Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

Hi friends –

Some of you know my Thanks­giv­ing falls at the end of Sep­tem­ber. Fishermen’s Thanks­giv­ing, where we cel­e­brate a safe and suc­cess­ful sea­son. The fourth Thurs­day of Novem­ber doesn’t ring true to me in the same way. This year is dif­fer­ent. This Thanks­giv­ing finds me nes­tled up here at the North Cas­cades Insti­tute, reflect­ing on my first full week of a three month writer’s res­i­den­cy, feel­ing quite swathed in grat­i­tude, indeed.

Leav­ing the house last Wednes­day was hard­er than I’d expect­ed it would be. It was cold that day – would drop to 8 degrees that night – but the roads were most­ly good. No snow, just some slick spots on the twisti­er, shad­ed sec­tions. A sher­iff waved me around a Jeep recent­ly crum­pled against the rocky shoulder.

Hav­ing dal­lied so long, I reached the Envi­ron­men­tal Learn­ing Cen­ter lat­er than I’d planned, but still before dark. Trans­plant­ed the car­load of bags and back­packs to all the cor­ners of my lit­tle house – food, kitchen stuff, books, bed­ding, warm clothes, more books – and start­ed the first list of things for­got­ten. (How did I miss Joel’s home­made s’ghetti sauce? Not that remem­ber­ing would’ve mat­tered; I couldn’t wedge anoth­er thing into the Subaru.)

With a wilder­ness EMT pro­gram on cam­pus for a week-long train­ing, the din­ing hall was open. I felt shy going down to din­ner, even after all the kind­ness Joel and I had encoun­tered here in our Octo­ber vis­it. Just a bit off-kil­ter, like I was about to step into some­thing big. Which, real­ly, was not such an unrea­son­able feel­ing to have.

Din­ner was deli­cious (veg­e­tar­i­an lasagna for me, with a fan­cy green sal­ad on the side and crème brulee for dessert), but I excused myself ear­ly. Head­lamp light­ing my way, I trudged up the trail to start get­ting set­tled in Dog­wood 2.

Only two things mat­tered to me that night: a bed to fall into, and a writ­ing space to wake up to. The first was easy, while the sec­ond took much more time and plan­ning. Butch­er paper lin­ing the walls to chart Hooked’s nar­ra­tive, pho­tos and post-its and scrib­bled notes on nap­kins taped through­out. A bul­letin board rich with inspi­ra­tion – reminders to stay on track with my themes, pho­tos of sup­port­ers, quotes that guide my work. (In pur­ple ink, Pema Chodron advis­es, “Noth­ing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”) By the end of the night, Dog­wood 2 had become Hooked’s womb.

As my own work sur­rounds me, so does many oth­er folks’. Books stacked lov­ing­ly, a tad com­pul­sive­ly, edges lin­ing up just-so. Favorite mem­oirs on the west end of the kitchen bar. Writ­ing prompts and books on craft, all on the east end. On the bed­room desk, non­fic­tion resources like charts and guide­books of the fish, birds, plants of South­east Alaska.

My friend Tom chid­ed me about bring­ing so many books, remind­ing me that I’m here to write, not read a library. I knew how to hear his father­ly cau­tion. He, like my own dad, sees the mon­u­men­tal nature of this task and frets for time. He’s not wrong. Nei­ther am I. These books are here as part tal­is­man, part inspi­ra­tion. Their authors are my men­tors. Some I’ve been lucky enough to study with in per­son. Oth­ers I study sen­tence by sen­tence, paus­ing there in won­der (How did s/he do that?), here in admi­ra­tion (Damn, look what s/he did there!) Stroking soft cov­ers, flip­ping to ran­dom pages, they all reas­sure me. Their pages filled one word at a time, they say. Mine will, too.

My Novem­ber goal was to write 1000 words a day. In Belling­ham, that was a sput­ter­ing, stop-and-go sort of effort. The entire week before I came up here? Nothing.

It was impor­tant to me to embrace a rou­tine as soon as I got here. I’ll tell you what that looks like anoth­er time, but for now, let’s just say it’s working.

With 10,688 new words in the past week, it’s work­ing real­ly well. That’s noth­ing for my more pro­lif­ic friends, but as a slow writer, this is mon­u­men­tal for me. It’s work­ing – I’m work­ing, and I have to tell you, sweet­ies, it feels won­der­ful.

I know there’ll be a crash. Just as you can anchor up high on a great day’s fish­ing only to wake up and find the school van­ished overnight, the words won’t always be here. NCI isn’t mag­ic. I’m final­ly learn­ing the truth that count­less men­tors have tried to impress upon me: there isn’t mag­ic, there’s only work. As I put in the con­sis­tent time and effort, the words respond. The more devo­tion with which I sit down, the more agree­ably the words show up. Why did it take me so long to accept this truism?

Today, on November’s Thanks­giv­ing, the mid­day sun is stream­ing bright and warm onto my shoul­der. In a moment, I’ll walk down to the office, using one of NCI’s com­put­ers to break my inter­net silence and share this time with you. A mosey on one of the many sur­round­ing trails, paus­ing to cel­e­brate fresh air and wild places. There’s a piece of salmon – a coho tail­piece – defrost­ing in the fridge, and two of Joel’s choco­late chip coconut cook­ies wait­ing to reward me. It’s anoth­er good day to write.

With love and gratitude,

Tele

c/o ELC

PO Box 429

Mar­ble­mount, WA

98267