I’ve reached the end of my retreat. Today is my last day. Tomorrow I fly to NYC. It’s been enriching, deepening, hard work and holy. All that I asked it to be. Thanks to Deirdre I’ve been meditating for longer, thanks to this house I’ve been held in Divine abeyance of normal life, and thanks to the teeming life inside and out I’ve had company. I’ve learnt that trees sleep and giant cicadas have a sense of humour. I’ve seen a fox, huge and grand; she paused as I drew back the curtains one morning, perfectly framed by the gates, one paw raised as she looked at me and I looked at her, and we both said, What the? before answering and moving on.
On two afternoons I set sail for the mountains and got lost in tangled wood, met a tortoise who told me, Shells are useful, and was beset by fears I had spiders on my back. The forests are vast and confusing. The paths ancient, they twist and narrow while cork trees tower and it’s impossible to keep track of direction. Occasionally the moon signalled west, but what did that mean? I passed a tree in which was stuck the top jaw bone of a wild boar. Was I Indiana Jones? I tripped between panic and story and a voice said, Look up, but all I could see was more sky and fewer hills;I couldn’t figure out which way was Grimaud or Cogolin;I’d make a terrible sailor. I heard bells and headed away from them. A chainsaw grew louder as I scrambled down stony gully that became a gentle woodland slope and emerged over dried river bed onto a broad sand track. I took a punt and turned right. Another mile went by before houses and tarmac explained I’d drifted all the way over to the road to Collobrières.
I’ve written a 30,000 word first draft novella which will double in size to become a novel one day, but not yet. November is earmarked to find out what all those early mornings produced. They’re a haze to me now. All I remember is getting up and saying to myself, Come on. Get to it. And we’ve begun proofing FALLOUT which comes out next year. Getting notes is never easy, but the editor at Empress Editions knows her onions.
Last Sunday I taught a class on Memoir & The Body, a guest spot in Amanda Saint‘s memoir course. Profound, strong and tender was the feedback. I’ll take that.
There’ve been Substack LIVEs punctuating each week which have pulled me out of silence and tunnelled me into contact with others. Yesterday, SLART met me in his lunch hour on the high wire. I never know where the conversations are going to go, and they always produce something that makes the whole world drop away in their insistence of the present moment.
Here’s the recording in case you missed it:
And if you want to buy his work, check out the catalogue from his latest show Memento Vivere.
And somewhere in all that, thanks to Jane Ratcliffe, I wrote an essay for Beyond on recovering reality. In case audio is your jam, here’s a recording of me reading it out loud.
So yes, it’s been enriching, deepening, hard work and holy. All that I asked for. Thank you Kemi Nekvapil , Kit de Waal & Elizabeth Gilbert . You may not know how much you inspired me during this time alone, but you did.
Eleanor
