Indira Ganesan, Ocean with jasmine plant, 2014

The need for a place to settle down, sigh into the space, and make plans to leave and return are part of the appeal of “home.”  Luckily, I have another year to hang my hat to remain in the same place.  As a writer or artist, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown provides temporary low-cost housing to Former Fellows to move back to town and produce work.  Five artists do just that, writing and painting in a beach community known for supporting the arts since the time of the Provincetown Players and Eugene O’Neill.  Readers of this blog know how I applied for a lottery, and had my name drawn out of a hat to live here, how I packed out and moved from my beloved community in Boulder because I no longer had a job.  Many times the first year and second year,  I wondered if I had made the right choice.  I planted a garden, admired the landscape, watched my novel get published, began a new job, fostered kittens and their mom, lost a friend to cancer, and struck a deer with my car.  By the time 2014 rolled around, I was waiting to hear from various job applications, grants, and the Work Center.  The spring passed in a blur of waiting and uncertainty, as I wondered what plans I could make for the fall, if I could make plans.

Indira Ganesan, weather watchers

I raked Craigslist looking for apartments in Boulder, in Cambridge, In Boston.  I looked at  Princeton, and wondered if I should move back home to my aging parents.  Several bored nights, I wondered if I should pull up stakes for England, or France, or Italy, go to India.  Behind all this question was the unspoken thought: where can I write?  People say one can write anywhere and at any time, but I think a writer needs an anchor, a place so familiar and  unbothered that one can lose oneself in the words.  Hotel rooms work, if they have a view, but  I have never had more than a few days day at one.  I have to live somewhere for three years before I trust it enough to venture forth with cohesion onto  the page.  I don’t mean I do not write at all; I write constantly, but bits and pieces., but the long narrative, for me, requires me to trust my environment completely.

Just a few days ago, I found out I had another year in my home, a delight.  It is an earned year, a year to write, a year to teach  a course on American Women Writers, a subject close to my heart, and whatever else might fall my way or I reach for with aim.  It is a year to contemplate the next move.  A year to see if any dahlias other than the one so far will sprout, a year to  water the plans and plants. A year for the cats to turn another year over, and a year for me to appreciate every day of it.

Indira Ganesan, So Comfortable, 2014