When she decided to start over, it was with a total and complete blank slate, or so she thought. She took nothing with her but her car, a new phone and number, which she gave no one. She essentially disappeared, changed her name, “started fresh.” And she thought she did it well.
She’d sold everything to have money to start over with, and she’d decided that rather than select a place to go specifically she would simply drive until she decided to stop. She let her music app choose her songs for her, discovering artists she never would have heard of otherwise. And she loved it.
She paid attention to signs telling her how much further til the next gas station, but otherwise ignored everything, even her speed thanks to her car’s speed control. She watched trees fly by, deserts, mountains and lakes. Building, buildings, buildings. Stretches of nothing but corn or wheat. She slept at rest stops, woken every few hours by a big rig pulling in or a cop telling her to move on.
“Why call it a rest stop if you’re not gonna let me rest?” She screamed at one officer, then ducked her head, ashamed and apologizing.
She was becoming someone new, pretending; the pretending becoming organic, natural, so that she no longer knew who she was trying to leave behind. Or why.
5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping. This prompt was taken from Blow Your House Down, by Gina Frangello.
The choice is simple, she imagines, I go forward or I don’t. I take the risk or I stay safe.
The fortune from her uneaten cookie leers up at her mockingly: If you proceed, you will change things.”
No shit, she thinks to herself before sighing.
What’s the worst that can happen, she wonders. If I go forward with this plan, if I take the risk, I could fail. And that will be a little embarrassing, sure but is that it? I’ll lose a little money, too…roughly a couple hundred bucks…which I can’t exactly afford right now. Still….
She rubs her hands across her eyes, her forehead, back around to her neck. Taking a deep breath she contemplates when happens if she doesn’t move forward: she’ll always be stuck in a job she hates…even if she changes jobs. There’s no such thing as a job she would love. She knows this, she’s tried tons of them, has friends in jobs she’d never considered or even heard of in some instances. She knows she’d hate their jobs too.
That’s the thing that gets her moving, not the possibility of failure, but the fear of never having tried to create something other than what she already knows is waiting for her. She’s a coward.
And yet, everyone calls her brave. She tells people what she’s doing, more out of nervousness than pride; and every last one of them tells her how brave she is. She laughs, if they only knew…
5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping. This prompt was taken from The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard.
It’s something I’ve always wanted, something my brother had growing up: a skylight over my bed. In my brother’s case, we called his room The Moon Room, because he could see the moon through his skylight. I don’t remember it myself, only hearing about it all my life, a sort of memory for me through the stories of others such that it becomes hard to untangle the truth from the fiction.
At any rate, I’ve always wanted a skylight over my bed, a way to see the stars at night, the moon. Only I don’t want a little skylight, the common skylight seen at massive warehouse DIY stores where the employees wear blue or orange and don’t have any better idea how to do things that I do, but are trained to listen for key words and then direct you down an aisle.
What I want is custom. What I want is a room of glass, a room where everywhere you look you see the outside, so much so that the outside comes in, so much so that I’ll regret it in summer and in winter, the punishment of letting Nature into such close proximity.
Someday, maybe.
Until then, I go outside for my fix of stars. The white swath of The Milky Way Galaxy which I can both see and recognize that we’re somehow a part of. A conundrum, like memories and stories. Like a skylight that was never mine, that I don’t remember but have always wanted.
5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping. This prompt was taken from Waltzing the Cat, by Pam Houston.
“a fine line between precision and self-indulgence”
“There’s a fine line between precision and self-indulgence,” she says, looking smugly at me.
If only she knew she was right, that line has been made all the finer by her self-indulgent communications. Speaking to me but really speaking to herself, the same way she makes love, creates a sandwich, answers the phone…as though everything is really about her, especially when it is.
She calls her movements, her communication, her fucking “precise.” And I suppose it is. She has an expectation, she has a need, a desire, and this force that is her self must be satisfied. Still…while it’s dizzying at first, sucking you in, gracing you with it’s ethereal existence, time makes it grating, jarring, fucking annoying.
I could say “shut up,” but I don’t. I could simply walk out, walk away, move on with my life free from her pull…but I don’t. I can’t. Not really. But I can only put up with so much of this….
5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping. This prompt was taken from Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg.
Based on everything I’d ever heard or read about writing retreats, I expected to have a room to write in, food made available three times a day, the end. I expected to be at a retreat for x number of days writing. Then go home. Honestly, with two little boys and two dogs and five cats and four chickens and a husband…a few days of being left entirely alone to write and being fed sounds quite lovely. But that’s not what Haven is.
Workshopping Outside
It’s not what it isn’t either. There’s tons of writing at Haven. You write for hours in the morning class, and in the afternoons in your “free” time. And if you’re like me, you woke up early and wrote before class and again in the evening at the end of the day. There was one day where the writing from morning class extended into an outdoor workshop of more writing and reading. There was no shortage of writing happening at Haven.
Reading Outside
Some afternoons before dinner we’d sit outside and take turns reading poetry or letters. There was as much reading at Haven as writing. A thing I’d not expected but am grateful for.
Selfie
And yes, I got to meet live and in person, multiple New York Times Bestselling author Laura Munson, which is a fabulous honor. She taught me some amazing practices, alerted me to some phenomenal ways of seeing, and is solely responsible for my turning a short story into a memoir. I will always be grateful for all of that.
Haven Mavens
But the reason I went to Haven, the reason I got so much out of the experience, the reason I still can’t stop thinking about it is: the women. The women I worked with at Haven and continue to meet with weekly to discuss our work, are absolutely phenomenal.
I’d gone to Haven thinking I needed the experience to define me as a writer. If I got feedback that what I was doing was good, then I’d keep going and try to make a living out of it.
I’d gone to Haven thinking I needed the validation of having attended a retreat to define me as a writer. If I’ve never gone to a writing retreat how can I possibly call myself a writer?
I’d gone to Haven thinking that if I was really lucky, I’d get a group of writer friends to help discuss all the writerly things with. If I didn’t have a writers group to commiserate with, I wasn’t a writer.
All of that is bullshit.
It turns out that while I got an education at Haven I never could have gotten anywhere else, the most important thing I got from attending are these friends. We call ourselves the Haven Mavens and we meet weekly via Zoom to discuss all things writing. They are the women I contact when I’m excited about a grant I’m applying for or a short story I submitted for publication or I’m frustrated and stuck with my work in progress.
I went to Haven for unnecessary and ridiculous validation. I left Haven with a tribe.
There was nothing for it. She’d given it her best shot, done all the things, tried all the pleas, and nothing was changing. Nothing was getting better. There was nothing for it then but to go back and begin again. Only not with this person, not in this situation, not in this life.
She would go back to the last time she remembered being happy, being confident, being free. She would sell off everything and return to Europe. To the train and the sights and sounds of new realities with every waking. Perhaps this time she wouldn’t get violently ill between Turkey and Romania. Perhaps this time she wouldn’t get stuck in the hostel of the masseuse who thought all white women were from Australia. Perhaps this time she would respond to one of the “Aussie Girl! Hey, Aussie Girl!” taunts with a direct “Feck off!” instead of picking up her pace, averting her eyes, scuttling like a crab.
It wouldn’t take long to regain her long stride despite her short legs, to regain her erect posture despite the weight of the backpack she carried, to regain her confidence, her assurance, her truth. It wouldn’t take long before she’d begin again, back in that place where solitude felt like company.
5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping. This prompt was taken from Letters to a Young Writer, a speech by Colum McCann.
It surprises me, it really does. I always think I have such great ideas, but somewhere along the way, they fail. Somewhere between A and B there’s this mid-way sort of bump in the road or something and suddenly, this idea, this thing I was so sure of, just doesn’t work.
Like time travel, for example. I was sure I had time travel down. I’m a physisist after all and I’ve studied all the science and even the Hollywood pseudo-science (which really is just plain voodoo but makes for good couch potato sessions). So anyway, I know what’s what and how it could all work, in real life, not in the movies.
I was sure I could go back a year, not long in the grand scheme of things, and therefore much easier, much more obtainable, doable. If I could just go back that one year I could change thing just enough, just that small twerk to make it so that my dad didn’t have to die. I mean, eventually he’d die, we all die eventually, but then, at that moment, it was preventable. And I was going to back and prevent it.
Only it didn’t work. The time travel. I mean, it kinda worked. I was able to jump back to a month ago, then to six months ago, then to three months ago. But it was all chaos. I never knew when I’d be jumping back to or for how long. It sometimes took me as long to recognize when in time I was as it would have taken me to do anything about it. But it should have worked, and even though I learned a little more each time, I wasn’t getting where I needed to be, I wasn’t getting to where
5 Minute Stretch Exercises are a creation of Laura Munson and were learned at Haven Writing Retreats. Write for five minutes, no corrections or stopping. This prompt was taken from Make Good Art, a speech by Neil Gaiman.
If you haven’t read Part Two you can find it here.
Stone Monoliths
Each day was similar: breakfast, write, classes, write, lunch, write, social hour, write, dinner and dessert, reading and feedback. The day officially started at 8am and didn’t end until 10pm…or 11pm. And perhaps if I’d been able to sleep better, if my insomnia hadn’t been in charge, I’d have handled the schedule better. As it was I was up every morning by 6am or sooner and not able to fall asleep until nearly midnight.
It was exhausting and wonderful. I didn’t have to plan, cook, or shop for food. I didn’t have to check social media every hour, I didn’t want to either even if the schedule had allowed it.
Steamy Pond
I’d walk the property in the early hours enjoying the steam coming off the many ponds, arriving back to the lodge feet soaked, but blood warm and flowing, ready to write in my journal listening to the sound of cooking in the kitchen.
Secret Garden
My walks along the property every morning and every afternoon after dinner were grounding and enervating. I’d come across a new structure and wonder at it’s purpose aside from the obvious beauty. I slowly realized how much more I was getting from this retreat than the validation I’d initially sought, the crafted learning I’d been lacking, the nourishing food I hadn’t expected to be such a delight.
Labyrinths
What surprised me most was the energy of the place. I live only a few hours away and have visited the area many times. But Montana is Montana, I thought, how different can it be. Only it was, different. There’s an intense energetic pulse to the place, a seeking and a soothing, a pushing and an untangling. I wondered if everyone else felt it, too.
Despite the comfortable bed, I struggled with sleep. It was my first night in a new space and my insomnia is ever at hand. I woke repeatedly to hear the Great Horned Owl talking outside, and sometime around 3:30am I gave up and quietly turned on a light to read and write. It was finally light enough outside to go for a walk at 5am, and I quietly slipped out of the bunkhouse. I chose a walking path and let my body move, the blood flowing, the aches soothing out.
Echo Chamber Entry
I startled ducks onto the pond, and songbirds out of song. There was evidence deer had been through but I didn’t see the deer themselves. I could hear the wild turkeys but found only a feather. The rock structures were amazing and everywhere. I’d walk til I came to one that needed photographing and then I’d move on. I went to the echo chamber, modeled after one in Scotland, I’m told. It was stunning, fascinating, and it worked.
Echo Chamber Center
I stood inside on the central stone and whispered my gratitude, listening to the hundreds of me’s saying “thank you.”
Fire
By the time I hiked back my boots were soaked through. They’re the most comfortable work boots I’ve ever had and I wear them for everything, but apparently they’re water resistant, not water proof. I grabbed my notebook from my room and went over to the Lodge where smoke was coming from the chimney. I sat by the fire, took off my boots and socks to let them dry, and I wrote.
The ever amazing staff said “good morning,” let me know when coffee was ready, asked how I’d slept. I was overwhelmed by the kindness, thoughtfulness, and care. “Thank you,” I said, over and over, an echo chamber myself.
The coffee was perfect, the fire was fantastic, and I wrote and wrote and wrote, stopping when breakfast was announced. The other women slowly trickled in, all in various stages of morning, grabbing cups of coffee, grabbing plates filled with food, all of us congregating at the table. I don’t remember what we spoke about aside from the general panic when it was determined we were supposed to be in the school house in ten minutes. The rush as women took their plates to the bussing station, called their thanks into the kitchen, grabbed a bit more coffee on their way out.
Schoolhouse
Every building felt like my favorite, but the schoolhouse: with the bell-pull on the right and the bathrooms in the back, the light streaming in from all sides…I could live in it happily for all my days. There were snacks laid out and more coffee and water, but it was evident these things were here as fuel: we’d come to work. We ran exercises, learned several writing lessons, ran more exercises. When we finally broke for lunch it felt like we’d been there the entire day already, although part of this feeling could be attributed to my lack of sleep, I’m sure.
Every meal was phenomenal although I can’t recall what we ate. After lunch I put my things away because I was heading off-site to the ranch of a horse whisperer. I met Bobbi at her cute little VW Bug which whipped us through the traffic of Whitefish in no time flat. The ranch was a sea of horses, all out in three or four pastures, all out in enormous herds. We discussed how to see through the eyes of another, how to claim our energy and space, how to communicate with movement.
Horse
It was fascinating and overwhelming and I found myself having multiple epiphanies about how I exist in this world, how I show up or don’t, how my mixed signals confuse more than just myself. I met several horses and the one in the photo is the one who reminded me I don’t have to acquiesce.
Bobbi raced me back to the retreat in time to wash my hands before social hour, a mandatory event that I would have skipped if it weren’t because I needed to work on my piece for that night and because I’d much rather be an introvert. I would be reading a piece that night along with one other writer, and my piece needed to be cut in half and still make sense, still be emotionally moving. I had all of ten minutes to pull it off, and with the exception of one little hitch, something I likely would have taken out if given a bit more time and opportunity, the piece went well.
The feedback that night was phenomenal, it was all the things I wanted to get from a roomful of peers.
Last month I was lucky enough to attend Haven I Writing Retreat, and while I posted several pictures from the retreat on Facebook, I’ve received many requests for additional information. The pictures are stunning and certainly tell part of the story, but not all of it. These requests for more information have felt a bit invasive, even as I understand them. I, too, would be asking for more if the roles were reversed. I haven’t quite been ready to discuss it, I suppose. It was all a bit overwhelming: emotionally, mentally, and physically too. Sometimes we just need to sit with our experiences awhile, marinate in them, before we have the words to express what they were and what they meant to us. Let’s see if I’ve marinated long enough.
Before attending Haven Writing Retreat, each applicant goes through an hour long phone call with Laura Munson, the multiple New York Times Best-Selling author and leader of the Retreat. For this reason alone, I almost didn’t attend. Silly? Maybe. I have two children, four and seven, and getting them to be silent for five seconds let alone one hour is an impossible task. My anxiety over being able to hear properly over a phone even without the kids around is high as we have pockets in our home where the connection gets lost or fuzzy and those pockets aren’t the same from day-to-day. The very idea that I may be asked something I don’t properly hear or understand is mildly terrifying, and the idea that I may say something that ought to have remained a thought (a very real concern) was almost more than I could stomach. But a few months ago a writer friend had instilled in me a need to go to a retreat and I would therefore attempt walking across water if that’s what was asked of me.
My hour long phone call became nearly three hours during which I cried (a lot), the emotions surrounding putting myself out there for my writing, truly claiming my writing as mine and what I want to do with my life, a thing I thought I’d already done, was soul opening. Meeting Laura on the phone was fascinating because I hadn’t yet read her books or anything else she’d published, I had no idea who she was other than the pictures I’d seen on the Haven website. I was a bit awed by her writer status (of course! An NYT B-S Author!! *swoon*) and to find that she was also a kind and thoughtful real-live person who reminds me quite a bit of myself…it was all a bit overwhelming. By the time the call was over I needed to do three things: pee, write a Haven Scholarship Application Letter, and find patrons/donors to cover the remainder of my fees.
The ensuing weeks were a blur of tears. A lot of emotions were coming up and out over this: “saying I’m a writer and actually going to a writing retreat are two different things,” “writing a monthly article for my paper is one thing, but going to a retreat with actual writers is another,” “going to this retreat means buckling down and writing a book, am I really doing this?,” “this retreat will legitimize me to the publishing industry as well as to anyone finding my page or following my Facebook,” “I’m about to find out from real live people that aren’t my friends or family whether or not I have a chance at doing this writing thing, whether or not there’s any there there.” Could I put any more pressure and expectation on this retreat? By the time I got myself packed and said my goodbyes to my family and hit the road, I was an exhausted and excited mess.
Arch
I’m lucky to live a short two hour drive from where the Retreat is held so I had plenty of time to decompress from the role of mother and wife and enter into the role of student and writer. As I approached the Retreat, the first thing I saw was a monolith of stone, a structure both organic and obviously man-made. There are tons of these throughout the Dancing Spirit Ranch, and I would spend the next few days stumbling onto most, if not all, of them.
Bunkhouse
Parking the car I went to the office to check-in and was given a quick tour of the bunkhouse (a gorgeous structure that deserves a much more sophisticated name), my room (adorable little cubby of rest), and shown where I would need to be and when.
Cozy Room
I had about two hours before the other attendees and I would be meeting: two hours to do whatever I wanted. I went back to the car and grabbed my things: a backpack with my laptop and tons of pens and notebooks and reading books, and my duffel bag of clothes and toiletries. I dropped everything unceremoniously in my room, grabbed my journal, pen, and water bottle, and took off toward the Adirondack chairs by the pond.
Pond
No one else had arrived yet. I had acres of land to myself and so much I wanted to explore, I’d also been sitting for two hours already to get here. But I needed to write. I needed to put down for myself the story of the journey, the reveal of the Dancing Spirit Ranch, the anticipation and hope I had for what the next few days would bring. I needed to ground myself in the fact that I was actually there: this thing, attending a writing retreat, had become a reality. It was Day One of the rest of my writing life…there have been many Day One’s and I hope that never changes…but that’s another blog post.
The other writers began to arrive and I’d hear voices floating over to me or hear footsteps off to my right and look up to see someone attempting cell reception or taking photos of Glacier National Park in the distance. Beauty was everywhere you looked and the collective anticipation of the day was palpable. Everyone was here hoping to form a writing group, everyone was here hoping to find out they were on the right track. For that first night, the energy was buoying.
Lodge
We all met in the Lodge for drinks and appetizers. We’d been introduced via email but especially as I was a late addition to the cast I had no real idea who anyone was aside from names. I was nervous and excited and terrified of what might come out of my mouth. I needn’t have been.
Sunday Dutro, Author - Official Site 