost entry from the Leo Journal

From a diary entry, last October, uncovered here at Bennington, while I have some time to review and revise:

“I have a story to tell you.” 

Isn’t that one of the most joyful statements one can hear? Oh fantastic, I think, a story.

But it's gets better. Because in this case, it’s Leo who has made this announcement.

I'd told him I needed to go fetch something from the bedroom, and that was when he said it.

"When you come back, I have a story to tell you."

And when I came back, he said, "Once upon a time, there were five tigers..."

He's now going to tell *us* stories. 

It does not matter that he then said the five tigers were going to eat other tigers and then thought better of the idea (he's already learning to revise). 

He’s beginning to tell stories, hovering as he is between three and four years of age. 

Oh the places he will go with those stories! (Cliché, cliché...but nonetheless a true sentiment).

At Bennington

Went swimming. Has nothing to do with writing. Nothing and everything.

Because it's a way of seeing new things, especially when you swim somewhere you've never been.

And it's intense. Plunge your head under water for 30 minutes.

Intense isolation in the purest, most gorgeous form. Sounds like writing, no?

Plus I went swimming with Daryln from Western Pennsylvania, something I only do at Bennington.

So many things I only do at Bennington, where I'm enrolled in the Bennington Writing Seminars' MFA program.

Like consuming the writing equivalent of a Thanksgiving feast -- every day.

Wake up and write. That's my routine wherever I go now.

But here at Bennington, I wake up to the silence of rural Vermont, so thick it feels eternal. I look out the window at campus, marvel at the opportunity I've been given, the opportunity I've seized, and I get to work.

Then breakfast, and I'm off. We're all off -- to a day of student lectures, and a master class, and later workshops, followed by a craft session, maybe and then student readings, and eventually faculty readings and more student readings. Each segment soldered to the next by conversations you have along the way.

Conversations and writing swapped and tips shared and books recommended, all around.

Went swimming this morning.

I lose myself in the strokes, and then I leave the pool, and since I'm at Bennington, I return to my room to lose myself in the writing.

My Year in Review?

I recently discovered a piece by the writer Alexander Chee from 2014 in which he summed up his year in writing.

And oh what a year it was. You can read about it here. He was an Amtrak writer in residence (because HE was the guy who thought up the idea), he finished a novel and started another.

Most recently he penned a story about Cambodia for Afar, which is pretty much my favorite travel magazine (next semester, he'll be a Writer in Residence in the MFA program at Bennington College where I'm enrolled).

It's a tad bit embarrassing for him to be my inspiration because when I jot down what I've accomplished this year in the World of Writing, it really pales.

But that isn't the point, is it?

I've checked off some pretty cool milestones on my own personal list of goals.

For example, I had a short piece on Afar's Web site about how to approach traveling to Italy (inspired by my own trip back to Italy in May). It's essentially my first paid bit of travel writing. You can read that here.

I also had my first poem published! You can read that here.

A nonfiction story I wrote called "I Come Bearing Gifts" was awarded Honorable Mention by Writer's Digest as part of its annual writing contest this year. A different version of this piece was later published on Catapult's site. B

I also had my first book review published for a short story collection that I personally think would make for a wicked holiday read. You can read the review here.

And already looking ahead to next year, an essay I wrote about work-life balance (after becoming a mother) will appear in an anthology published by the HerStories Project.

(Anthology=book=Jeanne swooning)

A lot of things didn't go my way. For example, I didn't win a grant I'd applied for (again). But the judges did provide feedback -- a first.

My year in review is largely about milestones in the field of Creative Writing. But I've also started freelancing for HLN, a division of CNN. You can also occasionally find my writing in Atlanta magazine, including this story.

It's no Alexander Chee year. But it's something I'm proud of.

Do other people write a Year in Review? I'd love to read other examples.

Found -- in an Italian journal circa 1995

A quote from the great Italian poet and writer Eugenio Montale.

English first, then Italian:

I don't understand why we are born and why we survive but I must admit there are beautiful moments and everyone experiences some. I'm very happy to be here but I feel great sorrow and disgust.

-Eugenio Montale (in an interview with journalist Enzo Biagi)

“Non capisco bene per quali ragioni siamo nati e sopravviviamo pero devo ammettere che ci sono momenti molto belli e ognuno ha i suoi. Sono contentissimo di essere qui, ma con molto dolore e molto disgusto.”

Who's decking the halls?

ME!

Spode Christmas tree coffee cups just for the holiday season?

Check.

Atlanta in the Fall

Atlanta in the fall is a delight...and remains so late into the season. To wit, these two photos, taken at the park in my neighborhood.

But which one is better?

(For my little photo hobby, as if I have time for it).

What I'm Drinking (for Thanksgiving & beyond)

I pretty much drink this wine every night. Colosi 2012 Rosso (Terre Siciliane).

It's a Nero d'Avola blend and it's amazing. I don't know why everyone isn't drinking Sicilian reds and nothing but Sicilian reds every night.

And I think it will go great with the Thanksgiving turkey!

Along with a wonderful Aglianico from Puglia.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A picture of me

At a certain age, there are no good pictures. I'm at that age. So how do you explain this photo? He makes me look thin. I swear that's not how my legs look! But what a photog this guy is. This guy...a.k.a., my three-year-old son, Leo. Best portrait photographer ever.

"Lui is bravo"

Says Mike, Il Nostro Inviato, about our son, Leonardo.

Lui _ is_bravo.

Fair enough, he is bravo. A little combustible package of bravo-ness.

Anche carino.

And charming.

Sign me,
Living in Two Languages
(Due lingue fantastiche)

I heart Bialetti (and I've got the t-shirt to prove it)

I'd honestly like to think I am the only woman in America obsessed enough with the classic Italian Bialetti moka coffee pot that her partner bought her this t-shirt.

But even if that's not true, I get to keep the t-shirt.

So cool!

This is the logical next step when you own, no joke, nine moka coffee pots, some of which you've scattered at relatives' houses and a certain college in Southern Vermont to ensure visits go smoothly.

Of course, the t-shirt came in a cutesy little bag with the Bialetti logo from the fantastic (and new, or new to me) Bialetti shop where Il Nostro Inviato bought it.

Is it wrong to wonder what other Bialetti baubles the store might have sold (i.e., perfect little Christmas gifts for Mamma)?

Maybe. But I'm wondering just the same.

"Eleventeen"

I only have to hear it -- "eleventeen"-- once for it to instantly become my favorite number.

The best number that has never existed.

Let's play a game.

Take someone who's wanted to be writer since she was nine, and then add a child.

(Oh, not just any child, sure. My child. My gorgeous little boy. Leo. L-E-O.)

And then go one step further: allow the writerly mother in question to indulge in a fantasy she never even had.

Which is: Listening while someone, her little someone, learns to speak.

I've written about this topic before (notably here and here). And even if you love me, you may be blanching right now from boredom and pity (for me).

But, oh God, it is so awesome!

The writer's equivalent of someone learning to walk? Run?

When Leo says "eleventeen," I don't correct him. (Probably not something I should admit.)

It's just so cute. Eight, nine, ten, eleventeen.

I do the same thing when he says "fi-ruh" (for the word fire). Ditto: lello, and hangerburger (to go with your hotdog).

It's the greatest blooper reel ever created, as far as I am concerned.

And besides, why correct him when he says, "I want to swing very higher"?

Swinging "very higher" sounds like something I'd like to do, too.

Italian newspapers are beautiful

What I learn from Italy and Italians isn't confined to the language of that country or the customs of that country.

I learn about everything that fascinates them.

And Italians love art -- all art. What's more, they are fascinated with other cultures.

Here's a gorgeous newspaper spread from Sunday's La Repubblica showing off Japanese-inspired comic art drawn by an Italian artist.

He's made a career out of drawing Manga-style comics that the Japanese swoon over.

Me, too! Che bello.

#ThisisAtlanta -- Kudzu covering street signs

Street signs at an abandoned intersection in southeast Atlanta, covered with kudzu.

This is Atlanta.

What Jeanne will find in Paradiso

It's almost obscene how much joy I derive from reading Italian.

Maybe that's how they can convince high school students and others to study foreign languages.

The foreign words knocking about your head and leaping off your tongue feel so good, it's obscene, dude!

Mommy says (no, not me)

During my recent visit to New Jersey, Mommy says to me: 

“She sent him a mass card and everything.” 

Where 'everything' consists of nothing but appears to be the best possible gift. Whoever my mother is talking about has sent a mass card (to my father, following his hip surgery) and nothing more.

But the one small gesture, the one good deed of sending the card looms large in her head, hence a sentence that to a foreigner might not make any sense. All the woman sent was a mass card. But that now constitutes everything.

What a wonderful way to see the world! Delighting in small things. 

I think that might be my true religion. Hers, too.