watching the weather

(and other things I can't control)

Hi friends, it’s finally here!

In a few short hours, I will walk down to the dock and welcome eight women to Monhegan for our retreat from the faraway nearby.¹ I spend much of the year in preparation for this moment because I’m a one-woman show and because the retreat is deeply meaningful to me. From choosing a book guiding our practice, to answering questions, coordinating each participant’s travel, and organizing meals, accommodations, and activities on island, I do it all in service of offering an experience I have found to be enriching, and can only occur ten miles out to sea.

Each year, I’m never sure exactly how it works or how I do what I do, but I also know it comes together as it is meant to be. The women who are supposed to be in the circle find their way to Monhegan. Some return year after year, or they bring their friends (or their mothers) or find another time to come back to the island for a sojourn all their own, the island a place that loves them back, too.²

And yet, what do I worry about? What do I watch the most? The one thing I absolutely cannot control and believe to be the make-or-break marker of all else.

The weather.

I’d say it’s only this year, but who am I kidding? I obsess about it every year beginning ten days out: incessantly refreshing the weather app on my phone or weather.com or usharbors.com, believing that one website holds more weight than the other.

Will it rain? When will it rain? What will be the best day to walk to Whitehead for the sunrise or to eat lobsters out-of-doors on Fish Beach? The list goes on, and it will be all my fault if it’s not “perfect.”

I know, I know—DETACHMENT!!

This year has felt especially challenging because, after a month of bright sun and a seemingly endless Indian summer, the next four days have been an ever-shifting cycle of clouds, partial sun, wind, and fog. Some days indicate rain; then I check the app again and again (and again), and the rain is gone. I check my phone in the middle of the night, and everything looks great—phew—then four hours (sometimes four minutes) later, it’s an entirely different story.

When I checked my phone this morning, I saw this

sending my nervous system into a full-blown panic attack and prompting me to do three guided meditations under the covers in succession. Still, my heart continued to race, and again, I recognize the irony that while I teach the practice of presence to others, I myself am a hot mess! Or, as my sweetheart says, “Take my advice; I’m not using it.”

So I got up and made coffee, which, let’s be serious, often works far better than any guided meditation, read this gorgeous writing prompt from

Julie Hester

, decided to take a walk to see what was really going on outside of my head and my home and discovered that cloudy and foggy can also look like this:

Slowly, I began to let go and breathe into the possibility that everything would be okay. It’s human of me³ to be concerned about wanting to create the perfect retreat for those who entrusted their time to me, but it’s equally human to not know exactly what that might be. The experience will be the experience more because of what I bring, what we all bring, to any given moment far more so than a cloud or a squiggle on a weather app.

Cloudy, foggy, windy, everything will be exactly as its supposed to be and the weather will be woven into the tapestry of the retreat and a living and moving thing in the telling.⁴

So, if you’re coming on retreat, I’ll meet you at the boat, and if you want to bring the faraway nearby to you, come follow along on IG—I’ll be sharing snippets in my story!

Thanks for reading, and even if it’s just for today may you give yourself permission to release something in your life that you have no control over, too.

xosew

Thanks for being here. I’m grateful for your readership. Before you go, would you click the ♥️ or share this post with a friend? You may also restack, leave a comment, or reply via email because it helps others find this newsletter. If you want to see a little more of my island time you can follow me on Instagram, too.

1. from the faraway, nearby alludes to the title of Rebecca Solnit’s book of the same name, which is the foundation of the retreat, and to how Georgia O’Keeffe signed her correspondence after moving to New Mexico.

2. Rebecca Solnit. The Faraway Nearby. Penguin: 2014.

3. Thank you, Judith Hanson Lasater, for reminding me of this in my guided meditation number two.

4. Rebecca Solnit. The Faraway Nearby. Penguin: 2014.