It was the fourth and next to last day of the Openhearted Writing Retreat facilitated magnificently by Heather Plett. It was, by my observation, the pinnacle writing piece and component we’d been building towards. A three-hour block of time to go off on our on to write, The longest time I’d ever been given in a retreat or workshop setting and I’d been going to these for three and a half years. With just a little instruction and two prompts because we’d been laboring mentally, a little bit physically, but mostly emotionally and spiritually towards what needed to be written or what we were afraid of writing- a very personal and individual thing for each writer.

I need to go back a little in time, before arriving at the retreat, to say the whole retreat experience became a free fall into grace. Something I hadn’t had context or language for until two hours into this pinnacle writing exercise. There were so many moving parts which came together I’m not sure where it started.

Was it with the image you see above the title? An image I found and instinctively cut out of a magazine while in a zen-like, group meditation dynamic. An image I glued to a 3×5 card and forgot about in my search for more images that eventually found their way into my handmade ‘soul’ card/visual writing prompt deck. An art project there at the retreat.

Should I have started with the utterly magical place of Linwood House in Roberts Creek B.C.? How this welcoming retreat venue was nestled in a fairytale, elfin forest landscape. The crisp air, the clean smell, the fresh mountain water, the lovely rooms, the Victorian decor, the delicious, locally sourced food designed to nurture us. The owners and caretakers, Gwen and Ron, always on hand to see to our needs with such generosity and kindness… All of it worked to put us completely at ease with ourselves.

Or shall I start with Heather Plett’s masterful skill in leading discussions? Guiding us in writing exercises, inviting us to give voice to our process and what comes up from the writing. How she gave us language and meaning about what it is to write openhearted. Her willingness to share her experience, strength and hope- both a way-shower and an anchor. How she embodied and taught us how to hold a brave and safe space for ourselves, for each other. The crucial container that allowed us to do the work we all came to do.

It was all of those things and more. It was the proximity to nature, softening me and my heart so that it didn’t crack open. It swelled and expanded in ways I didn’t realize were possible until it had and left me somewhere unexpected yet familiar… A reunion, a reconnection home to myself. Shit, I don’t know, but I must tell you my experience with a short writing exercise from day three. Without going into a lot of detail, we were given seven minutes to write about a word on a 3×5 card which would be returned to the writer that originally chose the word (like a gift or offering). The word I picked to write about was grace.

And I don’t know what to tell you except I froze. I was stuck, blocked and deeply upset. Everyone else got busy writing but I could not write anything coherent! I fucking knew the word and I believed I knew what it was. I tried to remember two quotes that always resonated for me and illustrated what grace was but I could not recall the words! Before I knew it, time was up and the seven other writers completed the task. It was a terrible moment as I sat inside that circle of writers feeling guilt, shame, and inadequacy rise up from the pit of my stomach. I waited for my head to chime in on this epic fail as we read our 3×5 cards aloud and returned the word to a different writer. Words like Agency, Wholeness, Profound, Continuous, Embrace. After we talked about the process and what came up, I was again at a loss to explain what happened to me.

I felt myself wanting to shut down when Heather, the facilitator, looked across the circle at me. I met her eyes as she said, “I’m going to ask you to do something. Can you extend grace to yourself for this?” Goddamn, that landed where it was meant and actually stopped my downward spiral in its well-worn track. I took a breath and answered honestly, “I can try.”

This was the point when Allison, the writer who should have received a card with words about grace on it got up, walked over to me and gave me a ‘soul’ card/visual prompt from her deck. It had the word “GRACE” across the top and the picture was a pair of black woman’s hands around a cup of tea.

She leaned over to hug me and just like that grace was given to me from the one who was supposed to receive it.

Later that night in my lovely room, I Googled the two quotes and others on the word grace. I created a post about it on my Facebook page. I knew I wanted another chance to write about Grace for Allison and the next day I did. During that three-hour block of time, I wrote two letters to myself, a 3×5 card about grace, and the beginning of this blog post. They were some of the most meaningful hours I’d ever spent with myself in the service of my gift, my calling.

You see I chose to write what I was most afraid of. Spent time and energy with my fractured self… touching elemental pieces I’d shut away and abandoned long ago, acknowledging and praising how brave and loved they were then and still are now. Letting them know I see them now and I will never shut them away or abandon them again. Honoring their voices within me, reclaiming and redeeming their long-ago choices and actions for the gifts and values they were at the time. Which led me back to Grace.

Maybe when we don’t have the words or language to express and define something it’s because it needs to be shown to us, must be felt and embodied. So we know then how to extend it to ourselves. In this expansive and tumultuous time where systems and unfair practices are being uncovered, we should be allowed to make our own meaning and definition of things. I looked up the word grace after I’d done all the writing and I’m so glad I did. Because none of them quite fit my experience of it. My glorious freefall into it. One of the ways Heather helped us to think and process differently was to ask us what our relationship to a word was, rather than a straight definition.

After I got home from the retreat I searched YouTube for a particular scene from the soap opera General Hospital. Long, long ago in the throes of my depression, unhappiness, and addiction to drugs and alcohol I heard a character named Mary Mae Ward (a black matriarch on the show) give a speech about grace to a young man named Stone who’d been given an AIDS diagnoses. He was in the hospital in deep despair and he asked her why he shouldn’t end his life right then. I found it! It’s so powerful what she said. It lodged deep within my dark, broken heart. I’d never heard anyone speak of grace that way and it stayed with me. The video is less than 5 minutes and well worth the time or you can fast forward to the 1:45 mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr4Ji9aPf-Q

That was the beginning of my relationship with the word grace, one that burrowed in my heart and wended its way through the years until the Openhearted Writing Retreat and Heather helped me claim it. I extend my sincerest, most heartfelt wish that we all find the potential for grace realized in any given moment of joy, love, sorrow, tragedy and for all the moments in between. May you see your relationship with grace as a neverending free-fall into it.