From the Quiet That Comes Before Spring
Solitude, Writing Retreats, Imbolc, and Bulbs
Imbolc has come and gone. A winter moment marking the first signs of spring.
A few weeks ago, I had four whole days to myself. To some, that might not sound like a lot. To others, that might seem like an impossible abundance. To me, it was immensely needed and, quite honestly, I want more.
I spent a workweek in mid January as Artist in Residence at the Atticus Hotel in McMinnville. It’s the first year of their program, a partnership with Linfield University. It was a strange and wonderful experience to have four days entirely to myself. I had a door to shut (guarded by a mischievous fox knocker) and a whole space to myself behind it. As I sunk more deeply into my own internal spaces, immersed in my own imagination, I found my mind unfurling. I’d brought a novel that I’m rewriting, that I keep getting stuck on and, over the course of that handful of days, all the stuck places seemed to ease. The questions and problems that had troubled me for months, seemed to solve themselves. The answers were right there, in me, in the work. I just had to be quiet enough, still enough, to hear them.
And I haven’t touched that novel since I left the residency. I meant to finish this newsletter a week ago for Imbolc, but I couldn’t find the quiet.
I’ve always thought of myself as someone who makes space for my own solitude. I seek it out and I feel very comfortable inside it. And I thought I was still doing a decent job of that. I get up very early in the mornings to write before my family wakes. I have a job that lets me work from home so I’m not spending eight hours a day in a bustling office. I try not to overfill my social calendar. But it wasn’t until having these four full days to myself alone that I realized how much I’ve let my solitude slip. In the cacophony of life—family, child, friendships, relationships, cats, work, bills, study, medical appointments, publishing practicalities—I am almost always responding to the tugs of someone else. The number of pivots I make in a day—parent, partner, employee, friend, writer, debut author, pet parent, household manager, patient, calendar-keeper, and so many more—is impossible. And also, aren’t we all doing this? Aren’t we all juggling an impossible number of roles and selves and hats and masks, flipping through them at light speed and expected to go faster? We live in a noisy noisy world.
How do we write in the midst of it? How do we sustain the immense focus and attention needed for the duration of something as long and obsessive as a novel?
I know this isn’t a new conundrum. But its a problem I find myself facing, increasingly, as I try to write right now. I used to be better at juggling. I used to have more energy. I used to have more alone time too.
Imbolc is a Celtic Festival. It falls between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and marks the beginning of the return of the sun. We’re still in winter. It’s still cold. It’s still grey. But we can just begin to feel spring in the air. It’s Brigid’s day, a goddess or a saint depending on the tradition you follow, a patron of poetry and inspiration.
It’s this time of year that you have to look close for the signs of the awakening world. Back in the Midwest where I grew up, when I grew up, this was a decidedly frozen time of year. I remember Februaries packed with the grey of the slate sky and the wisening snow packed so firmly over the ground it turned ice. This time of year was not one of flowers, though it was, I always felt, one of waiting. The world turned so quiet, so almost unalive. We knew spring would come. But in this time after the festivities of holidays ended when all the lights had come down, it seemed it would be winter forever. When I was young, I really didn’t like this time of year.
Where and when I am now, here in Oregon, on my walks I see the crocus blossoms, the daffodils’ tentative leafing, early trees beginning to bloom. It all still feels like waiting, a quiet time of contemplation. Remembering to weather the frustrations of the back and forth frosts and storms and stubborn silences of winter’s final relinquishment. This time of year, I think so much of the bulbs, how they hold themselves inside themselves all winter, a whole plant enclosed in miniature, before beginning to emerge in the light.
This year, I am recovering from a year and a half of intensive medical experiences—cancer treatment, treatment to prevent cancer reoccurrence—and working to find myself on the other side of these. I’m managing side effects and all the ongoing health ramifications of all of it, even as my world speeds up. I’m a different me than I was a year and a half ago when my life was startled by unexpected diagnosis. Much has not survived. Much, like my once wavy now very curly hair, has grown back differently. I’ve been reading a lot about people’s experiences of this side of cancer treatment. The physical and mental health ramifications of the intensity of the experience. The toll it all takes and the strength it all builds. How the changes in oneself can ripple out. I feel my own early buds emerging from the quiet. They unfold themselves in the pause. I’m still not sure what they’ll look like in full bloom.
This is the second time in my life I’ve come back to Lousie Gluck’s Wild Iris and felt like it was written for a moment I am in:
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure sea water.
There’s a fountain here, but I have to be quiet enough, still enough, to hear its voice.
Today, as I write about myself, about the time of year, about plants and weather and solitude, I am also holding quite a bit of fear and sadness and confusion. Here in the U.S., I would venture to say that all of us, all our friends and families and communities are experiencing fear and sadness and confusion in some form. I fear what my country has planted, has been planting for so very very long. I fear what it will bloom in this season. And I fear what will be shorn, what will be iced over in a long harsh winter. I grieve what will be burned away, is being burned away, has already been burned away. I’m aware that my confusion of metaphors and symbols and seasons are all beginning to mix up right now, stretching beyond their capacity to hold a clear meaning. It’s a mixed up time so I’m just going to let them. And here I keep thinking of bulbs. How resilient they are. What they weather. How they wait underground for just the right moment to burst forth. But how fragile, too, that leafing.
Some Resources for Solitude
I don’t have a spell for solitude. I don’t have an exercise to create more time and space. But I do want to share some thoughts resources for those who might be trying to magic something up for themselves. These may or may not be applicable to you. Partly, it’s a way for me to think through how I am trying to shape my own solitude and then share that with anyone it might be useful for. How do you find your solitude? Please feel free to share your own resources and ideas in the comments!
A Few Writing Retreats
Artist in Residence Program at the Atticus Hotel (McMinnville, Oregon)
Marble House Project (Dorset, Vermont): It has a family retreat you can bring your kids to!
Hedgebrook (Freeland, Washington)
Sitka Center Residency (Otis, Oregon)
A Few Ways I Find Solitude at Home
I wake up really really early before anyone else does (except the cats)
I walk and take the bus. Sometimes I take a notebook with me. Sometimes I just watch the world and let my mind wander. I really try to prioritize walks and in-between travel times as solitary time.
Sometimes I stay up and read after my kid goes to sleep. Sometimes I just go to sleep with my kid.
Happenings
My first book, Leafskin, will come out from Stillhouse Press on March 25 and I have a book launch planned at the very snazzy Up Up Books here in Portland, Oregon with my dear friends, the wonderful writers Justine Chan and Callum Angus. Please come say hello if you’re in town! I’ll also be reading online the night before with Poets & Writers Get the Word Out program alongside eight other amazing debut authors who you don’t want to miss!
Leafskin Book Launch with Justine Chan and Callum Angus April 3, 2025 6pm-7:30pm PT at Up Up Books in Portland, OR
Get the Word Out Reading with Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, Roohi Choudhry, Kerry Donoghue, Lacey N. Dunham, Shasta Grant, Laura Venita Green, Benedict Nguyá»…n, and Daniel Tam-Claiborne April 2, 2025 5pm-7:30pm PT Online with Poets & Writers
I’m in the midst of planning events, interviews, pitches, and all that jazz, so if you’re interested in reading with me or collaborating on an interview, talk, or something completely different please reach out! I’m currently trying to plan readings in Seattle, the Bay Area, the Baltimore/DC area, online, and possibly New York over the course of this spring and summer and would love to work together on these.
Until the next one,
Miranda