Let the celebrations begin!Welcome to my first day without a deadline. What? Yes, today is my first day in three years when I haven't been looking forward 6 weeks and figuring out what I need to do or read or write. Yesterday I sent off my last packet of essays and poems for my MFA program. I mailed in my thesis, my bibliography, my abstract of my thesis, and the detailed "Front Matter," which is the formatted equivalent of a toothache (type your title and press enter 7 times, type your name and press enter 4 times...") But all of it, it's out of my hands. This week will be used to clean up the details and organize my writing life and then relax until August, the last residency.
I thought I'd feel more relaxed. Maybe because I still have a few "To Do's" on my list for my own writing life. Actually, it probably won't feel real until I'm wearing the cap and gown and the diploma is my writerly hands. I'm in that pre-graduation state, that "are you sure there isn't anything I forgot to do?" place. I'm decorating for Christmas in September, throwing a birthday party 3 weeks before the actual date--it won't feel real until it is real.
I've thought about what I want to do "after graduation" (insert omnious music here). Right now, I feel my future is completely open. Sort of like walking into candy shop and deciding what you want to eat, there are many choices in front of me. I think I will take these next two years and just dedicate them to writing--writing anything and everything--freelance work, essays, children's books, fiction, and of course, my monkeybaby: poetry.
The main question I'm getting from people is: Do you want to teach? My perfect situation would be teaching at a low-res program, for me, that would be ideal. But I'm not ready to jump head first into a full-time teaching job. There's an opening for a tenure-track position at a local community college and I'm intentionally not applying for it. I think it's too soon for me. I don't want to jump from the commitment of school to the commitment of a job without allowing myself some time to write--to write, to fail, and to succeed.
If I need money, there's always the poet's best friend: eBay. And now Craigslist makes money a lot easy to get as well. If I have to wear the same jeans for another two years and wool poncho, I will. There will be a time again for a full time job in my life, but it's not now, not while my daughter is still young. I figure when she's a pre-teen or teenager and annoyed with me, then I'm happy to close the front door and escape to an office, a classroom, a college. But right now, I love being home and having this time to write.
So, we'll see what happens. We'll see where I end up in the next couple years and which paths I take, which paths I avoid, and which paths take me out into the forest and leave me there. And maybe the pinata will spill open with everything I've ever wanted, or maybe it will just fall, I just need to find out for myself.
