I am thinking tonight about Clarion. I am thinking about the words we write and the things they render tangible, and I am thinking about the crying of the gulls at night. 

During our last week on campus there was a juvenile seagull that was learning to fly. I would see it flap unsurely—a little too fast, not yet trusting its velocity—from Kaleidoscope to the adjacent rooftop and back again, returning with a cry of guttural joy to its watchful, waiting parents. It was still gray, still mottled with youth. I am not making this up. As we were leaving Clarion, as we were packing our things, as we were quietly resisting those final and unremarkable hours, a bird was flying for the very first time. It must have been born while we were there. 

I am thinking about the melody of Shingai laughing and speaking at the same time, and I am thinking about the first night we met and how I didn’t know how to say “I love you already” and said instead “I like your earring,” and then realized that it was two earrings. I am thinking about the eucalyptus trees, and Thea walking in them, and bending back her head to look at them. I am thinking about the night that Anna-Claire and I had the conference room to ourselves and watched a movie and painted our nails and decided that we would be friends for life. I am thinking about Theodora folded into one of those four gray armchairs with her laptop on her knees and I am thinking about the moment we discovered our mutual attachment to “Against Pollution.” I am thinking about Stefen moving down the steep cliffs to Blacks Beach without hesitation, like he understood the language that the earth spoke and was speaking it back. I am thinking about the afternoon that Mary told me about berries that I didn’t know existed, and how struck I was, not for the first time, by all the beautiful things that Mary knows. I am thinking about driving back to campus with Ginny and learning how she fell in love. I am thinking about André singing in the conference room late one night when he didn’t realize that I was outside to hear it, and I am thinking about the few moments that I listened, and trusted that the ocean was there even though I couldn’t see it, and marveled at how a voice could sound so clear and so precious. I am thinking about the meal that Sam cooked for us, just because he could, just because he wanted to. I am thinking about how Robin always made sure that there was milk in the fridge, and how he stayed behind during the (minor!) fire to make sure everyone else got out first. I am thinking about watching Repo Man with Bob, and how when his favorite lines were spoken he would say them too, exactly timed, and how I was even able to say one or two with him. I am thinking about being hungry and tired and eating veggie burgers with Alyssa (and Andy and Lucy and the dogs), comparing tattoos, feeling for the first time in a month like the ground underneath me was steady. I am thinking about Andrew telling me his favorite Poirot mysteries. I am thinking about Chelsea driving us to the bookstore, and the comfort of her car, and the music playing quietly, and her hand on the wheel. I am thinking about walking up that unreal hill with Ryan, exhausted but enjoying his company too much to slow down, and I am thinking about how when I had to stop for a bit I told him that he didn’t have to wait for me but he waited anyway. I am thinking about sitting next to Matt on movie nights and the way that they’d say “great shot” about all the shots that I thought were great. I am thinking about watching the cottontails with Niv. 

I am thinking about these things even when I don’t plan or expect to think about them; I am thinking about them when I wash a plate or put a bagel in the toaster or open the dryer or pick a sock up off the floor: Clarion is sewn into my mind the same as walking, the same as childhood. It is there with the motions of living. I am thinking about these things to keep them real, but even if I am not thinking about them they are still real. All that is to say I miss my friends. All that is to say I love writing. All that is to say I loved writing with them. All that is to say I remember.

Thank you for the food and thank you for the ride and thank you for the shampoo and thank you for the pen and thank you for the milk and thank you for the coffee and thank you for the Oreos and thank you for staying up with me and thank you for listening to me and thank you for waiting for me and thank you for checking on me and thank you for letting me touch the sea cucumber first and thank you for printing tomorrow’s stories for me and thank you for jump-starting my car battery. If I could hug you one more time I would. If I could take my heart and press it up to your heart so that you could feel how glad I am that I met you I would. If your car battery ever needs a jump I will come and do it.

Today I swore that I could smell rain coming. Tomorrow I am picking my friend up from the airport. And in exactly two weeks it will be October.

And Shingai won the Ignyte Award for Best Novella.

Here is a terrible secret: I wrote one of the two stories I submitted to Clarion in the 48 hours before the deadline, under the influence of gastrointestinal distress. My rationale was that it would provide a well-rounded picture of me as a writer if I shared one story that I’d been polishing the minutia of for three years, and one story that I spat out in a state of delirium: something raw, unpolished, and lacking such stale conventions as “plot” and “narrative momentum.” It made a lot of sense at the time. I remember clicking the submit button and immediately going to sleep. It was an overcast San Francisco day, I was jobless and aimless, and because I’d spent more time writing than showering I probably smelled pretty bad. For the past two months my brain had been a feedback loop of two sentiments: the sedate and self-defeating There’s No Way This Will Happen and the desperate animal-like But I Want It I Want It I Want It. To want something without knowing what it means makes for a heavy load. It felt good to put it down: to leave the wanting and the happening up to fate.

The thing is—the thing is. (And this is the miracle, the incommunicable, the creation myth.) The thing is, it did happen. The thing is, I got what I wanted. The thing is, fate looked at the collection of little stones and dried flowers I’d put at her feet and said, “Eh, you know what? Sure.” I never wake up early, but for reasons still unknown to me I woke up early on March 16. On my phone, there was an email. In the email, there was Congratulations on your admission. I thought my heart was going to come out my nose. I was really convinced that this was possible. I was the only one awake in the apartment. I can’t remember the first person I told. My friend Meg, maybe.

And the thing is. March 16 was also, coincidentally, the day that the San Francisco Department of Public Health had issued a shelter in place order due to concerns about the novel coronavirus. I remember two of my roommates rushed out to do laundry.

That was two years ago.

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