Bird by bird

("Nicole, can you come around front? Now can you scoot down? What's a group picture without someone looking like they're twerking? Perfect!")

I left Friday to attend Writing in the Woods, a retreat offered by one of my favorite people on Earth, Kimberly Wilson. I intentionally refused to think too hard about the weekend in advance, because I didn't want any sort of preconceived notions of how the weekend "should" go to get in the way of how it went, organically. When I arrived at the retreat house Friday afternoon, I was a complete blank slate. All I knew was that I was in for a weekend of vegetarianism, yoga, writing, and meeting other writers. With that said, I think the best way I can write about this experience is to do so under each of those topics individually.

Food
Kimberly is an outspoken animal rights activist, so it was understandable to have the weekend full of vegetarian food. Her partner, Tim, was our chef all weekend and toiled in the kitchen while we twisted our bodies and minds into unnatural positions. He joked at one point about having "world famous guacamole" and I can now attest, it should be world famous if it isn't already. There were no tomatoes or onions, and it was somehow still the most flavorful guac I have ever had. The bowl emptied within minutes of hitting the table every time. Two other retreaters brought a bottle of wine with them, and I somehow managed to go the entire weekend without a single glass! Saturday night we had s'mores around a bonfire, and I managed not to eat one of those, too. Bypassing alcohol AND chocolate? I know, who am I? What this reinforced for me is that it is possible to eat a vegetarian diet and not come away feeling deprived of the fun of eating. I've spent a substantial amount of time as both a vegetarian and a vegan, but it's never been as enjoyable as this weekend was for me. I'm thinking perhaps Tim needs to open a restaurant. In Cleveland.

Yoga
I avoid writing about it here to not repeat myself to the point of being annoying, but I am a certified personal trainer. To be clear, I do not work as a CPT, but I am certified by the American Council on Exercise (one of the "Big Three" in certifications) to train people. I have the knowledge and skill, but choose to offer that knowledge freely rather than sell it. Through my time exploring exercise and what our bodies can do, I've done a lot of movement. I personally find enjoyment in weight training and running, but I've taken enough yoga classes to understand the allure of pretzeling yourself in a such a way as to be able to lick the back of your knee. It's just not for me. Given this, I have to admit that yoga was easily the aspect of this retreat I was looking forward to the least. I kept an open mind, though, and was pleased with the experience. In the interest of full disclosure, I currently feel like I was hit by a bus, but in the moment and immediately afterwards, I felt very blissed out. I was also pleased to know that I'm a lot bendier than I thought, as long as we're not considering hamstrings into the equation. I suffer from perpetually tight hammies and calves from being a runner, and there were some poses that were just not happening. Like, forward folds, heh. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I rocked the shit out of some corpse pose.

Writing
Picture a very tall ladder. Taller. Now picture me several feet up the ladder. Now picture seven other women below me at various points, including some standing on the ground looking at the ladder, deciding whether or not to climb up. That was my experience with writing this weekend. Aside from Kimberly, I was the only somewhat established writer of the group, which put me in a position I didn't anticipated being in on this retreat. I spent the weekend encouraging the others to climb the ladder, too, reaching back to grab their hands and help pull them up with me. I was honest that being a writer is at times overwhelming and terrifying, but also completely worth the effort needed to overcome the negative to get here. I worked hard to listen to their experiences, fears, and hopes and figure out what could be said to help them up the next rung without sugar-coating or bullshitting the experience. I only completed a small amount of my own writing this weekend, but I spent a good amount of time considering how I got here, where I need to go from here, and establishing that it's very important to me to keep helping these great women I met up the ladder with me, as well as to never stop reaching for the hands on the rungs above me to help me get further up. We each have to climb for ourselves, but we always need to help others when we can.

Camaraderie
This was an interesting situation for me. In many ways, I felt like an outsider looking in. I was the only person there not from the Washington, D. C. area, which meant I was completely left out of any local discussions, and there were many. Every other woman was very high-profile career-oriented, whereas I'm...not. I'm a creative-type and more than a little bit of a hippie, so the idea of "The Man" keeping me from my art and my trees makes me break out in hives. I just could not relate to 80% of what the other women spoke about. Given this, it would have been very easy for me, as an introvert, to blend in with the background, opting instead to read a book or study contents of shelves while everyone else socialized. I forced myself to not do that, and I think that it paid off. While I still feel very different from everyone else at the retreat, I made it a point to focus on the 20% I could relate to. By the end of the weekend, I feel like I was able to form a unique, yet tenuous, bond with the women, and I hope that we can all continue to strengthen that. It takes a lot longer than a weekend to get to know people. I just hope that I put myself out there enough to encourage them to try to see what I, from way out here in Ohio, have to offer.

Bird By Bird
On the first night, an offhanded mention of Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott became an unspoken theme that ran through the entire retreat. In the book, Anne tells the story of her father's advice to her brother when he became overwhelmed with a project in school, in which he was assigned many different birds to classify and describe. When he pleaded to his father for help, begging "How am I supposed to describe them all?" her father responded "Bird by bird." Many times throughout this weekend, we were all faced with needing to proceed bird by bird. Step by step. One lesson at a time. One experience, one hurdle, one leap, one empty guacamole bowl. We don't need to write an entire novel in one sitting. We don't need to tell our entire life story in one blog post. We don't need to reach enlightenment in one meditation. We are allowed to take everything slowly, building a lifetime one moment at a time by allowing those experiences to accumulate into one life, well lived. There were times when I was supposed to be doing something with the group that I found myself watching the birds fly around the woods. I wasn't trying to be belligerent, I just love birds and felt pulled to observe them. I watched titmice, nuthatches, and one particularly audible red-bellied woodpecker fly around while each retreater completed another step in their own journey (sometimes literally, during a walking meditation.) My take-away from this experience is the importance of focusing on everything in our lives step by step, bird by bird, appreciating each one for what it has to offer before we move on to the next. This is a weekend I will carry with me for the rest of my life as an experience that shaped who I am to become.

The triumphant return of my office

This is currently my view, as I'm writing this post from my newly re-established office. When we kicked around the idea of buying this house, I asked to have the spare bedroom for my own sacred space. My intention was to turn it into an office, but I also had all of my craft supplies, a reading chair, a space heater, and a Christmas tree during the holidays. This was to be MY space. In return, I promised Kyle the garage, the other garage, and the basement to be his to do anything at all he wanted with. A few years back, we decided my room would be better used as a walk-in closet. I hadn't exactly given up my sacred space, I had just traded it in for a smaller, cozier office space built into our previous closet, in the bedroom. I liked the idea of having it be smaller (while the former office/former closet/new office is a small room, it's sometimes too big to feel cozy) but there was something about the space that didn't work for me. I had half of the closet, while Kyle had the other half, and if I'm being honest, I think having to share it made it feel slightly less sacred. Whatever the rub was, we both spent a few years not being in love with the new tiny offices, and frankly, not being in love with the new closet, either.

Last week, I declared that I wanted my sacred space back. Kyle, who was getting twitchy about needing a new project, was on board. We first decided that changing the areas around (which would mean removing our built-in shelves, reinstalling the closet shelves, and then a massive "patch and paint" job in the office) as our winter project. When we get stuck indoors during the cold, we need something to do to break up the boredom, and renovating something is usually our go-to activity. Turns out, though, that we were both too excited for the change to put it off. We spent the last week switching the offices into a closet and the closet back into an office, and I could not be happier.

I mentioned a while back that I heard about this Danish concept called "hygge" that is absurdly hard to describe. Since then, I seem to have acquired a new fascination with Denmark, itself, and have spent a surprising amount of time learning everything I could about the country, including where it is on a map. (It's above Germany, FYI.) As Denmark is consistently rated as the happiest country on the entire dang planet, there's certainly a lot to learn. Thankfully, I have a compatriot in my sudden love of Denmark! My tape-pal (that's a pen-pal but with cassette tapes), Lara, was recently in Denmark because she's a big fan, too. I've been listening to her talk about Denmark for years, but it wasn't until my run-in with hygge that it all started coming together for me in a personal way. [This reminds me--Lara! I still have the tape. I'm working on it. Expect talk of Denmark.] I know that there's no such thing as a Utopian society, and that somewhere along the lines, someone is getting screwed in the system. But I don't want to go in search of Denmark's flaws. During this ridiculous time to be an American, I would like to just immerse myself in some Earthly happiness for a while. Some people mentally escape to Paris. I'm mentally escaping to Copenhagen.

So, I've been making sure my office is very hyggelig. The view out of the windows is of a fantastic autumnal wonderland, and I've brought in two bookshelves, the faux-leather recliner, the space heater, and this super cute horn thing I bought at Target that is a phone speaker amplifier, but also makes everything sound old-timey. We call it the "phonophone." I've been listening to swing, jazz, and ragtime through it all day. There are fairy lights temporarily placed about the room, with the intention of making them more permanent once the "patch and paint" portion of the renovation has arrived. As an added bonus, this is now the room where all of the cats seem to want to congregate, so there's that extra bit of fuzzy warmth. Essentially, I've created a new sacred space that is not only conducive to hygge, it's set my muse a-buzz with ideas. My creativity thrives in a hyggelig environment, and I'm excited to see what kind of new writing comes out of this shift.

How to hygge, an alleged hipster's guide

Over the last few months, I've had several people label me as a hipster. I definitely don't think I'm a hipster, but it's my understanding that that's just what a hipster would say. Perhaps I'm just not aware that I'm a hipster. Last week I admonished this label to my friend Bryan, who quickly set me straight. "Oh, you're a total hipster. You know about everything awesome before anyone else does." Whuuuuuh? Is this the definition of hipster? Maybe I shouldn't be getting my culture cues from Titus Andromedon?

"Do you guys have a rezzie?"

If we're talking about loving things retro before they become cool again, then I am definitely a hipster. I point to my Instax camera, my film camera, my record player, my vintage records, and my extensive pen pal collection as proof. That's less about figuring out what's cool before everyone else does, and more about being unwilling to let go of the things that used to be cool for so long that they suddenly become cool again. Like flannel.

With this new awareness that I tend to like things before they go mainstream *insert hair flip* I thought it would be cool to clue you guys in on something I think is about to blow up big time. It's called hygge and it's not pronounced "High-Gee" because that's not an English word. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure how to properly say it, as I don't speak Danish. One website says "HOO-gah" while another says "HYOO-gah." However you say hygge, I kind of love it.

...and I have no idea how to explain to you what it is.

Hygge, it seems, is not something you do or make. It's something you feel, and we all know emotions are the hardest thing to cram into words. The closest English has been able to come to translating hygge is "cozy" or "contentment" but the truth is that hygge is an experience, a state of being, inspired by indulging your senses. Let me show you what I mean.

Does that help at all? Hygge is candlelight and fluffy sweaters. It's books and blankets and baked goods. It's coffee and twinklelights. It's warmth and camaraderie.

Since buying our house, I have worked to instill some sort of je ne sais quoi in our home. I have always had a hard time explaining our design aesthetic because "cozy" didn't really explain what I was trying to accomplish. It just figures that the word that does, hygge, is from another language. But this is me, this is the peace and tranquility that I have spent years striving for. Comfort and joy. To know that the culture of an entire country feels the way I do helps me to feel like less of a hipster misfit about my drive to create a feeling, an atmosphere, not only in my home but everywhere I go. Ambiance is everything to me, and hygge is exactly what my heart strives for.

The good news is that hygge seems to be spreading. I don't think it has quite made it to the US yet, but there are a few new books out this year that are making a big splash the UK. Hygge is being touted as the "new" way of getting back to a simpler life of cozy pleasures, and even a way of helping combat the Winter Blahs as the warmth of fall fades away. I don't know about all of that, but I do know that hygge is how this alleged hipster wants to spend her life well past the point of it being cool.

***Aside from the very first picture, none of these pictures are mine. The Titus picture came from a Google Search and the last four were found on Tumblr, where I have been hygge'n it up all season long.