“Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit.” Henry David Thoreau
Summer is in full tilt here, and luckily, we’ve had lots of beautiful weather to enjoy. I’ve been relishing time spent just reading! I've read a few books so far with the eye of “How are they organizing this? How are they putting this together?” It’s helping me move towards organizing my own writings and has inspired me to offer a new series centered around a writing process book by John McPhee starting July 19th.
The Gift of Focus
This week I am returning to Walden Pond to give a program for their annual “Approaching Walden.” This professional development seminar brings together educators from around the country to see and study Walden from different points of view, including their own experiences of being there. My session is called “Sense of Place and Story: Finding the Thoreau in You.”
This year visiting Thoreau’s cabin site will be extra special for me because last month I had the opportunity to visit another writer’s Walden: the lake and cabin site of writer, ecologist and woodswoman Anne LaBastille. When Anne built a small second cabin on her land she named it “Thoreau Two.”
Her friend Leslie Surprenant led this overnight kayak and camping trip. As our guide, she offered so many special touches, from providing Anne’s favorite drink to make a toast in her honor, to lighting a lantern formerly owned by Anne that we watched flicker as we sat around her campfire ring. Leslie also brought one of Anne’s books for us to read aloud. Anne’s work was all about conservation and empowering women in the outdoors. Sitting by the fire that night I felt so cradled by the land, the lake, the loons, and my new friends.
Both of these sites have me thinking about other writers’ homes I have visited, from Aldo Leopold’s shack to Emily Dickinson’s bedroom. There’s something about making the pilgrimage to the place a writer lived and worked that sparks a visitor’s imagination, bringing each writer’s words, ideas, and images to life.
What I love most about these visits is the gift of focus. For just a small slice of time, you allow your thoughts and focus to be centered on the imagination, on seeing, thinking, and feeling through another’s lens. To let yourself enter another world, for even just a short amount of time, is rejuvenating.
Sense of Place Tip: Visit a place where a writer lived and worked. Let yourself pause and experience the surroundings. Soak up the sights and sounds that inspired their ideas and words. Give your heart something creative, sensory and inspiring to focus on. Your nervous system will thank you.
Favorite Thing Tip: For my overnight adventure, I had to update a bunch of gear. (I love you REI.) My new favorite thing is the Mondo King Thermarest. This is not your mother’s Thermarest. It’s 4 inches high and just like a dreamy bed. Perfect for car and kayak camping.
Summer Writing
As I’ve led writing classes, groups and retreats over the past few years, one of the most common issues that comes up with participants is how to put together all the bits and pieces of writing. That struggle inspired me to offer a NEW program this summer. This series will provide focused time and support to explore the weaving of concepts and ideas, using John McPhee’s book about the writing process as our jumping point. Starts July 19th.