It feels like a new job

 Great writing retreat with colleagues.  Two days of solid writing.  Day walks, chats, decaf tea, sleep and getting lost when jogging.  

Emotionally pleased with myself, also drained.  I wrote in two days what would normally take me a few weeks.  Nature and routine together helped.  My creativity was there since the beginning I think.  Preparing notes, writing them.  It emerged bit more strongly with new stories to tell on the last few minutes of the last session.  Arriving at home I kept writing notes until my brain just shot down and I had a good night's sleep. Thank you creativity for visiting !

Talking to colleagues during the retreat, I realised this feels like a new job despite being at the same university and somehow feeling part of the furniture.  New members of staff, soon to have new line managers and paradoxically we are to return to teach the 'old ways'.  We keep thinking we have not changed either individually or collectively.  The only things that seem to remain standing are those old and well maintained buildings.

Perhaps life sometimes is about staying where you are while other things revolve around.  We sit and wait, we stand up, we walk, we return, and then get visited by creativity.  And when we do so, we somehow have changed.  

Impermanence as the Buddhists would say. 

Inevitably there were times to check email and get frustrated or annoyed.  The world out there kept moving and not in the directions I expected.  That perhaps is also part of retreats.  Back at home now it feels as if it was ok to have gone and come back.  Life is what it is.   What I wrote is just a tiny bit of what life writes in us all, day by day. 

Thank you for a great retreat.