Who Says You Can’t Go Home Again?

I spent the last month at Ledig House, an international writing residency. For those of you who don’t know, writing residencies are retreats where writers go to get away from it all and focus on their work.  As with much else in life, there is a hierarchy of residences.  The least desirable ones are the ones that make you pay, next are the ones that give you free housing but no food, and the most coveted are the ones that give you free housing and meals.

Before Ledig, I’d only done one residency, at Hedgebrook.  Hedgebrook was wonderful, but since I was there a month before I started my MFA program, I don’t think I appreciated the whole “time away” to work on your book aspect of it like I do now.  Ledig is unique because of the international aspect—for my last two weeks there, I was the only American.  I met writers from Denmark, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland and Catalonia (do not make the mistake, as I did, of calling a Catalonian Spanish!).  I thoroughly enjoyed hearing what the writers found amusing about America—the signs along the road saying “Adopt-a-Highway,” for example, as well as the obsession in America over proposals (When will he propose?  How will he propose?  What ring will he propose with?  What do I do if he doesn’t propose?), which, according to the Swiss writer who lives in Paris, is also spreading to France, where there is a now a proposal-consultation agency for Frenchmen who want to make sure their proposals live up to the (American?) dream.

Most residencies, particularly in America, are in beautiful, natural settings, but what writers really compare them by is the food.  The food at Ledig was great, especially from Sunday-Thursday, when our lovely chef Rita cooked up gourmet meals in the kitchen.  It’s interesting how one’s perspective changes during a residency.   You start out being grateful for the mere fact that you’re even getting a free, home-cooked meal, but by the end, not only do you come to expect a great, home-cooked meal to be served promptly and with two sides, you also expect it to be followed by a delicious dessert, and when it’s time to leave, the idea of returning to a world where you have to figure out your own meals has become rather painful one.

Ledig is in Ghent, NY, on the grounds of Art Omi, a sculpture park and international arts center, and it is also close to where I grew up.  I spent most of my early years wanting to leave the Catskill, NY environs and here I was, willingly returning.  Ledig is 15 minutes away from Hudson, NY, which is across the river from Catskill.  When I was growing up, there was nothing much to do in Hudson except go to the movies.  There were a few antique stores on Warren Street, which of course I never went to.   Now, Warren Street is lined with ridiculously expensive antique stores, hip restaurants, art galleries, cafes, clothing boutiques and a great wine store.

This story pretty much sums up the new Hudson—there’s an old-school diner on Warren Street that looks straight out of the 50s.  Some of the writers wanted to go there before they left so they could have the quintessential American diner experience.  So one Sunday morning, we pile in the car and go to the diner, only to walk in and discover that the diner is no longer a greasy spoon but an upscale restaurant serving food made with artisanal cheeses and organic produce and grass-fed meat and is the first restaurant in the USA to be certified Animal Welfare approved (though not quite what we were expecting, it was still very good).

Warren Street is also now home to a particular kind of hipsters, sporting ZZ Top-esque facial hair and self-important frowns (apparently if  these hipsters smile at strangers the can of PBR in their hands might implode).  They are mainly musicians, and Hudson now boasts a thriving live-music scene, with shows and open mics pretty much every night of the week.  Many of the musicians also hula-hoop, and there is, apparently, a hula-hooping night at one of the music venues.  The hipsters, one of the art gallery owners told me, are a recent phenomenon.

However, the Hudson renaissance is pretty much limited to Warren Street—go just one or two blocks and it’s the old Hudson I used to know with decrepit houses and the occasional crack den.  On the one hand, it’s wonderful to have so much more art and culture—one night, we went attended a reading featuring Gary Shteyngart and Paul La Farge (both of whom were super smart and funny—my favorite combination), and Jim Jarmusch was in attendance.  On the other hand, it’s a little disconcerting to see the demarcation between rich Warren Street and poor Hudson, and it sometimes feels like a bit of an artifice.  That said, I would have loved to have some art galleries and live music when I was growing up.  I can just imagine my dorky, four-eyed, awkward 13 year-old self standing outside one of the galleries, wistfully watching black-clad New York transplants drinking wine at an art opening and thinking to myself, one day, I want to be cool and attend art openings.   Little would that self-conscious 13-year-old self have imagined that, flash-forward 20 or so years later, she would be doing a reading at an art opening in Hudson.

Just as Hudson has changed, so has my relationship to it.  I used to pray to Allah to get me the hell out of Catskill, NY, and there I was at Ledig, biking around country lanes and happily hanging out on Warren Street.

My next residency begins in a week.  It’s at Millay Colony, just a few miles from Ledig, and I’ll no doubt be visiting Hudson again.  So here is an apple cider toast to upstate New York autumns, and to creating new memories in places you once hoped only to forget.