Sunday, June 28, 2015

Hedgebrook, Day Four

After yesterday's walk 



I am here at Hedgebrook with five other women residents, and we are mixed in age, in nationality and in race. We are both straight and lesbian.  We each have our own enchanted cottage, not far from one another but far enough to sit undisturbed to do our individual work. Every evening, promptly at 5:30 we walk down a forest path with baskets and meet in the farmhouse for dinner, cooked for us right there with vegetables and flowers and fruit from the garden. We help ourselves from bowls and platters, arrayed on the same butcher block where the chef has prepared them, and then we sit down to eat at a long pine table with a view of Useless Bay. Yes, Useless Bay -- a name worthy of a post far longer than these that I will be writing for the next three weeks. The food is remarkable, simple and full of flavor. The chef sits with us and eats, too. I believe there are three of them who rotate through, all women who cater to and nourish us yet have a place at the woman table. At the end of the meal, the chef clears the table and begins to clean the kitchen while we pack our baskets with snacks, coffee, breakfast for the next morning. We spoon homemade granola out of jars, yogurt out of tubs, and coffee into little bags. We take fresh raspberries from the garden, so sweet and ripe that they disintegrate into syrup, almost, by the next day. There are snacks in jars along shelves --  peanut butter and pretzels, nuts and dried fruit, salty Asian crackers, seaweed and chocolate-covered mangos. Our lunch for the following day is neatly packed into a tupperware container -- a slice of quiche or a frittata, a chickpea salad, mixed lettuces and fruit. When our baskets are full we say good-bye to one another and walk back through the forest to our cottages where, I imagine, we all bow our heads in one way or another to the grace of this place and to our work.



16 comments:

  1. Ah- well. Now I have a new fantasy job. To be one of those chefs. Dear god! Nothing could make me happier.
    Oh, Elizabeth! Take in every drop of that sweetness! Every bite of the goodness. Every morsel of the nourishment. It is your turn to take the grace and thus, to make more.
    My heart is bursting for you!

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  2. You are in heaven! Let yourself be truly there.

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  3. It sounds simple and lovely and soul recharching.

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  4. I hope your three weeks go very slowly. I am living through you.

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  5. Thanks for sharing this journey so we can be there with you. x0 N2

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  6. Thanks for sharing! Enjoying all of this through you.
    Catherine

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  7. Thank you for sharing your joy with us. These daily posts make it possible to envision and enjoy this experience with you, without intruding on your solitude. I am filled with happiness for you!
    XO

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  8. Thank you for taking time from your writing to satisfy our curiosity about this paradise on earth.

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  9. this is a dream come true. i LOVE reading about your wonderful retreat, elizabeth. so inspiring, and for those of us who often find our hearts in knots reading of Sophie's struggles and your fierce mothering, i cant help but breathe a deep sigh that you, too, are getting some serious nurturing. so glad for you.

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  10. So glad you are being well taken care of there. I hope to spend some time there writing one day, but for now, I am loving your dispatches and I'm living vicariously through you.

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  11. (I have come to love crows)
    this is truly awesome for you.

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  12. (I have come to love crows)
    this is truly awesome for you.

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