Ginny and the Butterfly

Virginia Urani, an artist who paints and teaches, is a frequent guest at Wildacres, a fantastic retreat in the northern part of western North Carolina. I hold the place sacred because that was where I went to figure out my life after my husband died in 2009. There I met Virginia and many others who paint, write, make pottery or quilts.

Recently Virginia was there and had the most unusual experience. This is what she wrote:

 A couple of weeks ago when I was at Wildacres a butterfly landed on my hand, delicately walked up my arm and shoulder, up my neck and across my face ... finally resting in my hair. After about 15 minutes, I stood up and carefully walked down the steps into the painting studio. and I gently placed him on a bouquet of tulips and wildflowers which had served as my models.  He stayed on the bouquet of flowers the entire time I was at Wildacres.  

He fluttered about a little but returned to my flowers.  One day I took him outside … it was sunny and warm.  He flew to the side of the painting studio and stayed there for an hour or so.  The sun turned to clouds. I found him on the ground, so I took him back inside and placed him on the flowers.  The days were cool and nights cold and there were storms so I didn’t put him outside.

When I went to the Painting Studio on Sunday morning and packed to go home, it was raining and cold. I couldn't bring myself to put the butterfly outside, so I carefully placed him on his bouquet of flowers in a big basket which I put inside a plastic bag and put him in the car next to me. Once home I put him in my studio and brought in fresh flowers. He seems to be doing well. I did some research and I know lantana flowers and petunias are favorites, and I had already discovered he LOVES wild mustard flowers. He has been with me over a week and they only live  2 weeks. He flutters about my studio a little and sleeps a lot. 

Last night I couldn't find him nor this morning. I spent about an hour in my studio organizing and throwing away stuff thinking that he could be ANYWHERE or maybe he died or sneaked outside. Then, there was a little flutter at my feet and there he was. He climbed on my finger then on the front of my T-shirt. I took him to the pot of lantana and he became one busy little butterfly. I have thought of taking him outside  but John reminds me that he won't live very long and it is once again cold, rainy with thunderstorms. 

So, for right now he will stay in my studio with flowers and plants and room to flutter about. I don't think he was ever very strong ... no healthy butterfly would ever have crawled up my arm, across my face and nestled in my hair. 

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/hP2GT6iG      This is a link to pictures of Virginia and her butterfly.


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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  

A Fall Writers' Retreat in the NC mountains

Have you heard of the Duke University Writers Workshop? The name is changed but the excellent writing instruction has not.

Table Rock Writers Workshop will be held September 17-21 at my favorite retreat, Wildacres, just off the parkway near Little Switzerland, NC. I am delighted that I will be going this year.

View from the large patio between lodges

They have some openings left, so visit their website, www.tablerockwriters.com

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.

SAFE HAVEN IN THE HIGH MOUNTAINS

This is my fourth time to come to this beautiful mountain northeast of Asheville and near the Blue Ridge Parkway. Wildacres Retreat has become my haven to rest and work in complete solitude when I want to, or I can mix with the other creative people who attend the Gathering each year. I see some of the same faces I saw the first time I came: Carol, Kathleen, Mickey, Junebug, Tucker, Chuck, Skip, Marsha and Nettie. That was just a few months after I lost my best friend and life-long love, Barry. Some people say my decision to come here, alone, not knowing anyone at all, was a brave thing to do so soon after my loss. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made since I became the lone decision maker in my life.

I am not taking any classes. No classes are offered this week. I have no pressure to do anything except what I feel like doing at the time. This visit has been strangely opposite of the others. I came here with acute bronchitis, taking antibiotics plus prednisone. I spent the first three days in my sparsely furnished but comfortable room on the first floor of the north lodge, sleeping mostly, healing and writing.

No one bothered me and I was sure no one missed me, but today when I went to lunch for the first time, Mike, the Resident Manager of Wildacres, stood at the bottom of the stairs and said, “Glenda, I was wondering if you were still here. We haven’t seen much of you.”
He is a nice man with a wonderful family, and he is the (young) grandfather of beautiful twin boys.

The staff at Wildacres accommodates my needs for cleaning my room with no harsh chemical cleaners. This time I am leaving them with a natural cleanser recipe, and I hope they will use it throughout the lodges, not just when I come. Mike places emphasis on recycling and using less energy. I hope he will understand the “greenness” of using safe cleaning supplies. Besides, vinegar, water and Borax are much cheaper than all the strong mixes in those bottles bought at the store. I know what the cleaning staff uses because the laundry room is on my hall, and the smell from that room is overpowering for me, the canary, while others hardly notice it, I suppose.

I sleep with the windows open, and the wind blows through the trees all night, humming to me like a mother's lullaby. Fall is the best time here on this mountain. On the drive up, I open my car windows and turn off the music the minute I turn off the gravel road on to the paved drive that leads to the retreat. I am awed at the silence and I am eager to settle in with my writing, my books, and my special belongings I always bring with me that make me even more comfortable.

In my next post, I’ll tell you about a writer I met this week. Janice Holly Booth has a book coming out in February from National Geographic.

A Retreat and A Rest

May you stay forever young, Mike is singing here at Wildacres Retreat, where we have been entertained tonight by a host of local and not so local entertainers led by Mike House who is the manager or director of this special place high on a mountain isolated from the world.
I came her last year for the Fall Gathering and found a solace that I needed to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I was welcomed into a safe and comfortable environment where I could have as much solitude as I needed and as much social interaction as I wanted.
This spring I have come back and have found that same feeling. It was like coming home after an absence. Familiar smiling faces greeted me and once again I could relax and rest.
Artists gather here to work in clay, paint in oils, water color and mixed media, create nature prints, write and make quilts. No instruction goes on during the Gathering. We come and bring our own projects that we work on when we want and how we want.
Carol and Karen are painters. Dorothy is a potter. Juliann  is also a potter, but there are musicians here. Jules is a familiar face. He spent many years on the road with James Brown's group. Now he lives in South Carolina and writes poetry. A young couple play violins as if they were born to play together. A bagpipe player is among the guests this spring.
 Some of the songs provoked audience participation, and on one song a woman singer and guiterist, jumped up and began buck dancing or clogging.

Each night a reading was held. I read poetry and a short memoir.
I was extremely happy for the kind reception of my work. More than that, I was moved by the comments made by other artists who said they liked the honesty in my work. A good writer must not be afraid to bleed on the page.
I don't know where I read that but I believe it is true.

Wildacres Spawns Another Writer

While I did little writing at Wildacres this past week, my sister Gay proved what I'd known. She is a writer as well as a sculpter and artist. With only a little coaching to get her started, she produced some funny stories that I hope to share with you here on this site.

She told me on many ocassions that she was not a writer. She had no memories and she had nothing to write about. I remembered the poetic letters she wrote back in the sixties, when she lived in San Francisco and I was a newlywed on the farm in Georgia. I read her letters over and over, trying to imagine myself living in a fascinating city on the Pacific Ocean. She was young and she was brave, I thought, to head out on her own. While I taught children in the same town where I had lived all my life, she experienced life in a way I never would.

Here is a photo of Gay at Wildacres.

   
 We meet for lunch about once a month and always have some good laughs.

More Photos from Wildacres

Below is Chuck, a photographer and an astronomer I met at Wildacres Retreat. When I asked if anyone could help me learn to use Barry's Nikon Camera I was told to ask Chuck. All week Chuck wandered the area and photographed people, each one present that week, and also flowers, crafters in their studios, and other things. He patiently taught me some basic things about my camera, but I still took tons of photos that were blurry until he saw that I had the digital camera set on Manual. Once he corrected my settings, I was able to capture a few good photos like the ones below.

The resident standard poodle would not pose for me to capture her face, but in this one she had just come out on the patio and was enjoying the long mountain view that all the humans enjoyed as they relaxed in their rocking chairs.

Rocky and Tiger Welcomed Me Home from Wildacres Retreat

Rocky and Tiger were happy to see me when I came home from my week at Wildacres Retreat. I listened to Marley and Me on CD on the way home and enjoyed the antics of the endearing dog, Marley.
I read one night at Wildacres when all the artists and writers gathered in the lobby of the main lodge. I also had the opportunity to tell them about my poetry chapbook coming out in the fall. I think the idea of writers and artists of all kinds coming together for a week, not to take classes, but to have the time to work on projects of their choosing is a fantastic idea. Nothing is structured but mealtimes. It was just what I needed I think, and I've come home with some priorities set so I hope I can better focus on what I should be doing at this time. Although I was told by a woman today it took her a year to straighten out her thinking after she lost her husband.
I was able to do some re-writing and accomplished one piece that absolutely transported me back in time. For three hours I left this time period and regressed to 1968 where my memories overcame my present situation and I completely forgot where I was. How strange to suddenly come back to September 2009, look around and for a minute not know where I was.

I'd like to be able to write like that every day for the next year and maybe by then I could better face the present. I do have some wonderful things to write about. Now here at home, I must discipline myself to do that.