Double delight: a day of creative retreat at the Makerie, and doing it with one of my oldest friends, Jonalee! A day to be inspired, looked after, rejuvenated.
My first clue to how the day would go was meeting the founder of the Makerie, Ali. We got stuck in traffic (miles of Ironman cyclists--thank you, classic Boulder) and arrived a few minutes late. Ali, a tiny woman with a huge heart, greeted us with hugs, as if we were long-lost friends. I needed to run back to the car to get something I'd forgotten. I was scurrying off when Ali gently told me, "Don't run. Walk slowly and enjoy the morning. There's no rush."
Our day of creative retreat was part of the Summer Series of modern crafting & homesteading workshops. Our retreat's focus was "In the Home."
For our morning session, Jonalee and I did a photography class with Alessandra Cave. We focused on how to capture everyday beauty in our homes. We worked on curating a scene, manipulating camera settings, and capturing natural light.
Isn't she loverly?
Just when our tummies started grumbling, it was time for a picnic lunch catered by Eat.
The food was delicious, and the exquisite packaging made me grin like a kid opening Christmas presents. While we ate, we listened to inspirational talks from small-business owners Alicia of Whimseybox and Indea of Lillabee, creative women who have found ways to make a living doing what they love.
After lunch, we headed off to Bird Dog Press to learn some letterpressing skills with Allison. She was a little jumping bean of creative energy and feisty humor. It was a treat watching her manhandle her big, clunky vintage letterpresses and teach us how to make some simple coasters and notecards.
Samples of our handiwork. So fun!
Back on the farm, we were greeted with tasty watermelon cocktails, gorgeous appetizers, and lively conversation. Next it was off for a tour of the Farmette with the vivacious, white-haired, Kentucky-drawling Betsy. While we meandered among tidy rows of fennel and Swiss chard and admired the happy hens and goats, a little fairy wonderland was being prepared for our farm dinner. Crust prepared incredible wood-fired pizzas with flavors like prosciutto, mascarpone, fig and honey. Mmm.
Ali, the founder of the Makerie, is the woman standing up, in the white and yellow dress. Her parents and husband were there, too. They seem like such a kind and supportive family.
I loved the welcoming words on our table settings:
Draw your chairs in close.
Sitting down for dinner is an intimate experience--it's about sharing, building community, nurturing & building everlasting relationships.
Dessert (by Lillabee) was so yummy: a coconut pecan ice cream sandwich with coconut caramel and Palisade peaches.
What an experience! I left feeling so blessed by the creative passion, generosity, and joy poured into every detail of the day by all the people who made it happen. What a luxury to spend a day with like-minded people, from different walks of life but all eager for more creativity, joy and purpose in their daily lives.
The snippets of conversation, the tears in the eyes of a woman who talked about releasing the "suppressed artist," the zest for life oozing out of the farm's owners Mike and Betsy, the older woman beside me at dinner who asked me point-blank, "So what exactly do you have to lose by dedicating yourself to finishing your novel this year?," the sense of community and connection to earth and land and place, the possibility of teaching in a venue outside academia, the idea of life being too short to plod along without realizing a dream: it's all resonating inside me. We'll see where this new energy takes me. In the meantime, I'm grateful.
It is so rewarding to bring people together and open up an opportunity to explore our deeper selves. The plants are a way to connect with nature and beauty, and the poetry, group reflection and individual writing offer people a chance to pause and reflect on what actually matters to them. I love to start each workshop with a quote from Jane Austen, who said, "We all have our best guides within us, if only we would listen." We are all so busy and our world is so loud that it's hard to hear our inner voice. Again and again, I keep finding that people who would not call themselves "creative" are actually brimming with ideas they want to share and explore, but everyday life doesn't give them a chance.
During our introductions, one woman told us that as a child she was taught never to write anything down because if you wrote anything negative someone could find it and hold it against you. She said she's in her late sixties now and has never kept a journal or written anything down, but she signed up for the class because her daughter invited her. She told us she might have a lot inside her, especially at this stage in her life. At the end of class, she came up to me with tears in her eyes and said that during the contemplative scavenger hunt writing exercise, she thought she had nothing to say. But at the end of the exercise, she discovered she'd written page after page, and she couldn't believe that all of those words had spilled out of her. She said she's going to keep writing, and I really hope she does.
