Tag Archives: writing retreat

Wild Women Writers Retreat: Quinta San Carlos

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X-shaped napkin

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

Tomorrow is our last day of our retreat at the wonderful Quinta San Carlos across the lake.  Our brains are nearly emptied of words and our stomachs are certainly full of the delicious food they serve us from the time we wake up until we drag up the hill to our rooms.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner are supplemented with a round the clock buffet of cookies, chips, sliced veggies, sodas, coffee and tea of every variety.  I am now hiding out from dinner as if I put one more bite of food into my mouth I won’t make the bonfire tonight (Where by the way they roast corn over the open fire and serve it with the usual Mexican condiments of butter, mayonnaise, lime and chili powder.  We are going to ask them to skip this tradition this year.

As soon as I’m sure they are finished with dinner I’ll go down for the bonfire and to lead the storytelling. Our leader (another) Judy has had bad laryngitis for the past few days so we are assuming her task and even reading aloud for her what she has written. It’s been a great time.  Hopefully, same time next year.. I believe this is our seventh year with a few years skipped during covid.

Wild Women Mini Writers Retreat

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Not all of the Wild Women Writers were present, but Margaret was visiting and Amelia and Leslie were in town, so Harriet and I, who are always here, joined them for a one day retreat at Leslie’s rented house. Amelia posed interesting questions and Harriet and Margaret came up with some fun writing prompts. Leslie organized the lunch which we all contributed to and I snapped photos.  A good and enlightening time was had by all.  Judy Reeves, it was good to talk to you via the internet. We missed you…The last photo is a picture of the original Wild Women group at a retreat at Quinta San Carlos before Covid changed our plans for further yearly retreats.

My Day

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Pricessa wakes me up by bringing me a leaf. Every day.
Then Oscar brings us hot chocolate and a pastry.
He is also a mad photographer. Our entire visit is chronicled!
Right to left: Rachel with our hosts, Keira and Oscar.
Keira, Rachel and I then drive to Colima for a day of writing and critiquing and discussing with Mary
And Roberta, whose house we convene at.
We arrive home around ten to find this fellow waiting by the pool outside our rooms. He is huge. Bigger than my hand.
Thanks, Duckie (Forgottenman) for having done his bloggly duties.

Wild Women Writers at the Quinta San Carlos

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I just sent this batch of photos off to the 7 other women who were the  participants of our last writing retreat as well as Judy Reeves, our leader. Thought you might enjoy seeing them as well, and perhaps later I’ll publish a few of the dozen or more timed writings I wrote during the retreat as well. Service, food and facilities were amazing. At any given meal, we had a minimum of 4 waiters standing to cater to our every need. If our glasses emptied, they were filled without asking. Special dietary needs were catered to. When we retired to our meeting room after every meal, there was already a buffet set out with cookies, chips, veggie plates and sodas, water, coffee and tea. There was literally food available at every minute of the day from 7 a.m. when we went to breakfast until 9:30 p.m. when we finished dinner. And, when we went for a bonfire after dinner, they had a huge cauldron of corn on the cob set up with all the fixings for Mexican corn on the cob–mayonnaise, chili, limes and parmesan! This was our sixth retreat together–each one in a different place in Mexico. We’ve already decided to return back to Quinta San Carlos for next year’s retreat. (The subject was Micro-memoirs and everyone did wonderful work. We’re trying to get Judy to offer an open workshop next year in addition to ours and if so, I heartily recommend it.)

 

Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Here’s more information on Quinta San Carlos: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g667915-d1028385-Reviews-Quinta_San_Carlos-Jocotepec.html

They also have their own website with more photos, but it is in Spanish.

That Woman in the Mirror

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I have a few moments before dinner so will publish this piece written to the prompt, “That Woman in the Mirror” at the writing retreat where I will be for the next three days.

That Woman in the Mirror

The woman in the mirror has a better sense of humor than I do. This is because she does not need to depart to go into the world. She controls what is behind her and in front of her. Her wounds are my wounds. Her wrinkles are the selfsame wrinkles that fail to respond to the expensive face cream my sister sent me for my birthday. A gentle hint that my apparent age reveals her age, 4 years older.

The woman in the mirror does not necessarily reflect my feelings. She sometimes freezes in surprise at my tears. Chides me to get a hold on myself. She steams over at times and refuses to confront me. She does not flinch at sprays of toothpaste or a misting over of hairspray. She grows younger as the layers thicken. The woman in the mirror chides me to refresh my lipstick, define my eyebrows, pluck hair chins. Slowly, slowly, she ages—turning into first my mother and then my Grandmother, whom I had thought I had left so far behind. That self-pitying look? Shame on her, I chide. Those ever-lowering breasts, that additional girth? I will never get like that, I think, and then I remember.

There is a mirror in my house where my Grandmother cannot find me—a full-length miracle mirror where the one looking back at me is a woman in her 40’s, just barely overweight. She is my grandmother, stretched out—lengthened and diminished in width. It is the sort of mirror that was once seen in fancy dress shops that encouraged women to buy and buy. Like The Hollywood shop from fifty years ago, now long abandoned, shuttered and replaced by a Radio Shack…but whose charms can still lull me into a luxurious feeling that all is well. I am as I should be.

I flip off the bathroom light and move to the bedroom to catch a last glimpse of me in that magical full-length mirror, then climb into bed to dream and dream those slender dreams that, if we are lucky, are the ones that remain in our memory long after the mirrors have cracked and crumbled, like other more recent memories that fade quickly to give way to the past.

Work in Progress

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 ForgottenMan gave me permission instructed me gave me his blessing said it might be a good idea … to inform you about the project I’m working on. He added this photo of me in Ethiopia in 1973. The book I’m writing is about this period during which the Ethiopian Marxist revolution was brewing. My friend Leslie offered to come over for a three day intensive where we would both work only on our books. It worked so well that we’re doing it again for four days, starting tomorrow. Here are a few shots of last week’s session. I’ll see you on Monday! (Click on first photo to enlarge all and read captions.)

My work station
Annie guarding my files
Leslie hard at work at her chosen work station
Kukla reserved my chair for me on the rare occasions that I left it
As the piles grew, Annie rose to the occasion

 

Acapulco Bound

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Click on first photo to enlarge all and see full captions.

Checking the tags.
Hurry up and wait.
And wait. And wait.
Finally airbound.
]
and squiggles,
]
and lines.
Finally, we reach our goal.

Safe Perch

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I tried to capture this fellow in this pose several times but he’d flown away by the time I got my camera out.  This morning he granted me the favor of a last visit and stood still long enough for me to capture this shot and a number of others—first a few of his mate, whom he replaced when she flew away—and then of him. I’m finally home.  There is no place like it!!!

Acapulco

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Gina, Gloria, Patricia, Sandy, Harriet, Judy D-B.(with hand raised.) Seated: Glenda and Judy Reeves.

Here is a short piece Sandy Olson wrote the first morning of our retreat to the prompt, “Foreign Countries.”  I thought it might give you a bit of the flavor of our writing retreat. There were eight of us staying in Gloria’s son’s house in Acapulco.  He has a design business that designs and builds theme restaurants for Disneylands and Disneyworlds all over the world, thus the colorful and art-filled nature of his vacation home.  more photos to follow. Here is what Sandra wrote:

Gathering this morning with coffee—slowly—first Harriet, then me, then Gina, sitting outside on chairs in the grass. Then the others, one by one.

What are we—not a covey of quail, pride of lions, murmuration of starlings, herd of water buffalo—we are writers, dedicated to the muse, brought together, a distinct subspecies of humankind. Seekers. Watchers and scribes. We look like we’re having an inconsequential conversation this morning  but we’re visiting and exploring each others’ foreign country and our own as well.

“I’m in my own foreign country.”