Dear Linc,

At the end of my monthlong residency at the Vermont Studio Center back in 2009, the writer Bernadette Esposito and I shared a farewell embrace. Then she pulled away and, regarding me with a gravity in her eyes that I had never before seen during that entire stay, she advised me: “Don’t burn out too soon.”

I think about that from time to time. I’ve taken it personally, close to my heart, as I do with even the littlest things; and I’ve also considered it with a grain of salt, wondering if, after all, it was not a comment reserved exclusively for me but something that she said to everyone at the end of the residency. Have a nice summer, except that this was in the winter.

As I head off to work in the next few minutes, I am launching a stretch of days in which something is scheduled in my calendar for each day. Whether it is an event, a task, or time spent with other people, my calendar has exploded for the next two weeks. This is a blessing and a curse; a blessing because I get to be deeply involved in the world, and a curse for someone who is a natural loner. Every free moment I get to myself will be reserved exclusively, even aggressively, for myself. This may sometimes mean that, if I’m with other people, I may become sullen and deeply introspective. And in the rare hours when I have nothing officially scheduled, I may retreat to a corner or whatever empty space is handy, book in tow. (I always have a book with me. Whenever I go to The Ballpark, the ushers who check my bag consistently tease me about going in with a book. It has happened all the time, for every game, and I’ve been to lots. “No reading in the ballpark,” they joke to me, and the thing is, the joke never gets old. That is how much I love the ushers, The Ballpark, the game.)

I’m 29 years old, an age that has simultaneously left me feeling left behind, feeling accomplished, old, and young. In fact, there are times when I feel like I am too young to feel burned out. The cliche “old soul” has sometimes been applied to me, to which I counter, silently, that one is only as old as one feels. Whatever the case, Linc, I’m both excited and overwhelmed by the next two weeks. To balance this duality, I ground myself with happy memories — the World Series, for example. October has always been my favorite month, with its falling temperatures and autumnal shades, but the World Series made that time so much better. I also have music. Singing to one’s self, the ability to recall some prior ditty, is a quality and skill we all possess, but I cling to the notion that it is an exclusive trait that I inherited from Pop. My childhood was filled with renditions of Nat King Cole, Elvis, even The Carpenters, and the memory in my head is of Pop singing or humming while doing dishes. A good song will keep me grounded when I feel overwhelmed; so will imagining that I am again seven years old, wandering into the kitchen as Pop stands at the sink and then spots me, the song fading, and asks, “Did you eat already, anak?”

In these next two weeks, if I’m singing to myself, it ain’t because I’m breaking, though rarely have I ever felt whole, even when my calendar is full.

Joe