The 2012 Writer’s Studio is officially over. Evaluations handed in. Party over. Dishes done.

Saskia’s house, our very own Bloomsbury, quiet until the next salon and wonderful news shared with us by our non fiction mentor, Brian Payton, about a novel he’d been working on for nine years, off and on. Creativity: found. A story’s time come. And, then, the right ones in New York bidding for the pages in battles, one assumes, as visceral as any others over desirable and contested geography.

Now, back at home, I am stuffed with this ending: relief.  Hear me, I say to myself. No sense searching for new tricks out there. No mystery. What we need, inside each one of us. Full-fledged, pen carrying members of the local literary community. Duck in and out at will the way children leave supportive families carrying their love on paths to new identities, more conscious writing selves. And feeling this way, I can think of no better words – don’t ask me why –  than the ones we are all familiar with in this old Leonard Cohen poem ….

The Music Crept by Us

I would like to remind

the management

that the drinks are watered

and the hat-check girl

has syphilis

and the band is composed

of former SS monsters

However since it is

New Year’s Eve

and I have lip cancer

I will place my

paper hat on my

concussion and dance

I wonder how everyone else is feeling?