For the past five days, my work space was the above, a double room at a mansion that offers writing retreats for the very lucky writers in our state, thanks to an organization and wonderful group of people who are committed to maintaining this historic home as well as the philosophy that artists need space and time to create.
Indeed, this trip provided that, and I came home happy and satisfied that I'd met my writing goals while there.
This morning I returned to my usual place of work, this messy desk, where I am surrounded by mail, seed packets, to do lists, books, stacks of paper in need of filing, and a few talismen that manage to keep me inspired despite the clutter: the feather of a crow that I found in my labyrinth path, two stones my writer friend Dawn brought me from Shakespeare's stomping grounds, a carved bird, a white fairy horse, and the stuffed magical pony Ryan that Dawn gave me for my birthday.
Although clutter on my desk is not my preferred way of being, most days I have to make the choice. Focus on household chores including decluttering, or spend time in my other main work space, the barn. Not much of a choice! I headed out and was immediately transported back into the world of horses, donkeys, and the morning routine that at this time of year involves quite a bit of labor.
Mixing and feeding breakfast tubs, getting stalls set up with hay and clean water, doing a light groom and tick check, fly masks, etc.
The work I did in the lovely pristine room above for the past few days was its own kind of labor. Pulling together a book-length story that has been in my head for many years now, needing to get the first draft out so I can move on to the different task of editing and polishing, is a job, although one I happen to love very much. The last two days I struggled a bit with the idea of ending. Not the ending itself - that was there all along, and accessible. What I battled was the work of ending something that has been ongoing for what feels like a very long time. I finally did it yesterday before lunch, and when I read the final chapter out loud to Dawn in the early evening, I started crying as I tried to read the last two paragraphs.
It's been awhile since I wrote the last page of the first draft of a novel. I'd forgotten how emotional I get when I do it. In the end, Dawn had to take my laptop and read that last bit out loud FOR me. And the work of writing, the labor of it, the shift from novel-in-progress to complete draft, was done.
Once it was read out loud, it was fine. There's a reason writing a book is often compared to giving birth.
This morning I came back to the more physical labor of keeping horses. As I scrubbed buckets and mixed feed tubs and stuffed hay nets, I realized that the beauty of my writing retreat is actually the same beauty of my daily life. Both involve meaningful work, and work that has meaning, and even when there are rough days where things don't exactly flow, underneath the bumps and struggles there is the deep sense that what I'm doing makes me happy, and matters on some level.
My friend Dawn wrote a beautiful post this weekend, which you can read HERE.
Something about what she wrote made me think about art and work and the value of how we choose to spend our time. And the value of how we VIEW the way we choose to spend our time.
If I were in charge of everything, career counselors and guidance counselors would teach students of all ages not only how to find meaningful work, but the skill of finding meaning in our work, because we need both skills in our lives.
Today I'm grateful for the work I have in front of me, and that all of it has the potential to give me joy and satisfaction, whether it be writing a page that sings, or treating a mare's tick bite so carefully and gently she lifts her tail and stretches her neck in appreciation. Editing pages and finding the silver threads along the way, or rinsing beet pulp until the water runs clear.
