I flew back from Santa Fe to New Hampshire yesterday after one glorious month of putting the focus of my life entirely on my creative practice. While at the Santa Fe Art Institute, I met enormously creative practitioners who know how to create intimate worlds with experimental dance and video, make indigenous art with caribou hair, produce delicious meals with cricket flour and grasshopper salt, and build a pure, contemplative site installation made solely from peacock feathers and pins.

Credit: Rodrigo G. de San Martín (RSM) — Credit: Rodrigo G. de San Martín (RSM)

I have become one of them. Inspired by them all, I have found ways to add to my writing practice through the sheer joy of talking about art together. And in this extraordinary melting pot of creativity, I've set my words to a new course. I am no longer content with completing my first novel or writing more poetry, which, of course, I will. Now, my words will be part of collaborations: Rodrigo will be setting my poetry to music, Autumn will be choreographing the syllables of my work and performing a poem through dance. And Marie and Hye will use my words as part of a gallery exhibit about the lure of southern New Mexico.

As I contemplate the days ahead, it is difficult to imagine returning to the 9-to-5 life, but return I will. Bill paying, mail sorting, grocery shopping, dentist appointments, and all the other mundane tasks of an average life are waiting. It may be a hard re-entry. But it will be the right one. Utopias cannot last forever. But they can enlighten, enrich, and inspire. Today, I start the new journey of weaving this extraordinary experience into my daily life -- to create an art practice as essential as food, shelter, and clothing. It's time. Wish me luck.