by Laura Munson | Dec 14, 2023 | Musings
Featured in Huffington Post and Thrive Global
No one really knows what to say to someone when their loved one dies. You can say, “You’re in my thoughts and prayers,” and maybe that’s true. Maybe you actually know what to think or pray on that person’s behalf. Personally, I’m never sure.
You can tell them that you’ll be there for them—that you’re their middle-of-the-night-phone-call friend, and promise to sleep with the phone near your bed. You can write them a With Sympathy card and let Hallmark say something in lofty cursive and sign your name with love. Or make a digital card with organ music to have a more flashy effect. You can go to the funeral and wake and talk about all the good memories of their loved one, memorialize them with a slide show, give a toast, even ease the pain with some good jokes.
You can bring them soup. Bone soup, if you’ve been there. If you know how hard it is to eat when you are in emotional triage. It gets physical fast. And every bite needs to hold health.
You can use social media to show support, post by post. But do you “Like” an announcement of death? Do you “Share” it? Do you “Comment?” It’s all a way of observing your friend’s loss. But in the same place you share about what you ate for breakfast?
You can give them books: A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, in which the minister rages against the loss of his beloved wife, himself, his God, and Who Dies, by Stephen Levine, especially Chapter 8, where he goes deeply into Grief as an ultimate vehicle of liberation, saying, “We are dropped into the very pit of despair and longing…an initiation often encountered along the fierce journey toward freedom, spoken of in the biographies of many saints and sages.” But most people are not open to that journey in the first place, and certainly not when their hearts are shattered into splintered shards.
The truth is, and it hurts in the worst way…that ultimately, the mourner will be alone in their grief, and who wants to say that? Who wants to bear the news that soon…people will stop Thinking, and Praying, and Liking, and Sharing, and Commenting, and bringing soup, and sending cards and emails and books. Even the phone calls and texts will fall away. The unspoken reality is: People go back to their lives and you are alone. You are in a club that you never wanted to be in. And that’s when you watch Renee Fleming singing “Walk On” over and over on youtube as loud as you can. And eventually…you do. You absorb the grief. And you start to see the “golden sky” she’s singing about. But you never get over your loss. Never.
There is the opportunity, however, to use it. If you’re in the club, you might as well be a steady and gracious club member. I’m in the club. And recently, one of my dear friend’s beloved husband dropped dead out of nowhere. She’d lost her grandparents in their old age. No one else. She was bereft. She asked me to write her a list of things that would help her, based on a phone call we’d shared. Her mind was in a triage fog, my words were helpful to her, and she wanted to remember them.
Here is what I wrote. I offer it to you, if you are a new member of this club. You are not alone. And I offer it to you if you are one of those people wondering what to Think, Pray, Say…do:
Hello, beautiful. I am thinking of you non-stop. Thank you for calling on me to be in your circle at this impossible time. I am not afraid of this, so I’m glad you called me in. I will be there for you. The books you asked for should be there by the end of the week. I will write some of the points I made on the phone here, since you asked for them. If my words on the phone were helpful, it’s only because you are open to them. I truly hope they help. Here is what has helped me and some of the people I know who have been through deep loss:
- First of all: Breathe. I mean it. That’s your most important tool to stay in the present, out of fear, and to sustain yourself. You will find yourself holding your breath. Try to stay aware of your breath no matter what and keep breathing…in…out…in…out. Deeply if you can. Little sips when deep is too hard.
- Lean into Love. Wherever you can find it. In your God. In friends and family. In yourself. Let it hold you for now. Call on friends and family to give you what you need. You cannot offend anyone right now. Let us know what you need and tell us how to give it to you. “Bring me dinner, please. Come sit with me. Read to me. Sing to me. Rub my back. Draw me a bath…”
- That said, be careful who you bring into your circle. Stay away from people who say things like, “He’s in a better place,” or “Everything happens for a reason.” They’re trying to help, and maybe those things are true, but right now you need people who are not afraid to hold the space for your pain. You need to find the people who feel easy and safe and not necessarily wise. Keep your circle small for now. It might be that you call on people very different from the ones you habitually have in your life.
- Make sure to eat. Even if you want to throw up. Please, eat. And drink a lot of water. You don’t want to block your natural energy flow. Your body actually knows how to handle this immense pain.
- Lie in bed with your feet up.
- Take a walk if you can, every day. Even if it’s short. Just get outside.
- Take Epsom Salt baths. Lavender oil helps. Keep some in your purse, put a few drops on your palm, rub your hands together, then cup your hands to your nose and breathe deeply when you need grounding.
- Write. If you can. Just a little bit. If you have it in you, at some point sooner than later, it’s incredibly useful to write down your vision of what was “supposed to be.” I heard those words come from your deepest place of sacred rage and I believe that to write that story, as fully fleshed out as possible, would be an important step in one day sending off that “supposed to be” into the sea of surrender. So that you don’t have to hold it anymore and you can live into your future. Letting the supposed-to-be go doesn’t mean that you do it injustice or that it no longer exists in dreams and heart. But it’s important not to have it become armor of some sort. It’s not time now to surrender it. But I do believe that it would be helpful just to write it out with great details as a way to honor it. And one day…yes, to let it go. Writing is the most transformational and therapeutic tool I know and I think it should be up there with diet and exercise in the realm of wellness. Keep a journal by your bed. It helps.
- When the terrifying, claustrophobic, impossible thoughts come, do not let them multiply. Literally put up a wall that keeps them on the other side. They are not your friend. There is no making sense of this loss. Unless your thoughts are loving and forgiving and helpful, banish them. If you have to shout “NO!” then do it. What you let into your mind should feel and act like the very best friends and family who would never let you entertain fear, but only shower you with love. Love yourself. There is no thinking your way through this. This is a time to really find what it is to just…be. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. In out in out.
- There is no check list right now. There is nowhere to get. There is no goal other than to fully live in the present moment. You can’t skip steps with triage, grief, or healing. Grief attacks at will, it seems. Be gentle with yourself if you feel graceless around it. You have to feel it to shed it.
- Go slowly. Be careful. The only real wisdom I have gleaned from Grief is this: Grief is one of our greatest teachers because it doesn’t allow for hiding places. When we open to our sorrow, we find truth. Your tears then, are truth. Honor them.
That’s enough for now. The main thing is to be gentle with yourself. I love you so. And the love you two shared will never ever go away. He is Love now and he is all around you and in you. If you can’t feel him, feel Love and you will be feeling him.
Hope that helps. You can do this. I am here for you. I promise. If only just to listen to your tears and let you know you are not alone.
Love,
Laura
Love note: Many of the people who come to my Haven Writing Retreats are processing some sort of loss by using the written word. If you want to own this potent tool, consider coming on a retreat with me in Montana in 2024. You do not have to be a writer to come. Just a seeker. Email: info@lauramunson.com to set up an intro call.
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by Laura Munson | Nov 24, 2023 | Montana, Musings
Give yourself or someone you love a Haven Writing Retreat for the holidays! My next one is March 20-24, 2024 and it’s filling fast. Click here for the other 2024 dates, more info, and to book an introductory call with me!
I grew up in a suburb of Chicago with a town square flanked by shoulder-to-shoulder shops in brick and tudor. A fountain on one end, a Parthenon shaped department store on the other, a park with grass and benches, and a flagpole in-between. My goldfish met its maker in that fountain because I thought it a better life than the one he’d been living in a small bowl on my bedroom windowsill. I biked to that fountain every morning before school and met my best friend, and we’d sit on the side of it, eating donuts from the local bakery. I had a kiss or two in the dark at that fountain. I climbed that flagpole on a dare. I believed in the spirit of Christmas each December as I stood in that park, looking into the illumination of the crèche. We called it Uptown and it was an iconic yet controlled kingdom to us, the Downtown of Chicago being so vast and distant, thirty miles away. My house was close to Uptown, and after school every day, I walked my dog around its streets, memorizing every alleyway, every store window, smiling at the familiar faces of the shopkeepers who knew my family, our names, our stories.
In those days, many families had charge accounts at the stores. So sometimes, I’d get permission to go on a little shopping spree: stickers or pens at the stationary store, ribbons at the dimestore, a Bonnie Bell Lipsmacker at the drugstore, a bike bell at the sports store, seeds at the hardware store for my vegetable garden. Not all at once, of course. But here and there on a blue moon, when my parents were feeling extra generous. I’m not sure if I loved the actual item as much as the phrase, “Can you please charge that to our account?” It filled me with a deep sense of belonging to my town. Not just anyone could have a charge account. You had to be local. Very local. I liked being very local.
The shops Uptown, were like icons to us. We had nicknames for them, like old friends. Helanders was He’s. The Left Bank hot dog spot was Pasquesi’s, because that was the owner’s name, of course. Walgreens was Wag’s and that’s before it became a multi-mega drugstore. We grew up with the family. It was local. These shops were our meeting places. Our stomping ground. Our stage. When my father died, the local grocery store, Janowitz, gave us a cart full of groceries for free once they heard the news. These shops were the bones of our goings on as a community. Not because they represented greed or even commerce to us. They were the places where our mothers ran into each other and gossiped and put together a meal train for a family in need. They were the places where we flirted with boys, dreamed up birthday parties, found the right card for a grieving aunt, played truth or dare over an ice cream sundae. A lot of these shops are gone now. Now the shoe store is a Williams Sonoma. The corner store is a Talbots. The hardware store is long gone, a Home Depot beckoning in the not-so-distance. Every time I return to my hometown, I feel sad about how many of the Mom and Pop shops have been taken over by franchises. Lululemon. A Starbucks on steroids. The only thing that’s left is the sporting goods store where all of us got our first bikes. I always go in just to see if it smells the same. It does. The owner’s son is there. He always smiles and says, “Everyone comes in for a whiff when they’re in town.” The Lantern bar is the other establishment that’s still there. Still has the best burger in town. Some of our pictures are on the wall. Over the years, I have been proud of the way my hometown values its local shops and supports them, even with so much bright-light-big-city so close. But now there are so many fallen soldiers in the way of local, family-owned, commerce, and it saddens me. We belonged to those places. I don’t feel like I belong to my town square of origin anymore.
Somehow, I ended up living in, and belonging to, another small town— a mountain town in Montana. When I moved here thirty years ago, it was full of economic hardship. There are three blocks of Mom and Pop shops in our town. Over the years, I’ve watched as the shop owners of Central Ave. struggled to make ends meet and keep their doors open. I’ve known most of them the way I knew my hometown shop owners. I watched as they took their vision and made it a reality. They wore their pride because in our small mountain community, these shops hold deep importance. There is no option of city. People drive a long way to stock up on feed for their animals, paint for their barns, winter socks for their kids. Not long ago I was proud to say we didn’t have a Gap in the state of Montana. Or a Target, a Best Buy, a Home Depot, a Lowe’s, a Walmart, a Costco. That’s changed now. It’s here. Consumption Junction we call it. And it’s tried very hard to kill our local small businesses. Which is why I choose to do all my grocery shopping at the local health food store and other small markets, buy shoes and clothes at our local outfitters. And even though I’m not a big shopper just for shopping’s sake…from time-to-time I’ll walk Central Ave., and pop into those shops, usually just to have a look around and feel like I’m part of a town center like I did in my hometown. I’ll buy a little something to show my support. And I am filled with such warmth and yes, belonging, every time. Those shop owners have worked hard to keep their inventions alive.
Sure, there are new sorts of shops— shiny ones that announce “we are on the map.” (BTW: we’ve successfully kept Lululemon out!) But I go into those shinier shops too, because even though they don’t represent the sorts of shops I’ve known and loved for decades in this little town, these people are store owners with a vision too. These shops are products of small town dreams. There’s a bar in our town that’s full of all the shop signs that didn’t make it. Every shop owner in our town knows that if their vision doesn’t work, at least the sign will end up on the wall at the Northern. Which, like the bar that lives on in my suburban Chicago town, will also never die. And that’s because it’s as much about gathering as it is about beer. And all the signs on the walls make good stories, because people in a small town, at least our small town, love to tell stories, albeit sometimes stretched. And so what. We get lonely in these here hills.
I always say, “You can judge a town by its hardware store.” And in the last little while…our multi-generational hardware store…got bigger! (And they still have their old fashioned popcorn maker by the front door. You can’t go by that popcorn maker without filling up a bag to eat while you shop, no matter how much of a hurry you are in.) And during the height of the Pandemic…not one Mom and Pop shop closed. Not one. Any upstanding local that I know will always go to Nelson’s before heading down the highway to Consumption Junction. To me, that says a lot about where I’ve lived and raised my kids. And is part of why they have moved back. They don’t make ’em, (and keep ’em), like our town anymore. They just don’t. But our small mountain community ain’t for everyone. It’s hard-living all winter long. Days and days of gray skies. And often, smoky summers. Not a lot of local industry. Still, we thrive. And Central Ave. reminds us of that very fact.
Whether we like it or not, in the summer, our sidewalks are heavy-laden with tourists. But in the off seasons, when it empties out to locals only, sometimes I walk those blocks and have a scary flash that one day Central Ave. will be like a ghost town of the old West, tumbleweed and all, the bars surviving because people will always drink away their woe. The churches surviving because people will always need to pray in public, knowing they’re not alone. Or what if it goes the other way? What if all the Mom and Pop shops are lost to franchises that don’t really understand what our town is truly made of? I deeply (and a bit desperately) don’t want to lose out to franchises, and thus, to what binds a small town in the way of common space: kids riding bikes to the ice cream store, parents lingering over coffee at the local coffee roaster after school drop-off, the kind of place where you know you’re always going to run into someone you know at the market, buying broccoli, and have questions about how (insert family name) is doing. The kind of town where they wrap your Christmas gifts right there, and with loving smiles. The kind of town where you pop into the toy store just to remember what it was to take your kids there to buy their friends’ birthday presents, and the owners catch you lingering in the plastic horse section and shed a smile and a tear with you. They remember too. When I go into a local shop on a mission of nostalgia or just plain curiosity, I usually buy a little something as a way of saying, thank you. I can think of a handful of times when I’ve forgotten my purse and the shop owner said, “Just pay us next time. We know you’re good for it.” I like feeling “good for it.” One time, at the local gas station, the guy behind the counter, who calls me by my last name, said, “Hey, Munson. You like horses, yeah? I got you something.” And he produced a brown paper bag from behind the counter. It was a glass horse figurine. “Was in a little shop the other day and I thought of you.” I wept in gratitude, and yes, belonging. It’s been front-and-center on my nightstand for years. Thanks, Murray.
Sometimes, I admit…I have no other option but to go to a box store. I loathe it, avoid it, dread it…but sometimes have to succumb. Like when I’m looking for doorknobs. Or light fixtures. Or a rug. (Even though I always stop by Nelson’s first!) I muscle through the experience, trying to remember that I’m still supporting the locals who work at those stores. I admit it though: I drive through Consumption Junction and I picture/fantasize a time when the box store will die. When our greed for unnecessary plastic items will fade, if it hasn’t already devoured us. We’ll stop filling up our shopping carts until they are brimming over, when all we came for was…well, socks. And maybe things will return to the old ways. And people will live off the land. And buy only what they need and only when they can afford it. And barter for what they can’t afford. I picture a time when a person with sheep has profound power, shearing them and spinning their fleeces, and a person who knows how to work a forge is the reason why transportation is possible, horses needing shoes— a means of commerce, not just a pet or a creature of recreation. And the Farmer’s Market will be more than a sunny place to listen to a singer/songwriter and buy a hula hoop along with your Swiss chard. In fact, around here, farms are growing and thriving. Maybe we’re closer than we think to the old way of life.
There is a road here called Farm-to-Market. It’s a pretty Sunday drive. When I take that road, I think about how it once was a bloodline for this community. Blood sport. Many broken hearts along its fences. Countless dashed dreams and false hopes. The kind of road where you sort out what you’re going to say to your wife when you come back with a full cart, someone else’s tomato crop being what it was, and sauce to put up for winter. It’s not that I defy modern technology or progress or the possibilities of button pushing. It’s that I don’t trust us to know what to do with what we’ve created. I trust humility more than greed. And as much as I appreciate that I get welcomed into Costco and that I could get a 24 pack of gym socks for my kids and Swiss chard both, and still get back in time to pick them up from school, as much as I know that those are local people working those jobs, in honesty and humility with dreams of their own, sorting out their own stories to tell their spouses or loved ones…I want us to stop.
I want us to go to the local hardware store and eat a bag full of popcorn while we discuss paint color and drill bits, and talk weather while we do it. And what about that school bond and what about that new city councilperson? I want us to drop our spare change into the Mason jar to help with the middle school teacher who has Leukemia. I want us to go slowly again. I want us to wonder about each other. I want us to ask, “How’s business?” and hear that it picked up this October, which is usually a slow time— better than last year. To nod and smile at that good news and feel like we’re going to be okay. We won’t lose our hats along with our dreams.
This holiday season, I want us to stop. Not take our turkey hangovers to the early morning, standing at a Target ready to run in like monkeys on a zoo break. I want us to continue the gratitude of the day before. I want us to sleep in and maybe take a walk into town later to see what the local shops have for sale. I want us to have those conversations. I want us to go Uptown instead of Downtown, and especially I want us to steer clear of Consumption Junction. Even if it costs a bit more. Even if it is a little less shiny. Even if it means we buy less, or go to three stores to find that one thing our kid asked for. I want us to stroll down Central Avenue. And say “hi” to each other. Maybe even stop and have a surprise conversation full of more questions than answers. Maybe even ending with a hug or a long-called-for, and unexpected, handshake. I want us to be thankful for our town centers, and our backyard businesses, and see ourselves in the reflection of their holiday windows. Here’s to Main St. everywhere! Happy Holidays.
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by Laura Munson | Nov 19, 2023 | Musings
Well, Thanksgiving is almost here and many of us fear the gravy.
Fear NOT! You don’t need flour. You don’t need to reduce anything. And for heaven’s sake, you don’t need some powdered packet from the grocery store. I have been playing around with my gravy for years, and this is where I’ve landed. It’s a commitment, but you will be having “some turkey with your gravy” by the time you take your first taste. Enjoy, and remember to tell the people you’re with on this holiday what you appreciate about them. And if you’re far away from your loved ones, here’s some inspiration for your own feast, even if it’s a feast for one!
Laura’s 30 years-in-the-making Delicious Coveted and Begged-for
Turkey Gravy Recipe
(Not heart smart, but who cares. It’s one or two meals a year!)
The secret to this liquid gold requires some prep time but it pays off. Oh, does it pay off. The idea is this: you dice an abundance of vegetables and line the roasting pan with them, cover with a rack and rest the turkey on the rack so that the juices drip into the vegetables during the cooking process. Then, while the turkey is resting, you puree the entirety of the pan ingredients, grease and all, in a blender, and that is your gravy thickener! It should be illegal. The base is your reduced giblet stock. It’s so easy and no stress and no raw flour ick and no corn starch yuck, and no intimidating de-glazing and no gizmo-dependent grease/juice separating… I’m telling you. It’s the BEST. Don’t be intimidated by the prep work. I chop all the vegetables for the pan and for the stock the night before and put them in respective zip-loc bags so that Thanksgiving morning, I don’t have to do any more chopping than necessary for other preparations, like stuffing etc. I strongly recommend this. I never used to do this, and always was stymied by how long it takes to do this prep the morning of. Cuts down your turkey morning prep by an hour!
Ingredients for roasting pan:
(if you do this the night before, put all of the vegetable out-takes (see parenthesis below) into a zip-loc bag for your giblet stock, so that you have 2 ziplocs– one for stock, one for pan)
Peel and dice:
1 Turnip
1 Rutabaga
1 Parsnip
2 Carrots (use the ends plus another carrot for giblet stock)
4 Yukon Gold Potatoes
2 Celery stalks (use the outer tougher stalks for giblet stock)
2 Shallot cloves
2 Garlic cloves
1 Leek (use the white part, and some of the green. Wash and reserve the tougher top greens for giblet stock)
1 yellow Onion
4 crimini Mushrooms (reserve the stems for giblet stock)
1 cup chopped (Yep): Parsley (Italian flat leaf), Sage, Rosemary and Thyme—fresh (use the stems/twigs for giblet stock)
1 stick Butter
1 cup dry white Wine
Ingredients for final touches:
Madeira
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Liquid:
- Melt butter in small saucepan and add white wine. Turn off heat once combined.
Lining your roasting pan: (gravy gold)
- Dump the diced veggies into the roasting pan.
- Pour a cup or so of the warm butter and wine mixture from stove. Salt/pepper.
- Stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula so that all the veggies are coated. (you don’t want them to dry out during the cooking process, so remember to baste them as well as the bird)
- Add any additional chopped herbs. This should coat the pan about an inch thick.
- Put the rack on top of this, flat.
- Put turkey on top and cover with additional butter wine, salt and pepper
- Bird stuffed, racked, seasoned, ready to shed its love on its veggies below…
- Giblet stock for gravy base
Giblet Stock:
Ingredients: (Don’t cheat and use canned broth. This stock has a very specific flavor and makes the gravy sooooooo good)
Giblets (The gross stuff in the turkey cavity, but get over it. Your hand is in a turkey cavity! That’s already gross.)
Whole pepper corns
Out-takes from all of the above vegetables and herbs (described in parenthesis above. Best to put them in zip-loc bags while dicing the rest for the roasting pan the night before, to make prep time faster on Thanksgiving morning.)
Additional sprigs of rosemary and thyme, roughly chopped, stems/twigs included
1 garlic clove– crushed
1 medium yellow onion quartered
1 Yukon gold potato quartered
- Heat a large saucepan, add olive oil, not butter—too greasy. When hot, put in the liver. This needs to be cooked through first. Then deglaze the pan with Madeira—1/8 cup or so. This stuff has a lot of flavor and you don’t want it to overwhelm, but it’s perfect for this feast. Let it cook down—you don’t want the next ingredients to stew in pan, but to sear like the liver seared. (you might have to add a bit of olive oil again to give it something to cook in)
- Add the neck and other organs—brown
- Now add the veggie out-takes plus the additional veggies/herbs described above.
- Cover with water, a cup of wine, and add a few tablespoonsful of whole peppercorns and a few bay leaves.
- The trick to any stock is to bring it to a boil, and then drop the heat down so that it is just simmering. This is going to simmer all
- day. If it gets too low, then add more water. Taste it as it cooks to make sure the flavors are coming along. Add salt/pepper to taste.
- Keep to about 8 cups total
Gravy:
(drum roll…HERE IT IS!!! My very own special, time-evolved gravy recipe!)
- When the turkey is done, remove from the rack and let rest, covered in foil.
- Remove the rack and put all the pan-liner veggies/fluids in a blender and puree
- Put a large bowl (preferably one with a pouring spout) in the sink with a colander on top of it.
- Strain the giblet stock.
- Pour the stock into a small/medium saucepan—should be about 8 cups of stock
- Add 3 tbs. or so of Madeira and lots of fresh ground pepper (a tbs. or so)
- Cook down for a few minutes.
- Now grab your whisk, and whisk in the puree, little by little until you get the right consistency.
- Swimming in turkey goodness. Now for the blender…
- Veggies from roasting pan to blender– pureed heaven
It is absolute magic and you never need any flour or anything else for thickener!!! Secret shared! Now pass it on to future generations! Say you learned it from an old friend who wrote.
- And here…it…is!
-
Gravy happiness. Happy cooking to all! May you share it with loved ones!
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by Laura Munson | Apr 28, 2023 | The Writing Life
Just one of our many Haven Writing Retreats groups!
“I write in a solitude born out of community”
—Terry Tempest Williams
I am home from leading a five day writing retreat in the woods of Montana where over a thousand people have come in the last twelve years to dig deeply into their creative self-expression on the page in intimate groups. That is my invitation to them.
This is my promise: We will dig deeply into what you have to say, and I will keep it a loving, safe, and nurturing community.
My call to action: Find your voice. Set it free. You do not have to be a writer to come to a Haven Writing Retreat. Only a seeker. A word wanderer. Or you can be an established writer. It doesn’t matter. Haven meets you where you need to be met. Come.
Look into these faces, these eyes, these smiles. These people were strangers on a Wednesday, who journeyed to Montana from hundreds…thousands of miles in every direction. This photograph was taken on Saturday night, three days later.
It happens every single time. I watch the transformation in each of these seekers as they gather to create, in community, held safely by someone who knows what it is to use writing as a practice, a prayer, a meditation, a way of life, and sometimes a way to life. Someone who walks the walk and truly wants to help. I want to show you how to ask for this help. Stay with me for a few more paragraphs. There is so much here for you. If you’re reading this…you know…it’s time to open to your endless and wild way with words.
I do this work because it is the most powerful way I can help answer the questions so many of us ask. Questions I have asked my entire adult life: Do I have to do this alone? Is there anyone out there who cares? Is there anyone out there who can help me?
But so many people out there think they have to be writers to come to Haven. It’s quite the opposite. All you have to be is a seeker. You can seek being a best-selling author. Or simply to express yourself and be seen and heard. Or anywhere in-between. Again: Haven meets you where you need to be met. There is zero competition. There is not A+ or F-. At Haven, we step outside good bad, right wrong, grade at the end, and the mother of them all: perfection, and we take a free fall into a free zone. I’m holding the net, and I’ve never once dropped it.
Believe me…it took me a long time to trust sharing in a group. (More on that in a bit). For that reason, I designed the retreat that I would want to go on. So Haven offers 
exceptional craft instruction and well-supported workshopping opportunities, a place to take yourself apart a bit and weave yourself back together, new…through your unique heart language. But it’s not just a five day retreat in Montana. I offer pre-Haven consulting if you’d like to get support the moment you sign up. And after Haven, there is the entire Haven community, continuing mentorship, four additional programs available only to Haven alums, consultation, a private group forum, networking support, and so much more. It is the most important work, outside of what I have birthed in my children and my own written stories, that I have ever done. I’ve seen it change lives over and over again, and that’s why it’s ranked in the top writing retreats in the US. But there’s a lot more to the Haven story…
I didn’t know about writing retreats when I claimed my life as a writer in 1988, fresh out of college. I thought I had to do it alone. I didn’t trust community to understand my yearning, my craving, to make sense of this beautiful and heartbreaking thing called life through the written word. I didn’t trust community to give me permission to look into the dark corners and shine a light on an otherwise dim place.
My writing was for me. Alone. Yet…I longed to be published one day. In fact, I was obsessed with the ill-conceived notion that I would only matter if I was a successful author. But deep inside of me, even more than that, I longed to have my voice be heard in a safe, small, group of people, and to bear witness to their unique voices, too. I needed to find kindreds who understood this longing. So I joined a writing group which did regular retreats. That’s when everything changed.
I got to experience the community of kindreds— people I would likely never have met in my regular life. Our little circle developed a haven from our lives where we could express ourselves safely and powerfully, and without the usual societal constructs of “success.” We could play. Like children. Even and especially in our darkest subjects. And soon, I learned to prize the process of writing in community, more than being published. Publishing would happen when it happened. I had work to do. I had to learn to truly love, and long for, my voice.
Years later, after sitting at the intersection of heart and mind and craft that is the writing life, and finally knowing myself authentically as the woman I am and the writer I am…my dream came true. Suddenly I was a New York Times best-selling author.
Suddenly I was on major media, going to the book signings of my dreams from coast to coast and in-between, speaking in front of thousands of people at massive women’s conferences with headliners like Hilary Clinton and Madeleine Albright. It was such an incredible honor to share my message with so many people, and it struck me how starved so many of us are for our voices and how to express them.
Over and over again I heard: I want to write. I want to find my voice.
Then the refusals would come.
But I don’t have anything important to say. Someone else has already expressed my message better than I ever could. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the talent. It’s self-indulgent at best. I don’t have letters after my name.
And I realized that what people are missing is what I know so deeply to be true: The act of writing, whether or not anyone reads it, is where the power lies. It’s in the process. Being published and having accolades and readers and fan mail and all of that stuff is indeed fulfilling, but it’s nothing close to the way I feel when I’m in the act of creating. And I got it: What we must long for…is our voice. Our craft. Our way of seeing…and the permission to say what we need to say. It was the best news I could imagine because we can control that! Each time I went out on the road for a speaking engagement or book signing, as much as I loved it…I couldn’t wait to get back home and back to my writing.
The poet Rilke says, “Go to the limits of your longing.” That longing, for me, is in the creation, not the product. It’s in the process. The work. We can control the work. That’s it. Success and failure are myths. I’ve had “success” according to what society tells us. But in the eye of that, I saw the truth: it’s a myth. That is the greatest relief I’ve known and why it occurred to me one day (with some gentle nudging from writer friends) to lead writing retreats. If I am an authority on anything, it’s how to do the work. How to cultivate your own unique voice and become hungry for it. To show up for it and find out what it has to say. We are so caught up in the supposed-to-be and the should and the perfection of it all that we forget what this self-expression thing is all about: it’s in the ability to put our hearts in our hands. To see where we are in our own way, and truly feel our flow. To go where it’s natural, not forced. To have it be easy. How about that? Easy? Even if it’s not easy material, you can still find ease in it. Breathe into the groundlessness of that and live there for a moment. Feels good, doesn’t it. AND…you don’t have to do it alone.
A woman on my last retreat took that breath one morning, sun streaming in through the Montana skies, and said it so perfectly: “There is a way to use my head if I let it follow my heart.” She looked around the room and smiled at each of us. Born out of community, yes. And held by sacred solitude.
Please, if you hunger for your voice, if you need permission to speak it, if you value the transformational tool that is the written word, and if you have a dream to write anything— a best-selling book, an essay, a journal entry, whatever…consider giving yourself the unstoppable experience of writing in community at a Haven Writing Retreat. And then, become part of the whole Haven community.
NOW BOOKING:
Haven Writing Retreats: 2024
Do you long to find your voice? Do you need to take a big, bold, beautiful stand for your self-expression? Come to Haven this year and fill your cup.
- 2024
- March 20-24, 2024 NOW BOOKING
- May 1-5, 2024 NOW BOOKING
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- October 30 – November 3, 2024 NOW BOOKING
Go here for more info or email Laura to set up a phone call directly. laura@lauramunson.com
by Laura Munson | Dec 11, 2022 | Uncategorized
As seen on Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper
My twenty-something children called a family meeting.
I readied myself. These are always emotionally-loaded, especially in the way of surrender.
“Let’s have an experience for Christmas this year,” said my daughter. “We need new traditions.”
My son added, “We have enough stuff. Let’s go somewhere.”
Don’t talk. Just listen. A good mantra if you want your twenty-somethings to actually hang out with you.
“We’re not married yet. No kids. Let’s take advantage of it!” said my daughter. “Your writing retreat season is over. And you’re still young enough to go to cool places with us.”
“Gee. Thanks?” But they were right on all accounts. Still, I wondered: what about our tree? Our party? Our time-honored feasts? Did tradition mean nothing to them? I knew sentimentalism was not viable. So I upped my cool game. “I’ve wanted to go to Costa Rica since college. If my last protagonist can follow a hummingbird migration from Montana to Costa Rica, so can I!”
My kids’ eyes glazed over: their reaction to most books, mine or otherwise. I flashed then on a book we loved in the way of holiday, comfort, family, love: A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. We read it every year around the Thanksgiving table like a hymn. Were they asking me to surrender all our traditions? Did everything have to be new? I couldn’t imagine the holidays without reading that book among the sparkling china-crystal-silver legacies of family tradition. My children growing year-by-year into the ones who sat before me now. Wander-lustful.
I’d been a wander-lustful mother, creating joy and inspiration in our own back yard.
Sure, we’d travelled, but home was where the hearth was in those years. I pictured their innocent eyes dancing as they listened to the story about a boy and his aunt collecting the ingredients for their holiday fruitcake, replete with bootlegger’s hooch. So simple and profound, the little customs that hold people’s big hearts together. If my children balked, I’d say, “You’ll cherish this one day.” It was non-negotiable.
And sure enough, I’d catch them tearing up over the always-gutting line: “When you’re grown up, will we still be friends?” We knew that the special brand of “friendship” between an elder and a child was so often fleeting, especially that of a mother and child. But I’d made it clear: whatever the future brought, I would be there as mother, friend, or any iteration of both. Non-negotiable.
As they spun the proverbial globe to find a new holiday hearth, I considered my perhaps over-attachment to tradition. And it occurred to me that traditions have greater stakes in the wake of divorce. We’d proven to be a unified front in that wake, we three. Even when it felt like more of a mother-performed CPR effort than a Dickens-inspired dream, we’d forged on with the tree, the cedar garlands, the Christmas party with “kids from one to ninety-two.” Our house remained full of life. Our hearth stayed warm. Everyone still said, “This is the coziest house ever.” In those years, my kids had begged to read A Christmas Memory. It somehow promised us: Everything’s going to be okay.
Had we landed in okay? Was that the cause for this holiday re-set?
And was that okay defined by whether or not our “friendship” had morphed into seasoned, adult friendship?
“What about Ireland?” my daughter said. “It’s cozy. Like home. But new.”
“We can leave Santa a Guinness on Christmas Eve,” my son said, winking.
That was last Christmas. We drove all over Ireland. Laughed until we cried. Ate like gluttons. Sipped hot whiskey after days of whipping winds. Sang sea shanties in pubs. Like friends…who know that the real gifts cannot be bought.
Here’s what secured it:
Over High Tea in Dublin, my daughter gasped. “We forgot to read the book!”
I smiled. “Actually…I thought it would be nice to read it here. The old with the new.”
Both their faces lit up. “You brought it?!”
“You’ve taught me: the heart, and hearth, travel. Thank you.”
And that night, tears in our eyes, we read our copy of A Christmas Memory in this new way. And it was clear that our “friendship” had made it to the other side. I would always be their mother, but we were friends now, too.
This year: Costa Rica. A book will find its way to the jungle, and with hummingbirds around us, we’ll see who we are to each other when those old, beloved words take another twirl through our hearts.
Now booking Haven Writing Retreats 2023. To set up an introductory call, please email Laura: laura@lauramunson.com
- March 22 – 26 One spot left
- May 10 – 14 FILLING FAST
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- October 25 – 29
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