Postcard from NYC

What I learned. What I read. What I drank.

Picasso bought the above house, now the artist’s residency and cultural institution, Maison Dora Maar, for Dora, his then, grand amour, and “muse.”

I’m back. Trying to hold on to the spirit of my month in Menerbes. I had caught its perfect time on the winter/spring bridge when the ancient hill top village was hushed.

The tourists hadn’t arrived and yet the wild asparagus was on the way. In short, I was there to see Persephone personified light up the vistas.

Having unpacked, I went right to work. Not saying there was a constant vein opened, but in the first two hours I scribbled out 1000 words and throughout the 30 days, I seemed to have been present for every word. Perhaps it was because I had Dora Maar’s actual bedroom. The study was light and I had a beautiful muse hanging in the background.

To the woman above, I said good morning, and good night, daily. She served me well.

The three of us at the house truly got along so well. So we worked on our own during the day, sometimes the three of us went on the ballade around the village, and at dinner, I forced wine upon them and we talked about our process. A writer could get used to such things.

One of Dora’s pieces hanging in the maison.

Last night, out to dinner with a friend on the Bowery, I put it in context. “Being there I felt for the first time what it must be for those who are brought up in a nurturing environment. What it could have been like to have been brought up with love and respect.” For a whole month I was accepted as a writer, respected as a writer. I was expected to be a writer, with unconditional love. For the first time in my life. And for the first time in my life I felt what kids being raised in a loving house must feel, “Yes, I can do this.” I’m not sure other people winning fellowships and residencies like this—-whether it’s Yaddo or Camargo or Dora—have ever put it in those terms, but that was my takeaway. Why else would my month writing in the Ivory Tower have been one of the most important moments in my life so far?

(At this moment I want to shout out a very public thank you to those who have raised me up in times of need. Without this trio of saints, I would not have been able to continue. I’m looking at you, Peter Waters in Australia, JCC of Honey Dog Farms in the Hudson Valley and Steve and Amy Lipin. Your support has meant the world to me and never taken for granted.)