Authors on the Road Day 4

Liz takes over the blog today to share Day 4 of our writing retreat…

After our obligatory hair appointment today, sporting curls on Nan and my usual flat-iron look on me, we went to lunch at Vinny Vanucchi’s in downtown Galena. We had excellent service and excellent food and opted not to have one of the most decadent looking desserts I’ve ever forced myself to turn down.

Only minutes later, we were in a candy shop and never mind what we were doing there. What happens in Galena stays in Galena.

Then we went on the history part of the day, enjoying a long and enlightening tour of the beautiful Belvedere Mansion, led by an informative and charming guide whose name was Scott. From there we went to the home of Ulysses S. Grant. The tour was shorter and the house was smaller, but I think it was a place where love lived. Over 90 percent of the furnishings in the house are original, many of the paintings familiar, and the stories told by the guide informative.

I was so glad to see both places, to learn about times and people and things that happened in “the old days.” I was delighted to learn that Julia Dent Grant was friends with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It is women like them to whom women like me owe so much, and I am grateful. It is men and women like the Grants who’ve lent pride to our country’s past. They helped it to survive and to grow.

We’re back to the apartment, cranking up the timer to turn on the fireplace, and sitting at our laptops with tea and empty candy wrappers on the table beside them. We’re catching up on news and growling a bit. We’ll eat supper out of the to-go boxes we brought home. We’ll check in with the guys and try to get some words down. We’ll regret how quickly the time is going, yet be glad for how we’ve spent it.

If there’s a message I can share about writer retreats, I think that’s it. Be sure you use them for what you need from them. If you need to relax, do that. If you need to be productive, do that, and plan for it before you go. If you just need to drink and talk and sleep late, that’s fine, too.

All that being said, I’m not going to share my word count for today, because it’s … negligible. To put it mildly. And I’m fine with that.

To wind this up, I went to my old friends Merriam and Webster to define what the word retreat means in the spirit with which we use it, and they failed me. I kept looking, though, and found one. Our writing retreats are harbors, as in they are places of refuge and safety, places for gathering, resting, and repairing. They are narrow and small and contained and when we are finished in them, we are ready and happy to return to the open sea of our everyday lives, both our writing ones and our real ones.

Going to try to get a few words in before I light the fire in my room and fall asleep.

We wish you good days and safe harbors. Be nice to somebody.

Liz & Nan