I’m spending the next couple of weeks at an artists’ residency in the West of Ireland. My little cottage
sits right on the coast, at the top of a black cliff with the blue Atlantic
churning far below. It’s postcard-scenic
here, and quiet—the place has, as a matter of principle, no wifi or television,
the idea being that the artists who come to spend some time will flourish into
productivity without the workaday distractions of the modern world.
Which brings me to my work habits. I think I have them—that is, I think I
generally get shit done, cheerfully and in a timely fashion. I’ve heard friends talk about their
gloriously productive stints at one writing retreat or another, and I always
think to myself (secretly, inwardly), Surely you can get the work done at
home just as easily? I’ve managed to be a fairly productive writer across
genres while managing a house, raising kids, and caring for family. In fact, I actually think I am more
productive for those “distractions,” because instead of feeling like I’m
clocking in when I sit at the computer it feels like a breather from the other
stuff and a welcome chance to sit with my brain for a few minutes. I realize that I’m pretty privileged in this
regard; especially now, with no one at home full-time but myself, pretty much
all my days as a widowed empty nester look like a writing retreat.
So I find myself here in this unwired refuge which is a kind
of island on the western edge of another island on the other side of the world
from my own bed, and I have to say that I’m finding it fairly difficult to
work. My plan is to finish revising my
most recent manuscript while I’m in residence here, but that task is proving
strangely uncompelling when it’s the only thing in my day.
(Not surprisingly, I'm just going outside a lot, being apparently constitutionally incapable of just sitting at a desk and getting work done.)
I think I just don’t work this way: don’t need silence and
isolation to make progress on writing; and besides, silence and isolation is
kinda my default condition these days.
So it seems a little gratuitous, and I confess maybe even a little
pointless, to treat this stretch of days as set aside for formal writing labor. I need to be outside—walking, running,
hiking, generally being stimulated by the world—in order to think better, and
while I can certainly find all kinds of places to walk/hike hereabouts, I’m finally
not sure that I’m the target demographic for the writers’ retreat.
*****
On a slightly different topic: when I was here in the early 90s, it’s fair
to say that much of Ireland was…slow to modernize. I stayed in some houses that were definitely
closer to the third world than the first, with outdoor plumbing and the
fireplace as the only heating source. (One of those houses is about 25 miles
from where I currently sit, as the crow flies.) Most of Ireland has been so radically
transformed by its charging Celtic Tiger Eurozone economy that I hardly
recognize it, but the area where this artists’ colony sits represents a bit of
a throwback to those earlier times. I
may not be grinding out pages while I’m in residence, but as I type these
words, I am laboring—to keep the fire piled with peat because the cottage
doesn’t have any other heat and the nights get cold. To get the dishes washed quickly in the water
from the teakettle, because while there is indoor plumbing I wouldn’t say that
it’s reliable or that hot water is a given.
To plan my shopping with maximal efficiency and minimal weight, because
the nearest town is some miles away. And
while I can take advantage of nationwide 5G on my phone (instead of walking 2
miles to a phone booth every few days to call my parents, as I did in the early
90s), my laptop won’t be cruising the internet superhighway anytime soon. I’m not especially precious about my
accommodations (I’ve pooped in more than my share of holes, desert depressions,
and open fields); and again, I appreciate the concept of flourishing without
distraction. I guess I’m just wishing
that I were the kind of artist who really would get all the benefit of such a
situation, rather than feeling like I’m substituting one kind of work for
another.
It is stupid beautiful here, though, and if I don’t write a
single word at least I have views like this to console me.
