October 25, 2024
I never imagined I would like living in the North Woods. The weekends I spent here in the summers of my youth couldn’t end fast enough so that I could get back to the Twin Cities. My identity has been rooted in being a city girl. I’ve always been drawn to the romantic idea of a little cabin in the woods where I could write, but I’ve always also been very aware of how much I hate bugs and how afraid I still am of things lurking in the dark.
I came here because I didn’t have many other options, hoping it would give me the space I needed to get back on my feet. As the months slipped by and the leaves began to turn, something in me shifted. I can tell you the exact moment when I first felt my perspective on this small town—and my future in it—begin to change.
After a trip to the recycling dump, I stopped at a garage sale at the local eccentric house (the owners supposedly built it to be a replica of the Dallas tv show house). There I bought a big winter sweater – the kind an author portrayed in a Hallmark movie would appreciate. I imagined myself, in that brief moment in that barn style garage, writing through an “up north” winter. I came back from the sale, washed it, then put it on, and I kid you not, I wrote 3 pages in one sitting. I haven’t done that in years. The sweater was magic!
Now when I want to work on my novel for an extended period of time, I put on the sweater first. Maybe it’s because there are limited things to do here, so to avoid boredom, I write. But maybe it is the sweater. Or the idea of the magic sweater is now an essential part of my ritual for engaging in my practice. The way Jack Kerouac lit a candle before he started and blew it out when he was done. Laila Lalami puts on instrumental music. Angie Kim plays gonggi. Or Aldour Huxley took LSD.
What is your writing ritual?
Go ahead and put on Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash singing Girl from the North Country and think of me here. I do wonder if the North Woods are playing for keeps. Ask me after the snow falls.
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