Staring at Water Towers

Notes from my office, running into the Matriarchy Report's Lane Anderson, and aren't books so cool?

Photo by Trinity Treft on Unsplash

Before we get to water towers, I’m looking to work with one or two more people this fall. I call myself the “Writing Boss” and mostly what I do is get you writing, keep you writing, and make sure you finish writing projects. Last year, I helped a client finish a whole first draft of a novel. I also can do quicker edits and revision feedback on smaller pieces if you need them. If you decide to work with me, I design special prompts for you and give you feedback between sessions. I work in almost every genre—poetry, essays, novels, short stories, dissertations, journal articles, and artist statements. Even more recently, I help folks finish non-writing projects. I just bossed (kindly and gently) someone into organize and filing their taxes—a project that had vexed them for months. We laughed a lot while doing it!

DM me here or send me an email through my Writing Boss page if you’re interested. To start, I offer a free fifteen-minute zoom consultation to see if we’d be a good fit for each other.

It’s mid-September and so I’m settling into the semester. My students are really keen and lovely so far, and eager to read and write together. I’m sure this will change as we all get exhausted and overwhelmed, but I’m grateful for the ways they are showing up already.

Yesterday, I ran into (like in person and we got to hug and chat for a whole 15 minutes!) Lane Anderson who has created, curated, and written so many brilliant essays over at the Matriarchy Report. If you’re not reading Matriarchy Report, you should head on over there right after you hit the heart button on this post. So many great essays and data about mothering in the US and how it shapes us all—mothers and not mothers alike.

I’m writing this post from my campus office, which has a really big window. I am so lucky to have this window. I have been in this particular job, Clinical Professor of Writing and Critical Creative Production for 23 years, though when I started I had a different title and an office mate. I had another windowless office (standard in my program) for almost ten or more years (really, what is time lately and how to remember when things began and ended) that was not much bigger than a closet and had what I often referred to as the Brazil door—a locked door to nowhere on the side of my desk. One day I hoped Robert DiNero would come through and save me from my emails.

Now I stare out the window at the water towers that are on top of the buildings on Lafayette Street in Manhattan. I love water towers. I’d never seen them until I moved to New York. Some very light Googling tells me that their design is simple—mostly cedar wood planks held together by steel hoops. Buildings taller than six stories need pumps and water towers to store their water because gravity cannot push it up any further. Who knew?! Not me.

Why are they so pleasing to look at though? They remind me of the silos of my childhood. I grew up in small upstate town, but most of the surrounding land was farms. My great-grandfather, Yngve Harner, had a farm, where my mom spent much of her childhood, picking peas and feeding mink. Yes, he raised mink for mink coats and stoles, and no, the mink were not happy about it.

Photo by Michael Hamments on Unsplash

My mom has many hilarious and strange farm stories, but one is of falling into a silo and having a very hard time getting out. The water towers looks like shorter, squatter versions of silos and they are rural seeming objects on top of urban buildings. I like that juxtaposition. A little farm on top of city.

Water towers have domed tops like witches hats or tea pots lids. I can’t explain why this appeals to me but it does. Maybe it’s something about a triangular shape on top of a tubular shape or a toy-like feeling (spinning tops!), or that tea pots are very cute and have tea in them which is a nice treat. Not to be so weirdly gendering of objects, but tea pots feel very feminine to me while water towers feel more masculine or nonbinary. But please know dear water towers that you are any gender you wish to be, and I’m just riffing and killing time between office hours and seeing a writing boss client.

I also love water towers because they are such an old invention and they look like they come from another era (they do, the late 1800s) and still they work. I like an old thing on top of a newer thing, or old and new mixed together.

Water tower silhouettes look lovely against the sky, and they mark the skyline in ways that feel particular to New York. They also remind me of little saunas, and wouldn’t it be cool if every roof top had a sauna on it? We can dream, can’t we?

If you want to go deeper (heh) with water towers, I really loved this article, “New York City Water Towers: How They Work” by Michelle Young.

In other news my debut poetry book is now officially out. It’s called Heart Less, and you can get a copy here or at McNally Jackson Seaport starting Friday at 6:30 because I’m going to launch it officially there at the wine bar with WINE and also NOT WINE. If you Kickstarted it (thank you forever and ever), my publisher Michael Broder is sending them out this week after I sign them so sit tight and keep a look out in your mailbox. Isn’t it fun to get book mail?

Oh, and if you didn’t know I have also written four other books. They are well-reviewed and beloved by many dear readers, and always looking to be discovered by new readers. The Not Wives, Panpocalypse, 16 Pills, and The Stalker Chronicles.

Lastly, thrill of thrills I organized my book shelves and then sold a bunch of books because I always have too many books, but don’t worry I never sell the books you’ve written because you are you, and I need your books close to me. But aren’t books the coolest things? They have beautiful art projects on the cover and then a whole world that someone created just for you or me on the inside. Each book a little dreamed up world!!

Maybe that sounds like a stoner thought and I definitely have those sometimes, but I was stone cold sober for that one and I stand by it. Here’s my bookcase all tidied up and with so many perfect worlds and alluring covers, all made by writers. Not AI. Not so far anyway.

I really am a grouch about AI these days, but wow it’s so dumb and not at all performing the way they thought it would. I enjoy this semi-failure though everyone tells me I’ll have to give in eventually. I will I guess.

Enjoy the typos!

xoxo

Carley