November 10th, 2008
I spent the first day of my writer’s residency settling into Jacqueline Mitchard’s home on Cape Cod. It was a beautiful fall day and I could see the leaves beginning to turn shades of red and orange from my bedroom window overlooking the garden.
I had ten days to write without distractions or responsibilities. My two adult daughters, ages twenty-three and twenty-four, were taking care of the house and cats. I no longer had to worry about underage drinking brawls if I was away from home. It seemed about as good as it gets.
For the first twenty-four hours everything I did was a “pinch me” moment: from writing at my desk in my cozy bedroom to walking down the streets of Brewster with my housemate, Sarah, an eighty-year old retired journalist from Wisconsin. This was her first experience, also with time alone to write. Before becoming a grandmother, she had been a working single mom like myself.
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By Marilee Stark
