Hi friends,
I’m glad to be back writing to you all. After last time’s several month layoff from this letter I thought it would be good to try to come back with something smaller and more regular. Sometimes this Substack feels like the homie who you only talk to once or twice a year and thus you only ever give them the big highlights of your life. I’m not mad at big highlights but I suppose having a more regular record opens up a different kind of possibility. We’ll see how it goes. No promises.
Later today I head to Ann Arbor, Michigan for a brief residency with my artistic collective, Dark Noise. I’m excited to be back in Ann Arbor for a few days. It’s been some years since I visited and this will be the longest stretch I’ve spent in the town since I moved away in 2015. It will also be special to spend time there with Dark Noise (Aaron Samuels, Fatimah Asghar, Danez Smith, Jamila Woods, Franny Choi, and my bum a**). We first formed as a collective in late 2012, which was also during my first semester in graduate school at Michigan and so for me these two institutions are irrevocably linked. I told a friend recently that Dark Noise are my most enduring friendships from the time of grad school, and so it’s special to revisit that site with them (also we’ve never ALL gathered together in Ann Arbor).
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about grad school. I think in part because it’s been a decade since that time. Also, I’m on fellowship this year and so my days are largely my own to shape. The last time I had an extended period where that was this true was in graduate school. I went to UM straight from undergrad and I remember when I first got there being struck by how much time I had. I know this isn’t everyone’s experience of graduate school but for me it was essentially taking half the courses as I had taken the year prior and going from having multiple campus leadership responsibilities to just being a student.
Let me try to encapsulate what my habits were my first year of grad school:
An incomplete list of grad school habits
I went to the gym twice a week
I watched college football on mute while writing
I drank too much (probably 4-5 nights a week)
I got dressed and sat at the kitchen table to write poems
I ate the same foods repeatedly (fish, mixed greens, rice, boiled eggs, apples, Noodles & Co. lunch)
I went to the Hopwood Room and the visiting writers series on Thursdays
On Fridays I would get a rental car from Fleet Services and drive to Detroit to teach. I’d keep the car over the weekend and grocery shop or do random tasks
Went to 8 Ball after workshop with my cohort
I’d walk to and from campus a mile everyday and listen to music.
I read a book a week. Usually a poetry book that I’d read Monday mornings before workshop that evening.
I’d go to Sava’s and order a drink called The Skywalker and occasionally a lobster BLT if it was happy hour and I could afford it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this because I have been trying to remember what work habits I took up then and how they served me while I was writing a lot of the work that would become my first book. I’ve been thinking about how to tap into similar energies that I had available to me in the past with making words and so I am curious what visiting the site will do for me.
I suppose in the spirit of these musings I have a few questions for you all:
When and under what conditions do you do your best work?
What habits do you practice surrounding work?
We often talk about what we would tell a younger version of ourselves but I’m more interested in the opposite. What do you have to learn from your previous selves?
(I use work broadly so it could mean your job or a creative endeavor or passionate hobby)
Feel free to send me reflections personally or to post them as a comment.
Peace,
Nate
PS.