Here. Now. The soil, the herbs, grounding me. The Spanish chocolate, the pool, transporting my senses to the place I really call home, sometimes. The gecko limerickly welcoming us to what’s rightfully his, and forever will be after we’re gone.
And now this, a weekend retreat with the ladies, the art, the laughter, the wine filling my every word with happiness, pushing out the death, the anxiety, the responsibilities. Reminding me …
A retreat, how much it was needed. The giggles. The confessions. The French toast, bacon and coffee first thing in the morning, after 20 minutes of a guided chakra/beach sounds meditation … the wine the night before. I pause for a minute wondering if I should watch what I say, but I cancel that thought. It doesn’t matter. Here, I’m free. I have no obligations aside from those I set for myself. Letting the guilt go. Snoozing through the panic attacks. Putting the shakes to rest, even though I can feel the minutes/hours ticking by. It’s as if someone’s given me a round-trip ticket for a weekend getaway to the Never Never Land. The world is swirling around outside, but here I get to sleep in a gingerbread bed savoring candy-coated dreams, donned in a princess dress, wrapped in barbe à papa and topped with a candy apple crown. Yes, the estrogen flows through this house from the country-cottage-style quilts to the quirky pro-woman quips to the broach-studded bust to the basket of giggle guards.
The personalities I share this weekend refuge with are just as magical … from the curse words to the “letting it all hang out” attitude to the delicious, shared sweet and savories. The realization that this will end tomorrow and we’ll return to “normal” tries to creep in, but I won’t let it. Nope. I’ve attempted to convince the others that we can leave our outer world behind, that we could just stay here, and live in our own artistic, ethereal fairytale, but they unnecessarily bring up kids, morals, responsibilities, the very things that prove my point of why we needn’t return to the other side. “Life is short. Why be miserable? Why not just do the things that make us happy, free?” They understand what I’m getting out. But after a quick chuckle, they’re content on only reenacting this weekend once a year rather than living it every day whereas the idea, feeling, push to escape overwhelms me. This artistic, productive, carefree lifestyle is exactly what I thought I would find when I met him. But it has become mostly work and responsibilities, the opposite of what we’d both hoped for. But that has to go. And this must come. To make our home one big artist’s retreat. Every. Single. Day. The place where we feel safe, warm, but without attachment to guilt, insecurities, doubt, fear. Full of hope, beauty, scrap-it-if-it-doesn’t-work or rearrange it into a butterfly.
So part of me is here, writing, taking photos, laughing, feeling free, while the other whisks me away to daydreams of antique cabinet shopping, crafting, creating. Oh. Got it. No need to run away. It’s all right there, with him, within me, or it can be, forever learning, growing, building, exploring. In the meantime, I’ll make something pretty, right here, right now, this weekend, in the present.
Anne-Julia Price 