On Endings
And how they often take us back to the beginning.
I heard by way of Instagram a few weeks ago that my graduate school California College of the Arts is set to close and to be subsumed by Vanderbilt University. Culturally, it’s sad to see an art school with 120 years of history close its doors. Personally, this news felt startling because the two years I spent there pursuing my MFA still feel precious to me—as a writer, as someone within a writing community, as a lover of art and creativity, as the person I was becoming (and still am).
And as with many endings, this news brings me back to the beginning. How scared I was to be starting over in a new city (San Francisco) living a plane ride away from anyone I’d ever known. I think about showing up to the writing studio that first day—my mom, aunt, cousins, and brother (we roll deep) all dropping me off because they were crammed into the tiny studio I’d rented to help move me in.
I think about being handed a key to the writing studio—the koi pond, the couches, our own kitchen!—and feeling like I’d been handed a key to the life I’d always dreamed of, the life of a real writer. I think about the amazing authors I got the opportunity to listen to and meet during those years, the best friends I made, the (probably crappy) short stories I wrote. The grimy bars we’d grab stools in after workshop. The million stories we shared and read. The readings we went to or organized or spoke at.
I can still drum up the precise feeling of that rush, the adrenaline, of those few years. The excitement I felt at being surrounded for the first time in my life by people who cared about writing and books as much as I did. The purpose I finally felt, sitting down each morning at the tiny cafe table in my kitchen with a giant mug of coffee, the ghosts of the cockroaches from the night before still moving in my periphery.
I often get asked by my writing students what the experience of my MFA was like, would I recommend it, would I write them recommendation letters for their own such degree. And yes, I’d recommend the program I attended, but you can’t replicate the time and the place and the people of a specific graduate experience. Each one stands on its own.
I just finished reading Ann Patchett’s essay collection called These Precious Days (why is she the best?). In this collection, she has an essay about her experience getting her MFA at Iowa Writer’s Workshop in the eighties, and how, sure, there were many problematic things about her experience, but it was formative and unforgettable at the same time. Her words brought me back again to my real beginning as as a writer.
“Endings are just SO hard,” said one of my book coaching clients this week. As true as this is, I find the best way to figure out the ending is to look back at the beginning. Often, it’s hinted there in the very first sentence, in that first paragraph, or first few pages—the inevitability of what’s to come. It’s only when we reach an ending, does the beginning become clearer and really start to coalesce.
When I start writing a novel, I almost always have a vision or a sense of where I want the book to end, even if I have no idea how I’m going to get myself and my characters there. Surprising yet inevitable, Aristotle advised endings should be.
Creativity Through the Senses for this week:
See: I started watching the new season of Shrinking. I love that this show actually makes me laugh out loud at points. Other than this, I haven’t been able to get into watching anything lately. Inspire me if you have recommendations!
Hear: I’m listening to Kristin Hannah’s The Women for my family book club. I don’t typically love Kristin Hannah books because I find them emotionally draining, but I’ve heard good things about this one.
Smell: Beef stew in the crockpot on a cold February afternoon. The eau de roasting carrots, garlic, soft beef, bay leaves, and a richly-flavored broth. You know what I’m talking about here. A smell that makes you feel warm.
Taste: Dried Mango. Or “Mango Dry” if you ask my three-year-old. This tasty, chewy, candy-like delight started as an occasional snack for my kids and has now blown up into a full-fledged family obsession with its own line item in the budget.
Touch: The bottoms of my LL Bean slippers feeling thin, worn through that cushy layer of fluff to the rubber below because I haven’t taken them off since November.