by Laura Munson | Jul 15, 2023 | Uncategorized
On this summer weekend day, I awoke early, and with a little girl’s butterflies.
A whole day of solitude ahead of me, to write, read, walk in the woods with my dogs, sit on my favorite stump and watch the forest theater. It occurred to me that I hadn’t written in my journal for a while, even though it’s one of the most sacred places I know to go. It’s where I check in with my soul, and have all my life. To that end, I was shocked to see that I’d neglected my journal all through COVID. The last entry was just before my book tour for Willa’s Grove in March of 2020! You’d think I would have needed my journal more than ever in those years. But, like so many of us, I was re-inventing my work life, keeping things afloat in my personal life, processing this massive global plot-twist. I wasn’t thinking about making space for my soul-language. I was on over-drive, just trying to make ends meet. But no journal-writing? What was I thinking? Had I replaced my soul-life with my work-life? Was that even possible?
So it’s no surprise that words cascaded out of me. Twenty-four pages in two hours, hardly able to keep up with my pen. It was like I’d had a waterfall on pause for a few years, and I finally had the courage to push “play” again. My soul wanted to talk. And as I allowed room for its language, I felt myself rooting in the essence of my being. My whole being. Not in the compartmentalized facets of my different roles in life. Compartments I love. But still fractured from the whole. It was like re-meeting my whole self for the first time in far too long.
It got me thinking about soul-neglect. How we drop our lifelines, often when we need them most. It should be the other way around. I knew I needed to take a serious look at my relationship with soul. Can you really part ways with soul? Can you really lose its language? Can you really forget to listen? What happens when you fail to create sacred space for it? And to that end, just what is the soul, anyway?
So I went through my shelves, looking for a book I read when I was a new writer in 1992. Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul. In it he writes: “Soul is not a thing but a quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart and personal substance.” I took heart in the fact that Moore believes that the soul cannot be separated from body, family, work, love, or power. So maybe my soul finally said Enough is enough. Go to your deepest lifeline: your journal. I’ll meet you there so that you can see me. Remember me. Love me. Trust me. Align with me in everything that you are passionate about. Personal. Work. All of it. Let’s become whole again.
I wanted more, so I reached for Meister Eckhart, because even though he was writing in the 14th century, the truth that I find in his words is always timeless, love being what it is. I read these words:
“When the soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it.”
And I realized that this is what I did in 2012 when I broadened my world and added new roles to my life, outside of my writing and motherhood. Suddenly I was a writing teacher, editor, retreat facilitator, and on-line writing community leader which includes doing live workshops, and interviewing experts…all new terrain. Without knowing it, I was stepping into a future my soul already saw. I can see it now so clearly. And while helping other people write is one of the greatest gifts of my life, sometimes the energy and time it takes to run the business around all of these passions of mine…overwhelms my vision of the whole.
Writing in my journal this morning, for my eyes only and for no other cause but my own, to my soul, woke something in me that I’d let go dangerously dormant.
And as life so often behaves, just when I gave myself the time to care for my soul, I received four back-to-back surprise gifts: notes from recent retreaters, thanking me for their Haven experience, and with generous testimonials. Not expected, but very much appreciated. Because it was as if they were really notes from my soul, reminding me that when we create space for writing in a journal, we remind ourselves who we really are, and contact the essence of our being. I don’t teach journal-writing. I’m so committed to teaching craft, voice, and how to structure writing projects and writing practices. But maybe I ought to bring a journal-writing practice into the way I teach. Either way, I know that I can’t lose this personal soul-practice ever again.
Whatever it is that you do for work, I hope you know that it’s touching people. Somehow. In some way. Big or little. And often, just when you’re least aware of it. But don’t neglect your soul along the way. If you have a dusty journal sitting around, please consider blowing the dust off of it and inviting your pen, and your soul, to meet. We all need something outside our work that is ours only. Sometimes we lose track of the difference between our work and ourselves. But trust that your soul is never separate. You just need to honor her. She might be throwing out an image in front of her so that you, and others, can step into it.
Thank you to those who offered me these soulful words:
If you have always wanted to share your ideas, thoughts, stories through writing or become a better writing coach/teacher Laura Munson’s Haven Writing Retreats are for you. I can honestly say that in all my years as an educator, and as a learner, I have never had such a loving, giving, and deeply moving learning experience as I did under Laura’s expert instruction. Being a writer is such a complex task, and Laura breaks things down so expertly, creates safe spaces, and ensures that you are given the kind of feedback that lifts you and makes you a much better wordsmith than when you first entered her magical place in the Montana mountains. I highly recommend this experience for anyone, no matter where you are in your writing path. What an experience that I will never forget. Thank you, Laura and your Haven!
—Misty from Maine (Educator, School Principal, Director of Curriculum, Coach for Educators, Writer)
Attending Laura Munson’s Haven Writing Retreat fulfilled a bucket list item for me. The Haven experience gave me a new level of validation and confidence I’ve been needing over the last several years. The connection I was able to make with my Haven group was both healing, enlightening, and inspiring. We wrote and read and ate and laughed and cried together. For the first time in my writing life, at Haven, I heard my own voice clear and distinct because I also heard theirs. I understood how and why the way I choose to communicate is not only unique but also important. Laura’s program and approach also helped me make significant progress in solidifying my next writing project. I have a million ideas daily, which is often overwhelming. Attending Haven set me firmly on my current path; now I’m going forward. I highly recommend Haven not only to writers, but also to anyone who needs to take a true beat, to re-connect with who they are, and where they are going.
—Penelope from PA (Author, Professional Speaker)
My experience at Laura Munson’s Haven Writing Retreat was indeed life changing. I signed up at a point in my life when I wasn’t quite sure if I was a writer, but I knew I loved it and decided to take a leap of faith. I am so incredibly glad I did! I left the retreat knowing I am indeed a writer and with a newfound commitment to tell my story. Laura is a fearless leader, a visionary, and a brilliant teacher. Each day was intensely focused and I found myself having an “aha” moment nearly every hour as, with her guidance, I figured out who I am as a writer and how best to express my story. The sense of community was immediate, and the opportunity to sit in a room of supportive people was a first for me, as I’m sure it is for many. Laura leads critiques with a fearless and positive tone, carefully considering each person’s individual needs.
I am so incredibly grateful for the beautiful Montana location and for Laura’s grace and open hearted joy in lovingly leading a group of writers to the next page in their journey.
No matter where you are as writer, at the very beginning, or published multiple times,
the Haven Writing Retreat will expand your soul and stay in your heart forever.
—Lisbeth from Malibu, California (Composer, singer, songwriter….and writer!)
Whoever declared “Haven is an MFA in five days!” was bang on. This surprising retreat delivers a wealth of publishing information, writing sessions that inspire, sage guidance on narrative structure, gentle while exacting feedback, and, to boot, ongoing writerly support. The setting is a stunning expanse of land, cared for in a sacred way. And all led by Laura Munson, twice over bestselling author, with her fierce command of how to teach writing (by every eclectic means thinkable). What fun we had! And how hard we worked!
If you want to open up your future, I urge you to jump in (and there’s often financial wizardry for those of us penniless, through the Haven Foundation).
After five days retreating, a little solo steeping time is suggested before reentering family and community. But when you emerge, words will come with you—words and words and words!
—Kathleen Meyer, author of How to Shit in the Woods, Victor, MT
***To learn more about Haven Writing Retreats and to book a one-hour introductory call with Laura, click here.
2023 Haven Writing Retreats:
Sept. 13-17 (full)
Sept. 27-Oct. 1 (two spots left)
Oct. 25-29 (still room)
Now Booking 2024 Haven Writing Retreats:
March 20-24
May 1-5
May 28- June 2
June 5- 9
September 18-22
September 25-September 29
October 23-27 |
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by Laura Munson | Sep 20, 2020 | Musings
I have never been more hyper-sensitive in my life than in these last six months.
At first I was ashamed of it. All my life, people have told me “You’re so sensitive” and not as an observation. Rather, as a criticism. There’s a lot of shame around that feeling for me. Even so, I’ve worked hard to keep my sensitivity intact, along with its siblings: empathy and curiosity, but I’ve learned how to not let it blindside me. I have an inner colander of sorts. And I am usually pretty good at running things through it before they lodge in me. I use this inner colander a lot when I’m in a city, the sudden onslaught of energy so different from my quiet Montana life. Since the pandemic, I’m having to use this filtering system more than I ever have, and now it’s not on the subway or fighting traffic on the freeway. It’s in my own house. In the tiny ablutions of life. The smallest spider dropping with its silk from the ceiling onto the kitchen counter…has my adrenals responding like I’m being mugged in a dark alley. A mouse running through the room? There’s a screaming woman running for her bedroom in Montana like she’s running for her life. As the months have gone by, it’s gotten worse. This hyper-sensitivity isn’t just flight or fight or freeze. Sometimes it shows up as a very new sort of disorientation.
Maybe this has been happening to you too. I wouldn’t be surprised. I think we’re all in some sort of shell-shock right now. Globally. Here are a few examples. Some of them are actually funny. In a sad sort of way. Maybe they’ll help you know you’re not alone:
I was having a conversation with my twenty-four year old daughter about college kids being back in school and about the likelihood of social distancing and how they could all so easily be sent back home, and about how all of this will affect them later on. And I was about to quote my WWII father, who used to remark on my generation (X) and all of our complacency and apathy and lack of patriotism when we were in our twenties, with this maddening comment…wait…what was it? I couldn’t think of it. It was something that I didn’t understand at the time and still really don’t understand. But with Covid, I keep thinking about his words and wanting their wisdom, and getting glimpses of it. I wanted to share it with her. Maybe we’d understand it together.
And I said a frustrated, “I don’t remember what I don’t understand.”
And we laughed. Because I didn’t mean it the way it came out. So tangled and maybe even metaphysical. I just meant that there was something my father used to say. And I didn’t understand it, until maybe Covid. And I couldn’t remember it just then.
But I don’t remember what I don’t understand is how this whole time in our lives feels to me. I wake up in the morning not knowing why I have this fist in my chest gripping all of my organs like they’re trying to fly out of my ribs, but with a fierce knowing that there are very bad things happening. I make myself try to not remember. And then I do remember. Just like I remember what my father used to say. “Oh yeah. He used to say, ‘What your generation needs…is a good war.’” Well we have one. We just can’t see the enemy.
Another one of these moments of disorientation happened in the laundry room recently. I was digging through a mountain of clean clothes for something I needed in order to get out the door and to the grocery store— because the cupboard is bare. Not even beans and rice. So I’m trying to get up the courage to brave the grocery store. And frankly, I don’t want that courage, because I don’t like going to the grocery store anymore. I thought I’d be able to see people’s smiles in their eyes above their masks, but I can’t. People aren’t really looking at each other anyway, never mind smiling. They’re in and out fast. Grocery store chats used to be one of my favorite small-town ways to connect with people. My kids used to hate that about me. They’d fume, “Mom, why do you have to talk to people? For so long? We’re starving!” So I’d go on my own time. It’s a little locally owned health food store where everyone cares about your gut health and your life health.
And now I just go in, grab a few zucchini and some chicken and maybe some white beans, and whatever else looks good and easy, and stand six feet away from everyone with my mask on and my glasses, which are fogging up so I can’t see anything, and when the nice woman at the counter speaks to me from behind the plastic barrier, behind her sunflower mask…I can’t see if she’s smiling or stressed that she has to be in the public all day trying to breathe with a mask on her face, and I really can’t hear her because my hearing isn’t great and I do a lot of lip reading, I’ve realized. And I know I need to go to the doctor but I don’t think I can bear the waiting room. It’s already scary enough. All that waiting for bad news. Or maybe good news. But these days bad news seems to be what we’ll get.
But I’m not in the grocery store yet. I’m in my laundry room. Looking for something that I need to clothe myself so that I can feed myself and all I can think about is how sad my little happy grocery store is and that I don’t want to go out in the world at all.
And I say, out loud, “I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ll know when I find it.”
Another one. These comments are meant to be mundane. But they are so symbolic and maybe even spiritual. I think they mean to be symbolic and spiritual. Need to be. I mean if happiness is an inside job, then it seems like most everything should be, especially during this pandemic. We don’t really have a choice unless we just want to watch Netflix all day. We are inside. We are sitting with ourselves. Whether we like it or not. We might as well try to learn something. (P.S. I was looking for a sock. I didn’t find it.)
To that end, I realized I needed to read a good book. One to help my hyper-sensitivity and my disorientation. I’d heard a lot about one called The Untethered Soul. So I bought it, and every morning I read a chapter before I get out of bed. This morning, I couldn’t find it. I rifled through my stack of books, felt between the mattress and the headboard, and looked under my bed. Nowhere to be found. This book has been a savior. I’ve been relying on its wisdom, underlining and writing all over its margins. And apparently not much has sunk in…
…because these words literally flew out of my mouth: “Where’s my mother f***ing Untethered Soul?!!”
And then I laughed, because how could you not laugh if those words came out of your mouth. Even if they meant to mean one thing, but maybe meant to mean something very different in actuality. One of the passages I have underlined and memorized from this book, is this:
“You are behind everything, just watching. That is your true home.”
Just watching. With life being stopped and stretched into this slow solitude, there is so much time to watch. Watching the forest fire smoke stain the sky. Watching the birds leave in V’s and churring flocks. Watching a face on a computer screen look back at a face on a computer screen, not at an actual face. Watching news I can’t take, and then cooking shows that make me hungry but not to cook for just me. Watching myself go out to dinner and remember that you can’t sit at a bar, so I watch myself sit at a table for one, watching people at tables for two, and eventually watching whatever’s on the TV over the bar, like football. I don’t watch football as a rule, but suddenly it’s my only company out in the world. I should have brought The Untethered Soul. But I don’t want to watch myself being symbolic and spiritual and sensitive. I want to watch myself eat excellent Manila clams and sip Sancerre, and chat with the other single diners at the bar. Instead, I’m watching myself eat two bites of my meal and decide to take the rest to-go. This is my true home: watching the movie that is conscious human life. I am not the movie. I know this. I just wish I liked what I am watching. Maybe I’ll see what Yellowstone is all about. At least I’ll be watching horses and Montana. Only the irony is: I have horses and I live in Montana. I watch myself say “no” to invitations to ride. I watch myself allowing that. Sometimes I say “Yes.” It has to do with how I’m feeling. Is it a sensitive day? Almost every day is. I startle so easily and this is new. Along with this disorientation.
I am startling so easily over the tiniest things. As a horse person, I’ve been trained not to startle easily. Startling easily can get you into serious trouble. You startle, the horse startles. And when horses startle, they run away from the danger. Fast. Sometimes they buck along the way. I understand them. They just want to get back home. Where they feel safe. And can watch for predators. Like me.
The other day I was outside, and I saw something in the sky out of the corner of my eye— something that pushed into my vision and psyche, dark and foreboding and fast, and I gasped. Some nefarious intruder? Some otherworldly winged thing?
It was a rain cloud.
I laughed and said,
“Since the pandemic, now apparently clouds can fall on you. And maybe even suffocate you.”
I tried to shake the startle out of me.
It was cold then, and so I decided to make a fire because I haven’t had the heating ducts cleaned yet for winter and refuse to turn on the heat. God knows what’s been living in those ducts all summer. I don’t need hantavirus blowing all over my house. Especially during whatever other viruses might be amuk. I prefer a fire to gas forced air anyway. I like something alive in my living room besides my dog and me— something that casts light and warmth my way. That’s contained and feels economic and that also makes me feel brave for building it. Going out to the woodshed with the wheelbarrow and loading it up. Chopping kindling on the big larch round that’s been there for thirty years. I brought a load into the woodstove hearth, and stacked the logs with kindling and ripped up cardboard like I always do. And then my knuckle hit the top of the woodstove and it burned. But there weren’t any flames yet. It was like my knuckle was pressed against a hot ember that wouldn’t let go, and I realized that I was being stung by a wasp.
I shook my hand and saw it land on the hearth, still alive. Then I struck a match and let the fire burn, left the wasp, and went into the kitchen to find the baking soda to make a poultice. It stung and I felt very violated by that wasp. Is there a wasp nest in the chimney now? I want all of these uninvited visitors out of my home. Normally, I think these displaced creatures are sort of sweet and brave. I would never kill a spider. I’ve killed mice. They eat my electrical wires. I don’t have the heart to kill anything now. I’ll live in the dark. But I won’t be cold. Even if I get stung by wasps when I’m making a fire.
That’s the thing. It feels like nothing is safe.
One morning last week, I woke up to smoke in the sky. The smoke from the current heartbreaking western inferno finally hit Montana. We’ve been lucky this summer in the Flathead Valley. But there’s lightning in the forecast. I’ve wondered what I would take if I had to evacuate, like so many in the West have had to do in the last months. I can’t think of one thing. One thing becomes boxes of things, and there wouldn’t be time for boxes of things, and passports and birth certificates can be replaced. My grandmother’s piano, and all of my memories cannot. I think I would just grab the dogs and run for our lives. Leave it all behind. My house is my safety. I can’t bear to think of losing it.
So I go the other way.
I stay in bed and realize that my sheets are old and pilly and have holes in them, and some of the pillows don’t even have cases. And suddenly I find myself online buying high thread count percale pillowcases from Italy. I never splurge on things like that. Maybe a trip somewhere or a nice dinner. Experiences. But not really things. The pillowcases come in the mail a few days later, and I wash them, and dry them, and put them on my old sad limp pillows. I rest my head on them and I feel safe. But then it’s more than that. It’s that I feel luxurious. Like I’ve gone somewhere I’ve saved for and planned for and am finally there. Only it’s just my bed. Where I am every day. No long commute. No peopled place, exotic or not. And I think, Well it’s something. So I buy the matching duvet cover and sheets. Even though they are on sale, they are all out of my Covid budget. I’ve never had nice sheets anyway. Not like this.
And I say, aloud, “Why are you buying these?” And then I say, “I don’t know. I’m just lonely.”
Part of me feels like ending this essay there. With that last line. “I don’t know. I’m just lonely.” Because I know you feel it too. Even if you aren’t living alone. Even if you have a house full of people. The loneliness from not being able to connect with the world in person, is causing adrenal burnout. Mis-firing neurons. I’m no scientist, but I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on with not just me, but so many of us. I’m disoriented. I’m feeling everything and all at the same frequency. And I know: I can’t feel the whole world. I would live in a constant anxiety attack. I just need to feel myself. But it helps me to know that behind the feelings, there is the watching. The knowing that I don’t have to be or become any of this. I can be and become instead, the observer of it.
“You are behind everything, just watching. That is your true home.”
I’m just glad that I have really great linens on my bed for now.
yours,
Laura
Sunday, October 25th, 10:00-3:00 MST
Using the powerful tool that is the written word…
We will spend the day digging deeply into:
What you want to let go of
What you want to embrace
What you want to dream alive
You do NOT have to be a writer to come
You DO need to want to find the answer to this question: So Now What
You can be very private and introspective, as it’s not a highly interactive workshop
All you need is a pen and some paper and an open heart. I will guide you through every minute of it!
The time flies by and you come out feeling new, with direction, energy, focus, hope!
For more information and to register, click here.
by Laura Munson | Sep 2, 2020 | Uncategorized
Here are the last three short essays from Haven Writing Retreat alums in our Pandemic and Me Series.
We hope that you will be inspired, and mostly that they help you know you are not alone. We’re not going for talking points or even wisdom. We’re going for truth, whatever that means for each author.
You might consider writing your own. The only writing prompt I gave them was this: The Pandemic and Me. 800 words. Go for your truth.
I invite you to do the same! Writing is the best tool I know in the realm of preventative wellness, self-awareness, letting go, and dreaming your future alive. Writing heals. Telling our stories heals. Reading heals. I hope these essays will help heal you.
To that end, my next So Now What online Workshop will be on Sept. 13th from 10:00-3:00 MST. For more info and to register, click here.
For more information re: my future events, workshops, book readings, online course and community, and other opportunities, sign up for my newsletter on the home page.
Yours,
Laura
My Last Hug
By Diane Hartman
Because of Covid-19, the last time I was hugged was on March 1, 2020 when Livingston Taylor, James’s younger brother, grabbed me by his long, thin, guitar-playing hands and pulled me into an affectionate bear hug. He was a great hugger, genuine and truly grateful that, as he said, “you drove all the way down here from Indianapolis by yourself to see me play.” He signed my copy of his first album, fifty years old now, and we laughed as we compared his full head of long hair on the album cover versus his receding hairline now. “Well, in all fairness,” I added, “I’m not exactly a natural blond, you know. The color helps to hide the gray.” We talked about how quickly time flies, how fortunate we are to still be on this planet doing what we love –he, a successful musician and teacher at the Berklee College of Music and I, a retired librarian now able to devote time to writing–and how, as we grow older, we take less for granted. It was the perfect ending to an evening filled with his music and gentle, humorous banter at a restored movie theater in Bloomington, Indiana. News about this strange new virus in China snaking its way into our country was not on our radar. It was out staged by our president’s impeachment hearings and by the tragic death of a basketball superstar. We thought nothing of eating in crowded restaurants and attending concerts in packed auditoriums. I had no idea that within a few weeks I would be self-quarantined from my family and friends for the next three months, that going to the grocery store would be like a post-apocalyptic experience, and that my high need for solitude would reach an oversaturated boiling point I never dreamed possible.
I think about that hug from Livingston Taylor often and how good it felt as I sit isolated in my comfortable home and dream of being hugged once again by my grandchildren, my daughters, my friends, and maybe even strangers. I think about how naïve Livingston Taylor and I were that night. Did we really have any understanding about how fortunate we were, about not taking things for granted? I can’t speak for him, but I can’t comprehend the enormity of 160 thousand plus deaths in a country that is supposed to have one of the best health care systems in the world. I can’t understand our government who mishandled the pandemic so badly. How has personal opinion come to supersede scientific fact? I never thought of myself as racist until, in the midst of the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd forced me and so many other white Americans to examine our assumptions about what it’s like to be a black person living in America.
I’m retired. I have a guaranteed income and health insurance. I’m so much more fortunate than those who are raising families and have lost their jobs. I know this, and I do what little I can to help–donate some of my stimulus check, give to local food banks, advocate for justice. I know that’s something, but I feel it’s not enough.
Everything is on hold. Nothing can be planned in advance unless it’s scheduled to be held remotely. There’s an underlying feeling of what Thoreau called “quiet desperation.” We can’t be certain, no matter what precautions we take, that we’re safe. And we don’t know what the long- term effects will be of the precautions we are taking. How will remote learning affect our children’s education, what are the long-term effects of contracting Covid-19?
So, I search for something in my isolation to give me comfort and hope, and, as I usually do when I’m troubled, I turn to musicians and poets—Debussy, James Taylor, Wendell Berry, Emily Dickinson and so many others. They don’t disappoint. The strains of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” and James Taylor’s soothing voice and guitar encouraging me to “tend your own fire, lay low and be strong” are flowers for my soul, and Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Peace of Wild Things” allows me to “rest in the grace of the world” for just a moment. I turn to these when I long for the feel of that bear hug that, for now, as Emily Dickinson states, is “over there, behind the shelf the sexton keeps the key to.” The shelf is unlocked and for a fleeting instant my heart opens and blows all thoughts of the virus away. I cling to that moment like a swimmer caught inside the calm of a huge wave before the wave rolls over, thrashing against the shore.
Diane Hartman is writing a memoir about her solo journeys on Ireland’s back roads. She is a retired librarian and educator who lives in Indiana with her dog, Corey.
HOME LIPOSUCTION
by Ginger Garett
I was sitting around minding my own business when my attention was drawn to a spam e-mail entitled “Home Liposuction.” Since I saw that, I have been unable to think of anything else. It has become my Holy Grail. I used to think my calling in life was to ensure civil rights and equal justice and all that. But now I know, that I was put on this earth to perfect a system of room service fat removal in the comfort of one’s own home. No more intermittent fasting. No more keto or paleo or worse. Eat what you want and then have it sucked right out like it never happened. But I have to figure out how to make a fat sucker.
I start in the bathroom. I have a first aid kit there and hygiene has to be of the utmost importance. I need a mechanical device. Some sort of pump. I look at everything in my bathroom that has a battery. I check out my electric toothbrush. It has different speeds but nothing that would extract. It would only spin the fat into a cellulite ball. Ah…the water pik. Now that’s a real possibility. Maybe I could obliterate the fat on the highest setting. Kind of like power washing. But with as much fat as I have it would probably take the pressure of a fire hose and not a nice little gum irrigator.
I try the kitchen. Lots of appliances in here. I start opening drawers and cabinets and pull out anything that plugs in or makes noise. The can opener seems rather violent even though the magnet is tempting. The hand mixer looks promising, but I realize it would probably just perform some kind of abdominal lobotomy. And then, my eyes land on the prize. A brand new, barely operated, apple-red, Vitamix. So many functions. Blend and chop. Puree. Crush. That’s what I want. I want to crush that blubber into a liquid primordial ooze. But I need an entry point. What would lend itself to the best access? I’m fresh out of scalpels. I got knives but none of them will even cut mashed potatoes. They are duller than Ivanka Trump without her big white Max Mara purse.
Then it comes to me. The tools are in the garage. I wasted all this time trudging through the amateur devices. The garage has the serious elimination stuff. I can barely stand the anticipation as I view the wall of power tools. Mounted. All turned in the same direction. From biggest to smallest. Left to right. Perfectly organized like a fine gun collection. I knew that hiring those closet organizers would pay off. A drill would be perfect. Quick. Precise. And a minimal breech. With a drill you could be in and out before they knew it. Kinda like getting your ears pierced. I’m thinking of going in through the belly button. Different drill bit sizes for different buttons. Now to find an extractor. Leaf blower. Lawn edger. Weed whacker. And there it is, standing alone, as if already on a podium to be recognized. A heavy duty, shiny silver, gadget-loaded shop vac. And for those of you who have used a shop vac, you know the best part. It not only sucks, it pumps. You can attach a hose and turn the vacuum into a pump for the rendered fat. It’s brilliant.
I thought about a siphon but couldn’t imagine a mouthful of fat globules. You can’t siphon gasoline without getting it in your mouth. I expected it would be the same with the beef and bacon and heavy cream residue. Maybe it tastes good going in. But after it sits there for a while and congeals. Enough said.
It seems simple enough. Drill a small hole and insert a small tube which is connected to the almighty shop vac-turned pump. Plug that baby in and hit the on switch. The tricky part is to only get the designated material to come out and to make sure you leave all the good stuff inside.
I know it’s too late to completely avoid the Covid carbs. I saw all of you during the past three months just stuffing your mouths with anything that had the tiniest bit of comfort in it. You justified it. You glorified it. You fried it. And now you just don’t want to deal with the consequences. But I have a solution. Home Liposuction in your home or mine. I do charge extra for house calls. Just lie down on your back and relax. This will be over before you know it. You want a glass of wine while I work?
The Pandemic and Me…
by Heather Higinbotham
We are six months into this surreal alternate reality none of us thought we’d ever experience in our lifetimes. I was ignorantly optimistic that it would be short lived; I thought life would pause for a few months, we would enjoy some family time together at home, and our daughter would still go on her summer study abroad trip. I assumed everyone would follow guidelines and science and do the right thing.
In some ways, COVID hasn’t felt that different. We’re homebodies. I looked at staying home and taking it seriously as bonus time, where I could stay on top of laundry and be with my family and live in stretchy pants.
My imagined bliss was fleeting. While many slowed down, I had less time than before, working from home full time with the added distractions and stress of pandemic schooling a teenager and the immense emotional toll of supporting everyone’s mental health support. Some of my days off work were filled with new recipes and long walks and beautiful connection. Many days it was all I could do to keep everyone fed and binge watch Netflix. My “me” time has been reduced to every other Friday between 7:00-9:00 a.m.
Pre-pandemic, I had finally gotten to a place of consistent self-care, healing, and recovery work. Now, my mental capacity to focus on self-care is transient. Most days I find myself zoning out, thinking about nothing or everything, confused at the sight of baseball tournaments or the mask debate or the continued increase in cases. Certainly not doing anything resembling self-care.
I realize now I’ve been telling myself the absurd lie that COVID isn’t affecting me, not like it’s affecting others. Perhaps I’ve been simmering in undertones of existential dread for too long, to believe I was unphased by a global pandemic. I already lived my life in a perpetual state of stress and trauma, recovering from a decade of abuse and C-PTSD and raising a kid with C-PTSD. I spend my days (and sleepless nights) dumbfounded that humanity can’t be bothered to lift a finger to address climate change, the greatest threat humanity in our lifetimes has ever faced, because it’s too inconvenient or expensive or hard. I watch with horror as America figuratively and literally burns before our eyes, succumbing to systemic racism and cracks in the lies of capitalism and climate change-fueled wildfires and super storms. Why not a pandemic too?
What remains the most difficult is reckoning with the guilt I am feeling. Guilt that I have so much privilege I can move through a pandemic without it completely upending my life. Until I or those close to me get sick, COVID is a mild inconvenience: I have a full pantry and freezer, access to technology and the Internet, a secure job, and can work from home.
I feel guilt over my white privilege and a statistically lower chance of COVID destroying my world. Guilt that I am so far removed from the debilitating reality that so many are unable to survive. Many have never experienced this level of uncertainty before. Some feel it every day, a constant hum or deafening, debilitating roar. Poverty, systemic racism, industrial pollution in black and brown communities, instigated violence at Black Lives Matter protests.
I feel guilt about my morbid fascination with checking the COVID dashboard every morning, a mix of dread and giddy anticipation, a gut feeling this is going to get exponentially worse. Let me be clear: I do not want people to die. But it is painfully evident that without a catastrophic upset to life as we know it, there is zero hope of implementing the changes in our culture that are needed to dismantle institutional racism, act on climate change, restore democracy, and look to leadership to handle the next highly infectious and deadly global pandemic.
In many ways, the pandemic has been a gift. It’s proven that we have the capability to slow down, to reconnect, to drastically reduce our carbon emissions. We just don’t have the political will. I dread the tragedies of COVID-19 will be nothing more than a heartbreaking, gigantic missed opportunity for humanity; that the desire to go “back to the pre-COVID world” will overpower the ability to create a better, more equitable world, and our current problems will amplify, eventually extincting life as we know it. That (as of this writing) the 851,154 people who have died from COVID-19, a handful of them dear friends, will have died in vain, from incompetence and partisanship and greed, not for the purpose of bettering our world.
Will this pandemic be the perfect storm that catalyzes systemic change? Or will it sink the entire fleet? They say hindsight is 2020. Will it be this time?
by Laura Munson | Aug 30, 2020 | Uncategorized
I will be posting short essays from Haven Writing Retreat alums for the next few weeks…
…in hopes that you will be inspired, and mostly so that you know you are not alone. We’re not going for talking points or even wisdom. We’re going for truth. Here is the next installment of the series.
You might consider writing your own. The only writing prompt I gave them was this: The Pandemic and Me. 800 words. Go for your truth.
I invite you to do the same! Writing is the best tool I know in the realm of preventative wellness, self-awareness, letting go, and dreaming your future alive. Writing heals. Telling our stories heals. Reading heals. I hope these essays will help heal you.
To that end, my next So Now What online Workshop will be on Sept. 13th from 10:00-3:00 MST. For more info and to register, click here.
Yours,
Laura
TV Dinner
by Jennifer L. Revill
One of the pleasures of my 1960’s-era childhood was sitting down in front of the television with a TV dinner. The prescient Swanson Company had figured out how to cash in on the growing popularity of television in the post-Cold War United States. Inside each cardboard sleeve, there was an aluminum tray divided into sections, filled with blocks of frozen food. This tray would go into the oven, and, ideally, emerge with all foods equally heated.
My mother would bring the steaming tray into the den in with her pot-holdered hands and place it on a metal tray table next to the couch for me. She and my dad would rarely join me. So this only child had the experience to herself. I ate slowly, relishing the salty fried chicken, the individual corn kernels hard as pomegranate seeds, the grainy mashed potatoes, and that tiny portion of scalding hot apple crisp, as I watched the Partridge Family on Channel 6.
My TV dinner experiences were islands of pleasure in what I now see as a lake of loneliness.
I spent much of my childhood on my own. With no siblings, extended family far away in other states, and parents who only occasionally enjoyed each other’s company, our times at home were either subdued or filled with the sound of my father’s raised voice and with my mother’s sadness. I had friends but I was alone a lot. There were happy times, exploring the woods behind our suburban house, and gracefully hopping stone to stone along the rock walls that bounded our property. I created treasure maps and dreamed of new worlds in my back yard. There were dark times, too. Throughout it all, I learned how to be self-sufficient.
I am fortunate to live in a state which took the threat of coronavirus disease seriously from early on. Our governor, his face a grim landscape, went on TV and told us all to shelter in place in early March of 2020. My employer sent us home with laptops and VPN codes and uncertain direction on how to do our public sector jobs remotely. And there we stayed for almost four months.
I live only with a friendly cat. My parents are long dead. My daughter lives on the other coast. I am divorced and not in a relationship. I am loved by many excellent friends, but I could not see them in person now. My principal extracurricular activity had been choral singing; now, that had been deemed highly dangerous, so I was no longer making music.
Everyone struggled. My own struggle was not with learning to homeschool my children, with my health, with vulnerable parents, nor with being unable to pay the rent. The pandemic had not, has not, wounded my existence directly. My struggle was with solitariness. I was alone in my home with the viral cyclone raging outside. Friends and parents of friends fell victim; some died. I grieved for everything everyone had lost, and I acknowledged my good fortune to be solvent, resourced, and still alive.
But for all of the popular advice about the need to cultivate gratitude, I just couldn’t do it. I stewed in resentment because, now, every single night was TV dinner night. Each evening, I would cook enough for one, set it on a plate, and carry it into my living room. I would sit on my couch and turn on the TV. The news was terrifying and not good. Neither was the food, because it had been made not with pleasure or in companionship, but with distracted utility. I had a pervasive sense of being locked into a pattern that I had not chosen. That it was the same pattern I had not chosen as a young girl made it more intolerable.
But don’t you know: my old self-sufficiency, still threaded through my spirit, began to vibrate. Shut off the damn TV, it said. Get up. Go outside. The weather in Massachusetts in March is windy and raw. Still, every day at 5:00pm I got into my car and drove the roads of an adjacent town until I found a trail, or a meadow, or a stream. I must have walked a hundred miles in a couple of months. Bundled in fleece, step by step, through the mud and along the rock walls, I wended my way back toward gratitude. As I walked, as I breathed, I drafted a new treasure map of the life I would need to consult when this time of terror and limitation had passed. It was the red-wing blackbirds, the lady slippers, and the fiddleheads that companioned me through the woods of sadness, back into hope and back to hunger; not for apple crisp, but for happiness, sadness, for the entirety of my life.
Jennifer Revill writes and teaches about the spiritual life. She lives in Massachusetts.
0 Days Since Last Injury
by Michel Roberts
Convinced that fake-perfect helps no one, I’ll share a recent failing. It’s no accident that my proudest moment was after an extra-long day of work. During what’s usually the “golden hour,” after shedding my purse and mask, that I like to spend relaxing with my family over dinner.
This particular Monday started with an early morning doctor appointment for a physical, then dental cleaning during my lunch break. Both were rescheduled due to the pandemic and now that the offices were open they awkwardly landed on the same day. Masks and social distancing. Check in from the parking lot. All the new protocols of our daily life.
So I was grateful when my husband, Paul, acknowledged their timing as I walked in the door on what was his day off.
“Two appointments in the same day. I never do that.”
He’d cooked dinner. Bless him.
“Yeah, and I managed to reach the high school to register her choice of digital academy instead of on-campus learning. The deadline was today.” Sharing my small victory before eating was my first mistake.
“What? She’s not going back to school?”
This is where he suddenly pays attention after I’ve spent weeks on video school board meetings and talking to our daughter about plans for her fall semester during a pandemic.
“She only has two classes left to meet her graduation requirements.”
“What do you mean? How can she only have two classes left….”
I had to walk away. I retreated to our master bedroom at the opposite end of our townhome. I could hear him continue his line of questioning with our 17 year old.
“Dad, I took high school classes in middle school, remember?”
“What about your friends? Have you asked them if they’re going back?…”
I knew it wasn’t going to end any time soon. He would need all the answers. No golden hour.
“Shut the f&@k up,” I said under my breath in our townhome that keeps no secrets.
He heard me. The kids heard me. Our 14 year old son was in the front room, too.
“Did you hear what your mother said? Is that any way to talk to me in front of you kids?”
Of course not. No excuse. We don’t talk to each other this way. He didn’t want an apology that night but the next day I left this card on his windshield at work.
Kindness is Rare (cover)
“…especially when your wife is in an awful mood and takes it out on you. I wish I could take back what I said. It was mean! You didn’t deserve it! I’m so sorry! There’s no excuse. I just need you to know I’m really struggling. The news. The fear. Going to work with customers who don’t take the threat to our health seriously. Everyday demands weigh heavily when there’s already so much I’m worried about. Then big decisions like whether the kids should go to school in the fall on top of it all. When I get home from a normal day of work with all the noise, customer complaints and chaos I need some quiet and calm. It’s true now more than ever. I should have asked if we could talk about it later so we could enjoy the dinner you made. Instead I lashed out. I’m very sorry. I love you. Thank you for all you do.”
I wasn’t sure he’d read it. I was, however, sure there would be no dinner waiting for me when I got home.
But I was wrong.
He made salmon. We ate together quietly. He never once mentioned my card.
When I called a college friend the next day I could hear her nodding on the other end. We’re all feeling the strain and on the verge of our own STFU moment.
“But, somehow, we never get credit for the days we don’t say it out loud,” she laughed. Like the factory sign – “xx days without injury” I’d filed my incident report and was starting over at zero.
Over Saturday morning coffee Paul said, “I’m gonna call Mike. I miss my friend. He’s the only one that doesn’t tell me to STFU,” he smiled.
When he said the same to Mike, I could hear his response. “Oh, but I think it,” and it made us both laugh.
Kindness isn’t really so rare, after all.
The moments of grace and forgiveness when we’re at our lowest are a gift we can give freely. There’s no room for comparison when there are so many suffering in unimaginable ways. Instead we can recognize the struggle for each and every one of us and support our friends and strangers alike.
It’s the only way we’ll get through it. Maybe the only way anyone ever has.
by Laura Munson | Aug 26, 2020 | Musings
I will be posting short essays from Haven Writing Retreat alums for the next few weeks…
…in hopes that you will be inspired, and mostly so that you know you are not alone. We’re not going for talking points or even wisdom. We’re going for truth. Here is the next installment of the series.
You might consider writing your own. The only writing prompt I gave them was this: The Pandemic and Me. 800 words. Go for your truth.
I invite you to do the same! Writing is the best tool I know in the realm of preventative wellness, self-awareness, letting go, and dreaming your future alive. Writing heals. Telling our stories heals. Reading heals. I hope these essays will help heal you.
To that end, my next So Now What online Workshop will be on Sept. 13th from 10:00-3:00 MST. For more info and to register, click here.
Yours,
Laura
My Covid-19 Stargate
By Devra Lee Fishman
My makeup basket languishes on a glass shelf in my bathroom, between a jar of cotton swabs and a box of tissues. It overflows with lipstick tubes and powder blush compacts full of my color-me-beautiful corals, bricks and just the right tomato-reds. Between the Covid-19 quarantine and safety requirements of wearing a facemask – the new little black dress – these products are not only redundant but by now well past their best-if-used-before dates. I will probably never wear them again yet I cannot seem to toss them out. They are part of my Covid-19 before and my hope for a can’t –come-soon-enough after.
There is evidence all around me of a time I was free to fill up my life with objects and activities that brought me joy. Too many pairs of black shoes and boots I collected on my yearly trips to Italy crowd the floor of my closet. The blue cotton jacket, the uniform that I wore as a weekly hospice volunteer, hangs above the shoes where I left it the last time I wore it – March 3, 2020. And on my desk next to the laptop I am typing on is a pile of theatre and concert tickets for events canceled due to the Corona virus.
When news of the virus came back in March, I (well, no one really), knew how it would affect our lives. The first couple of weeks I spent at home I behaved as though we were having a snow day, braless, dressed in sweats, drinking comforting cups of tea and putting together jigsaw puzzles. I thought the storm would pass and that within a few weeks or so we would all resume our usual activities.
I know better now. We all do. Covid-19 is more like a Stargate – a portal to another place or time – than a snowstorm. And there is no point of return once a person has passed through a Stargate.
Like so many other people, I am learning to socialize and live my life from a distance. My main communities – aerobics and yoga classes, and even my hospice volunteering are now done online. Facetime and Zoom make meeting friends for a glass of wine or dinner possible. Nothing replaces spending time in the presence of a friend or loved one, but a video call makes me feel more connected than an old-fashioned telephone call, and I need to feel connected. I feel safest when I am at home and when I need to go out for an essential activity (doctor appointment, grocery shopping) I have a collection of colorful face masks that make those beautiful lipsticks irrelevant.
While I am adjusting to the new normal I feel like I am still more in survival mode than thriving mode. Every morning, after I tune into my daily meditation app, I slip on my ear buds and take a walk around the block just to feel the air on my skin for a few minutes. I spend a lot of time mourning my previous life, its reasons for dressing up, wearing lipstick and all of the activities that made it joyful and meaningful. I know this feeling of grief will pass, but when?
I’ve moved through Stargates of grief before and always came out on the other side transformed for the better. When my first marriage ended it took a while but I learned to love and trust again, and when one of my best friends died after a long battle with breast cancer I became a softened version of my former self (my friend would love knowing that). In an odd way I am grateful for both of those horrendous and heartbreaking losses.
I wonder if I will ever be grateful for all of the losses piling up from Covid-19. I wonder what the next version me will be like if and when this is all over. I wonder if it will ever be all over. I wonder if I will ever wear my favorite color lipstick (Revlon’s Toast of New York) or Italian black shoes with the faux cow hide on the heels or my hospice uniform again. And I wonder how long it will take me to get through this Covid-19 Stargate into a new, comfortable, joyful and meaningful life. If my past experiences have taught me anything, it is that I will not know I have made it all the way through a Stargate of grief until I have made it all the way through a Stargate of grief.
Devra Lee Fishman lives and writes (and finds lots of ways to avoid writing) in Falls Church, Virginia.
I Like My Mask
by Elizabeth Pascarelli
I like my mask. Sometimes I even forget to brush my teeth. And since I am on lockdown in a foreign country, I am occasionally asking myself not very interesting philosophical questions like…Am I brushing my teeth for others or for myself ? Little nagging voices…with a New York accent…have popped up— unlike normal life…that would ask me, in a sarcastic tone: ”So…now what are you gonna do?” And: “Are you gonna wash up the dishes from last night or are you gonna make your bed first?” Even: ”You know…you’ve been wearing the same damn outfit for three months!” Things I would have done automatically before…without thinking…but now I am watching myself….narrating the day…talking and answering myself. Good god!
At first it was kind of fun. I drew faces on my masks and at 8pm…with the rest of Europe…I would blast an American rock and roll song…usually Chuck Berry…and dance on the balcony. My Spanish neighbors would join in and then we’d all applaud the workers who came around later to spray the village with disinfectant. We were bonding, I felt, uniting our two countries.
Then it all stopped…maybe they ran out of spray…but I couldn’t resume the song and dance. I would have looked like a strange foreigner.
So I set up my apartment into a kind of Montessori school…activity stations. One was for reading …another for yoga…and the utility room for painting. Even the bathroom became a make-shift spa. I could write short stories on a desk I invented by the balcony…where I could also have a cigarette and watch people go by. I soon became bored with all of that.
The little annoying voice started up again. ”Do you really want to be on a plane back to the US just to be with family that might get annoyed with you because you’re living in Spain?”
Well…no…I thought.
It continued. “Listen, stupid…this is the first time in your whole life when you don’t have to worry about where you should or could be….you ain’t going nowhere!”
Okay…Okay…I get it…I’m on lockdown…even though I hate the word…So I’ll go brush my teeth.
Elizabeth Pascarelli is an American, living and writing in Spain.
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