Hedgebrook, Day Sixteen

view from Willow Cottage

I might be feeling a little cabin-crazy. I've been here now for sixteen days and will be leaving on day twenty-one. It is life-altering, to say the least. To be largely in solitude and free to write and read and walk and think for hours on end is far beyond luxury. I am grateful for the time, for the community of women that I've met and for the incredible "radical hospitality" given by the Hedgebrook staff. Sixteen days is enough time to wrestle with yourself, to hate and doubt and love yourself and then back again. I told a friend that I feel like I should be making amends to all those whom I've hurt or neglected or spoken unkindly to over the years. That being said, I know that I should also let go of those who have hurt, neglected or spoken unkindly to me. Does that make sense? I will try and be grateful for each of the days here until I leave and hopefully carry it with me in real life.



The beauty of emptying one's fridge every single day, of there being only what you need.




Yesterday, before I was hijacked by the moon slug, I was going to write about this plum tree that grows in the garden here. I've never seen so many plums on the tree, and that's even after the gardener has picked and filled an enormous metal mixing bowl with them and leaves it in the kitchen. The plums are small, but when I take a bite, I'm reminded of that scene in the movie The English Patient where the nurse, Hanna, bites a plum and mushes it in her mouth before feeding it to the horribly burned patient. It's incredibly erotic in the movie, but I'm not Juliette Binoche in an Italian villa, and there's no Ralph Fiennes lying naked and bandaged under a sheet. I do have to cover my mouth with a napkin, though, so the juice doesn't squirt everywhere.