And the Rooster Crowed All Day at Porches Writing Retreat

Mama-ing my two children is genuinely my favorite thing, for which I am always grateful. That still doesn’t keep me from dreaming of running away every once in a while. In the thick of caring for, and worrying about, one of my kid’s health problems over the winter, I thought I might like to quit parenting for a while. With all of the optimism and hope I could muster, I applied for a writing retreat, knowing full-well there was a high likelihood I’d have to cancel. But guess what? 

I made it! And it was wonderful.

My 22 year old was home with my 17 year old and friends were at the ready to help if needed. I returned yesterday after a full week away and all is well; better than well. I missed them and enjoyed a long, hilarious visit in an impressively kept-clean house.

It’s been six years since I’ve been on a week-long retreat. I typically make one or two few-day getaways a year for writing, sometimes with a friend or a kid, but with creative work being the focus. Going for longer allows for the luxury of wasting a little time, letting the angst experienced in wasting time drift away, and even being a little bored.

I often lecture my students about the value in being bored, although the truth is (outside of meetings) I rarely feel it. (Mind you, it’s not my instruction that they’re bored with, heh, I hope! I imagine most of us remember how boring school can be, with so little autonomy over schedule and activities for so many hours.) Perhaps my being a kid of the 70’s with a black and white tv that got four channels on a good day and shows mostly more boring than window-staring, who grew up in New England, so inside most of the year, makes me perceive, what most people feel as uncomfortable lack of entertainment, as a familiar home atmosphere. In any event, space and time with solitude and few distractions makes fertile space for creativity. (Here’s a link to one of the articles I’ve read on boredom and creativity: How boredom can spark creativity, from the BBC.)

I might’ve leaned further into that, into distractionlessness. But spent a great deal of time researching issues in the news, mainly Palestine/Israel and the Gaza Strip and I.C.E, immigration, and protests in the context of history and inflamed current events. After no social media for a few days, I logged back on and did find some perspectives of value there, but think prolonging the break may have been more valuable for me. Regardless, some extent of media was inevitable given my initial plan for the retreat. Here is what I wrote in my application for residency:

"An artist's duty is to reflect the times," as Nina Simone said… [M]y… poetry… reflect[s] the context of our days. Believing the personal is the political and that taking notice and being honest are radical acts in this society, I can perceive my writing on one level as social commentary and activism. Yet, those collections are personal and singular, speaking to the reader through universal needs, pains, and experiences, as well as empathy. Given the climate of our days, I feel drawn to draft poems for a collection with a more outward focus…

I used to say that I found political poetry difficult to write without getting preachy or trite, which might’ve just been to say that I didn’t work at it much. “Work” might be the wrong word. The more creative challenges I take on — songwriting, painting, short stories — the more I realize that the key for me to produce pieces that I feel comfortable with is in finding the right entrypoint. From there, things may flow well, or even require hard work in wrestling with words and ideas, but without the right entrypoint, no amount of work will recover a failed approach. Anger is a difficult place for me to write from and I rarely like anything I draft from there. It’s hard for me not to get angry with the news — abuse, injustice, subjugation, and suffering. But while self-righteousness may feel satisfying at times, it’s deadly to poetry, at least mine. So like the rest of my poetry, this week I approached writing political poetry from interest, empathy, warmth, and some heartbreak and, a bit of tweaking is still in order, but the pieces are overall good. 

But my larger why of going on retreats, getting away in general, and this week for me in particular, is not in measure of production. I had to continuously remind myself of that, so used to juggling so many tasks and aspirations in a day. My objective, while to write, wasn’t to speed write as much as possible, or tick every task off my “to do” lists, but to generate authentic and thoughtful work, regardless of measure, and build understandings, habits, and headspace (mental and emotional) to set myself up for a season of artistry. 

Under the fan of the high ceiling, in shifting light and silence, my first job was to face myself by myself; something I’ve always found important and often a trial. Free of roles, duties, chores, responsibilities, and schedules, how comfortable was I sitting alone? I harbored no expectations for that moment and found it wildly edifying to find myself whole, accepting, and settled. In my normal day-to-day, a level of angst creeps in with the ever-present clock and time, or schedules, rarely seeming to fit me. That leaves me considering if I might suffer from a bit of anxiety. But, no. Without time limits on following inspiration and worries of running late, I am anxiety-free. 

There are a trillion things in my circumstance and situation for which I am incredibly fortunate. I realize that any number of incidents could drastically change my situation at any moment. I believe I’ve built reserves of patience, perspective, detachment, and self-respect, to get me through many things, but certainly not all. So I do not take my relative peace of mind for granted and know that it is not derived entirely through my own will and effort. However, I also know that I could easily make a habit of making my own life and mind hell, so… Yay to my not doing that!

I spent most mornings watching the sunrise, then took to poetry, sometimes journaling between. Two mornings, before the scorching heat wave temps rose, I stole off to the little church down the hill where I could make noise. I practiced playing guitar and wrote a song, which will be featured in my next blog post, maybe even tonight. The house was mostly silent during quiet hours, until 5:30 pm. A wonderful flip of expectations! In the afternoon I walked, napped, read, researched, and wrote. I drafted a short story, maybe it’s a piece of flash fiction, that I think I need to leave for a month. My initial and revisit reactions to it is that it’s weird, but I like it. For the first half of the stay, I enjoyed visiting with my dear friend, Mabel, who booked the room across from mine. On her last night, she, I and a new friend who was there working on prose met in the drawing room to share some of our work. Theirs was phenomenal! Other writer’s arrived. All were interesting, inspiring, and supportive. I typically visited longer than planned and was consistently grateful I did. The woman who owns the place — aces. 

Grateful to be home, typing now with Cinderella on my lap, thinking I need to cut her claws. I have a few more days before work starts. I’m actually quite looking forward to my summer position; it’s one I’ve wanted to land for three years now. And it won’t be as many hours as the rest of the year. I’ll still have time and energy for writing, I say hopefully. I have three clear projects I’m working on writing-wise and two songs, as well as adjunct poetry and music activities, and a visual art project I started months ago and on which I’m gaining some steam. I hope to keep the peace and focus I gathered at Porches, momentum to create.