Fire and Ice

The residency’s off to an unusual start. On Thursday night, twenty-four hours after I arrived, an ice storm came through, knocking out power here at MacDowell for the first time since the power lines were buried in 1996. Ice coated everything—every blade of grass, and, most importantly, every tree (and there are a LOT of trees) and for a good part of the night and the following day, it was too dangerous to venture outside. A log cabin sized branch totaled one resident’s car, and trees hit a couple of the studios. Luckily, no one was hurt, but the arboreal carnage is massive. All day Friday, every thirty seconds or so you’d hear a crack like a shotgun, and another treetop would come slamming to earth.


Nonetheless, I’ve been getting a decent amount of work done. While most of the others spent the night in the main colony hall (the only place with heat, thanks to a small generator) I decided to forgo sleeping on the wooden floor and sleep in my chilly studio. Luckily, I have a small studio with a huge fireplace, and I was able to get the temperature up to about 61 in there (I think it was about 9 degrees outside...) The fire, combined with about thirty tea lights dotting the room, made for a cozy and productive evening of writing. I think I'll try it again tonight. It must be true what they say about this place, that the energy is different, of a higher vibration, if you will, that the spirit of the founders and those who have come after has soaked into every rock and tree and path. The native Abnaki people found the colony area to be a place where thoughts cleared and great realizations were made.

Yesterday, the first morning after the storm, people met in the kitchen, earlier than even the usual 7:30 breakfast time. No one had slept due to the constant racket of trees snapping and we were all hungry for information and to swap stories of our encounters with the cold and darkness. Maryel, the breakfast cook, had managed to get to the colony despite massive road closures, downed trees, and dangling power lines. That she came in, braving the cold and at times off-roading to get here, is just one example of the dedication and overall spectacular-ness of the MacDowell staff. She could have (and maybe should have, it was dangerous simply to be outdoors without a helmet) easily stayed home and let us forage cereal and fruit. Thanks to the generator, the kitchen had a few overhead lights but no working outlets; in these conditions she still took personal breakfast orders and while the forest crashed down outside, we sat warm and cozy at the table, gulping hot coffee and feasting on mozzarella-tomato-feta omelets and blueberry pancakes thick enough to sleep on. (This may sound like a weird metaphor but let me explain: people have been using anything and everything to make the wood floors in Bond Hall sleepable—I’ve seen towel beds and beds of cardboard and I can think of nothing more comfortable than a bed of Maryel’s blueberry pancakes—warm, if possible.)


My studio, Phi Beta (pre-storm). Among the previous Colonists' names on the "tombstones" hanging on the walls are two writers who mean a lot to me: Stephen Dobyns and Ann Patchett. Quite an inspiration to know that my desk was once occupied by writers I admire so much.

I write this from Keene, about 45 minutes from Peterborough and the MacDowell Colony, on an internet-and-booze run with a couple new friends. The latest word is that we might have power by next Wednesday. Fingers crossed. At least we know there won’t be a shortage of firewood at the colony for a long, long time.