This past week I have taken a break from beading and focused on my writing.
I am up in the Blue Ridge Mountains at a retreat. It has been bliss.
Days writing and walking, evenings listening to readings and live music.
There are over a hundred of us here. Everyone is working on their own thing – pottery, quilting, writing, photography, music …. There is a creative energy in the air, a happy meeting of like minds and an almost tangible gratitude that we can indulge our passions in such a beautiful setting.
We’ve had three crystal clear days. Distant mountains layered one behind the other with a clarity seldom seen in the summer months. Most of the autumn leaves are down by now, but there are sheltered areas on the hillsides where the color blazes forth in full intensity. The throat catches when sunlight shines through those reds and yellows and the bluest of skies is their backdrop.
Graham is with me. This is his first time here, my third. He has been writing a chapter on revenue forecasting (and has not offered to read his work aloud after dinner). I have, and enjoyed doing my readings and the chance to listen to other writers and poets.
It has been lovely having Graham here with me. We have taken long walks in the mountains and not seen another soul -- plenty of fresh bear scat though, and, on our drive in we did see a small cub run across the road and scramble up a wooded bank. Most evenings before dinner we have done yoga with a group of painters from Savannah.
But mostly we have been writing. Wonderful to get back to it -- my time these past months has been totally consumed with designing necklaces and I've missed the writing. But, as I take up the pen again (or more accurately put fingers to keyboard) I realize how much there is in common between beading and writing. I think of words as being like beads. In both cases I pick and select (either words or beads) and arrange them in an order and design which pleases me.
Both activities work my fingers, strain my eyes, gobble up time.
Both are deeply satisfying
