Story without Beginning or End

I have a hard time knowing if I am at the beginning or end of something. I wish it wasn’t so important to me. I look out the window and watch the bluebirds live and preen in springtime. They don’t seem to care whether spring is early or late, and what that portends for the future. They don’t seem to know or need to know that the young they raise this spring are just another revolution of the cycle. Some might argue otherwise—that the bird is aware of its pattern of nest-building and egg-laying and young-feeding, that most actors in nature have an awareness of their ability to procreate on a schedule. But I think there’s something equally marvellous in the lack of awareness of the bluebird. What if it just does what it does without thinking about it? What is a thought to the bird but an obstacle between itself and the world?

One clear beginning: the first applications for the inaugural celium workshop & residency have been coming in. This is a 9-month online workshop starting in September, followed by a 5-day residency in June 2027 on a retired farm in New Hampshire. I am sitting at the dining table of said farm as I write this, a few days out from the summer solstice—another revolution soon to be fulfilled. If we’ve talked in person even briefly over the last few years, I probably rambled on to you some version of what is taking place now as this residency.

The celium workshop & residency is many things. An inversion of the typical low-res MFA workshop model, where we take our time with workshop in the virtual space and reserve the in-person time for the important work of relating, being, and coming together. It’s an attempt to connect across time and space on a human scale with other humans and non-humans. It’s also a fulfillment of a long-term goal of mine to host writers in a place that nourished me through my early years as a writer and as a trans person. I had the privilege in my early twenties of recuperating from top surgery here in the library. I gay married the love of my life surrounded by family on the back porch. I’ve been graced by the dragonflies landing on my scars in June. I’ve watched the meadow fill with animals both domestic and not, large and small, in all seasons, and then empty again into a high-noon quiet. I gathered with and learned from the many writers in my family on long summer afternoons here. My one hope with celium is to be able to share these privileges and experiences with others who haven’t had this same opportunity.

I still feel like I’m groping in the dark for a thread to pull into the future. I’m still beset by anxieties that I’m doing this somehow wrong, even though there is no template to follow when creating something that doesn’t yet exist. Even though it’s inadvisable, in the interest of full transparency, here are a few of the questions running through my head these last months:

what if i describe it wrong?

what if i reveal more about myself than i want online?

what if no one wants to come?

what if everyone wants to come?

what if i’ve bitten off more than i can chew?

what if uncertainty is the place i’m meant to dwell?

That last one is the most anxiety-inducing. What if beginning and ending are not markers in time but false summits? What if time is a circle, as I think people smarter than me have affirmed, and I’m just inside it making the best choices I can? If that’s the case, then that means I am both at the end of something and at the beginning of something new simultaneously. The stories I’ve read have ill prepared me for this. I’m hoping we can write some new ones together.

Applications for the celium workshop & residency will remain open until July 31, and responses will be sent shortly thereafter. There are limited scholarships available, and if you’d like to apply for one, please do so by July 6. If you have any questions about the workshop or this process, I hope you’ll reach out, either in the comments below or via email.

As always, thank you for reading, both here and on my personal blog, where I write more frequently.

In solidarity,

Cal

BTW: After taking most of last year off from publishing new fiction, I’m very happy to share a new story published online last month by the very generous surely mag. You can read “Compounding Pharmacy” here.