Looking forward and looking back
Photo by Samantha McCuen
On a recent Saturday I helped my mom clean out my childhood bedroom. I live in my hometown, so it was a quick drive over to the house I lived in for most of my life. Once I stepped into my room, where I haven't slept since the occasional evening in my twenties when I was home visiting, I was confronted with a younger version of myself that I hadn't reconnected with in a while.
I found tattered Beatles posters; lots of stuffed animals, some of which have been claimed by my three nieces; old scented candles (I still have a soft spot for scented candles); tangled keychains and magnets with my name on them; glossy photographs in homemade picture frames.
But the best part was finding reminders that art has always given my life so much meaning, richness and purpose. I found dense journals collaged with magazine clippings. I found a box of old poems I'd written in kindergarten, notes I'd passed to friends, CDs I had curated, song lists compiled in my careful handwriting.
As I sorted through my bookshelves I remembered what each book had given me:
this book made me think about the ways we show up for each other
that book was filled with so many beautiful sentences, it gave me pleasure just to read them
this book was a great love story
this book's darkness helped me make sense of my own
this book let me travel far away
this book made me proud to be a woman
that book kept me company during a lonely time
When I was a kid and didn't see many people in the world who looked like me, I found refuge in art. I made sense of the world through art. I met characters in books that didn't look like me, but had some of the same experiences that I did, and suddenly felt less alone. I wrote to communicate what I saw around me, and suddenly the world belonged to me a little bit more.
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These are a Few of My Favorite Things
2022 was a busy and exciting year. I was named an Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artist and also received an Artist Support Grant, thanks to the Durham Arts Council. These grants are giving me some space and time to write a memoir!
I got to interview disability rights icon Judy Heumann for IndyWeek.
My essay Body Autonomy won second place in the RCWMS annual essay contest. The essay will debut in their newsletter, South of the Garden, in March. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
I got to interview musician Gaelynn Lea and actor/playwright Ryan J. Haddad for PBS.
I debuted a new class, Writing the Body. This class was the culmination of a lot of things I've been deeply engaged with over the past few years, and it attracted a generous, curious group of students. When it came to a close last week students called the experience powerful, sensitive, revealing, freeing and focused. I raised full scholarships for two disabled writers to participate in this class through my fundraiser. THANK YOU to those of you who have donated. If you'd like to support this effort going forward, any amount is so appreciated.
These were the highlights, but this year was also full of many moments that won't make a year end list. Posting updates on Instagram. Reading. Outlining. Tweeting. Spending time with other writers, talking through all the ups and downs and uncertainties and joys of the writers life. Updating my website.
There were rejections: times I submitted the same piece of work, over and over, times I applied and applied for a grant I still haven't gotten.
There was lots of waiting - for the right sentence, for a literary magazine to read my work, for a section of my work to coalesce. There was a lot of trusting the process - stepping into a blank page and not knowing what would come, but committing to the process anyway. There was a lot of learning: about myself, about the world, about what I still don't know.
Those moments are part of it. They still count. Let's celebrate them, too.
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Thank you so much for being a part of this community, where we recognize the power of words, we work to understand ourselves and each other better through our art, and we amplify the voices of those who need to be heard.
Let’s make some art in 2023!
Allison
Writer & Educator