Going Away and Letting Go, and an Epiphany

As I write this, I am at a writers retreat at Santa Sabina, on the gorgeous campus of Dominican University. As a mom and newish writer, I have had some issues with attending a writers retreat:

• I'm still not entirely comfortable with thinking of myself as a writer, even though I have belonged to a writing group for almost a year and have been writing poetry and this blog for almost as long. I feel a bit of "impostor syndrome" over calling myself a writer. I have not been a writer for long, as compared to others who have been writing for more years or for a greater portion of their lives.
  
  I have felt this way in the past, though not about writing. In my life as a musician, especially when I began playing again after a number of years, I used to feel like an impostor. I didn't have a great facility with my instrument (viola), and I hadn't been very committed to it. However, over twenty years later, I no longer feel like an impostor and can comfortably say that I am a musician. And in the case of music, it was years of practice and experience that made me feel credible as a musician.
  
  Incidentally, at this retreat we were asked to bring a sanctuary object, something that represents sanctuary to us. The object that I brought is the heavy metal practice mute that I use to dampen my sound when practicing my viola at times when I don't want to disturb others:
  
  
  
  

  My practice mute represents practice. The process of working on something to gain proficiency in it. This process is a practice in itself, almost in the sense of meditation practice. In this case, I am engaging in the practice of writing. Maybe one day I can wear the identity of writer without feeling like an impostor.
  
  
• I am on a retreat. I am doing something for myself. I am not used to this, and part of me still feels as if I should be doing something else. At the beginning of the retreat I felt adrift. Like, what should I do now, in the absence of the things that I usually do and my usual ways of being? I wasn't ready to jump into writing.
  
  And so I made a collage! There was something freeing and inspiring about not thinking in words and flipping through hundreds of images. The next morning, I wrote and wrote and wrote.
  
  I have started a collection of images to take home, so that I can use the collage technique for dislodging my mind from the deep groove it can get into. I think that Singularity may also enjoy collage.
  
• It is still anxiety-producing to let go and let Klailklop assume all of the parental duties while I am away. I know that he has been able to do all of the routine activities of taking care of Singularity, but before this retreat he had not had to do all of them on his own. The last time I went away for a weekend, Klailklop had a lot more help than he wanted this time. Whereas the last time there was always someone there in the morning to help get Singularity up and again in the evening to get him to bed, Klailklop has been handling it on his own. (I sometimes still think of the evening routine as "putting Singularity away for the night"!) I think that it is courageous of Klailklop to take all of this on, and I am beyond grateful that he wants to do it.
  
  I have been thinking a lot about this in connection with the post I wrote yesterday about letting go of attachment to desired outcomes. I am trying to let go of the ways in which I wished to see Klailklop interacting with Singularity.
  

  

  Everyone seems so happy to let go of the bird in Picasso's Ronde de la Jeunesse.

  
  
  When Singularity was younger, I observed that I was much more closely bound to him, and I thought that I must be using effective parenting strategies than Klailklop. Whenever I saw Klailklop doing something I considered wrong-headed or disrespectful to Singularity, I tried to convince Klailklop to be more like me as a parent. Need I even mention that I was never successful?
  
  My style of parenting is authentic to me, but not to Klailklop, and I now see that my hubris-ridden attempts to change Klailklop's parenting was disrespectful to Klailklop and interfered with his ability to discover a way of parenting that was authentic to himself.
  
  It was also destructive to our relationship as a couple. Klailklop and I have been going to couples counseling for about two years, and we have recently been talking about stopping. Now that I have had this epiphany, I think that it really will be all right.
  
  I think that it will probably still be a struggle at times to let go of what I think Klailklop and Singularity's relationship should be like, but at least I can recognize it as a goal. It has become easier for me to let go of some control over what happens to Singularity as he grows older and become more expressive of his own needs. 

And now my writers retreat is coming to an end, and I will return to my everyday life later today. I hope that some of the calm and clarity of the retreat will follow me there.