Unpacking: Bags and Bowls
retreat reflections
I love to travel. I do not love to pack. To say packing stresses me out is an understatement. Doesn’t matter how long of a trip I’m taking—a night, a long weekend, a month-long adventure—packing sends me into a frenzy. My most recent trip to Washington was no exception. Flying on the first day of the announced flight reductions, due to the government shutdown, only intensified my packing anxiety.
The retreat I attended was facilitated by my publisher. The theme was authorpreneurship, not simply being an author, but making a life and creating a sustainable living as one.
I arrived in Tacoma a few days before the retreat began, gifting myself time to ease in and explore this beautiful part of the country. That first night, after settling into a hotel along the waterfront, I took a walk. Mount Rainier was just barely visible in the distance as the sun began to set. The water was calm and smooth like a sheet of glass. The trees dropping their last branches of burnt orange and golden yellow leaves, shades crisper than the ones I last saw in Michigan.
Just before the trip I had coffee with a friend who always comes with words to share, spoken and printed. She brought wisdom from Pema Chödrön,
“Everything that occurs is not only usable and workable but is actually part of the path.”
These words came back to me as I continued the path along Puget Sound’s Commencement Bay. All the paths leading me to this one rose to my consciousness. What if the vastly different journeys I’ve been on are not competing, but complementing one another. What if everything is part of the path? Does this muddy the ground or clear the way?
The retreat began Sunday evening. After introductions we gathered around the table for a dinner of hot soup, warm bread, and salad. Before the meal, our host gave us gifts. She had chosen a bowl for each of us, crafted by Indigenous artists from the Pacific Northwest. Every bowl was a unique color and the inside painted with a different animal. My bowl was blue and the animal, an octopus.
Over the course of the retreat we ate brunch and dinner from these bowls, and after each meal, invited to rinse them out before they were washed. The intentionality with which the bowls were chosen, the kindness with which they were given, and the communal ritual of eating and cleansing was powerful.
Food and meals are important parts of every culture and tradition, as are plates and bowls. Bringing people together. Feeding bodies. Nourishing spirits. Forming relationships. Bridging differences. Birthing collaborations. Fueling authorpreneur dreams.
One morning as I stood at the sink rinsing the last evidence of a delicious smoothie from my bowl, I began to think about those hesitations still lingering in the bowl of my heart. Impacting my courage and confidence. Causing me to question my authorpreneur abilities.
Sharing my words is always an act of risk. How will they be received? Judged? Reviewed? When I first began sharing poetry with my Sunday School teacher as a pre-teen, I was filled with worry of how she would respond. Even now, anytime I read a new poem to my mother my cheeks burn from nervousness.
Publishing a book, wanting others to buy your work, feels even riskier. Asking strangers and people you know to pay for access to your writing feels daunting. Putting a price on your voice and experience and expertise feels uncomfortable. Wanting to do what you love and are gifted to do, and make a sustainable living from it feels impossible.
Or I should say, it used to feel impossible. Today, while it feels possible, it also feels hard. It shouldn’t feel so hard. My bowl needs rinsing from the beliefs that keep me in the “starving artist” mindset. That keep me questioning my worth and depreciating my value. That have me searching for a “real job” late at night when I can’t sleep.
After returning home, my suitcase and book bag sat in the entryway for days. Eventually I took the suitcase of clothes to the basement laundry room. And sat the book bag in my creative studio. Unpacking a suitcase and doing laundry is physical. Unpacking lessons and sitting with our bowls is spiritual.
In Indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest, the octopus symbolizes transformation, intelligence, and a connection between the human and spiritual world. Octopuses represent regenerative and shapeshifting powers. I’ve never considered myself like an octopus, but I’ve surely undergone regeneration and learned to shapeshift as both a tool of surviving and thriving in a world that has more than once tried to tip my boat. So much of the work I am doing today is a regrowth of what I started years or even decades ago. I write about hope because I’ve lived through the messy stages of despair. I write about healing because I’ve watched a calling grow new limbs after being cut off from the body. I share poems and stories of hope and healing with others because sometimes we just need to know both are real and not some mythical fantasy.
I knew that this week I would write about the retreat, but struggled with what exactly to share. After much thought, I landed on sharing honestly about the buffet of emotions of this authorpreneur life. It’s a provocative word. A bold endeavor. A path that so often takes me back to other paths and that can easily lead me to get ahead of myself and worry about the next.
This struggle is not limited to writers and creatives. Life is a path that blends the lines between the past, present, and future. We hear so much about being in the present moment because the past and future are loud and like to remind us of where we’ve been and might be headed.
Unpacking my bowl from the box and reflecting on the retreat, I found insight on my packing angst. It’s a fear of packing the wrong things, not having the right things, forgetting necessary things, having too much of one thing and not enough of another. Needing to rely on others for what I’m missing. This sums up my fears about the authorpreneur life too.
With my suitcase empty and all my laundry washed, folded, and mostly put away, I’m turning my attention to the bowl. Committing to filling and rinsing it daily. Letting it overflow with encouragement, creativity, possibility, and dreams. Taking time to examine the reservations before wiping them out. Not allowing them to dictate the path. Inviting trust to be my guide.
Water-fully Yours,
Rebecca & 10CAMELS
Invitation to Reflect
How do you pack for a trip?
How do you unpack?
What path are you on?
In what ways do past and future paths influence where you are today?
Creative Activity
Select a bowl.
Write out dreams and ideas and place them inside.
Examine and then rinse away the fears that keep you from pursing them.
Thought-provoking, as always! It was so lovely to be with you in Tacoma, between the water and the mountain.
I packed more than I needed, partly out of determination to have all the things I *might* want to make the retreat extra pampering. While I didn’t use the “home spa” treatments, the mini jigsaw puzzle, or a few other things, having them in my room made me feel like I was taking excellent care of myself. And I’m not a bit surprised that instead of using those things, I basked in the presence of everyone else at the retreat, except for when I was actively working on my next book!
I like to pack, it’s almost fun, but it’s not fun to unpack, although it’s easier. Do the laundry and put it away. It’s much harder to unpack your experiences and adventures about a trip…talk to family and friends about what you did and what you felt. I’m unable to travel like I used to, but I can still escape from life with wee adventures. I’m going to choose a bowl and fill it with those kind of adventures, like watching a sunset, if only from the backyard!