A note on the value of retreats.
I write my pen pal just about every day. She does the same with me. We’ve done this for quite a few years now, maybe 20 or 25. We write the regular blah blah of complaints about lousy weather and lousy spouses and lousy backs. We’ve thrown word parties for sparkling weather and fab spouses and a fine pickleball match. We both do our best to keep the other up to date on who is in the picture and who has fallen out, either by moving on to higher ground or moving to Florida. We care very much about each other.
And we also let our fingers fly when a new character wanders through our life or some juicy plot line smacks one of us during morning coffee or afternoon tea. A weather-beaten shoe lies by the side of the road – how did it get there? Ma Belle’s Diner is closed – why? Another dead person rises from her grave with a story to tell that just won’t wait. We write each other this stuff too.
The two genres wax and wane. There have been years (when her mother was dying, when my mother was dying, after my accident, when she found pickleball) when the current events of our lives demanded center stage. I’ve probably been the more on and on of the two of us about all that stuff – I am a therapist, she is a reporter – I’ve moved around more, changed partners more, been more fiddle-footed than she so that may account for some of it. Also, she is a really good listener and I am a really good talker so that probably figured in as well. But regardless of the reasons, what I’m wanting you to know is that this writing to each other has been a rich part of my life, both my emotional life and my writing life.
I wrote her earlier this week after I got back from leading our writing retreat in Tuscany. We’ve done this particular retreat for the past nine years and it has never disappointed. This is what I wrote her about it -
“…As for the retreat, it was a hit. Everyone gave us good evals. They were loving and kind with each other and wrote some killer shit. I do think Tuscany draws a special group together perhaps because there is something special about them to begin with and then they come to a special place, the gods see that and let extra sparkle rain down on us while we sleep (I slept great by the way), priming us for kindness and wordsmithiness and imagination overflow. I really think that when people come together with creative juju plus a celebratory gift of get the fuck away from my regular life for just a tiny bit, that the result is a bit like peonies. Big fat buds that kapow. I wonder if there is a way for me to continue to promote the truth of this in a way that is not quite so energy raw as WOW, at least in its current form. It’s a good thing, Susie. People are better when they leave than when they got there. Not because WOW changes them but because WOW reminds them of what feels good and right in them and what is just hoohah and, while they may need to participate in some hoohah, the real gifts do not live there. The real gifts are already living inside them, and they grow bigger and juicier when they share them with other people. They are reminded of their better selves and how good it feels to travel around that way. To be their better selves more of the time…”
When I read this again this morning, I was right back there in the writing circle, under the tree canopy, birds singing in Italian, welcoming us to their house. I could see Kathleen and the Carols, Brandy and Caroline and Peggy, Ammi and Liz, their faces alight with sharing their writing with each other. I could hear Corinne and Joan at the Friday salon, sharing their work with the group. I could see Nancy and Pam, holding their roles as facilitators and still writing and reading their hearts out. I could feel the magic that comes from this setting when it’s fed by 13 brave-hearted writers with an intention to write the stories that need to be told.
So that is what I needed to tell you this morning. I’ll be writing to Susie as soon as I finish here. Probably something about how sore my hip is and how good the smoothie was that I made for breakfast. You know, the hoohah, the other important stuff.