November Hill farm journal, 196

 I was on writing retreat Wednesday through Monday and came home to a very full week, which I’m still in the midst of. Yesterday I finished my client work week and today I begin part two of the second three full days of EMDR training. Starting on Sunday I will happily enter what I’m going to call the slow ride into winter. I’m ready to hunker down a bit and putter and just feel all the feelings from this busy, and also sad, fall season.

I have put the flower arrangement our vets sent us in the window to dry and it’s continuing to be very beautiful and offers a visual reminder of how things that were beautiful in life can remain so after death. Keil Bay is never far from my spirit and it has occurred to me more than once that the bay horse who used to accompany me everywhere I went as a young girl is now very much still present, but instead of being unnamed, I know exactly who he is. Thank you, Big Bay, for continuing to share my journey. 

Writing retreat time was very good, though it took me two days to break through the crust of - not exactly resistance but more like a crust of inertia due to having been so in need of time away. Once that happened I was able to get into the writing again and worked on the novel (as opposed to the TV pilot) and I gave myself permission to leap far ahead in the story and write to the end. Sometimes this is what is needed to get rolling and it worked very well. 

Another part of writing retreat time when shared with other writers is reading one’s work out loud, and I was able to read the first half of another TV pilot I wanted to get some feedback on. And to hear a wonderful stage play read to me by my long-time writing friend D. 

It was good, creative, healing time and I’m grateful for it.

November Hill is turning colors this week and I can’t help but feel Keil Bay is reveling along with me as this happens. The herd remains in a state of processing. Almost every morning they can be found by Keil’s grave, and I think they’re drawn to him during the night when horses tend to cluster closely together. They do seem to me to be a bit depressed, though I’ve seen the donkeys play together a few times and also Cody and Little Man playing their tag game over the fence. I hope they find their playfulness again when enough time has passed. 

On Sunday I plan to complete the garage clean out so the Subaru can go back in. It’s very close to being done and so much has gotten donated and passed on. It’s good to feel some clearing in that way.

I don’t think I mentioned here that we made an offer on a farm the week before Keil Bay passed. The estate for the property accepted another offer due to our need to close in the new year, and this was the one place we’d really connected with, so it was a bit of a loss, though very quickly forgotten when we had the real and deep loss of Keil Bay passing. Right now there isn’t anything appealing on the market and I think we all feel like being here until we find the exact right place is the exact right place for us to be. Sometimes things work out in ways we don’t even know about, and sometimes never do, and I trust the process of synchronicity to set things in motion when the time is right. 

This morning this peace lily is opening wide against the autumn landscape outside and bringing me much peace.