If you are around my age, you might remember stepping out of a movie theater, blinking in the bright Spring sun, and trying to wrap your brain around the fact that Han Solo had been frozen in Carbonite. You might recall struggling with the knowledge that it would be a long time before you knew whether he lived or died.
Back in 1980, when The Empire Strikes Back was a first run film, my parents were freshly divorced, I had a new stepmother, a bad perm, a mouthful of braces, and oh, so many questions. I thought a lot about Han Solo — I wondered what his skin felt like; whether that skin was deteriorating under the weight of the Carbonite. I thought about his hands and how they were frozen, palm out in protest.
It wasn’t until recently that I wondered whether Han Solo’s brain had stayed active. I wondered whether, after a period of justifiable freak-out, he might have found a little peace in his stasis. Maybe, just maybe, the stillness provided a nice counterpoint to his hand-to-mouth galaxy hustle and the near constant upkeep of the Millennium Falcon.
I found this little Han Solo while digging around in the garage last week and I decided to take his reappearance as a sign from the universe. (These signs are, as always, open to broad interpretation.) I’ve been running around a lot, but also feeling kind of stuck. It’s darn near the end of January and I still don’t feel as if I’ve officially started the year. Whatever that means. Maybe it was the rain or the relentlessly bad news, but in these last weeks, I been feeling the need to be quieter and slower than I have been in a long time.
All around me, the world is compensating for my slowed pace. Some of my neighborhood trees have begun to bud and the succulents outside my office window have (in what seems like no time at all) sent up triangular sprays of bright yellow flowers. They draw tiny hummingbirds with iridescent red throats.
I’ll be spending the next four weeks as a writer in residence at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. I’ve got a suitcase full of sweaters and a suitcase full of pages and I have no idea what’s going to happen.
I’ve been working on this book for ages.
I waited three years for Han Solo to escape the Carbonite. During that time, it’s possible to imagine that the wait only added to to the pleasure of seeing him free.
Such beautiful writing! You timed your residency well--and what a sweet little town it is in. xo
Mazel Tov, Tanya, on your residency. Space and quiet. So delicious.
I imagine the sap moving in your branches and tiny buds
filling in their own mysterious time.
Love
Helena