Winter, just in time

It snowed last week in the PNW, an event that doesn’t often happen in March. And not much, but enough to change the plans I had for my Sabbath day as I-5 in blinding snow is not my idea of fun. Winter left us with that brief surprise. 

If you’ve been a part of this Substack for awhile (thank you, I’m so glad) you might remember that I wrote early last summer of an intended rhythm of retreat.  I’d learned that the writer Pico Iyer takes a three day retreat in each season, intended for renewal and rest.  In those very early days of grief,  this seemed a good practice to undertake.  And so I did, going to Ocean Shores in the summer and then to Port Townsend in the autumn.   Tomorrow, in the final three days of this season I will make my way to Astoria, Oregon for my  time of winter retreat.  Squeezing it in just in time.  

The room where I’ll be staying is on the water and that seems a luxury beyond compare.  Dear Ones have gifted me this space and my heart overflows with gratitude for their generous and intuitive care.  

My Beloved will go with me, as he goes with me everywhere.  For Bruce, travel was not so much about rest and renewal as it was about adventure.  We often joked that we switched

Travels with Bruce: At Checkpoint Charlie in December of 2022. He remembers going through this as a Junge

bodies when we traveled.  I became the one who sank into the absence of agenda or plan while he planned the living daylights out of every moment.  But it worked because we were together.  

I’m also anticipating the writing I might enjoy while I’m away.  Writing in this space and in the others where I write for reflection and just for the craft itself has such a different feeling than the writing I do for my work.  Although crafting a sermon is unique in itself, most days I’m writing emails, agendas, articles, and the like.  It’s not bad, just different.  Like fast food.  I’m looking forward to writing words that are like a home cooked meal - intentional and well considered and planned with a bit of unexpected spice thrown in for good measure. 

I’m also taking some luminous writers along with me - their work stacked on my dresser in anticipation of the trip.   Sue Monk Kidd is going with her latest book Writing Creativity and Soul.  Clarissa Pinkola Estes will ride along in her classic Women Who Run With the Wolves, which I’m revisiting.  Macrina Wiederkehr’s volume A Tree Full of Angels: Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary is the only book with any religious bent, although they are all spiritual in their own way.  Jan Karon’s latest novel in the Mitford series, My Beloved, is up in my stack of fiction and I’m delighted to start this story on this trip.  And Katrine May’s Wintering is going along for the sole purpose of re-reading the last two chapters on March and late-March.  The Irish poet Padrig O’Tuama’s Kitchen Hymns will round out the traveling tomes.  

I will likely return with more writers than I left home with as a trip to the local booksellers is on the agenda.  That’s one of very few scheduled things; renewal happens in the blank spaces.  

I am going to metaphorically leave behind the hard things of this winter season.  I’m planning to “put them in a box and tuck them away in my garage” until I return.   Because they are so driven by others who insist I give them my attention, I will have no choice but to get them back out when I get back.  But I know they’ll be there and perhaps I will have a wider perspective with which to greet them and a more settled spirit.  

Until then, this day beckons with challenges and duties of its own.  

I’ll see you on the other side of retreat and wide water and time apart.