by Laura Munson | Oct 2, 2023 | Motherhood
Sometimes we have to look in the rearview mirror for insights into how to move forward in our lives. The time of Covid lockdown, sick with the virus, on top of a job/income on pause, and a cancelled book tour for a novel that took eight years to write……isn’t an alluring place to look. But often, that which we resist, is the very thing we need to revisit. I haven’t wanted to re-read this essay in three years. Today, however, I woke up to the smell of toast, and with an exceptional gratitude that I couldn’t quite place. I lived alone, in a sad empty nest, for a long time, and I am a loyal pack creature. The truth is: I’m now in a deeply loving, and highly surprising relationship that just keeps getting richer by the day/month/year, and my nest is no longer empty. This morning I knew it was time to glean the lessons from that particular, and also surprisingly peopled time…to truly find gratitude for this one. I hope that it will help you do the same, wherever you’ve been afraid to look. I know that it’s not healthy to live in the past. But it’s a very good teacher. Please enjoy this essay:
April, 2020
I wake up to the smell of someone in the kitchen. Maybe it’s coffee. Maybe it’s toast. I don’t open my eyes and I don’t know why. I only know that I don’t want to know why. That this smell is a good thing and that there are bad things. Really bad things. And if I keep my eyes closed, I won’t remember what they are.
I also know that this is a new ability I have: my mind on full stop, in my waking moments. And it’s not something I’ve learned from somebody in a hallowed hall, or holy place. Or from somebody whose words are in the stack of dusty books on my bedside table, getting dustier. Or somebody whose TED Talk I watched on my computer that is under my bed, ready to feed me today’s news, and remind me of my overdue bills, and deliver me my mother’s concern for my health and for her own, and all of the things that I’m not thinking about. Yet. Because they hurt. And I don’t want to remember why.
The not wanting to remember cracks the full stop spell. And I remember then why I don’t want to open my eyes. I’m not very good at this selective thinking. It’s only been a month.
But someone’s in the kitchen. I decide to think about only this, just for a few more waking moments.
This is not a game. This is how it has to be. Every morning. If I’m going to be safe, and well, and hopeful, and look for silver linings, and attempt what everyone is telling everyone to be and do right now. Including me. In this daily morning moment in this “difficult time of uncertainty and new normal,” still closer to dreams than consciousness or euphemism, I try for at least some of it.
So I keep my eyes shut, pressing lid to lid because they want to open, and my hand wants to grab my phone and my computer and a wise dusty book all at the same time, and my brain wants to careen through the newly-not-normal details of my life.
Instead, I implore myself to smell. Because I realize in this moment…I can smell. And I remember: I haven’t been able to for a while. And there’s someone in the kitchen making beautiful smells that have wafted up the stairs and under my door and into my bed with me. My bed, my new home office, my new mostly home.
I widen my nostrils and anchor my tongue on the ridge behind my teeth. Open the back of my throat. Let my lungs expand. My lungs are clear for the first time in weeks. But I don’t think about that. I think about this new gift that is in the back of my nose, and now in my sinuses that spread my cheeks into a smile that’s not really a smile. Or maybe it is. Sort of. I don’t want to think about smiling like I don’t want to read books or watch TED Talks or learn from holy people.
Toast.
Yes, definitely toast. Sourdough toast. From the bread we made.
We.
I hold the scent and allow the characters to ride in on it. It feels safe to let myself imagine these characters. It could be either of them: my daughter. Twenty-three. Home from her young adult life in San Francisco, still with a job. My son, nineteen, home from his sophomore year in college and a lost baseball season. I’m not thinking about why. Only that they’re home and one of them, or both, is making toast. I let myself think about that, full stop.
Toast.
That I can smell.
From bread we made.
From wild yeast starter that our neighbor left in our mailbox in a Mason jar.
I almost think about why it wasn’t a nice long over-due visit with tea.
I almost think about why no one in this house is going to the grocery store or anywhere else for that matter.
I almost think about how we wiped down the Mason jar with sanitizer before we brought it in the house.
But I stop the thought.
Toast.
I touch my face with my eyes still closed. I don’t think about why I’m not supposed to touch my face. I’m still smiling. That makes me smile more. With the scent of someone in the kitchen.
Someone-in-the-kitchen relaxes my eyes and helps me to think another calm thought. My daily motherhood is back. I let myself think about a month ago, when the hardest thing I was facing was a debilitating and shameful, and thusly clandestine, haunt that is commonly known as Empty Nest. An unpopular and unsympathetic malady. We choose to have kids and it’s normal for them to fledge. We want them to fledge. Right? So why all the crying and loneliness and abject disorientation?
In short, I was pretending I was fine. I wasn’t.
I was alone for the first time in my life in a farmhouse in Montana. I was holding the banister on the stairs— no one will find me for weeks if I take a fall. I was thinking that way. The grey on grey of winter didn’t help. The truth is: I was hardly eating. I was hardly leaving my bed. I was waking with my eyes wide open at all hours of the night and early morning and I was having a hard time closing them at all.
And then this thing that I’m trying not to think about happened. And I’ve chosen to stay in this room, in this bed, when all I want to do is not be in this room, in this bed. Be with my children who are across the hall. Take care of them. But it’s hard to walk down the stairs, banister and all. I haven’t had energy. And this cough…
I let myself scan the last weeks. I haven’t gotten one of the few Montana tests because I haven’t had a fever and though I have had some of the other symptoms, my doctor says to stay put. Health care workers need them. High risk individuals need them. She thanks me for staying home. And so I have. For a month, I’ve been more or less in this bed. Not heartsick this time as much as just sick. Afterall, I was on the East Coast on book tour, shaking a lot of hands, giving and getting a lot of hugs. Before the phrase I don’t want to think about kept us from each other.
When I need to leave my room, I do it with stealth even though I want to hug my children so badly. I get up in the early morning, make my tea and bring a plate of fruit up to bed, while they’re still asleep. I don’t want them to not be able to smell, never mind breathe.
I pass their rooms, their doors closed like it’s ten years ago and I have breakfast and bag lunches to make and carpool to drive. But they know how to do all of that themselves now. They have Zoom work calls, and online courses. They’re happy my bedroom door is shut. They’re not used to seeing me every day anyway. They don’t need me sitting on their beds asking deep questions. They’re just as disoriented as I’ve been, only in reverse. They’ve been on full fledge. Now they’re home in their rooms with the trophies and the stickers and the posters. This was not the plan.
They came home with twenty-four hours’ notice. “We want to get through this at home.”
Salve, not salt, in the mother wound. I’m glad I kept their rooms dusted.
But how can I possibly be glad for this personal gain? The world has stopped. We are in global pain and it’s a lot bigger than my little Empty Nest issues. People are dying from an invisible enemy. I know this about enemies: it helps to look into their eyes. To wonder how we are the same. To practice on those eyes— our love and our empathy, and yes our fear and anger.
This one has no eyes.
I keep mine closed and admit my dirty secret to myself: I am so deeply grateful that my house has a family in it again. And I am the mother of it. I’ve missed it so. I wonder how many other single mothers are feeling this way right now, their adult children suddenly at home. A guilty pleasure. I feel like a glutton. Like I’m hoarding my children. Like I’ve somehow kidnapped them. Like…don’t admit this don’t admit this…I don’t want this to be over.
And that’s another reason why I don’t want to open my eyes. If I open them, and face the day, I have to face this too. Of course, I don’t want people to die. But I don’t want my daily motherhood to die again either. I feel despicable.
I try to imagine this enemy’s eyes so I can say to them what millions of people are saying all over the world: “GO NOW!”
And if I could look into those eyes, I’d add a small secret whimper: “Thank you for bringing my children home. It’s been the gift I never knew I’d be given. I’ve loved cooking all our family meals and laughing about our family jokes and talking in our family way with these older, wiser versions of my little children. But seriously…it’s time to leave our planet alone, silver linings and all.”
I truly try to picture those eyes so I can stare them down. Instead, I picture health care workers’ weary, woeful eyes above their dirty masks, and I want to drop to my knees at the side of my bed and thank them. That’s the gratitude I should be practicing right now.
And for this: I’m feeling better today. I have some energy. And I can breathe. And I can smell. “Thank you,” I whisper to every force of love and goodness I can conjure.
Now I hear this: Get on your knees.
I’ve only heard this a handful of times in my life, and when I do, I obey. My grandmother was on her knees by her bed with her hands clasped every night of her life.
I keep my eyes shut tight, and slide to the floor, and on my knees I give thanks for these people who are fighting this eyeless enemy which has taken so much and so many. And I give thanks for my returning health.
And on my knees with my eyes closed, it occurs to me that I need to give thanks to this enemy not just for my children being home, but for what it has given to our world too. Dolphins in Venice. Greenhouse gas emissions down. Air quality up. Dogs getting adopted. The elderly getting phone calls. Gratitude for our teachers— not just a mug or a plant on Teacher Appreciation Day. Gratitude for open space, parks, wilderness. Birds. Not just on Earth Day. And this word we throw around: community. Global community. Never have we globally had to face head-on the same common crisis. My father used to say, “The problem with your generation is that you haven’t had a world war.” I never knew what he was talking about. I do now.
With the exception of this Empty Nest thing, I’m a silver lining kind of person. So I say it out loud. “Silver lining.” And then the dark cloud comes back in. The thing that I am on my knees cursing and thanking.
“Go now,” I whisper. “We are limping but we will learn your lessons. It’s time for you to go.”
I kneel there and wonder what force I am speaking to with such conviction. The Covid-19 enemy? God? Mother Nature? Myself? It doesn’t much matter. The fact that I’m on my knees does.
Now I definitely smell coffee. When did they get old enough to want coffee? It was hot cocoa two seconds ago.
And I get this Christmas morning feeling in my belly, and a flood of thoughts rush in all at once, no observance of the dam I have worked so hard to build: What will I cook for them today? What new thing will we learn? Maybe they’ll say yes to a slow walk in the woods to test my energy. The fresh air will do us all good. Maybe it will be a beautiful blue sky day. Maybe we’ll read a book together. They used to love reading books with me. And singing and playing instruments before they got driver’s licenses and left to be with their friends. Like normal teens. But maybe they’ll be like they used to be today. Maybe they’ll want to be with me.
I squeeze my eyes tight against this nonsensical longing.
And maybe it’s because I’m on my knees, or because my eyes are still closed, but my mind starts wanting to hug the whole world: We have bread. And coffee. And a family in a house. None of us is alone. Imagine the mothers whose young adult children are alone. Imagine the single mothers who are alone without their children. Imagine the single mothers who are at home with their small children. Out of work. Or trying to work from home. Or pivoting their entire businesses with no food in the cupboard. Imagine being the mother of a brand new baby, born into this time of global unrest. Imagine being pregnant right now. Imagine being in a hospital delivering a baby without your loved ones. Imagine being in a hospital dying without your loved ones.
The same voice that told me to kneel, now says this: You can’t take on the world’s pain. But you can let go of your own by feeling past your own small room. Feel what there is to feel. But don’t sit in it so long that you forget how to heal. Or forget that you can heal. At some point, you have to open your eyes.
It sounds remarkably like my motherhood voice. And I realize that this month in solitude and sickness with none of my usual jobs or usual anything has turned me into a wallowing mess.
And sometimes…we need to wallow.
The door opens then.
My eyes open.
I stand.
There are my son and daughter. He’s holding a tulip in a vase. She’s holding a tray with a cup of tea and some toast on my favorite plate.
Our toast. That we took turns stretching and folding and baking.
I smile, get back into bed, and say, “Thank you!”
They place the tray at the end of my bed and sit in the window seat where I used to let them sleep sometimes when they were little and sick. I measure. Six feet away.
I take a bite of the toast. “You know, you could live on this bread. The sourdough ferments the flour and it’s full of all sorts of health. Funny how bacteria creates life. But you have to feed the starter to keep it alive. So it can do its work.”
They look out the window at the trees and into the hills like they haven’t seen this view in far too long.
I want to freeze time. But everything must move.
I sip my tea and force myself not to break this moment with mothering. Just to observe silence and togetherness and calm.
But I wonder so many things. I wonder what this virus will create in the way of living. For the whole world. And for my world. When I’m the one in the kitchen and the only smells that come from it are made by me. Because that will happen again sooner than later.
I look out the window too. At the view I have seen exclusively for months, and secretly all winter. I decide that when that word alone comes in with its haunt, I will remember this: I have a Mason jar of life in my home that needs to be fed.
And I’ll remember this too: there are always people who like a loaf of homemade bread, once we can see people again. Touch them. Hold them. Look into their eyes.
I look into my children’s eyes and say, “Thank you.”
“You look like you’re feeling a bit better,” my daughter says. “You needed to take a break and rest, Mom. Maybe this has been a blessing in disguise.”
“You should take it easy though,” my son says in his worried voice.
This is one of those moments that a mother of young adults can so easily ruin by wanting too much from it. From them.
But I don’t care. It’s worth the risk. I haven’t hugged them in a month. And I need this exact version of a hug.
“Can I read you a story?” I ask, looking at my collection of children’s books on my bedroom bookshelf.
They look at each other. I can tell they want to roll their eyes and say no. But this is the time of Covid-19. What else is there to say but, “Yes.”
I ask them to pick a book.
They pick one of our old favorites and pass it to me across the rug.
I reach down, where I have just been kneeling, and I open the book, smiling, not crying.
And I read.
And they listen. Really listen.
And I promise myself:
To get on my knees more often.
To make bread.
And to eat it. Alone or not.
To be well.
To stay safe.
To believe in silver linings.
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by Laura Munson | Aug 3, 2023 | Musings, Uncategorized
***Still a few rare spots left on my October 24-27 Haven Writing Retreat! To book an intro call, go here.
As seen on Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper
Montanans like to say, “You won’t know that a mountain lion’s stalking you until you feel its teeth on the back of your neck.”
For years, I felt that stalking— those teeth. The thing is: I rarely felt that way in the woods. Instead, I felt that way in the grocery store, in my office, doing the laundry, lying in bed at 4 a.m. with my eyes wide open. When the stress of life spiked, I could feel this way for weeks at a time. And I knew that it had to stop.
If you are someone who works very hard, whether in a profession or passion or role of any sort, it’s likely that you know what I mean. And it’s likely that you are keeping it all inside. Smiles on the outside buying broccoli, but duking it out in your mind all-the-while. And on top of that: you know better. That’s the worst part: knowing better.
For years, each morning before I got out of bed— before the fangs threatened to set in my neck— I tried to create a calm and steady clean slate for the day. I had (and still have) different methods: prayer, meditation, breathing, reading poems, writing in my journal. These modalities would start to catch, and I’d feel that liminal lifting into a free, calm place that I hoped I could sustain all day. I figured the more I practiced, the more I’d be free of those seemingly ever-present fangs, and live in serenity and balance. It felt like a matter of life or death.
But all too often, sometimes before I’d even finished brushing my teeth, my ears would be ringing, my brain buzzing, my stomach churning. I’d catch myself holding my breath. My shoulders up in my jawline. My teeth clenched. And again, what made it even worse: I knew better. This quieting of the mind and body seemed insurmountable, no matter how hard I tried. And moreover, I couldn’t keep lying to myself about how severely this pressure (that I put on myself, by the way), ran my life.
There’s nothing like a warning from a dear and dying friend who, two weeks before she died, told me: “You feed that mangy wolf. You don’t have to. I know you and you’ll still create what you need to create. But you can do it differently.”
Her memorial service is what began my quest to find that “differently.” There was a lot of talk about the mangy wolf (which is what she called her cancer). And me with my stalking mangy mountain lion. I walked out into the world after that gathering, and with tears in my eyes, I said, “I will not feed you. Not for one more second. I am not going to compartmentalize my freedom any longer.”
So, I started asking the wise, passionate (and yes, busy) women in my life how they managed their wise, passionate, busy lives…
I realized that I’d been spending too much time talking with the ones who were running from the fangs, like me. Instead, I chose the ones with the true smiles buying broccoli— the ones who say they’re fine and mean it.
I started with a friend who is one of the best balancers of stress I know, as well as the busiest. I ranted: “I love my job. I love teaching and leading writing retreats. I love everything about helping people find their voice and their flow and their ease, using the written word. But every single day I look at my Google calendar and I feel like I need to fasten my seatbelt. There’s too much on it and I’m letting it run my life.”
She paused, giving me time to digest my words. “You can change that if you really want to. The question is: do you really want to? Or is being crazy-busy part of your identity? Have you normalized this behavior because it somehow serves you? That’s the question.”
The heavens opened. “It is not serving me.”
It all started unraveling then, as epiphanies tend to do.
What if I stopped running in this race against myself? Would the sky fall? Likely not. I’d likely still get to my destination, just not out of breath, on fumes, in adrenal blowout, feeling like I’m about to be attacked.
Then my friend said, “I’ve heard you speak about your relationship with your muse. That your writing is your free zone and the way you breathe. Once you’re in the act, there’s no inner critic. The stress is gone. And you’re like a child at play in the field of wonder.”
“That’s the truth,” I replied. “The inner critic— she’s the greatest stress spinner of all. But not while I’m writing. I don’t let her anywhere near that. Same with the retreats and all the teaching I do. Sacrosanct, wonderous, ground.”
My friend’s eyes widened and her smile spread. “So why not treat your whole life the same way? Why not just put down that sword you’re carrying around in all your roles. You’ve proven yourself. You can let yourself breathe now. You can work just as hard, and get just as much out of it, but with self-kindness. Curiosity. Wonder. Calm. Balance. Even freedom.”
Sounded possible. But honestly…improbable. Then I remembered that years ago, when I started leading writing retreats, I asked a wise, veteran, retreat leader friend for some advice. I knew I would be fine in the usual departments: leadership, inspiration, craft-instruction, editing, positive energy, and group dynamics. My concern stemmed from a fear that I wouldn’t know how to keep myself from taking on each individual’s emotions and problems. People who want to write are usually working through high-stakes emotions and high-stakes problems.
She said, “Give half of what you want to give, and it will be more than enough.” It took me a while before I really put her wisdom to work. Once I did, it was metamorphic.
So I made a date with her. “I know how to have good boundaries at my retreats. But not in my relationship with the stressors in my life.”
“Try this.” She put her palms out flat, one to the sky, and the other to the ground, and she stretched her arms as far as they would go in each direction. Then she did the same thing to both sides of herself.
“Ah,” I said. “Protection.”
She smiled. “It’s more than that. Protection implies that there’s something to protect yourself from. Think of it like you’re creating space for yourself that’s only yours. Claimed space. At work. At play. Everywhere you go.”
Huh. Space for myself.
I tried her technique but couldn’t quite fully pull it off. The mangy mountain lion still found a way to break through.
I am a word wanderer. Maybe it was a word that I needed, as the anonymous 14th century Christian mystic prescribed in The Cloud of Unknowing.
“Take a little word of just one syllable to help you focus your attention. The shorter the word the better…Choose a word like ‘God’ or ‘love’ or any other word of one syllable that appeals to you and impress it indelibly on your heart so that it is always there…”
I’d read that book decades ago, written about it, used it as a practice, and lost it along the way. One word. One word that would become a hymn that I could never not hear. A word that played itself inside me, ringing through the rafters of my ribs and sending sound ripples throughout my whole body and whole being.
I thought of my friend’s space-creating practice, and I brought in the word space. Space around me. Space that no one could infiltrate. Space that was pressure-less. Stressless.
Each morning I spent time before I opened my eyes, repeating the word space in my mind, and imagining this free space around me. Not my physical being. My unseen one. My soul. It worked, sort of. But space is such a, well, spacious, massive, unending creature. So, I welcomed other words…and then one day, my Word came to me: room.
Room felt better. A place I could occupy. Room in the way of space, but also a room around me that was all mine. No one was allowed in— like my childhood treehouse. I realized that this is exactly how I feel about my writing, my retreats, and everything I teach…where no mangy mountain lion dares to enter.
Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” made new and utter sense to me. A room can be a physical place, and I believe that everyone needs a sacred, impenetrable space for themselves, no matter what they do. Even if it’s very small. But suddenly I looked at a room as an inner holding— one that I could fill with the essence of myself.
Because the essence of myself is not running scared, waiting for life to pounce. The essence of myself is in co-creation with something hungry for something entirely pure, joyful, and free. I think of that Word— room— and say it in my mind, and I am instantly centered in this calm, gentle, playful, wonderous, safe inner-worldly (and inner-wordly) place. May you find your Word, too.
Still a few rare spots left on my October 25-29 Haven Writing Retreat! For more info go here.
To book an introductory call, talk about your writing dreams, and how Haven could be a match for you, email me!
You do not have to be a writer to receive all that Haven is. Just a seeker. A word-wanderer. Come finally find your voice, set your writing on fire, and get the teaching, mentorship, and community you deserve! All in the glory of The Dancing Spirit Ranch in stunning Flathead Valley, Montana.
TESTIMONIALS:
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
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 | 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
- May 28- June 2, 2024 NOW BOOKING
- June 5- 9, 2024 NOW BOOKING
- September 25-September 29, 2024 NOW BOOKING
- October 23-27, 2024 NOW BOOKING
- 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
- May 31 – June 4
- June 7 – 11
- September 13 – 17
- September 27 – October 1
- October 25 – 29
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