The Stunning Beauty of Sea Ranch

Up at Sea Ranch again, on writing retreat with my AROHO sisters, eight women I met at the 2011 Room of Her Own Foundation's retreat at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. This is our fifth year of coming together to write and commune, our fourth at Sea Ranch, on the far Northern California coast just south of Mendocino. It is a stunningly beautiful stretch of sea coast, with magnificent cliffs and thundering ocean and abundant wildlife. We've seen many groups of deer (bucks and does with lots of spotted babies), foxes and jackrabbits. Bulbous sea lions lolling on the rocks. Pelicans skimming over the bluffs. The deer are protected here, so they have no fear, and graze contentedly throughout the Sea Ranch. You can almost get close enough to touch them.

The tiny burg of Gualala (wa LA la) has a lovely little market, and a gas station and a couple of restaurants. And a bookstore! Which we will be appearing at this afternoon to talk about writing retreats and writing. The Four-Eyed Frog bookstore was recently purchased by a group of community people to keep it open. There's a lovely lesson there about the importance of books to community.

Here are some photos I've taken this week and in years past. May your day be filled with the peace of nature.

Settling In

Well, after almost two months, I am settling in. Moving is all-consuming, as many of you know. We finally emptied the last boxes in the living room. Yesterday, we actually hung photos and paintings on the walls, including our newest acquisition, Miss Lily the Cow. She was painted by JanyRae Seda, an artist from Boise, Idaho. And we got to name her.

Miss Lily

We found her over the weekend at Art in the Park in Ojai, and both of us fell in love with her on first sight. Which is rare, since Rob and I have very different tastes on almost everything, from politics to architecture, to design, decor, and food. It makes for a really interesting relationship. And one where laughter is a constant, which is one of the reasons I love him.

Now that life seems to be returning to normal (whatever that is), I can get back to posting on the blog, not to mention my client work. In another week, I'm going north to Sea Ranch for a week-long writing retreat with my AROHO sisters. I can hardly wait. I will spend the whole week working on my memoir. I know what I want to do with it, and I'm excited about revisiting it while reveling in the stunning beauty of the Northern California coastline. If you aren't familiar with Sea Ranch, check it out.

We will end our week with an appearance as a group at Four-Eyed Frog books in Gualala. We'll talk about writing, and poetry, and all things literary, and try to explain how we came to call ourselves the Flamingos. Here's the flier—if you happen to be in the neighborhood, drop by.

Meanwhile, here are some before and after moving photos, just to remind you what fun moving is!

On the Move Again

I'll miss this view from our deck in Summerland, which we've called home for a little over a year.

Re-entry after coming home from Hedgebrook has been hectic and all-consuming. My week on Whidbey Island allowed for writing and reflection, thank goodness, especially after a two-week trip to France, during which I got news that my younger sister had died. It’s been an emotional time. Now I am in the middle of moving again, to a new home across town.

We have only about four more days to pack before the move. And it won’t be long after I'm settled in that Rob wants to begin renovation. I imagine I will be spending a lot of time in the relative peace and quiet of a coffee shop once that starts. It’s never a dull moment with Rob, for whom life is all about the journey.

As I wrote from Hedgebrook, I’m going to stop posting excerpts of my memoir while I revise it. Meanwhile, I’ll write more blog posts about our trips to Ireland last fall and France last month. Travel is a marvelous way to get to know oneself better—and of course your significant other. Both trips have been incredible learning experiences—for both of us. Our next “trip” will be a home renovation…stay tuned!

In the Willow Cabin at Hedgebrook

The past few weeks have been by turns exciting, sorrowful, grief-filled, stressful and exhilarating. From flying to Paris for a two-week holiday, only to find out my younger sister had died suddenly during our overnight flight, to coming home to a house still filled with unpacked boxes from Rob’s move to Santa Barbara over Christmas, to preparing for a week at Hedgebrook, it has been a tumultuous time.

Today is my fourth day among the quiet cedars and oaks of Hedgebrook, a retreat center for women writers on Whidbey Island in the Pacific Northwest. In January, I was accepted into a Master Class with poet Carolyn Forché, and so far it has gone beyond my every expectation. There are six women here, from all over the country: Chicago, California, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Washington, D.C. We each have our own cabin, with practically every convenience. There is a tiny half-bath, which means one has to go to the shared bathhouse for showers, which was my only small concern. But the bathhouse turns out to be a warm and inviting spa, with heated floors and lovely showers and a claw-footed tub for long, luxurious soaks, lit by candles, if one so desires.

We meet in the afternoons for lectures and to share work, and Carolyn has insisted that each of us write for three hours every morning—uninterrupted. This has been my greatest challenge, of course. It helps that there is no Internet in the cabins (unfortunately, my cell phone and iPad work great, which makes it very easy to cheat, and I have—just a tiny bit). I have tried to follow the directive, though, and after three days I’m pleased with the work that has resulted. Raw, unedited, emotion-laced, my writing these past days is nevertheless exciting if only for the fact that I have long stretches of time to decompress and go deeply into it. I’ve written about my sister, and added pieces to a novel I started years ago, and I’ve written new scenes for my memoir.

I have also managed to post something on my blog each day, and hope to continue. We’ll see what happens when I go back to real life next week.

I am in the cabin called Willow. It was randomly assigned to me, but the willow has special significance to me, and so the selection seems to have been divinely wrought. I grew up in Michigan, where weeping willows are both abundant and inspiring. I have always loved them, and over the years the willow has appeared in nearly all of my stories in some fashion or another. When one of my clients independently published his memoir last year (Dick Jorgensen’s lovely O Tomodachi), I created an imprint under which to publish it: Weeping Willow Books.

Carolyn has given me some very helpful suggestions on my memoir, Face, and so I have decided to stop excerpting pieces of it on the blog—for now anyway. I want to revisit it with her advice in mind, and then will decide what to do from there.

I also have two other book projects on the front burners, including an anthology for women writers. More about those in coming weeks and months.

Meanwhile, I will keep writing about our travels, and my life, and books. I hope you’ll continue to join me here. If you’d like to receive my posts in your email inbox, you can sign up at this link. I’ll also see you on Facebook and Twitter. As always, keep writing!

Blessings Abound

Santa Barbara at Shoreline Beach

It rained today.

That may not seem extraordinary in many parts of the country and world, but in drought-stricken Southern California, it was like manna from heaven. Rain so soft and steady—though pounding at times—it made me ache with the sense of a long-lost familiarity, of something lost for a very long time and now rediscovered.

Two friends and I walked at the ocean yesterday evening, just before the deluge, and I walked again this evening on the beach, picking my way among the strewn detritus thrown upon the shore by the storm's waves and marveling at the rushing rivulets that poured from the hillsides down to mix with the storm-sized surf.

Pink and yellow sunsets lit up the evening sky, and I had to catch my breathe in awe and gratitude.

So many in this world live in places where they might never see the sun dip into the ocean waves, the clouds pink and heavy above, coloring the sky and the world. I am blessed, and want never to take this world for granted.

Yesterday I walked with two dear friends, our dogs and our paces matched from years of sojourns together. This evening I wandered out to the beach during a break in the rain with my dog, Chevella, and ran across two similar-minded friends with their two hounds. Bundled against the wind, we walked as the sun moved toward the horizon and its inevitable dip into the deep sea, pinkened clouds hovering above like harbingers of sunrises to come.

We walked, the three of us, and came across another friend with her new Irish setter puppy, bounding with puppy energy and enthusiasm from person to person, dog to dog, tennis ball to tennis ball. There’s nothing like a puppy to remind us that life is for grabbing the absolute most out of the moment—chewing it, sniffing it, jumping up in joy, bounding down the beach with abandon.

I am grateful for this life, this place, this most magnificent point in time. Would that we could all feel—and recognize—the blessings that flow in and around us. There is so much to appreciate, despite the very real difficulties many of us endure. Open your heart, open your arms, open your sensibilities to the gifts available to you. May you feel the generosity of the universe in this new year.

Moving into the New Year

What a year 2015 has been, and 2016 promises to be another year of change and transition. In fact, we are literally moving into the New Year.

Rob sold his office building in Pasadena in November and is moving his office and shop (two rooms full of tools and construction equipment) up to Santa Barbara next week. At the same time, we are moving him out of a guesthouse in Santa Barbara to our place across town. And in mid-January, we will move him out of his apartment in Old Town Pasadena. We have been organizing and packing and planning for several weeks, and I’m grateful we at least got to get away to Mammoth (and a day of glorious skiing) for a few days over Christmas.

All of this moving is crazy-making hard work, and to be honest it has tested our young relationship at times. You learn a lot about your partner when under intense pressure. And we’ve certainly had enough stress the past few weeks to last several years. Thank goodness we also know how to laugh—at the circumstances and ourselves. Rob somehow always knows the exact thing to say to humor me out of a foul mood. And he is a fount of optimism most of the time.

But all this moving also makes me mindful of how much change and transition is still ahead of us. We have been looking for a house to buy, but meanwhile are renting a darling place by the beach in Summerland, a tiny burg just south of Santa Barbara. Tiny is the operative word here; our place is small. It’s been fine for the two of us, but when we add all of Rob’s things from two different residences we will be overflowing with stuff. My tendency is to get rid of most of it, but Rob is a bit of a packrat (in fact, I think he could fall into major hoarding if allowed). So another negotiation is necessary. For now, most will end up in storage. But that is not a long-term solution.

All of this has made me consider just what it means to be settled. I have been in a state of transition since August 2014, when I decided to move to Santa Fe. Most of my belongings went into storage. When I moved back to Santa Barbara a year ago to be with Rob, I remember how good it felt to unpack at least some of my boxes and settle into our new place. For the first time in months I had my own things around me—my furniture and kitchen items, my bedding and clothes, my desk and office supplies.

As we unpacked last January, I realized how many things I really didn’t need—or want. I have learned I can live without most of the things I thought were important to me. And I have come to understand how little I need to be happy. In fact, having less is a path to a kind of freedom, really, that I didn’t know one could feel. It’s a letting go that comes with an emotional bonus. Untethered, unfettered, unburdened.

So, a dichotomy at this New Year. As we pack and move and plan and organize, we also see the value in letting go and giving away. Which opens up our lives—and our hearts—for the intangible gifts of love, purpose and joy.

May you have a 2016 full of the intangible gifts of life. Let all the rest fall away.