So I’m going to Ragdale. I leave in a couple of days and I’ll be gone for two weeks. I never go anywhere for more than a week, and while technically this place isn’t anywhere far–it’s only an hour or so away–the whole point is to get away from the rest of my life: from work, and obligations, and the internet, and buying groceries, and having to talk to people who have the nerve to live actual real lives that don’t involve trying to finish a book, because did I mention I am trying to finish a book? I think I mentioned that I am trying to finish a book. From what I can tell, Ragdale is sort of an asylum for people like me.
These Ragdale people, whoever they are, will give me a room, and a place to work, and meals. They’ll make the meals. This is a very good idea. One time last month I had just macadamia nuts and hamburger buns for dinner because writing made me stupid. I do my best to function like a normal person most of the time but I think I probably need this.
Every year, the start of summer is sort of hard for me in a way I can’t really explain. There’s always at least one or two days that seem to shake my conviction that I’m a part of the rest of the world, where suddenly everyone is sitting outside at the sidewalk tables at restaurants I hadn’t even known had opened in my neighborhood, wearing clothes that I had no idea were in style (seriously, what’s with those knitted poncho thingies?), drinking Mojitos or some damn thing. But now I guess I have a place where I can go, with a prairie preserve and all the trees that Mr. T. never got around to cutting down.
There will be some other writers and artists there. I hope they’re nice.
