Whidbey Island Writers Association hosts an open house the first Tuesday of every month at the Rockhopper in Clinton. This Tuesday I hopped on a ferry to Whidbey Island to attend the meeting. I’m so glad I did.
The focus of the July meeting was Hedgebrook, a retreat for women writers that is located on Whidbey Island. A thousand women from around the world have been hosted for residencies of two weeks to two months. The retreat can host six women at a time, each in one of six cabins. A seventh cabin hosts an established writer in residence. Gloria Steinem is the most recent writer in the seventh cabin.
The tagline at Hedgebrook is Women Authoring Change.
Gitana Garafalo, Director of Alumnae Relations at Hedgebrook, was the speaker Tuesday night. An engaging speaker, Garafalo was passionate about Hedgebrook and as an alumna herself, she is particularly knowledgeable.
I had the best of intentions to take wonderful notes on all the Hedgebrook details, but upon reviewing my notes I discovered I had, through the course of the meeting, written 4 pages of story ideas and outlined a couple projects. Just sitting in that room full of writers inspired me in my own writing.
To the aspiring writers in the crowd: Have you ever gone out of your way to put yourself in a (real world, not online) room full of writers? If not, I highly recommend you give it a try.
Both Hedgebrook and Whidbey Island Writers Association offer numerous literary events throughout the year. Stop by their websites to see if they offer something that might ring your bell.
It sounded like a thousand birds, but when I finally roused myself from bed to look out the window, I only counted fifteen lined up along the edge of the roof. They were learning to fly.
One by one they would take the great leap, swoop down low, and flap like mad to make it back up to the roof-line and their siblings. I can’t imagine that leap and the faith that your wings will bear you up.
Eventually they all made the short flight down to the lower roof, and eventually I woke up enough to think of grabbing my camera. From the lower roof, they made the much longer flight to the tree where they have been singing for much of the day.
These pictures are a bit blurry as they were taken through the bug-screen on my window.
When was the last time you took a deep breath and a leap of some kind?
My father passed away in October, so today, I’m facing my first fatherless Father’s Day. I had a hard time figuring out what to write; there is so much that I’m just not quite ready to talk about yet. I decided to come up with a list of things that I learned from my Dad.
1. Be creative. Improvise.
Dad could fix anything with duct tape, although that’s not the only thing he used. He never let the lack of the proper tool slow him down; not having the proper tool is just an excuse. Sometimes he would invent a tool on the spot to do what he needed. And come Halloween, if he didn’t have a good pumpkin, he might just go with a turnip from the garden.
2. Tell your stories.
Family stories are a gift. They help you understand what made your parents the way they are, what made you the way you are. They are the structure that defines the culture of your family. The paragraph below was excerpted from a 30 page autobiography Dad left for us before he died. It paints a picture of family life in 1950s Los Angeles, it also paints a picture of my grandfather, whom I never really got to know but was so instrumental in shaping my father into the man he was to become.
“One of my favorite memories of this time was Wednesday nights. That was payday and Dad would bring home a big load of groceries. He was a deputy for the L.A. County Sheriff and drove a blue 1948 Buick. I remember French bread and celery and we usually had spaghetti because that was Dad’s favorite dish. He would also like to have some red wine with his spaghetti. He would take his first glass and take a sip. He would screw up his face like it tasted worse than castor oil, vinegar, and turpentine all mixed together and as he unscrewed his face he’d say, “Man, that’s good!” About this time he told me he wanted me to sit on his left. He explained (kidding, of course) that it was so he could “come across with this one” making a fist. Mom sat on his right so he could pat her on the shoulder so she would know he had just said something funny and (perhaps apologizing for being so corny) it was time to laugh. It was at this age, perhaps, that I began to appreciate how much my Dad loved my Mom.”
3. Read bedtime stories to your children.
In my earliest years, Dad was a full time college student working two part time jobs. Mom would adjust our bedtime to fit his work schedule and he would come home between shifts to read us a bedtime story and tuck us in. Bed time stories were a sacred tradition in our home. My parents had five kids and we would all pile up on someone’s bed every night for the bedtime story. He didn’t just read Dr. Seuss (although there was plenty of that, and Richard Scarry, and Where the Wild Things Are). As we got older he moved on to the classics like Heidi, The Swiss Family Robinson, Kidnapped, Treasure Island… We learned to love reading and stories. I learned to read by watching him read and following his finger as it dragged across the page. And every night we had that bonding time.
4. Be Happy.
Dad used that phrase a lot. He would often sign off on his letters saying “be happy.” He taught us, and modeled for us, that happiness is a choice and not an accident of circumstance. Choose happiness. Have fun. Laugh. Joke. Be Silly.
Defrosting the freezer can be a chore (remember when we had to do that?) or it can be a blast. The choice is yours.
5. Send Letters.
It didn’t matter if it was Toledo, New Orleans, or another city in our state, whenever Dad went somewhere on a business trip he sent us postcards. Not one card for all of us; each of us got our own postcard. It wasn’t a big expense, and it didn’t take a lot of time, but the payoff for us kids feeling loved and appreciated and remembered and valued – well, you can’t put a price on that. He wrote letters too. Whenever Mom would put together a care package for one of us, Dad would pack it up and include a note. It usually wasn’t very long, a few paragraphs, but I always read the note before I looked to see what else was in the box. Don’t underestimate the value of these letters. They meant enough to me that I still have a box in which I keep all the postcards and letters from Dad. And don’t confuse letters with emails. There’s something about the handwriting that makes it more personal and more meaningful.
This is the last and most precious letter I received from my Dad right after he died.
I’ve been out of sorts all day. I’m not quite sure why.
On any other day, I’m annoyed to no end by other people telling me they are bored. I’ve got no patience for that; I usually have half a dozen things I didn’t get done because I ran out of time.
But today… Today I was bored all day long. I could not get my brain to engage in anything. I just feel like pouting.
So, instead of beating my head against the keyboard trying to write something decent, I went for a walk in the rain. Now I’m going to sip mexican hot chocolate and slip into bed. There’s nothing so important it can’t wait till tomorrow.
How do you handle days when you can’t seem to engage?
The first of June. A new week. A new month. It’s like a new start the first day of each month. May is old news, as is yesterday. I sit here in a little french bakery with my coffee and crossant, my journal, and the rest of my life stretched out in front of me. On days like today, anything is possible. All is potential.
I’m getting used to the idea of being content, which may be why I’m blogging about it so much lately. I’m not accustomed to this feeling. I used to think that contentment would make me lazy, that I would lose any sense of ambition or drive to improve. In truth, I’ve found the opposite is true. By removing myself from a toxic work environment, I have opened up room in my life for healthier ways of spending my energy. I’m more creative and energetic. I no longer find myself monitoring my anxiety level, the anxiety is gone. I no longer lose sleep over work, and as a result I am better able to handle any challenge or emergency with which I am faced.
It is not as though my life is suddenly stress free. My life is full of challenges. We went from having a modest income to living off of student loans. Money is a significant source of stress. After my husband’s bout with pneumonia last month, our lack of health insurance has become a greater source of stress. We have plenty to worry about. But the worry is not making me sick.
Someone once explained to me that nature always seeks a balance. Two bowls of water connected by a wick will eventually equalize their water levels. The same goes for our lives. Whether or not we do so consciously, we seek balance. “You must let go of things in order to make room in your life for new gifts.” In this case, I had to let go of an income I thought I couldn’t live without in order to gain peace of mind. I should consider this lesson in light of our infertility issues. What else am I clinging to that is actually holding me back?
I love finding beauty in strange places – peeking out from garbage bins or rising up from the cracks in a sidewalk.
A few months ago, I tossed aside my purse and re-purposed my camera bag to serve both it’s original purpose and carry all my bits that the purse would have handled.
This may possibly be the smartest thing that I have ever done.
Now I carry my camera around with me every where I go.
I look at things differently when I have a camera handy. I notice things that otherwise would have escaped my attention. I focus more on the here and now and less on where I’m going and where I’ve been; I forget to worry. As a result, I’m happier. And to double that happiness, I actually know that I’m happy. Right here, in the here and now, not a distant memory of some former happiness.
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