Foggy then BRIGHT

You gotta see the difference in yesterday's fog and this morning's bright sun.  Unbelievable!  All day yesterday truly thick fog blanketed the whole area.   Today it's cold, but even through the screen - bright sunlight!   All is going well.  Good writing both days - today's the most fun - writing about reading romance novels and my sex life!  Such as it was  and isn't!  Two more sections out of the 12 to go now - travel and center stage.  Hope to get those today - writing seems to be accelerating with practice.  Or, maybe I'm just eager to get it over with?  Not really.  This is a totally fun trip I'm on. Do miss the yoga - only done one session since I came but will get in another today - neck is getting stiff.  Too much hunching over the laptop. Have to keep reminding myself to lower my shoulders and stretch out my neck.    Time to get back to it.

Day 10 Writing at Litchfield

The last four days have been very productive.  I've now finished this draft (6th one) of 8 sections out of 12.  I'm at the point where I'll be looking for a place to print out these and feel safe trashing the earlier 5 drafts of this stuff.  It is becoming easier to trash as I discover how much material I've created - probably still hanging on to too much, but that's not the point at this stage.  My goal is to get all sections perused, edited, and together in one file so that it begins to actually look like a book rather than a loose collection of possibly related writings.  I'm somewhat disheartened at times at the length of time I've already spent on this project - 3 years? -   and then I recall Joan Borysenko telling me her first book went through 14 drafts!  Fourteen!  By the way, I still think her first is her best.  "Minding the Body, Mending the Mind" is by far my favorite…….I also remember another author saying in answer to the question "How long did it take you to write this book?"  ----"40 years."  It was his first best-seller.  Perhaps more interesting to me this morning is how much I am enjoying waking and writing at whatever hour - 5:30 this morning.  At first awakening, the words flow so much more freely than after I've gotten distracted by some need - like the propane gas bill at home I had to argue about by phone yesterday.  When the distractions occur, I take a walk on the beach to recover my freedom.  Here's one more photo of serenity.  To be colder the next few days, so walks may be shorter - but still, the gentle roar of the waves crashing onto the shore is a constant thing here - inside my villa I'm only about 25 yards from the water.

Beach Findings - Day 6

Each day I find a surprise on the beach.  Today it was many small stones.  Yesterday it was a pretty-well-intact sea urchin, a strange 3-cornered stone, and an intact pen shell, both halves attached. My guidebook says you must be lucky to find one half of a pen shell intact, and you are "very lucky" to find both halves attached.  The shell is very thin and about 6 inches long. On the sea urchin, the tiny hole at the top is the anus, the mouth is on the down side.  That's the camera strap in the lower right corner.  The stones are new to me.  Don't recall ever seeing stones on a South Carolina beach before.  I'll try to get a photo of them tomorrow.   Wonder where they come from?  The ones I picked up today are smooth and mostly yellow-tan in color……..  Writing is still going well.  But today was such a beauty I spent several hours sitting on the beach reading a romance novel and soaking up the sun - too nice to be inside, especially since forecast looks like tomorrow will still be nice, but probably some rain and then - Sunday will be very much colder.

Early Morning Fog at the Beach - Day 5

If I didn't know better I'd think I woke up in London!  A thick fog.  Sun has been trying to break through for a while but still hasn't made it except for a few moments at a time.  Then when I walked over to get my complimentary instant oatmeal, cereal bars, frozen strawberries, sweetened yogurt, etc. I remembered Eugene, Oregon - how miserably gray it was for nine months out of the year.   Not foggy, but drizzling rain from September to May - not even enough for an umbrella for the locals, which I became rather soon when I discovered I was the only one carrying an umbrella.  Still enough for the clothes to always be damp and the closets full of mildew.  Once I swore I'd go back sometime when we had enough money to afford a dehumidifier!   Anyway, this is now beginning to clear and will be in the 70s again today.  Here's my screened porch which runs in front of the living area and master bedroom.  There are two more chairs to the left outside of the photo.  Writing is going very well.

Book Work

It's working!  I have now developed a plan that appears to be workable.   Finally have a solid table of contents and a pattern for sifting through the dozens of pages of writing that have lain dormant for more than a year and actually pieced one set ( 1 of 12 sections) together and have it in a new file on my computer fit for someone to read!  So, with that accomplished, a plan, I should be able to make much more rapid progress.  Had two nice 30-minute rapid-fire walks on the beach (74 degrees) a good meditation this morning, and another romance novel I can begin tonight!  What more could a woman ask for?  Oh, I have that too - some scrumptious German Chocolate   SO delicious dairy free coconut milk frozen dessert!  soy and dairy free - to die for!  Soo delicious I only ate about a 1/2 cup last evening.  Also, of course, a bit expensive.  Anyhow, all is well here - three more days of near 80 degree weather!  Hopefully not so much wind tomorrow so I can sit on the beach and roast my winter body in between work sessions.

Rising Sun at Litchfield Beach

Meditations are going very well - First evening one, yesterday.  Here's what I saw this morning from my bench.  And yesterday afternoon at low tide - facing south - my villa is just this side of the tower building.  A few walkers and runners but not often or many.  Did finally get a bit of writing done - first day, so not astoundingly interesting, but a start.  Also read a good romance novel, so I'm fired up now.

Remembering

A poem following a meditation:

Remembering

At last I see colors
Pink dots
Four, then two
then four again
Become baby blue
then tiny white lights.
Feminine and masculine  
into Me?
Am I remembering?