In Laura’s Words
I write to shine a light on a dim or otherwise pitch black corner…to provide relief for myself and others. It’s the light that I am looking for. And the wonder it illuminates.
May my words land in your heart.
yours, Laura
Find Your Voice in Community– You Don’t Have to Do it Alone!
“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...
Making Friends with New Holiday Traditions and Adult Children
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...
A Lesson from the Land of Lack: saying “yes” to everyone but yourself…
You know that thing you want so badly but you’ve told yourself you just can’t have? For decades? That thing which you know would change your health, your happiness, your creativity, your general outlook on life, your hope in yourself and in your future? That thing?...
Just Us: Traveling with young adult children
Last fall, on a family Zoom call with my adult children, my twenty-five year old daughter said, “Let’s do Christmas differently this year. Let’s not spend money on presents or decorations or on our big Christmas party. Let’s have an experience! Just us.” My twenty-one...
Grateful for Gathering
It’s been two years since I’ve led my Haven Writing Retreats live in Montana and this month I led two back-to-back. I was deliriously happy. I sort of expected that happiness, but not to be so totally stunned by how hungry I was to gather again and in this profound...
Re-entry: To Dance Again
I hope you are all having a wonderful summer. Around here, people are going out in public and gathering in large groups again. Re-entry is an intense experience after the last year and a half of social distancing, sheltering in place, not being able to see people's...
Our Long Spring break: how a pandemic posse of young adults filled this mother’s empty nest
Now booking Haven Writing Retreats this fall!! There's still room...but spaces are filling fast. People are STARVED for the healing power of small gatherings, writing, self-expression, and Montana... Click here for more info and to set up an introductory phone call....
Pass It On: random acts of pandemic kindness
“Maybe I need to think about how good random acts of kindness feel and that there’s still the opportunity for them. Maybe I need to realize that just because we’re in a pandemic, there are still ways to connect with people in the most mundane yet human way. And that perhaps, just perhaps, I need to stop using the pandemic as an excuse to be a hermit.”
An Ode to Migration and the “Willa’s Grove” Paperback Book Tour
“Birds, especially migrating birds, are what we need to not just hope, but to understand movement and unity. When they pass over us, they are stitching us to another place on the globe.”
Bed, Bon Bons, and Book Tour
Even if the world still needs to stop in many many ways, we can be part of the living in a pandemic. We can move around in the world in our own social distanced way. We can move around in our homes wearing clothes and creating ritual and experiencing our space whatever it may be. Even a one room apartment has many invitations to live in it. Read a book in the sun rays beaming from your kitchen window. Eat a meal at your table with a Zoom companion who is doing the same. Put on some music and dance. Go out on the balcony and watch birds. See what they have to say about all this. And yes, get in your bed and rest. But don’t stay there.
