I've just spent a weekend with my writing group, and we really let down our hair and talked. And talked, and talked. We were as open and transparent as we were able to be in those moments. It felt great. We've all known each other close to thirty years, so our trust and comfort levels are high. We wrote about travel and what it means to us and it turned into a very interesting topic. I'd thought we were supposed to critique each other's writing sent by email, but I was the only one who did it. At first I felt annoyance arising, since nobody even mentioned my ten pages, but when another woman took over facilitating the weekend, spontaneously, I relaxed into it and was relieved to not be in charge (normally the woman who hosts facilitates). I shifted with the change and was glad of it.
The amazing thing about human beings is you can learn more about them and new things and be surprised. How delightful! We supported each other, but also felt perfectly free to disagree and hold our points of view. That is how comfortable we are with each other. The woman who facilitated kept calling it a retreat, and I realized it truly was. I was refreshed and renewed, and we came up with a tentative plan for the fall (two women were unable to join us).
I also loved sharing the cabin again with these friends, and experiencing real summer, taking a long hike, relaxing on the deck and at the lake. We shared the duties of cooking and cleaning seamlessly. We are agreeable, interesting, intelligent people and there was a sense of appreciation throughout. Now we are thinking of beginning the fall season coming to the cabin again. That is how successful we felt the weekend was.
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