I can’t write five words but that I change seven. — Dorothy Parker
The William Cabell House, aka The Porches
In the spirit of Virginia Woolf, who was a strong advocate for writing women to have “a room of one’s own,” I recently applied for a stay at a nearby writers’ retreat. Last Thursday I arrived at The Porches after an hour and a half on the road from Richmond, Virginia. Located in Norwood, The Porches (one of the Cabell houses in Nelson County) was built in 1854 and offers a warm welcome, clean rooms and all the comforts of home for writers in need of peace and quiet. What is doesn’t offer is all the stresses of home. Thank you, Trudy Hale, for renovating this lovely old farmhouse and opening it up to writers back in 2006. An inspired idea.
On the trip over, the skies were threatening. We’d been experiencing late afternoon thunder bumpers and dramatic rains this week; I hoped they wouldn’t interfere with my all-too-short (four day) writers retreat.
Road signs I saw along the way:
Barn on the way
- Voted the Best Public Storage on the Planet!
- Google doesn’t have all the answers (on a church)
- Going Out of Business Sale. Today!
On Hummingbirds
Have you ever heard the sound of a dozen hummingbirds attacking a small red sugar-water feeder? Stop thinking sweet and romantic, folks. It’s terrifying. One or two at the feeder . . . cute. But a dozen is a gang and you know how gangs behave. Territorial disputes abound. There are winners and losers. And these miniature monsters are very loud in battle. Twenty four furiously beating wings create an ominous, unearthly sound. And they fly around and at anything they think might get in their way. Like you. I’ve been buzz-bombed into the house twice now. I may have to rethink this bird business.
On Beauty
My own little writing space
I washed my hair today for the first time in three days. But we are supposed to be quiet here, so I don’t want to use the hairdryer I brought and then get yelled at. These being serious writers, I have heard no noise since arriving. Not a peep. So now my hair looks ridiculous, like Little Lulu’s, but with flippy bangs, too.
In light of this new-found naturalness, I have decided to be bold and only apply a little blush to my cheeks and, for heaven’s sake, mascara only on the upper lashes. I feel absolutely bohemian.
On Wildlife
Besides the militaristic hummingbirds, there is a lot of other wildlife here. I discovered the first of it in my shower stall at 10:30 the first night. I was wearing nothing on my feet, which always somehow makes it worse. And these things always seem more dramatic in the dark, don’t they?
Anyway, I was going to the sink for my nightly ablutions when I saw it: a bevy of beating legs attached to a 5-inch long black millipede, its rear, bow-legged pincers swinging wildly, like a caboose off its track. It was in the shower, behind the glass door, but this provided little comfort, knowing that I’d have to use very same shower in the morning. And besides, how would I ever get to sleep with this creature wriggling a mere 30 feet away?
At first I thought I could wish it away if only I did what I came to do. So I quickly washed my face and brushed my teeth. But I couldn’t go near the toilet, which was next to the shower. So, in a state of supreme bladder alertness, I realized that it was him or me. One of us would not make it through the night. I hoped it was him.
I looked around for something to kill it with. There was nothing in this very spare bathroom that would double as a poker. So I carefully reached into the shower, opening the door only a crack, found the faucet and blasted the thing with hot water. It flinched and ran around wildly, which was absolutely not my intention. The way these things move just repulses me. Besides, I realized that a lack of water was probably what brought him into the house, anyway, so this was like manna from heaven.
What was Plan B? There was no way I was going to pick the thing up and fling it into the toilet. It was HUGE, people, and extremely gross. I was beside myself. And then I saw it. My weapon of choice, on the floor behind the toilet— a green plastic bottle of Lime Away. I picked it up and, carefully opening the shower door again, blasted the thing with about a cup of toxic soup. It was not happy and soon did not have that smirk on its little bug face that it had when it was being drenched with water. It knew I was serious this time. I sprayed like a lunatic until the thing stopped moving.
When I thought it was safe, I lowered myself onto the toilet and did what I came to do, never taking my eyes off this polypodded devil. I flushed. It stopped. I opened the shower door to assess the damage and, to my horror, it moved again. (This scene was right out of one of my most terrifying theatrical experiences, Wait Until Dark. I didn’t need this right now.) I leapt back, grabbed the bottle and sprayed again, wildly, until I could spray no more. It looked still. I turned off the light and left, hoping to catch at least a few minutes of sleep.
The next morning (4 a.m. to be exact) when my bladder was at it again, I thought about going back into the bathroom to see if he was dead, had moved on, or had called in reinforcements through the drain. But there was that darkness thing again. So I waited until first light, and then slowly crept in.
My friends, do you know what Lime Away does to millipedes? It turns them red. And shrinks them in half. And makes them very, very dead. But I still had to lift the thing out of the shower and there was still nothing with which to do that. After a few minutes of feeling extremely sorry for myself, I wadded up some toilet paper, prayed that I wouldn’t feel anything, and lifted him up and into the toilet with lightning speed. I flushed. It was over. I rinsed the shower down well, not knowing what Lime Away might do to me, and took a victory shower. I had won this round.
Since then, I have killed a dozen assorted spiders and three stink bugs, seen two different varieties of lizard on the
Maizie, hard at work
porch, heard about a previous tenant’s encounter with a black snake, made friends with the dog, Maizie, who I think I would fire at this point, and ignored the dead baby bird that is resting (feet and beak up to the skies) just under my window. Oh, and I saw a deer by the barn. We encountered each other when I walked around to the side of the house; it made a startled noise, like the sound of two wood blocks clapping. Who knew? Maizie sleeps on the porch, missing it all, dreaming of belly rubs.
On Food
I don’t have to think much about meal planning here. There are microwaves for reheating and electric tea kettles on every floor. There is a full, well-equipped kitchen downstairs with three refrigerators, a small stove, a sink, a dish and cutlery cupboard and a cabinet with staples put out by Trudy and previous guests, consisting of tea, coffee, olive oil, vinegar, sugar, honey and so forth.
Here is what I brought with me:
- One package of low fat white cheddar flavored corn cakes
- A six pack of low sodium V8 juice
- An eight pack of Starbucks VIA coffee (extra bold Italian Roast flavor — I’m insane)
- 24 Mini Moos for the coffee; I should have brought 48
- A jar of organic crunchy peanut butter (exactly how big is one serving?)
- A bag of Cracker Barrel Extra Sharp Cheese Sticks, made with 2% milk
- An eight pack of Musselman’s Raspberry Acai applesauce, no sugar added
- A six pack of Kashi TLC Cherry Dark Chocolate Chewy Granola Bars
- A box of Kashi Heart to Heart Oat Flakes & Blueberry Clusters cereal
- Four Horizon Organic Reduced Fat Milk boxes for the cereal
- One bottle of Bella Sera Pinot Grigio
I could have used more wine.
On Writing
Art in the garden
But I came to write. The distractions are few, given that there’s no cell phone service and only intermittent wireless, provided by satellite. I guess dial-up was this slow, but that seems a long time ago. Anyway . . . I tell myself that I came to write, not to check my Facebook page or play Solitaire. There is a TV and some CDs and a piano downstairs, but nobody has gone near them. So we read and we write. Once in a while we go outside for air, one by one, or emerge from our rooms to gather up things for a meal.
There are only five of us here, and each has her own room. There is someone from Baltimore, who is writing about midwifery. Another from Ohio, writing her grandmother’s story. A gal from Kentucky is writing a novel. And the last one to arrive is from Charlottesville for a few days, to put the finishing touches on a young adult fantasy piece that she needs to get to an agent in a few weeks. We are all so different, and yet we have this common need to put one word in front of another and hope that it is good. We are different ages and races; we have lived in wildly different places (from Ghana and Haiti to San Diego and New York). Yet we are somehow the same in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. And we have each found that we can breathe here a little easier than we can at home, with nothing to do but read and write and think and take some simple nourishment.
Miraculously, I started writing on the very first day, outlining the piece about Verona that I am working on for Dream of Italy, Kathy McCabe’s wonderful bi-monthly love letter to the country that I am so in love with myself. It is a gift to have no outside distractions, but of course we give ourselves plenty of those, even without technology. Is Tim okay? Is he eating? Is he remembering to feed and walk Maxine? Does he notice that I’m gone? What if he doesn’t? These absurd questions roll around in my head enough so that I have to make an effort to keep them away. I laugh. It is hard to do what you need to do sometimes. I thank him silently for understanding. And then I write some more.
On Recommending
If you have a serious writing project that you can articulate to Trudy in an e-mail, by all means, apply for a residency at The Porches. She rents most typically by the week, but from time to time there are openings for short-term visitors like me. Bring your writing group here — she loves that. She also hosts writing weekends here with guest facilitators from time to time. So check out her website and give yourself a break from your daily, interruptive routine — and come to write and be in this glorious part of the world. It’s affordable and exactly what you need. Just don’t forget the Lime Away . . .
Buon viaggio!
Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…
