A Day on Monhegan with Natalie Goldberg
by Meg Weston
The best-selling author of Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg was our first invitational month-long Writer-in-Residence at the Millay House Rockland (MHR) in August 2024. Invited by the MHR board to bring visibility to our Writer-in-Residence program, she generously offered two readings, one at the Farnsworth on August 5, and one on The Poets Corner over Zoom, as well as a radio interview on WRFR-LP Rockland. She signed books at the Arctic Tern bookstore on Main Street Rockland. She also came to “DRAFT,” Toad Hall’s Open Mic event held on the second Monday of each month at Hey Sailor in Searsport, where she read from her new work in progress.
At the Farnsworth and on The Poets Corner, she read from her most recent book Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice. One excerpt shared how her mother would call her “Nat- lee” unless she was upset, and then it had three syllables “Nat-a-lie.” As I grew to know her this summer month, I thought of her more and more as Nat-lee.
Natalie knew a lot about Millay, having assigned her students to read the biography Savage Beauty. By the time she left, she was referring to Millay as “Edna” as if she was one of her Jewish family members from Brooklyn where Natalie grew up. Living now in New Mexico, when she told her friends why she was coming to Maine, many of them had never heard of Millay. During the month in Rockland she heard from friends and students about how much Millay’s life story and poetry had meant in their lives. She told me, “I think it’s important what we’re doing here. Preserving the legacy of Millay.”
Our trip to Monhegan
I’m on the ferry to Monhegan with Nat-lee. Many people don’t know that she’s a painter as well as a writer, and studies art. She knows Monhegan Island from paintings she’s familiar with, and she’s eager to see it with her own eyes. Despite an early-morning downpour, the sun is out, and the ocean is smooth as glass for our crossing. The captain calls out to look off the port side of the boat, and we catch a glimpse of a Minke whale. I’d been out to Monhegan many times over the years, yet this is the first time I’ve seen a whale. It’s an auspicious start for our day-long adventure.
Our first stop after the ferry docks is the Monhegan Lighthouse Museum to take in an exhibition of the group, Women Artists of Monhegan. I know one or two of the artists, but Natalie knows all about many more of them. We spend an hour admiring their art and imagination, the grit of these women who banded together to help women painters achieve recognition and sales on a par with what male artists received.
We sit on a granite bench to eat our packed picnic lunches, overlooking the cemetery and the village, the harbor, and Manana Island. The sun sparkles on the water. She tells me that one of the reasons she’s been so dedicated to teaching is to help women know that their voices matter, that they can write.
After lunch we set off on a hike to the cliffs of Whitehead on the other side of the island. As we consult the map, trying to determine if we are headed in the right direction, I warn Natalie that I have no sense of direction. Forewarned, she takes charge of the map. The day is hot, and the path crisscrossed and knotted with roots. A sign warns of Poison Ivy. She asks whether she should be worried about ticks. She steps carefully over the roots. Hiking through the pine forests on an island in Maine is a different experience than hiking in the open lands of New Mexico. When we reach the cliffs, she smiles with childlike wonder at the ocean waves crashing below and at the seagulls circling overhead. Then she notices a strange bird rolling around in the dirt. And then there’s a baby bird ducking into the tall grasses to hide. I think it’s a pheasant. We have to step carefully around it to get back to the path without disturbing the pheasant’s dirt bath. We look at the trail map and decide to take the route to Burnt Head and then cut back across to the village, but we end up back on the trail we had already taken. I am lost but she figures it out when we see the Poison Ivy sign again. I shrug, it’s an island, how lost can you get?
On the boat ride home, a family of three young boys are singing sea shanties and do a sea-shanty dance with imaginary swords. Natalie takes notes now and then throughout the day. I wonder what she is writing now, and if our Monhegan trip and the Millay house will appear in her next book, the one she’s been working on during her month-long residency here.
This is our intent at the Millay House—to provide writers, both emerging and established, a space to be creative, to develop their voice, and to be inspired by Millay’s legacy. We want them to take the time to get lost and to find their way. This month with Nat-lee reminds me that what we’re creating at the Millay House is important work.
