A Week of Beautiful Things 07/13-17/09

1. It was fun riding on Idaho State Highway 97 and passing through Camp Easton and look off to my right and seeing a new water slide for Scouts to play on and seeing a troop of boys learning how to kayak.
   
2. Meals at Camp N Sid Sen are served family style. Tonight we passed a fresh green salad, warm dinner rolls, a bowl of steaming potatoes, and huge chunks of chicken around the table and dived greedily into our tasty and filling dinners.
   
3. After the workshop, I had a wonderful talk with Rachel who is writing a fascinating book and I beamed when she told me that she'd found my Monday night presentation inspiring.
   
4. I had never, until Tuesday, suggested that the idea of leniency might be a principle for writers to follow in their regard of themselves and in the way they think about the world and write about it. I was ecstatic that the writing retreat participants embraced and enjoyed this ethic of writing and moving through the world so enthusiastically.
   
5. Rachel and I had a long talk about the future of ourselves, our country, and the planet. These questions are foundational to the book she is writing.
   
6. After a day of rain the early morning mist rising off Lake Coeur d'Alene at Camp N-Sid-Sen was thrillingly worldly and astonishingly mystical.
7. Cheryl asked me to read two parts of her compelling memoir-in-progress and this led to stirring conversation with her as she explained more fully the history informing the two chapters she showed me.
8. Wilma asked me to comment on her rocking chair poem. At first I expressed some reservations about this and that, but the more we talked and the more I read her poem and the more I heard her read it, my reservations dissolved and I, like the other writers at the retreat, came to love her work more and more.
9. InlandEmpireGirl rocketed me back in time to when our family ate meals in Grandma West's sunroom/porch. It's a great poem. Go here and read it. (You'll get another chance to read it when I post the completion of the next sibling assignment.)
10. The profound beauty of a writing retreat emerges as participants become acquainted and develop trust in one another and we all get to hear a variety of different kinds of writing. This profound beauty emerged almost immediately in the writing retreat I've just returned from, making the week intriguing, moving, uplifting, saddening, mirthful, shocking . . .
    

and so much more......