Michelle Ruiz Keil, 51, author
Portland, OR
Michelle, sheltering in place with her familiar Stella, in Portland, OR
Aside from your creative work do you have any additional source of income?
I do occasional speaking and teaching gigs related to my writing but my partner is the primary source of income in our family.
Who do you live with and how do you feel about that?
I live with my partner of 30 years, my twenty-one-year-old daughter, and my best friend who splits her time between Portland and the Bay Area but who is with us for the duration of the pandemic. Also Stella, my canine familiar. All my favorite people. This is the longest stint we've done of living collectively with my bestie and it's been great. We all love her and it's really good to have another person around to shake up our house and help us find new ways of doing things. Along with being an award-winning poet, she is an expert cat-herder and has us happily doing stuff I've tried to institute for years to no avail, like a regular weekly cleaning spree and trading off cooking. Also, we're lucky to have enough space and to have already been used to working from home.
How are you spending your time?
When all this started, I had just gotten home from a writing residency at Hedgebrook. I was alone for like 21 hours a day for 18 days--something I've never done before. I arrived back in Portland on March 7th and by the next week, it was a whole different world. So I came into this time prepared for a simplified, place-based routine. At the start, I had a big project--which was awesome. My second book ( I went to Hedgebrook to complete it )got a sudden deadline extension to April 15th, so I decided to do another editing pass. It was so good to have something to obsess on! Otherwise, I've been watching a lot of TV and movies. My BFF/housemate is working on a project inspired by horror films. I am not usually a fan, but looking at these movies analytically through the lens of the race and gender has been super fascinating, if sometimes really scary! I've also done a ton of deep cleaning and more cooking than usual. We are rotating cooking nice dinners every other night, which has been great. I'm also trying to talk to family more, especially the older folks. Other than that, it's incessant audiobooks, reading the news, freaking out about reading the news, making my husband give me several grounding hugs per day, brushing the dog until she shines, gossiping about medieval royalty with my history-buff daughter, watching the birds in the feeders, obsessively playing a puzzle game on my phone, wishing weed didn't make me feel like I'm being squished in the trash compactor in the Death Star and that drinking/ cigarettes didn't give me migraines, teaching myself cat-eye liner, deciding my gray hair is hot and attempting to cut my own bangs.
How is the pandemic impacting you?
I don't know anyone who is sick but both my daughters and I are at high risk because of pre-existing conditions. It's funny because what I was working on before the pandemic was learning to live outside of emergency mode. When they were younger, my daughters' health issues were such that it felt like the other shoe was always about to drop. Living with that mentality was really affecting my health and limiting my energy. But now, wow--it's pretty wild. Some days it feels like there is a giant combat boot in the sky ready to fall on everything and everyone. I'm having a lot of childhood memories and dreams about being little and have been thinking about how I used magical thinking to get through those years. I find myself doing that now. Driving back from the grocery store, I imagine every house and person I pass in a protective bubble. Be ok, be ok, I find myself muttering as I drive by. I think its a reaction to helplessness so I just let myself do it. I might not make anything better, but there is an energy there that needs to be channeled somehow.
What do you want to accomplish personally and/or professionally during this time?
I want to build healthier responses to stress and learn to stay in my body when things get rough. I'd like to work more on my newest project, a novel in stories I'm envisioning as The Bloody Chamber meets A Visit From the Good Squad, and submit an essay about trauma and fairytale I've been working on. I'd also like to do some Zoom versions of my reading series, All Kinds of Fur. Next month, I'll get the edits back for my second book, which is a novel set in the early 90's Portland about a boy who turns into a deer. I'm really excited to work with my editor again--she is the absolute best. I also want to make some headway in my gross basement and overgrown garden. Which sounds like a metaphor and maybe is.
What kind of world do you want to see on the other side of this?
I'm hoping that creative thinking and shifted priorities about access to health care, food, and a safe place to live find some crack in the sidewalk to push through. The pandemic is a great illustration of how we affect one another and must take care of one another. I hope this extremity inspires change. I'm feeling a little cynical today and very down about the government's response to this. But also, as a bruja and a storyteller, I know magical thinking can be a powerful thing. I'm also hoping people who have had the privilege to shelter in place come out of this time a little gentler, a little stronger. More clear-eyed and with a greater understanding of who they are and what they have to offer.
How can people find you and support you and your work?
People can find me on Facebook and at www.michelleruizkeil.com and on Instagram @MichelleRuizKeil & on Twitter @MichelleRKeil. My debut novel, All of Us With Wings, is available everywhere books are sold and would especially love to come to you via your local independent bookstore.