Daylong writing and meditation retreat & more

Retroactive clock-out for Friday in San Jose: Started reading Jane Austen’s Emma because too little focus or energy to notate books I’ve read. Did morning pages. Received application form for FabMo exhibition and this started me off in a tizzy of nervousness regarding my table: shocked to see $30 fee, not because it’s high (it’s quite low, I understand, and there’s no need to worry about not “getting in”), but because it made me realize I hadn’t thought that far about what showing at the exhibition would entail. Started doing online research about craft fairs; wrote a feverish two pages of plans and notes. Overwhelmed and unable to start yet, but realizing I MUST do more crafting in the next month and a half, or I will have very little to show on Oct 24. Augh!

Today: Daylong writing and meditation workshop for self-identified people of color at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County. Wrote morning pages at lunch break; wrote an additional 9 pages during course of retreat. Sketch practice of deer and turkeys (!) after retreat. They make funny noises and were not afraid of me at all. Stunning. The retreat was fun but not (as I can tell yet) life-changing, which I guess I’d hoped it would be — or if not life-changing at least dramatically galvanizing. Nope. Just reconfirmed that the only way to be a writer is to write (and that the only way to read poetry is to hear it read). Reconfirmed what I already know and do, but it was fun, affirming, and supportive, and that’s valuable, and I met nice people (including one who is trying to get a sketching group started; I volunteered our house, so this could prove fruitful) and heard about a lot of great opportunities, websites, meditation centers, and books.

I hope to get some work done tomorrow, but we’ll see. At least I spent yesterday (in a sleep-deprived haze) doing the bulk of my Ithaca packing, but there’s still going to be lots to do — and we have to drive the kitties down to San Jose. I’ll try to at least sew together some rug strips though, so I can craft while I’m traveling…

And I think I should start a regular meditation practice; I feel very calm post-retreat. It’s not like I’m suddenly all Zen and nothing matters, it’s more like the voices of nervous energy in my head have actually receded to the point that I’m not noticing them anymore. It’s nice and quiet inside my head for once — as it wasn’t this morning if you read about the dream I had last night!