Comments | mrissa: Back from Starry Coast

mrissa

Back from Starry Coast

Sep 30, 2015 22:08

So last week I spent a week in a beach house in Charleston doing the Starry Coast writers’ workshop with ten strangers. No longer strangers after a week together! I had very little idea what to expect, other than the immediate practicalities, but I went in with a great deal of hope, a bunch of chocolate to share, and a theory that I could deal ( Read more... )

my uncle has a barn, full of theories

Comments 16

redbird October 1 2015, 04:10:28 UTC

Oh, most excellent!

(I am sorry the gelato failed you, though.)

mrissa October 1 2015, 11:24:29 UTC

It is excellent gelato. I failed the gelato.

diatryma October 1 2015, 04:20:51 UTC

I spent the weekend on the shore of Lake Ontario, and it was astonishing how calming the beach could be.

mrissa October 1 2015, 11:26:45 UTC

I keep resolving to find more opportunities to get up to the big lake. Because it is the best lake. It says so right on the label; everyone agrees. Even for a day trip. And I have stopped forgetting how happy it makes me to come up over the rise and see the big lake.

But the big lake is...well, I now have the urge to get people to help me in it, too, but that time of year is gone now. And even when that time of year is back again next year, it will be a very chilly embrace.

I think I want to anyway.

diatryma October 1 2015, 12:40:04 UTC

One of Angela's birthday traditions is that she goes to a beach when possible. A few years ago, I loaded up a grocery bag with rereads and she went to Okoboji, not realizing that this is Iowa, not California, and our lakes close for the season. She was the only person staying in her motel, and often the only person in the diner. She still went in the water-- end of September in Iowa is different from end of September in Minnesota, and if it's Superior you mean there's much less water to heat up-- but it was more a ritual wading than a phone-ruining splash.

mrissa October 1 2015, 12:57:44 UTC

Yes, I do mean Superior.

I have waded in Superior with vertigo, with help. I adore wading in Superior, especially off the rock beaches. (THE ROCK BEACHES ARE THE BEST.) But even wading, at the end of September--well, the Edmund Fitz went down in early November, and I guarantee you nobody was swimming in a swimsuit the month before, and wetsuit swimmers were likely few. The big lake is never warm, that's its glory. You go up in August and it's still not warm. The rocks are sun-warmed and hard under your feet, and they stay put, and then the lake is so cold, so clear and so cold.

I love my big lake.

And up to my ankles wading is different. With my big lake it's worth it. It's just...yah. Not the same.

Do you know my big lake story? I give you that, here. It's very short. And here is Meg Hutchinson's big lake song to go with it, here.

ckd October 1 2015, 04:22:16 UTC

How wonderful that you could have that experience!

rosefox October 1 2015, 04:49:22 UTC

How phenomenal. So thrilled for you. :D

swan_tower October 1 2015, 08:03:02 UTC

Oh, that sounds fantastic. And thank you for writing so vividly about the experience; it helps to have that window, to understand what good accommodation looks like.

mrissa October 1 2015, 11:46:20 UTC

Some parts of this particular accommodation are really hard to predict. For example, one of the people I love most in the world is physically incapable of watching their personal space in terms of not bumping into people if they are sharing a kitchen. I have talked to them about it. Others have talked to them about it on my behalf. They are trying very hard and very earnestly. It is something they honestly cannot notice themself doing--if you are both getting lunch in the kitchen and you are reaching up for a water glass in the cupboards, they will bump your shoulder just marginally as they move past to get into the fridge. They will not mean to. They will be trying not to with all their conscious mind. But they are physically unable to keep the edges of their physical person that much in mind ( ... )

teadog1425 October 1 2015, 12:11:51 UTC

Apologies for intruding on the conversation, but I was really struck by what you describe above, as it mirrors something I have found with horses ( ... )

mrissa October 1 2015, 12:15:28 UTC

The problem is that it is a lot to ask of a person who is not living with one. If it was a housemate, a spouse or other life partner, quite possibly this level of rewiring would be a reasonable thing to ask. But for a loved one who lives somewhere else and is not experiencing it as a problem in their life but as an aspect of your disability...you see the issue?

I don't experience the comment as intrusive at all. It's very interesting. I'm just not sure that it works as a solution in this specific case.

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