A Sort of Sea-Feeling: On Being the Writer-in-Residence at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead
I am not easily “whelmed,” let alone overwhelmed. As a lifelong Northeasterner and an international traveler since the age of eight, hard-headedness and enough curiosity to kill an entire colony of cats are baked into my DNA. So while I was excited by the prospect of being the summer 2020 Writer-in-Residence at Arrowhead, the historic home of Herman Melville, and the program’s first travel writer, I was certain that working in Herman’s office would feel pretty much like any other work-at-home-day—which is most days for me.
The main of the hour. He’s a handsome devil, don’t you think? 
On my first day of the residency, I couldn’t resist a selfie with “Moby-Dick.” (The tiny card table in front of the antique desk is where I actually worked; thanks to the pandemic, I wasn’t allowed to touch any of the historic pieces in the house.) 
A replica of a letter written by Herman Melville.
But once I sat in Herman’s study, looking out at the same view of Mount Greylock that is reputed to have inspired Moby-Dick, I felt an inexplicable connection. To a man who, like his most famous narrator, was “tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.” To a writer who often struggled with the reality of working in a profession where rejection is more common than publication. To a giant of American literature who used this landscape as a comfort and as a muse, and once wrote to a friend:
“I have a sort of sea-feeling here in the country now that the ground is covered in snow. I look out my window in the morning when I rise as I would out of a port-hole of a ship in the Atlantic. My room seems a ship’s cabin; & at nights when I wake up & hear the wind shrieking, I almost fancy there is too much sail on the house, & I had better go on the roof & rig in the chimney.”
My time at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead was like a voyage on this ship. Even on days when the words didn’t flow as freely, I still had the sense that I was going somewhere, learning something new, becoming better at my craft. The residency afforded me the unfettered creative time writers so often lack, as we spend hours creating pitches, sending them to publications, and dealing with the inevitable follow-ups and rejection. For the first time since I was on college summer breaks, I had nowhere to be and nothing to do but write.
The fireplace is one of my favorite spots in Arrowhead. 
Another angle of the inscribed fireplace at Arrowhead, with excerpts from Herman Melville’s “I and My Chimey.” 
Here’s a detail from the fireplace at Arrowhead. The words to his short story “I and My Chimney” are inscribed around it, and were commissioned by Herman’s brother, Allan, who also resided at Arrowhead.
As is often case for a writer—or an artist or craftsperson of any sort—I created a bunch of work during the residency, some of it not worth revisiting, and some of it I’m still shaping into pieces fit for public view. The cornerstone of my work there was “The Sea Is Calm Tonight,” a long-form travel story about revisiting my home state of Rhode Island. It turned out to be one of my proudest achievements, the kind of work that I feel such a deep connection with that if I never had the opportunity to write again, I’d still feel satisfied.
I’m in the process of submitting this story for publication. Travel publishing, like the rest of the tourism industry, has been knocked on its rear by the pandemic, and placing stories has been a challenge this year. I’ll keep you posted on its progress.
And as I keep refining old work and creating new stories, I’ll keep Herman’s indelible spirit of adventure with me.
