Rewriting the Book
A few days in Oklahoma relit my writing fire and cosmic connections
I’m inexperienced in being unemployed. I didn’t have a job during my first semester of college, and I took off almost 10 months in 1999 when I moved to St. Louis. That time was spent adjusting to a city where I knew one person, cohabitating with a partner for the first time, planning our wedding, and having crippling depressive episodes until I started culinary school in January 2000.
A few days before my Jack White shows, I realized that Kansas City is only a four-hour drive. Having nothing but time and a severance package on my hands, I decided to spend a few days in Tulsa. It had been a few years since I’d gone there without having work obligations. And since one of my unemployment goals was to rewrite my Woody Guthrie book-length manuscript, the timing was just right.
Once settled into my favorite Airbnb in Tulsa, I took off for Okemah—Woody Guthrie’s hometown, about an hour and a half away. A tiny town on indigenous land, Okemah seems like any other Midwestern small town, except with a giant looming in the air. At the risk of being the woo-woo girl, there’s a cosmic spark in the air that I feel when I’m in Okemah. It could just be from knowing I’m putting my feet where his once walked. Or the decades of music birthed in the town, not only from Woody but also from his pilgrims.
That day, cats kept finding me. Woody was a fan of felines, and clearly, I am, too, what with having one named for Mr. Guthrie. The first cat was a ginger I spotted while walking in Okemah. The second was sitting in my driveway when I returned to my place. They probably aren’t omens, or vessels the ghost of Guthrie uses to traverse his old stomping grounds.
A coffeehouse had recently opened on the same downtown block as Woody’s statue, the perfect place to spend the day breaking chapters into pieces, reassembling them, and throwing away their crumbs.
And that’s what I did all week. Of course, I stopped by the Woody Guthrie Center and Bob Dylan Center to visit friends both earthly and spiritual.
I got to see an anthology that features three of my poems on display at the Guthrie Center, which is a great way to get excited about a huge writing project.
Mostly, I sat in coffeehouses and wrote. Tulsa’s an awesome place for doing that, what with having some incredible coffeehouses that vibrate with the thrum of creativity.
As I sat at Foolish Things in the shadow of Tulsa’s cathedrals, editing one of my book’s chapters about the time I spent in Salinas, California, I got a text from one of the chapter’s stars. Aware of my unemployment and having been one of the few people privy to my fears about financial security, she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: a place to live in California, in my budget, while I got back on my feet.
Fucking cats.
So I had something to keep my mind busy during the seven-hour drive back home a week after I left—Did the ghost of Woody Guthrie just orchestrate the next chapter of my life? And what should I do about that?
Eventually, I did the smart thing: accepted that maybe now isn’t the time to uproot my life. Perhaps get an income first.
No matter. Soon enough, the ghost returned with news that I should be in the Berkshires in 14 months.
Okay, Woody. Whatever you say.