Fairy Dust, Walden Pond, and Yale Divinity School

My friend Elizabeth says I have fairy dust—meaning, that I seem to have a knack for sprinkling some magic in my life and making my dreams come true. Other people have said similar things: "Just how did you get that opportunity?" or, "It seems that one moment I hear about you setting a goal and the next I hear you've done it."

It's funny. I usually get a little defensive when these comments come my way, especially if the person saying them doesn't know my daily life. (Elizabeth, of course, has been there every step of the way these past several years. She totally understands the sweat and the tears that go into a fairy-dusted life, so she can say that!)

But, to those who don't see my daily challenges that come with dreaming my dreams, I often want to explain that I don't experience my life the way it may seem at a distance. My fairy dust comes at a cost. What looks like fairy dust is actually heaps of unrequited desire, hard work, and long periods with little feedback from the world that my life trajectory makes much sense. I mean, I am a young, unknown writer; for many hours a week, I sit alone at my computer, writing away for me, myself, and I. Meanwhile, the world doesn't really care. I don't get a paycheck. At the end of the day, I get a few more steps forward in the direction of my dreams.

And here's my life dream—it's fairly simply, really. I want to have my life set up in a way that I get to wake up every morning, have a cup of coffee, and write for 3-4 hours. Then, I want to teach for 3-4 hours. Then, I want evenings filled with good books, people I love, and lingering dinners. And in the midst of the writing, the teaching, the being, and the loving, I want to hope and labor for a more just world (equality between men and women, economic justice, care for our earth). There you have it. In the midst of all my ideals, I really just want a daily life filled with satisfying work, financial stability, community, and creativity.

Achieving all that is not easy...not at all easy. Just to afford to be a writer requires way more risk-taking and personal growth than I could have ever predicted, because it means on one hand I have to become a business woman, and on the other hand I have to be an artist. It is hard to develop my skills in both of those worlds.

Speaking of risk-taking, Elizabeth was beside me last summer when I determined I needed to figure out a way to go on a 3–4 week writing retreat in the fall. I knew that I needed to really enter the psychological space of my book and get about 10,000 words written and figure out what this whole 2-year project was really about. But, my dream felt silly. Who can take three weeks off work—the kind of work that pays one's bills (and yes, I do that kind of work, too)—to write a book that might never be anything but a manuscript in my drawer? On the one hand, the idea of the retreat felt so luxurious, and on the other hand, I was terrified. Three weeks of just writing? Three weeks of wrestling my inner critic? 

But, as it happened, Elizabeth and I went camping on Lopez Island last August, and I decided that Lopez was the place I simply had to be in fall of 2008 for my new imagined writing retreat.  I had pictured the details perfectly in my mind: the strawberry scones from Holly B's Bakery for breakfast, afternoon walks by the water for inspiration, long hours in the village library spent drafting my chapters. During the camping trip, I put up advertisements  ("Looking for Walden" was the title on my flyer). I chatted it up with the people at the local market. I even emailed churches and individuals all over the San Juans trying to find a reasonable place to rent anywhere in the islands. 

No one ever wrote me back, which is a curious thing in retrospect. Elizabeth says she is pretty sure angels were guarding the door.

I ended up going to Boston for that writing retreat (thanks to a surprisingly cheap plane ticket and Holly hooking me up with a lovely place to housesit). And before I left Seattle, I was unreasonably frightened. It did not feel easy at all to do this trip. If Lopez for 3 weeks felt crazy, flying across the country just to nurture my writing felt even crazier. 

While in Boston writing this book on gender and spirituality, I ended up spending one glorious day in a Harvard library doing research and looking at manuscripts of the feminists of the history books. I couldn't believe the resources available at an institution like that. Eventually, I had a few conversations that led me to look at the programs at Harvard Divinity School. I proceeded to fall head over heels for the classes they offer in gender studies.

But, as things go, I applied to another school, too: Yale Divinity School. Which was a good thing, because I didn't get into HDS, but YDS has been kind enough to offer me a full scholarship  in their gender studies program. So, I am overjoyed for where I get to be this fall, and yet...it's been an adjustment. There were reasons I wanted Harvard—there were classes there quite unique to my field of study that are really not the same at Yale. 

And yet...there is a reception and hospitality at Yale that is striking. And, more and more, I am finding new paths to explore at Yale that I am most excited about, like the focus on environmental issues at YDS that actually pairs brilliantly with gender studies. My path will look different at Yale—I know that—but I am getting more and more thrilled about the unknown that awaits me this fall.

All that to say,  it is always a curious thing when what you thought you wanted doesn't happen...and yet the gift you are being given is pregnant with so much possibility. Perhaps, our deepest desires are meanwhile being lived out, despite the doors that have stayed locked...in the midst of the surprising ones that are opening.

The other day, I was cleaning out my files on my desk, the antique, leather-topped one my dad bought me when I was 13 so that I could write "a great American novel" on it. While sorting through forgotten papers,  I found a crumpled up advertisement: "Looking for Walden," it read. "Young writer looking for a cabin to rent on Lopez Island...."

I gasped. 

But, I found Walden. The real one. 

While in Boston last fall, I had spent a morning walking Thoreau's Walden Pond, a small lake about 45 minutes outside of Boston. But I had never connected this walk to my original message to the universe....

My move to Connecticut this fall feels something like this—mysterious and inspiring and unpredictable— and deeply connected to the desires that have been gestating in me.

Thank you to those of you who have been part of this journey of getting me there. I am more and more convinced that dreams are born from supportive communities, for an individual cannot live her dreams alone. Achieving life goals takes hard work and lots and lots of love from family and friends...and I will concede, perhaps some fairy dust to mix with the love and the sweat.