Hidden Lake Retreat

 

Today is one of those lazy recovery days. My mind is ready to be productive but my body does not agree. I water the garden, walk up the hill and answer emails, as my brain sends waves of images over my activity like a blanket, images of rest and bed and closing my eyes, until all I can do is relent.  I’m worn out from having too much pleasure, is that possible?

I spent Saturday at Hidden Lake for our Salmon Street writing retreat, an artistic estate made wholly ours without interruption.  The writing was sweet as ever and the women old and trusted friends, but it is the memory of the food that lingers, oh the food. Hidden Lake is near Estacada and hosted by Judith and Lauri, whose intentions and cuisine can only be described as divinely inspired.

Dessert last night was homemade ice cream from mint grown in the serenity of their rural forest. It was topped with a warm chocolate sauce flavored to perfection. That followed our main course of local salmon, garden corn, green beans, vibrant hues of salad, warm olive bread and a small vat of honey still dripping from the hive. We ate outside like Goddesses, soaking the beauty of the place fully into our senses. After the meal, women slipped without suits into cool fresh water, while others read, napped or paddled the kayak past cattails and the constant buzz and weave of hummingbirds. 

As the day yawned to an end we came inside to share writing we had fashioned elsewhere. We stretched out in chairs, and on the plush patterned carpet, placing pillows under our heads like children eager for bedtime stories. The tales were fresh, full of surprise, enchantment and intimacy, each woman offering a piece of her heart and imagination, speaking it out gently and bravely like the gift that it was. Candles flickered as the night grew long, cats pushed against the screen door, and a gentle dust of sleep moved across our skin.

 I left at eleven, wanting to spend the night at home, while others slept outside on covered porches, upstairs in sheets of white cotton, or perched on the hill in small individual tents. Our time together filled us up and sent us home with new words, grateful bellies and more memories to support our mutual love of the craft, and the magic we each gleaned from transporting our inner world into word, form and offering.

Arid

Arid is not a word I use much in writing. That word belongs to places like San Diego, Texas and Arizona. My expressions are full of words that drip and hold moisture. Just the mention of Oregon has people looking for umbrellas, rain boots and fleece jackets. But not today.

Today children play in the fountains – air conditioners are turned up. The highway is full of trailered boats and the vacation minded. I love it! The sun hits the hammock every morning between 10 and 10.30, so I stop whatever I am doing, strip down and soak warmth into my bones. My face has turned a chocolate brown making my white hair and blue eyes pronounced. I feel healthy again and whole. I greet and celebrate the sun as fully as my neighbor repels it by pulling her shades and planting hawthorne trees.

I’ve gone rafting on the Sandy River every summer for the past 36 years, but this year, I wonder if I’ll make it. I have no visiting granddaughters to entertain, no husband to float with and friends with occupied schedules. I’ll travel out of state during prime rafting weeks and have promised John - my marketing guy - that I will hold up my end when I return.

This summer feels different, quiet and withdrawn, a time for regeneration and slowing down to regroup. My need for introspection asks for patience.

Late afternoon light streams through the front window in amber shafts, spilling over my writing pad. I’m held in an almost perfect moment. Preludes enhance the mood like black stones in a Zen garden. A single grace note on a piano keyboard dancing near the ceiling is sweet beyond words, sweet beyond imagining.

Writing is my salvation and faith. I feel relief as words spill out of me and land safely on the page, ready to take a life of their own. I dress them up like children who are going off into the world without me. I give them my best efforts so they will journey well. These words are not scholarly, information driven, political or unique. It is my heart that speaks. I write letters to undiscovered friends, sending them off like paper boats on a river, saying hello to people I have yet to meet.

The Writing Group

I am liking myself more these days.

I am buying new clothes and wearing brighter colors.

My eyes are softer and hold more tenderness when I look in the mirror. I believe it is because I’ve been stripped down like the walls in Gail’s kitchen, taken back to lath, beam and purpose.

I know this birth is a result of being in this group. This is the only place in memory where I have felt free to express all of me. I am held here. I have a blanket to wrap around me in your warmth, acceptance, love and language.

I did not expect a birth. I never came expecting such holding, but it was given none the less; the perfect place at the perfect time. I bow humbly and thank you from the remodeled walls of my heart.

written April 16, 2008