Gone wild

I leave early tomorrow morning for a four-day retreat in the mountains with a group of women friends. It's a trip we've taken every October for years, a long weekend that we jokingly call The Wild Women Weekend. We'll stay in a place owned by my friend Signing Woman's family, a camp with a big fireplace and floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlook Lake Named After Dead King, or Maybe One of the Beatles.

Our plans include canoeing and hiking, eating and talking. We'll find a mountaintop in the sun where we can relax and soak in the last sun of the season. We'll walk the winding roads to a nearby church that has an outdoor labyrinth at the edge of the lake. We'll have time for things like reiki and meditation and massage. We'll talk, sometimes in a big group, raucous and laughing, and sometimes in quiet pairs, for serious in-depth discussions.

Over the last year, one woman in the group has filed for divorce, one has lost her partner to cancer, one has become a grandmother. Several of us have sent children off to college. So we're likely to have some serious talks as we sit in front of the fire, but we'll have fun, too, playing music and dancing and being silly.



This photo is from last year: Reiki Woman and Beatiful Hair talking in the sun.