What would make the ideal writing retreat?
This isn’t it. But it’s a start. It’s good research. Now I know all the better how and what to book. The place is beautiful. Would be peaceful with just a pinch of peace, of quiet. A stone, a rock for stepping off. Into my night. Into my day. Into my journeys. The cabin is perfect. But there are neighbors’ houses a bit too close. Signs of habitation. Within a stone’s throw is too close. And I can throw. Of course I require a good amount of solitude to allow my thoughts to grow. Outward. Out, that’s where it’s at. I would need enough space to explore a little bit. I would need at least a pinch of solitude to start, if only on the interior of the cabin, if not deep in the woods. Days of solitude would be ideal. But I’d take just a pinch, enough to go. I carry my own. I can make the rest. Enough to flow. To flow for a reasonable amount of time. Time, sign me up. For miles. For days. A stream. No breaks. Smooth and languid. Surface of a mirror. Babbling. Period. Space. It would pick up again to rapid. Rippling to ripping and curling. Torrid, a river off a mountain melting. Icy blue to whitewater waves roaring. Pull you in, spit you out. A good wave. A turning over, gasp for air. Back under, the bottom tumbling by. A cusp to launch. A crest. Ride me. Mist and spray. Piss and poison. Snow and rain. Rest. Into the mirror again, eddies in time, reflecting the sky.
And Time. Time. Only a little. Only my share. Pack light. Won’t stay long. I respect Time so much more than they do out there. Out there time is such a poorly executed concept. Inside it’s all here, now. But the world is an intruder. Usurper. Trespasser. Deluded extorter. Violent stabber. Chronic interruptor. Mutilator. Abuser of time. This world is a vampire but without the manners. Bite me. Puncture me at your own risk. Time means so much more to me. More than my blood. Here, take it. I don’t need it. This mortal body is nothing but a worn out, out-grown tee shirt. I change my clothes now and then. Eternity’s a long time to wear. I dumped the dirty laundry somewhere. I’ll keep my time though, thank you. I need to think. I need to travel. To breathe once in while. The cabin, a fireplace, a fortress. A bunker would do. I would need enough silence to connect sentences. Silence enough to bridge the little gap between the period and the capital letter. Don’t fill my spaces. I need them empty. Nothingness within reach. We need to breach. I would need the silence to be available at least. Outside the door on the porch. Inside piled on a shelf. Only the fire ticking. Attainable solitude on the mantelpiece. Light me up. Quiet around the clock. There’d be no clock. When I get home I will go outside and smash a clock. Obliterate. Hammer and boot heel. A shotgun. A rock. Clock turned to dust. Gears inside, out. Disengaged. Springs unsprung. Unwind me. Ticking untocked. Because I respect time. Silence and solitude at any time. Every time. Of day or of night, at any moment. Every moment. Now. Only ever now. Only quiet. Now is past. Now is nearing. I would need the necessary silence, solitude and space, enough for thoughts to expand and for sentences to burst forth and bloom into paragraphs with continual silence in between. Lines. Threads. Enough to tie them together. Reunite. Reconstruct. Unshatter. Mend. Make time. Make sense. Receive and reconnect, so that the next paragraph may continue, cutting and blazing, on the same trail or path, one stream. One collective trek. Accretion. Of thought. Of me. Of us. Do not dissect. No noise, none to interrupt, to invade the spaces in between, none to separate one paragraph from the next, none to permeate with intrusion, with a completely different thought because the first one never got going with enough momentum to carry on or was cut short or ran out of track, derailed, because the silence was broken. Solitude would be nice. Do not dissect. I love it inside my head. There’s a mind. There’s a soul or three or five… One for each voice. So many this world chased out or left behind. Abandoned. Denied. So many. I rescue along our way. Here, grab hold. Take my hook. Come inside. It’s grand. It really is bigger on the inside. It’s full of wonder. Wonderful worlds. Galaxies spinning. See. Have a blanket. Dizzy? Better have a seat. So much bigger and brighter and darker and lighter and star-filled than this one, this world outside, dim and dying behind the veil. There are so many suns burning. Fuel. Giving. Receiving. Both are better than possessing. Do not dissect. Sometimes moons only orbit. They don’t stay. Never intended. Never meant. So many places to go. So many things to be. So many worlds to see. I’m not really here right now. Never belonged. Can’t cut me. I’m already gone. Long ago. Now. I was. I am. Here. We will be. Now. It’s approaching. Terminal velocity.
Time. Time again. More time. No clock. No face. No hands. Do not dissect. Only the day and the night turning. The sun and the moon spinning. Waking, sleeping, coffee, writing, thinking, walking, hiking, whittling, drawing, dreaming, strumming, plucking, #@*%ing would be nice for the sake of the divine spirit, mind, body and soul, vision, for the senses a good honing, blade to whetstone, always better a sharp blade, crying, laughing, dreaming again, one stream, all is writing, sleeping again, visiting, giving, receiving, letting, all is writing, exploring. Search. Research. I would like to reinstate sleep, all is writing. Falling. Asleep, writing again. Do not dissect. I receive in my sleep. We go places. I would like to be able to read going off into sleep and write climbing out of sleep. Pulling back. Give and receive. And give again. No quarter. Don’t ask. No taking, but for careful notes. Giving takes work. And so does silence sometimes. As does solitude. So does receiving. Diligence. Work. Care and mindfulness. A little sleep. I must take notes. I promised. Make time. Bedtime, preparation for sleep, preparation for another night’s journey. Exploration. Another expedition, or pick up where you left off last night. And the night before last. What of that? Lace up your sleeping boots and pack your sleeping sack, we’re going climbing tonight. We’re reaching. We’re walking. Prepare. A stack of silence before sleep. Pages, books, a hidden trail head. The Trail Of The Undead, The Book Of The Unread. Pack a lunch and a compass. Rope, lots of it. Candles. Pack a stack of blank sheets. And a pen. Waking again, spilling the morning’s ink. Take notes. Wake up, shut up and write this down. You’re a letter. Remember. I promised. I keep my promises. I keep. Wake up. Become the keeper you said you’d be.
What else? A bottle of wine after breakfast. A fire. A big window to welcome the weather. I would like a place to walk to. Through the woods. A rock or fallen tree on which to sit with a view in which to breathe. A vista. Drink it in. Where raptors and scavengers soar and kite, circle, hunt and scavenge. A place where the words land on me. A feather. A place to listen and see and receive. Under a tree. In the woods. In the mountains. A place to whittle, carve, think and sharpen. A rock, a pencil. Sharpen my knife. Sharpen my senses. See. Read Plath and love being cut open and laughed at. Bled. Mocked. Like only she can. Plath in the woods with a view, as if there was nothing to fear. As if. To find something new. To fear. That would be nice. That would be something. She knows my dream, the one I haven’t finished yet. The one I left behind. She’s right there waiting, smirking. A phrase to turn. Of ice to burn. Lessons. More to learn. That little curl, I can see it. That gleam. The sharpest edges I’ve ever seen. Felt. Do not dissect. I’ll have to sleep again eventually. She’s waiting. Take it. I don’t need it. I came here to bleed. Full of it, barely able to contain. Laced up. Waiting to be. Lacerated. Laughing. Like you’ve been taught, Keeper. Don’t forget. The cribs are carved in your flesh. The Time’s scribed in your skin. Letting is in the blood. Let the games begin.
Time to commune on high with the divine, talk terms with the sprites in their leafy rhymes, winged waking dream. Negotiate and work with the conditional and the organized demonic in between, our realm, this one, the low, the living, the material seam. Time places you in the stack if you’re one who allows your self to be placed. But you know where you should be. Listen. Keep on keeping on, Keeper. Promises. Promises.
A cord of firewood. Coming unstacked. A half a cord now. Time’s running out. Always out, never back. Time only runs. Unto now. Forever now. Poetry burns the curtains. Pinholes. Embers flit and spark. Above, below, spinning, an entire ‘verse between you and me. Glowing in the trees. Unto Now. That is how we shall be.
Yeah, that would be the writing retreat for me. That would be the ideal. This isn’t it. It’s only a reach. Now I see. A peek, however stark. It’s only a brief look. It’s a start. Now I know all the better how and what to book.
I came. I saw. I read. I bled. There were visions. Confused, the birds fly north. Time’s out. I’ll spare you them. I’ll not scare you. For Now, I have revisions.