Leaving Bearnstow

Okay, I’ll admit it. It was hard to leave. Seemed strange to share so much in a short amount of time and just get in the car and drive away. Terry Conlon, my passenger/new friend, and I got in the car and drove off at around 10 am. The drive turned out much longer than last week. Traffic was at a crawl in Massachusetts, but so what. We still made it to New Jersey before dark and nothing tragic happened. The long drive gave us plenty of time to review our week with each other and talk about stories from our individual pasts that surfaced along the way. Fascinating how that happens. One goes to a retreat for a specific reason and a ton of unexpected emotions, memories and situations reveal themselves. I wish I could capture that on video. Or maybe I did. We’ll see when I review the videos I took during the week. I’m anxious to see the work I shot and the voices I collected. After hearing Ruth’s stories (Ruth bought the property for $8,000 in 1945 when she was in her twenties!), I have this strong urge to produce a documentary about Bearnstow, but I’m getting way ahead of myself…

The rest of the way back to Columbus will be a solo one. I anticipate replaying Claire saying, “You’re doing good work Rashana” over and over again. And then I’ll think of ways to edit my new solo. As for now, I’m waiting for coffee and for my friend Lindsay to come downstairs so we can get a quick conversation in before I leave again.

(I wrote all the above earlier this morning, but was unable to post till now. I'm home now, fresh with ideas about solo work and my MFA project brewing in my head! Now for laundry and bed!)