Joy Harjo said in a poem, “The land is a being who remembers everything.” It is alive, pulsing.
And it was, on Mackinac Island. A small hunk of rock in the great Lake Huron, the clear cold waters lapping like a dog’s tongue against the rocky shores of this humble place. I go there every year to lead a writer’s retreat, and I come home changed, invigorated, spent, quiet.
This year, 14 writers joined me in a place of no motor traffic, only the clop of horse hooves against paved road and the scent of their leavings that will eventually be swept up and used to fertilize that isolated land. In winter, I am told, life on Mackinac is bleak, cold, windswept and sometimes, lonely, though there are those who insist it is a blessing to be there when few others remain. I can’t imagine.
But maybe I can.
I spent a week holding space for creative individuals yearning to find their voice and believe in its power. I cried along with their potent words. I laughed when they shared humor aloud. We ate together. We dipped our toes into the rolling waves, palmed the wind-smoothed rocks. Rode bikes, hiked, paddled, engaged in conversation with art, tasted fudge, read our heartfelt writings in competition with the screaming wind behind the little library at the water’s edge.
One of these years, all I will do in September is lead this writer’s retreat. I’ll rest up beforehand and then I’ll come home to quiet and contemplation. Maybe find time to do writing of my own.
I’ve been so busy working, leading, planning, facilitating that I haven’t left time for my own fingers to fly over the keyboard. You know how that is. It’s something I speak about and teach others to do. Carve out time, that is, for what you love.
I am buoyed by October on the horizon as the days are growing shorter in my Michigan home. The mornings are quieter, darker for longer, the evenings come sooner, and after my book launch later this month, I will finally hold close the time and space to focus on my words.
But enough of that.
I am just home from a wonderful week of seeing what is possible. I will do it again.
On Friday, as the sun pinked the sky and the night chill faded, I was ready for home. I didn’t want to leave the lake. The constant reassurance of clear water lilting. Sun like diamonds on its surface. The Great Lakes ruin me for other bodies of water - here, I can see to the depths, huge slabs of rock and shiny boulders. Where the water grows darker blue, it goes down, down deeper than I can see. Where imagination takes over.
Someone once told me the waters of the Great Lakes are healing. I dipped my hands in and smeared my face with the cold calm and knew it to be true.
The land is a being that remembers everything. We write to hold the moments for a little longer, sear them into memory. And sometimes, we have to go away to see clearly.