I’m Ania Spyra, a Silesian-American writer who teaches at Butler University. I divide my time between SoBro and Garfield Park. This is my Culture Journal.
Day Zero
6 p.m. At the Mirror Indy Chat N Chew artist townhall, arts and culture reporter Mesgana Waiss asks me to write this Cultural Journal. I eagerly agree. I have a busy week planned, Wednesday to Wednesday.
It’s hot at 10 East Arts that day, but the structured conversations are popping. Just as someone says there should be more artist-run galleries, Ellery Diaz — who happens to also be the yoga teacher I practiced with earlier that afternoon at Butler University’s Health & Recreation Complex – tells me of Patina, an outgrowth of Alley Cat Ceramics, where she’ll be drawing temporary tattoos right after the Chat N Chew.
My local collagist friend Jenny DelFuego and I make our way to Patina and walk into a backyard party vibe with a DJ and people reclining on blankets, eating hot dogs. We find Ellery and Amanda Keller of Yellow Door Ceramics Studio at a picnic table at the back, and I get a hand-painted pickle tattoo.
Inside the gallery, the “Silly Show” also bursts with color and people. Some collages make me laugh out loud.
I buy Abby Jo Elle’s cute little ceramic blue cheetah that reminds me of my own cat Misia, and a tiny UFO by Eric T. Cesare. I meet him, dressed as a Mad Hatter, in the backyard. I like to buy art as a way to bring a piece of an artist’s whimsical creativity into my home, like a talisman.
Day One
7 a.m. I begin my day with coffee and three handwritten pages, a creative morning ritual popularized by Julia Cameron’s book “The Artist’s Way.” Afterwards, I begin drafting a short story.
My writing this summer is inspired by the Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez, who writes social and political horror. I have listened to four collections of her short stories this summer and am currently listening to and reading her novel “Our Share of Night”.
Enriquez’ work made me realize that I don’t need to add supernatural elements to write horror. I see it all around me, on the news especially, but also in my own and my friends’ lives.
Every day for the past week I have given myself an assignment to choose something I consider mysterious or scary from my past or everyday life and write a story with that at its core.
11:30 a.m. I finally make it to the Living Room Theaters to use my April coupon for a free movie (a week before it expires). I go to see “The Life of Chuck,” which leans into the light side of the world even as it imagines an apocalypse.
After the movie, while listening to Enriquez, I drive over to my partner’s place in Garfield Park and spend the afternoon meditating and writing down ideas for the next day’s story.
7 p.m. I meet my friends Michelle Niemann and Chris Carrier (of NIGHTJAR poetry night) at the Alt Indy concert of experimental chamber music written and performed by Rob Funkhouser at the MacAllister Amphitheater at Garfield Park.
With swifts circling above our heads, we recline in lawn chairs eating watermelon and feta salad and listening to the ethereal sound bath of contemporary classical music. I am ready to believe I live in a utopia.
Later that day, I read an email announcement from Butler’s provost that the university has suspended its social justice and diversity class requirement. I sense darkness encroaching.
By the end of the day, I have written 2,245 words.
Day Two
8:30 a.m. Coffee and morning pages.
9 a.m. We walk our Great Pyrenees Freya to Helm Coffee. It’s our favorite coffee shop in town, especially because it allows dogs inside and Freya loves being everyone’s pet. I start on my 2,087 words for the day.
3:30 p.m. We make our first attempt at the Garfield Park Aquatic Center just as a lifeguard tells the ticket booth not to sell tickets because they’ve heard thunder. “Come back in half an hour,” they tell us.
4:30 p.m. Second attempt at the swimming pool. We get our tickets and walk in, pausing for a stretch under the fountain that pours water over us. Cooled off, we’re walking towards the slides when the guard whistles. “Sorry, folks, we’ve heard another thunder, you all need to leave for half an hour.” We walk home in wet swimsuits.
6:30 p.m. We make our last and this time successful attempt at the pool. With the heat we’ve been having, it’s glorious; the slides are fun, the fountains therapeutic, the water so clear.
9 p.m. Too tired to read, I stream Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” a 2024 black comedy drama that explores everyday darkness in a sexist, patriarchal family whose secrets come to life at a funeral.
Day Three
8:30 a.m. Coffee and morning pages
9 a.m. We walk Freya to the Garfield Park Farmers market, which is lively despite the early heat and full of dogs and dog lovers. With the line to the Mad Farmers Collective’s stand the longest I’ve seen, we get beets, kale, carrots, lettuce and peppers. We also buy peaches and pick up orange cardamom buns at the Moonlight Baking Company, then eat in the shade of a tall spruce by the tennis courts.
1 p.m. I finish my 2,729-word story draft and drive over to my place in SoBro.
5 p.m. As I am preparing to go out, I install the blue cheetah art piece beside the Grace Eun Mi Lee ring-holding monster in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I like it when my art pieces have company, especially when they’re shaped like animals.
6 p.m. We attend the last “Listen, Please” reading at Dream Palace. It’s a joyous and sad occasion, both because it’s our friends reading and because it’s a funeral for a dream, the first of Indy’s newer independent bookstores to close. I have been so proud our city could support so many independent bookstores.
8:15 p.m. My friend Michelle made a reservation for seven at Gather 22. At the reading, we invite two more poets and enjoy a lively literary conversation over nicoise salads and pizza.
Day Four
8:53 a.m. Before leaving for Brazilian jiujitsu, my partner walked the dog and left me a Breadworks croissover pastry (a croissant crossed with a turnover), which I have with coffee and morning pages. Afterwards, I start on a new story draft of 2,046 words.
3 p.m. I have a Zoom date with an Indy Community Yoga friend who moved away almost two years ago now. We spend three hours chatting. With her face on the screen, and no self-view, it’s almost like we’re hanging out in my living room, my cat on my lap. I eat my dinner with her still on Zoom too, grateful for the way technology facilitates long-distance connections, and much of my contemplative and creative practice.
That day, I meditate with Tara Brach on Insight Timer and do yoga with David Procyshyn on YouTube. Then, I spend the evening listening to Enriquez’ “Our Share of Night” on Libby while I superglue some Lego earrings I made a while ago.
Day Five
8:11 a.m. Coffee and pages, then back to my computer for another story.
11:10 a.m. I have produced 2,521 words of a fresh, new draft.
Over lunch, I call my parents on WhatsApp. They live in Poland, so noontime works best to call them. We chat for a long while, and I ask some questions to fill in the stories I began. One is set in a mine and another in one of our neighborhood’s prewar homes.
Afterwards, I set up my computer for a video call with my niece, Ola. We’ve been meeting weekly on Zoom since the pandemic, when she was thirteen and ready to give up on school (like so many teens). Her mom asked me for help back then, and I offered to “teach” Ola English. Our conversations have become one of the few pleasant outcomes of the pandemic. Since then, we’ve taken two trips together, to Paris and London.
5:30 p.m. I lead a free body scan meditation for Indy Community Yoga on Zoom. The weekly practice helps me keep up my own, and I love sharing what’s so important for my wellbeing.
6:30 p.m. I walk over to my neighbor and friend poet Katy Didden. Another poet is visiting her, and we talk words and literature over dinner and a tough butterfly puzzle.
Day Six
7:52 a.m. Coffee and pages. Once I finish my handwritten notes, I have a harder time getting into the flow of writing today. My morning pages work through the fear that I might be nearing the end of my creativity burst. I edit my earlier drafts and start drafting this journal, then, as I make notes on the conversation with my parents the day before, I catch my stride.
12:34 p.m. I have written 2,835 words.
7 p.m. I drive to State Street Pub for the Mirror Indy Play List variety show, a circus-themed and properly silly space for the weirdos. I particularly enjoy the play with ribbons, which Mirror Indy’s photographer catches on camera.
Day Seven
8:45 a.m. Coffee and pages.
9:15a.m. I join my PoetryXCollage group, an outcome of last year’s Kolaj Fest on Zoom. We are a truly global group of six, with members from as far as Ireland and Vietnam. During the call, I work on an erasure poem.
11 a.m. Writing. Only 1,652 words this time. My recent ease spoiled me—though these words, too, flow with exuberance, bookended with two other creative events.
1 p.m. I get back on Zoom to listen to the Embodiment Institute’s Prentis Hemphill introduce the Institute for Radical Permission. Hemphill’s work and “connection and radiance” in the seminar description brought me here, but it’s the suggestion not to “die for love or a cause, live for it” that stands out in my notes.
7:15 p.m. I co-lead a Books in Translation book club conversation on Guadalupe Nettel’s “Accidentals” at Golden Hour Books. Our book club read Nettel’s “Still Born” about a year ago, and I wanted more of her. Her short stories inspire me in the same way Enriquez’s do, with their insight into the darkness of the times we live in and a compassionate focus on hope and survival.
Surrounded by books and smart, bookish people, I feel a jolt of joy: I have so many spaces of community.
My Culture Journal is a series that shares a week in the cultural lives of Indy residents. If you are interested in submitting a journal, email arts and culture editor Jennifer Delgadillo at jennifer.delgadillo@mirrorindy.org and tell us about yourself.
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