Spring Musings
Hi… I’m Marina. The human being behind Mama Reads. The Reading Journal is meant to be an extension of my life, my bookshelves, and my work.
I want to embrace spontaneity and a healthy dose of imperfection.
This space will expand from my Instagram posts @mama_reads_by_marina, which serves
as a meeting place, a way of getting to know fellow creatives and seeing what they are up to. I look at Instagram as a tool for creative expression, a place of connection. I want to feel that gut warming spark of collaborations coming to life, with intention.. In this spirit, here’s a journal entry on Life Lately & Books Lately & Work Lately.
Last month I traveled from San Miguel de Allende to Vancouver - and back. I stayed in a house that made me feel like I was literally cohabitating with books, these breathing living things calling me. So there I was and I couldn’t help but pull one out of the shelves, each time I walked by. The pile on the night table grew to an unsteady height. I started wondering how long I could stay. Do you ever feel as if days aren’t long enough, weeks too short, even a lifetime- too brief to allow us time to read all the books we want?
Half way through the month I joined a writing workshop led by Susan Musgrave It took a total of two buses + three ferries + one car ride across Quadra Island made possible by ‘Al the Pal’, and finally, we piled into a van that took us from the Whaletown ferry landing to Hollyhock on Cortes Island. Needless to say the journey to the retreat center becomes a landing of sorts. By the time you’re standing at the front desk, you my dear, have arrived.
I slept in a dorm with bunk beds, I ate fresh greens from the garden, I watched eagles fly across the beach in all kinds of weather. I drank obscene amounts of loose leaf tea. I did yoga at 7am in a round cedarwood studio. All these delights aside, we were there to write, from our hearts -that was the title of the workshop and if you’re interested in signing up for next year’s find the details here. Painful as it was, occasionally words were flowing through me, mostly though, I hunched over the dining hall table at around 6am labouring over words. Trying hard to make a prose out of poetry - or was it a poem out of prose? Susan’s voice punctual and still soft re-playing in my head… There always ought to be words. It’s your job to find them!
Each day Susan, looking cozy in her wool slippers- met us with a theme: fear, shame, anger, grief… and love. We hung our soaking wet jackets, kicked our muddy shoes off, took a couple of deep breaths, and twice a day for 3 hours at a time we sat in a circle, sharing our writings. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. Sometimes, it takes that thought to keep the oxygen coming, because it’s just too hard to bear.
We contemplated our descriptions of a dwell, a walk, a bear, a river, a cup, a key, a door - and pondered effusively on the tangled Jungian meaning of it all. We looked out the large windows of this meeting place appropriately called the Bluff house. The weather kept on changing, the Pacific ocean a moving picture of blue sky reflections and glimmering shades of grey. We broke our hearts, gathered the pieces, we got to know these slivers of the things that move us in this life- and the painful places we inhabit too. The room smelled of vulnerability. We never quite figured how to operate the baseboard heater, sometimes our feet were freezing, the next moment, cheeks were blushing as we threw the doors wide open. It was beautiful, not always comfortable, but a life changing exchange. I think we all walked away feeling a little softer as we crossed the Salish Sea, on the way back to our shifting realities.
During my time at Hollyhock they were also hosting a creative art retreat called Sketch by Sketch: connecting with the world through drawing led by artist and illustrator Emma FitzGerald. I had the pleasure of meeting Emma and learning about her transatlantic life during an the evening presentation. Our conversation continued the next day over breakfast as we found unexpected ways our lives intersected (Tradewind Books + Brazil + Picture Books). I’ll be interviewing Emma and featuring her work at Mama Reads in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. If you want that post to land straight on your inbox, sign up for my newsletters below.
