Teaching, Writing, and the Spaces in Between

I am jet lagged already. I am on my way from India to Vermont, in the tender care of Lufthansa and assorted other airlines.This is not the ideal way to prepare for residency, I know, but for complicated travel reasons, I didn't have a choice. So here I am on my way to VCFA for the Winter 2017 residency, my workshop packet uploaded to my iPad. In a strange way, being in this travel bubble is helping me to get ready for the bubble that is residency. Ten days of lectures, workshops, students, old friends and new on faculty, preparing for the semester ahead, engaging in those large, animated, circuitous conversations about the work we all hold dear.I understand the VCFA sign's been repainted a brighter green since I was there last. That is fine by me. India has prepared me for extravagances of color and form.The brighter the better.But now I'm beginning to appreciate the sign's design, the spaces it affords for a shifting perspective. I can put my face into that square, or hang my current story over its edge like a melting Dali clock. I can look through its window and appreciate the space I have to live my writing life when I am not teaching. Which is every other semester now, because there is too much that needs to be done. I can't teach year round and do it all.Too much writing, too much travel, too much life. These ten days will have to stoke my writing fires year-round.