Tag: writing retreats

The Last Post … Sort Of

Happy anniversary to me.

I started this blog a year ago today. I wasn’t sure then whether I would successfully make it to today or not. Publication wise.

But I did. I published a post every day of varying quality and length for a whole year.

Mission accomplished.

Do you know the haunting musical lament The Last Post? Usually played on a trumpet and followed by two minutes of silence, it is meant to honor those who lost their lives in the Great War.

It is a standard offering at the annual Canadian Remembrance Day services on November 11th across the country. (Known as Veteran’s Day in the US.)

It is a musical thread of continuity that, when we hear it, can snap us back to a particular time or place.

My strongest memory of The Last Post was hearing it played at my father’s funeral in 2005. A couple of his Legion buddies showed up at the service to pay their respects.

When the eulogy and all other elements of the service had been delivered, to close the ceremony, they played The Last Post to send Dad onwards.

The two minute scratchy trumpet solo was played on a handheld cassette tape player held aloft for better hearing by the gathered mourners. It was both moving and comical.

It could have been a scene in a TV series about an old soldier who had lived and died in the countryside among unsophisticated folk who were salt of the earth. And a touch salty, too, if memory serves.

In the end, all that mattered was that Dad’s old buddies showed up to send him off. The low quality of the recording notwithstanding. They showed respect to an old veteran who had done his bit when called upon to do so.

None of us really knows what happens when we die. It is – outside birth itself – life’s biggest mystery. There is no end of speculation about consciousness continuing after we die. Maybe.

I am inclined to think consciousness does continue in some form even though I have no clue what that form might be. Energy doesn’t die only transmogrifies. (Love that word~!)

Reincarnation and its variants are a preferable alternate to the “once and done” end of life theory that so many realists expound and insist upon with just as little evidence for their certainty.

If we don’t really know anyway, what harm is there in believing the more comforting scenario?And then there is that Ouija board session that utterly convinced me there is another side. That is a story for another time however.

I say farewell today in a similar low-key fashion. No big production or insights to share. Just a wistful sense of gratitude and completion in achieving a goal.

I’ve promised to share posts occasionally going forward as and when moved to do so. If a new writing venture develops, I’ll share that news with you, too.

Next week, I am going to a writing retreat. Today and tomorrow, I will rest and see what fills in the space this blog occupied in my life all this year.

Other than that, no concrete plans. Blessedly.

As with most aspects of life, the future is not completely in my control anyway.

I think I’ll just settle in to enjoy the ride wherever it leads.

Thanks for following along.

I’ll likely pop up in your inbox now and then as promised.

We’ll see what happens next

Maggymac out, with much gratitude for the ride and the company.

If Words Be The Food of Life, Write On

Borrowing ever so loosely from William Shakespeare, I was humbled last night by the sheer talent of my fellow colleagues at the Murphy School of Writing Retreat here in Florida. I had drifted away from a felt sense of why words and writing are so vitally important. A general cynicism had befallen me after years of writing professionally. I use the term “writing” in the “government communications” context ever so loosely. Producing and publishing words for politicians and greedy, soulless clients whose only interest was whether they could manipulate the reader into parting with hard-won cash or votes was soul-crushing. Tonight, I started the process of relearning that words – which, admittedly, have their own limitations (more on that in a future post) – are the most effective tools we humans have to share our human experience with other humans. Words make us laugh. Words cross gulfs of isolation. Words make us think. Words teach us stuff. Words can make us cringe, bring forth tears, and leave us breathless with awe and wonder at the breadth, depth, and vagaries of the human experience. A mother speaking tremulously and tenderly about the birth of and life with her dearly beloved child who has cerebral palsy. A woman “of a certain age” speaking about finally discovering joyous orgasms after finding a loving partner with a “slow hand” in a sly nod to the Pointer Sisters’ massive 80s hit song. A woman who disclosed and bears the deep and immutable childhood insult and primal wound of incest. She called it a “dent.” Another with similar primal wounds due to rape shared her outrage at those who would question how “it” happened. Rape victims hear that line of questioning all the time. Another recalled a carefree day in her youth exploring a big, dirty city with a dear lifelong friend. Her final poem was a study in controlled rage and exasperation over the America she loves and lives in which – she implored – “desperately needs to get its act together.” And from a farm-raised writer, sharing the sensual joy of spraying warm milk from a cow’s udder at cloying kittens with open mouths. I had forgotten or lost contact with words’ ability to transport us somewhere else in time, place, or experience. Glennon Doyle wrote and encouraged us to know and understand that “we can do hard things.” These writers certainly did and do. I had forgotten about the power of words to move and deeply shake us emotionally. I had completely forgotten about the power of words to change us by changing what we know, how we think, and even our sense of who we are. Most basically, words can make us feel less alone and isolated on this big crazy planet in this crazy time. For that learning alone, this retreat has been worth it. Tonight’s performance will be by the memoir group. I am still reeling, chortling, and choking back tears after tonight’s iridescent performances. After tonight, I could well be emotionally apoplectic.

Getting Away to Write

Nestled on the Atlantic Coast of Florida, the setting of the Atlantic Center for the Arts is a writer’s paradise. Florida itself is a sun-filled paradise in the middle of March for those who make their way here from chilly northern climes. Coming by car, I turned the corner into the Center and the imposing black iron gates opened with the assigned code. Wooden walkways lead to various studios and buildings at the Center and, happily we are warned, keep one elevated above the resident rattlesnakes. I now dearly wish I’d brought my Wellies. The room is both spare and inviting. All the necessary amenities like a coffee maker, microwave, small fridge. Both windows in my room look out on a cacophony of gangly palm trees and exotic jungle-like greenery. The copious greenery is equal parts soothing and stimulating. I’ve come to this writing retreat as a Writer-in-Residence to focus on writing and to rub shoulders with 42 other writers for six days. The Murphy School of Writing is based at Stockton University in New Jersey and had hosted retreats here for decades until COVID. Now the School, like the rest of the world, is getting its’ feet under it again and holding in-person retreats here and in New England and New Jersey. This retreat offers two dedicated workshops specializing in Poetry and Memoir. Led by Writing School Director Peter Murphy – a Welsh-born American – and author Nancy Reddy respectively, the students meet and write together for four hours daily. As the Memoir workshop was full, my goal here is to inject much-needed rigour into the writing process I’ve undertaken. I aim to produce the book that has been simmering in my head for decades about the strategies I used to overcome an unstable and fractious childhood. There will be quite a lot of juicy bits about pitfalls and backsliding along the way. The process feels like subjecting myself to a university course while chasing a degree again. I know my focus and several scenes have already solidified. The required research has started. The themes are emerging and clarifying. The necessary discipline, according to nearly every writing guide I’ve ever read, is to write for at least two hours a day until a draft manuscript is produced. The greatest writing advice out there for those in need of guidance? “Put your bum in the seat.” “Shut up and write.” Having a manuscript in hand, there is more work ahead to review what’s been written, edit, polish, rewrite, edit, proofread, cut, and review again until there is a collection of words that hangs together to ultimately attract several readers’ interest. That’s the goal at least. There is alchemy involved, I know. And part of the alchemy is starting down the path with the belief that with constant application and elbow grease, my goal will be achieved. And there are all of you, of course, to keep me on the straight and narrow. Hopefully, along the way, there will be sufficient tidbits of information about writing and general observations about the ludicrousness and beauty of life to keep you engaged. Or at the very least, even if you are bored stupid, you will be kind enough to refrain from saying so. Writers need that kind of support and encouragement.