Thoughts While On Retreat

September 17, 2011 By

Storm Coming, 9/13/11

Last night a hard rain with lightning and thunder.  This morning the sun rises before me, filling the day with a brilliance that seems to happen only after a late summer downpour.  The air swept clean of yesterday’s heaviness, welcomes a deep breath as I slip out the door for my morning walk.  Where the road turns, seven robins flutter and splash in a puddle, left by last nights deluge.

Climbing the stairs over the dunes, I hear the surf rushing the shore, the way I hear it during meditation practice, when I see my empty mind as the ocean. The in-breath, an inhalation of a broken wave back into the sea.   The out-breath, the wave returns, washing ashore the detritus of my thinking mind.

I decide on a direction, up the beach to the north or down the beach to the south.  It’s always determined by how many people are in evidence. Always I go where there are fewer.  It isn’t that I don’t want to be friendly and wish those I pass a happy morning.  It’s that this walking barefooted in the sand becomes a meditation in it’s own right.  Here, on the beach, I move more slowly.  A deliberate pace that my friend and massage therapist, Grace, calls round walking. The heel sinks into the sand, turning upward, followed by the ball of the foot and finally the toes.  Every step a round motion, like peddling, stretching out the entire foot and connecting with Earth’s sweet energy.  A way of becoming grounded after being in the world of not enough time.

I walk daily, in the morning and late in the afternoon, after writing, reading, stretching.  At the end of the evening walk, I sit in on the beach, contemplating where the next wave will begin. Like the breath, its beginning is invisible, but at the core of life.

The first few days I do little more than walk on the beach. I simply need to unwind, stare into space, watch the pelicans drift by.  By the third day the rest of the world has slipped away.  I’m not interested in going out.  Not interested in visiting the small boutiques I’ve frequented in the past.  Even the book store has no pull.

I only had a week.  Today it’s half over. I’m sleepy, lie down for a nap. But my Muse is calling.  The images breathtaking, the words compelling.  I leave my bed. Begin tapping keys as she whispers her thoughts.

This is something I need to do more often.  There is no schedule. I choose to stay up as late as I want, knowing there is no alarm clock or to-do list waiting on the kitchen counter. If the Muse calls, I’m ready.

Everyone needs time like this.  It is essential.  It makes life in the other world easier. It frees the spirit, the mind, the body. I will go home on Sunday, ready to jump head first into my other life, happy to be home, cuddling my cats and dogs and marveling at my garden.  I will also begin making plans for another time to sneak away.

Clouds, 9/13/11

Filed Under: Retreats and Workshops

Going On Retreat

September 10, 2011 By

There’s nothing like going on retreat, and that’s what I’ll be doing this coming week. I expect to do a lot of walking, writing, reading, drawing, and contemplating.  It will be a quiet time.  A time to get up early to watch the sun rise or to sleep late because I couldn’t put that book down last night until I’d finished it.   It will be a time for listening to the ocean as it tosses itself against the shore and watching migrating water fowl make their way south.  I’ll look for messages washed up on the beach that might send me off in new directions, as my feet relax into the sand and the sun bathes me in its intensity.

For the next week things will probably be silent on this end.  I hope you have a pleasant week and will enjoy the last days of summer.

Filed Under: Retreats and Workshops

Writing Memories

August 16, 2011 By

Finding The Light, Copyright 2002, Joan Z. Rough

My favorite reads have always been creative non-fiction … stories about people, how they live and why they do what they do.  While biography and autobiography are interesting, it’s memoir that I savor. For me, reading a memoir is like reading a manual on living.  It can inspire, horrify, bring tears or laughter. Memoirs are so much more than just the mere facts of one’s life, and so unlike those essays most of us were asked to write when we were kids, about what we did this past summer.

In memoir, the reader is invited in to share the writer’s feelings; to honestly know what that person has experienced and what makes them who they are.  It is a visitation of sorts, like being a fly on the wall.  For me, reading memoir is like being with a friend I’ve never met or talked to, and who through their own challenges in life, can help me over some of the hurdles in my own.  It’s about seeing another take on why I’m here and how I’m doing. It’s about sharing a vision, and nodding as I read, thinking, “Wow, I know what she/he means. I’ve been there myself and know the pain.”  Regardless of how unlike we are from one another, it’s also about how we are alike. No matter how different the writer’s life is from my own, I know I have a companion on this long, crooked highway I’m traveling.

For years I’ve been asking myself why I can’t remember much from my younger years.  How is it that so many other people have such rich rememberings to share, while I have none.  Why is it I can’t recall my first best friend, or my first date? Am I keeping them hidden from myself?  Have I been hiding them, because I feel that any story I have to share, isn’t important?  Embarrassing? An admission of guilt?  Is it that I believe that I’ve not gained any wisdom or learned any lessons?  What are all those boxes of hand written journals about, stashed away in that storeroom across town?

Perhaps, at age 68, soon to be 69, I can’t hold it in any longer.  My story bladder is full and needs to be emptied.  Is it the extremely intense therapy I’ve recently gone through that has brought out what I’ve been secreting away.  It could be I’m beginning to trust that what I have to say is important and needs to be shared.  Maybe my own stories will make other people see their own challenges differently.  Maybe they will nod their head’s in agreement or universal knowing.

Last summer, after a spell of difficult years, I attended a writer’s retreat, led by Jennifer Louden, in Taos, New Mexico.  I hadn’t been anywhere by myself in over a decade. I wasn’t sure why I was going. But I knew that if I didn’t go, I might go crazy, kill myself, or waste away, having made no contribution to the world. I didn’t know what I would write … probably poetry, because that is what I had written in the past.  But for several months prior the retreat, the word memoir, bounced through my mind, teasing me, prompting me to wonder if I would write about my life.

I almost didn’t go. I was feeling excruciatingly anxious, afraid, and somewhat depressed. I was exhausted and overwhelmed by what life had put on my plate.  On the day of my departure, I told Bill that I couldn’t go.  I had too much to do here at home.  His response was, “I’m not going there,” loaded my bags in the car, and drove me to the airport.

As I walked down the narrow hallway through security, and to the plane that would fly me more than halfway across the country, I felt a bit lighter.  Once in the air, I felt an exciting freedom, that I hadn’t experienced in years.  My fear and angst dissolved into thin air.  I had made my first step into the next chapter of my life, in which I would meet some remarkable women, who would inspire and help me feel that I am not alone in this big, challenging world.

It wasn’t a full recovery that I made in that week.  I was still suffering from insomnia, which had been plaguing me for months, allowing me only about 3 hours of sleep a night.  I took short naps and began writing a piece that I called, Returning To Earth.  It was about coming back to life from a lengthy, dark night of the soul.  As I continued writing over the week, memories began to spring up, of times I hadn’t thought about in years.  I got my first 8 hours of sleep in a very long time.  I cried, laughed, shared poems that I’d written in the past, ate delicious, nourishing food and made friends with beautiful women from all over the country.  Best of all I began loving myself.

Later at home, the writing came to a halt, as I became aware of what could have been a serious health issue, uterine cancer.  But I was one of those fortunate ones, who dodged the  bullet.  The cancer was in its early stages and was completely removed by having a hysterectomy.  I remain cancer free today, and am living the promises I made to myself at the time: That regardless of what the prognosis, and no matter how long or short my life, I would make a practice of being grateful for all that I had been given and return the good fortune and kindness that had been gifted to me.

I also promised that I would begin writing down the family stories that began to come as I spent several months recovering from surgery.  My goal was to record as much as I could about my clan, so that my children and their children would know more about their roots.  My parents had left little or nothing of themselves, except for their possessions and behaviors. This blog became the vehicle of that sharing, not only of my family’s history, but of myself and the winding paths I have wandered down.  Little did I know, that it would become a healing mechanism for me, and that I would feel richer and happier for all of my experiences, good and bad.

Now, the more that I write what I remember, the more I remember and write.  What started out as a little writing project about my family, has turned into something much bigger.  I’ll often choose to write, rather than paint, though I must confess, both of these loves of mine, inform and feed each other.  I’m still not sure what this project will ultimately turn into, but it doesn’t really matter. I can say that it is a memoir.  It may take me years to finish.  Only one thing is certain: Writing down my stories and memories has become life changing for me.

Filed Under: Navigating Through Life, Retreats and Workshops, stories

Hear Yea, Hear Yea!

June 14, 2011 By

My studio, above the garage, where I will spend many of my gifted days.

In the midst of frustration and overwhelm from the daily clatter and clutter and in attempting to be kind to myself, as I attempt to be kind unto others, I hereby gift myself with two days a week to do whatever I want to do.  That is, as long as it isn’t cleaning out closets, laundry, unpacking boxes that are still sitting here untouched one year after having moved into this house and other such acts of utter nonsense.

I will spend Tuesdays and Wednesdays every week, creating, reading, writing, painting, taking naps, visiting museums and exhibitions, tending my garden, listening to music and the birds outside my window or other required joyous matters that are necessary to live a long and very full life.  These are to be done in a relaxed state of being.

The only exceptions may be those brought on by universal forces other than myself, requiring immediate attention, such as illness, important meetings that can only be held on those days gifted to myself, acts of God, acts of terrorism or for the love of someone who is in need of loving kindness.  And those only if they are deemed to be genuine exceptions, not those caused by selfish manipulation by myself or others or some other act of treason, including those brought on by myself.

I will continue to walk my dogs on those days, exercise, tell my husband, “I love you, but  please do your part,”  prepare light meals, drink at least 8 glasses of water each day, eat and enjoy every morsel.

Permission to continue the above required acts of kindness to myself is also granted on other days as time permits or is required.

Attested to and made public by way of this blog post:   Joan Z. Rough

Filed Under: Navigating Through Life, Retreats and Workshops

Re-being …

April 22, 2011 By

My muse, 22" x 28", oil on canvas, copyright, Joan Z. Rough 2002

Becky, a new friend I met at the retreat I talked about in my last post, birthed the word Re-be while we were there.  Becky, like myself is a person who has a ton of interests and has jumped from one field of interest to another.  If I have her story right, she spent her college years going from one school and major to another and later chose two majors in unrelated fields.

Barbara Sher, in her book, Refuse to Choose, defines people like Becky and myself as Scanners.  We are those who don’t follow one path or career through life, but go from one interest to another and another and another.  We do not walk the straight and narrow road.  Instead of having one passion we have many.  We start projects then drop them, leaving many unfinished.  We sometimes feel we are missing out by not having that “one thing” that is our passion in life.  Though we might wish for that one good road to travel, it isn’t really what we want deep down inside.  That wishfulness most likely arises because we are often considered lazy and are bullied because we can’t “settle down” and “finish” anything.

My mother once told me that my life was a train wreck because I had too many things going on. I loved what I was doing at the time, which was simply being me, as an artist, trying out my wings, going from one thing to another. I’d stop whatever I was doing from time to time and try on a different hat. I’ve worked with fibers, paint, mixed media, was a teacher, raised sheep and goats, wrote poetry, published a book and was a fine arts photographer.

Each time I started something new I was extremely excited and filled with a powerful energy that couldn’t be ignored.  Some of you may know what I’m talking about through your own experience.  Though I never saw my life as a train wreck, I did spend many years not thinking very highly of myself because I believed what those around me were thinking and saying.  I often felt guilty believing that my interests were trivial and would lead me nowhere.  There weren’t many people out there who encouraged me or would celebrate my gifts with me.  I often felt that I was forever trapped in a world that I couldn’t manuver in and be happy.

For the last seven years of her life, my mother lived in the same house with my husband and me.  During those years I gardened, cooked, studied herbs as medicine and did a bit of beading because it was easy to stop and start and carry along whenever I had to take mom somewhere and wait for her appointment to be over.  Though I was very interested in those things, there were times I was bored and didn’t feel I could go with a new interest that would suddenly catch my attention.  I’ve spent the last four years since her death digesting the fact that somewhere along the way I abandoned myself and most of what I wanted to do because I chose to be her caregiver.   I did what I had to do.  I am not blaming my mother or anyone else and if truth were told, I’d probably do it again.  I’ve learned a lot about myself as well as my mother and have lived to tell about it.

Now I feel like my old self again … excited and ready to jump back in and Re-be.  For several months now the idea of learning about encaustic painting has been swimming around in my unconscious, occasionally rising to the surface, like a dolphin, for a breath of air. I spent a long day and night this last week shedding my old skin and regrowing another.  I found a short and to-the-point class in encaustics at Book Works in Asheville, North Carolina and I’ve signed up for it.  My creative life is in tact and I’m ready to begin.  Excitement fills my days and I’m filled with an energy I haven’t experienced in years. To make it even sweeter, I get to see my daughter and grandkids who live in Black Mountain only a short distance away from where I’ll be!!  I’m looking forward to May!!

Filed Under: Navigating Through Life, Retreats and Workshops, Travels