Wildacres Retreat - Fall Gathering

Wildacres Retreat is a place I like  to go to find freedom from everyday responsibilities. This lovely place on top of a mountain in North Carolina has rustic bedrooms, no telephones or television sets. The quiet is only broken by the wind whistling through the giant oaks, maples and other hardwoods that provide the visitor with myriad leaf colors in fall.

My room mate and friend, Mary Mike hiked most of the trails around the campus and brought back a  bouquet of small limbs filled with leaves of gold, red, orange and magenta. She put them in a pitcher and sat on her bed and painted them with watercolors. I just enjoyed looking at them. 

Mealtimes are fun at Wildacres and the food is delicious. We sit about ten people to a round table and we are served a meat dish in a  large platter with a couple of side dishes. A salad  bar is set up in the center of the room. Dessert is placed beside each plate. It is good that we have to walk a ways to the dining room and back up a  hill after we eat hopefully using a  few of the calories we take in.

I love almost every person I have met at this retreat where I came for several years in the  past. Lots of hugging goes on when we see each other  again. This year I was very happy to see Sidney again. I met her the first time I went to Wildacres. It was  her first time as well. It was good to see how far she has come with her writing in the past five years. Her novel is almost complete.

One pleasure for me is visiting the studios of the painters and potters. Dorothy, from Asheville, is a potter. One day I'd like to try my hand with clay. I think the process would be most therapeutic, molding and creating with my hands. I think writing is creating with my mind, but I was once an oil painter and I remember the deep satisfaction I received from watching a scene develop on canvas. I remember the contentment that crept over me when I saw something I created with brushes and paint. 

Mike House, Director of Wildacres, is amazing the way he knows all the details about the place. One windy evening he called out to someone leaving a studio, "Be sure to close that door real good. It doesn't always latch, and the wind will blow it open and it will bang all night."

He is dearly loved by the guests and so is his family. His beautiful wife, Kathryn, is on staff and she played balaphone for us one night. Mike plays keyboard and usually entertains us on the last night of the Gathering. This year I requested Forever Young, a song he sang the first time I came to Wildacres, and he sang it for me that cold snowy evening before we left the next morning.

I kind of wish The Gathering was not so popular because now you have to register early or be put on a waiting list. I used to be able to get a private room but now we are told there are no private rooms available.

This year I had the opportunity to talk at great length with Jan Parker, writer from near Raleigh. She is on the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Writers' Network. I introduced her to NCWN West, our writing group here in the mountains. She gave me a copy of a book of poetry published by Main Street Rag. I gave her a copy of Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, the anthology published by our group. We discussed her visiting us in the coming year.

Wildacres holds many events during the year and there are two gatherings where you are on your own to do what you love best. Check them out.  www.wildacres.org  

Back Home Again

We gather in the large lobby to listen to music

I am home from Wildacres, the wonderful retreat just off the Parkway near Little Switzerland. We gathered in the lobby each evening for readings and for music by some of the guys in the area. Even though being in a room with 80 people, most wearing some kind of chemical fragrance, dryer sheet toxins, perfumes and colognes, I was able to stay well most of the time. Thanks to a charcoal filter inside a mask I did not loose my voice before reading a couple of poems last night. I was thrilled at the reaction to my poems. 

Artist, Carole at Wildacres

The best part of going to Wildacres is seeing special people I met there three years ago. I’ll never forget that Fall Gathering, September after Barry died in July of 2009. I had never driven that far alone and never to go to a place where I did not know anyone.

Somehow, I knew this was what I needed to do. The first person I met was a lovely petite woman named Marsha. She saw me sitting in the lobby and came over to me. Little did I know that Marsha was a nurse and she was there with her darling mother, Nettie, and that Nettie had just lost her husband of many years. Marsha now says, she saw something in my face and felt she needed to come and take care of me. That's the kindness of good nurses, angels of mercy wherever they may be. Marsha happened to be the sister of Mike, the director of Wildacres, and their whole family was there in the lobby. Before I knew it, Marsha had brought me right into their family gathering. I met them all, right down to the giant standard poodle who I suspect really owns the whole place.

That week in 2009 I had time to reflect on who I was without Barry, to understand my choices and where I wanted to go with my life. I decided to open Writers Circle. Others played a part in my decisions, but I left Wildacres a changed person. It still took work, and I have had ups and downs, but I continued to go to this lovely retreat as often as I could. 

We have kept in touch through these years while Nettie mourned her husband, Marsha and the family mourned their father and I mourned my Barry. Perhaps it was the mutual loss we all shared at that moment that drew us together. Three years later we sat and visited and caught up on life. Marsha has retired after twenty plus years of nursing, and now she and her husband travel around in their RV seeing this beautiful country. 

Marsha is a very special woman, and I love her as a special friend. I found out that she reads my blogs. That makes her even more special.

Virginia from Clay County

When I turn into the drive at the Wildacres sign and slowly cruise up to the main buildings, a large weight lifts off my shoulders. I take several deep breaths and feel stress drift away into the cool high mountain air.

It was Wednesday before I saw some of my friends. I have to admit that I slept almost all day the first day and part of the second day. After a good rest, I was back to myself, writing and re-writing, blogging and journaling. 

 At dinner I see those lovely smiles of recognition, and choruses of “Glenda, I’m so glad you’re here. I hoped you’d be here this year.” And I know they are genuine expressions of caring. It is like a family reunion with cousins you only see once or twice a year.

Some of those I always look forward to seeing are Carole W. , a wonderful artist, who is so funny and caring, and my own neighbor from Clay County, Virginia, who seems to be the happiest person on earth. 

Some of the guests love to party at the end of the day. While I don’t participate in the late night parties, I enjoy the one on one chats with the artists. Potters, quilters, painters who work in various mediums, jewelry makers and many musicians get away from all responsibilities for a week of just plain joy and fellowship with like-minded people. No classes during the Gathering. We all work on our own, doing our particular art. 

I don’t know the dates for the Fall Gathering. I hope it works out for me to go, but if not, I’ll plan for next Spring.