Sunday Blog 171 – 9th Feb 2025
“Hands up if you rang your family to tell them you had no business coming to this writing retreat.”
This question was posed to us on Tuesday, the morning of the first full day of the very last Carmel Writing Retreat run by Linda Sivertsen that I have travelled so far to attend.
It wasn’t enough for me to put up one hand. I had to put up both. Well, in truth, I didn’t ring any family members. But I wanted to. It was the wrong time of day for one, and in the end, I decided I just needed to ride the waves of unpleasant feelings. I told myself that I could just gruel it out until Friday.
I turned up to the Tuesday session the next morning with my reading ready to go, convinced of its mediocre horror. When I was preparing it in my room, I was facing away from the window. I needed to focus as, for the very first time, I stitched together one scene from the novella I’ve toiled over for around eight years with one chapter from my revised memoir. As soon as this delicate piece of patchwork was done, I looked out of the window and saw an enormous rainbow. Surely a good sign?
Linda explained that was a very normal reaction that retreat goers had. She let me read out first and a miracle unfolded. Blending the two books together actually bloody worked.
And just like that, I went from gruelling to walking on air. And I stayed that way for the rest of the retreat. Always aiming to be present and enjoy, and not hold on too tight when the time came for goodbye. Heck, I even got into a couple of labyrinth walks. Plus, I drove myself to and from Carmel to San Francisco and arrived in one piece.
In short, it’s been a week of huge wins.