Your computers are all broken. I posted this Thursday.

I went to Joyce Maynard’s writing retreat down in Guatemala; did I ever even say that?

Okay, guys, I have to take the story in chunks. One of the things Joyce worked with us on down in Guate was easing into our too-big stories. Finding the “container”---the manageable inch of time, the symbol, the relationship---with which to reveal the greater/bigger/heavier truth.

Por exemplo: Some bloggers might find it daunting to explain how ten days of international travel, female/writer camaraderie and $2 margaritas changed their lives. (They might find it particularly daunting to explain this by an arbitrarily chosen day, such as Thursday.) So, instead of taking on THE WHOLE BIG, GIANT STORY, they might opt to parse out a smaller theme or bit story---one night in a hot tub---to demonstrate the larger truth or just get themselves into the writing. (They might also extend the deadline a smidge.)

Despite spending over a week learning this container lesson over and over, I still felt pretty overwhelmed when it came to writing about the week. So my writer friend Aviva put it to me this way: “Maybe don't try to write the whole motherfucker/megillah.”

(We were fast friends.)

Her suggestions for potential “containers”:

a) what I packed
b) travelling business class
c) toilet paper as behaviour modification (She’s Canadian so she spells things prettier than we do. Even when the sentences are about toilet paper. And, don’t worry, we’ll get to the toilet paper.)

The problem is, I write my way to understanding. So, for instance, I might have a nagging feeling that the toilet paper situation---in Guatemala, where you throw soiled TP into a trash can beside the toilet rather than flushing it---holds emotional/spiritual significance, but I probably won’t understand why this is so unless I fuck around for 10 pages about it.

It’s not an entirely efficient process for a writer. (And it is an entirely inefficient process for a human who would like to live an actual life rather than intellectualize it, but that’s another story. See? So many stories! And we’re still on the toilet paper!)

I have to start somewhere (or not write here for another three months) so I shall return to the teachings of my very first governess, Fraulein Maria who used to say, “Lola Dear, let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.”


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To get myself ready for a ten-day writing retreat in Guatemala, I go to see The Hobbit. Twice. It’s a three-hour movie. There’s lots of sword play. The second time, I endure the 3-D version alone in a theater on a Wednesday afternoon wearing the big plastic glasses. I need an epic tale; I go seeking bravery.

(And with that admission, I hand you my resignation from the Cool Kids’ Table.)

Really, I just need the ten minutes when Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit, is asked by Gandalf, the great wizard, to join the dwarves on their journey to reclaim their homeland, currently inhabited by a deadly dragon.

Gandalf says he is looking for someone to go on an adventure and Bilbo refuses saying adventures are “Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things. Make you late for dinner!”

When Joyce Maynard sends me an e-mail in January asking me if I’m interested in attending her annual February writing retreat in Guatemala, my mind travels through the hassles of flying in the middle of a New England winter and lands on the thought of sleeping on an airport floor for two days.

Plus, we are a week into January and my Christmas tree is still up. How could I possibly go to Guatemala?

Gandalf calls Bilbo on his shit: “You've been sitting quietly for far too long. Tell me, when did doilies and your mother's dishes become so important to you?”

Dan sends me six e-mails.

Go! Just go!

Do it, baby!

Say yes with abandon!

Do not hesitate!

Go, go, go!

(Am I being pushy?)

His enthusiasm makes me mad at him.

I haven’t traveled by plane since my dad died in April. I was worried my parents’ house would sell while I was gone and I’d miss the opportunity to say good bye. Joyce Maynard’s house in Guatemala may soon be swallowed by the rising of Lake Atitlán. I’ve read about it an article she wrote for The New York Times Magazine. I’ve also studied the picture of the volcanoes rising out of the lake (and read the Commonly Asked Questions and the near-twenty page info packet) on the workshop website several times in the last years.

Dan says it’s meant to be. That I need something like this.

Gandalf says, “I remember a young hobbit who was always running off in search of elves in the woods. He'd stay out late, come home after dark, trailing mud and twigs and fireflies. A young hobbit who would've liked nothing better than to find out what was beyond the borders of the Shire. The world is not in your books and maps. It's out there.”

This makes me cry underneath my 3D glasses.

I was such a muddy kid. In high school, a war correspondent came to speak to my journalism class and I listened to him talk while imagining myself ducking fire and tucking behind walls of half-collapsed buildings with my reporter’s notebook. It wasn’t the future I necessarily wanted, but I wasn’t afraid to let myself imagine it. It wasn’t outside possible.

Guatemala feels outside possible. For the last couple of years, just getting myself through the lobby and to the darkness of a movie theater has been an act of great daring.

It started before my parents died but has of course gotten worse since then. Two weeks after my mom died, Dan and I went to an indoor farmers’ market. I had to back out of the busyness of the stalls and towering heaps of potatoes and heads of lettuce to the edge of the greenhouse to catch my breath. All the people, all the conversation and exchanging of dollars and bunched carrots---I thought it was going to crush me.

I write Joyce, thanking her for the invitation and telling her why I’m hesitant---that my biggest fear about going is that I’ll wake up and realize I am in Guatemala and not the comfort of my apartment with the shades drawn. She tells me this isn’t a good enough reason not to go.

“Money issues would be an understandable reason. Your best friend's wedding would qualify. So would allergy to sun, water, birds and stars.”

Joyce Maynard knows that both my parents have died. Joyce Maynard knows me. Four years ago I wrote Joyce a letter after reading her memoir to thank her for writing it. I’d never written an author before. I’d never seen such honest writing. I told myself that if I got any kind of response---even a “please don’t send letters to my home”---it would be the universe validating that I was on the right path, that I was supposed to be a writer. She e-mailed a week later and I tacked it to my bulletin board. Two years after that I went to a weeklong writing workshop she hosted on Star Island, off the coast of New Hampshire. I’d been anxious for that too---my mom had been dead nine months and my dad’s tumor had been diagnosed---but I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I missed the opportunity. I was only an hour from my apartment for the entire week but I came home feeling like I’d seen the world.

Guatemala is not an hour from home and I’ve lost interest in seeing the world.

I’ve lost interest in seeing the grocery store.

I’ve lost interest in friends. And writing. And eating.

Dan highlights lines from Joyce’s note:

healing place

I take very, very good care of you

things happen to people when they come here

Joyce’s mother died from a brain tumor, the same type as my dad’s. Both her parents were dead by the time she turned 35.

She knows this loss and she thinks I should go. Dan thinks I should go. The therapist, who isn’t supposed to tell me what she thinks, thinks I should go.

My friend Aviva, who I met at the Star Island workshop, thinks I should go too. She’s trying to convince us both to go to Guatemala.

“Why do I associate travel with death?” she writes in an e-mail.

She is afraid of dying on the three-hour van ride along the winding dirt roads to where Joyce lives on the lake. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of being a human in a room with other humans.

I write, “It’s probably a sign of a good travel companionship, both of us being terrified and all.”

“Do you think fear + fear might equal bravery?” she asks

“Fear + fear + meds might equal bravery,” I answer.

After my mom died I told myself that I never needed to be scared of anything ever again. I’d knelt in front of her face, looking in her scared blue eyes as she panicked for breath. I had turned up her oxygen and calmed her with my voice--- “Through your nose, my Mama. You’re okay.”

I had already lived through the scariest thing.

Dan sits beside me on the couch while I book my flight to Guatemala City.

My stomach heavy, I quote The Hobbit.

“I’m going on an adventure.”


To be continued...probably. (Not by Thursday.)