There's Something About a Barn:Tending to Writer Within (Day 2 of 31)

"Listen and attend with the ear of your heart."  Saint Benedict

Old barns summon up childhood memories.   My grandmother and her sons, my uncles, lived the farm life for years, growing tobacco, raising crops and tending to animals.   After their white farmhouse burned, they put a trailer on the land, and kept right on rising each morning to work with their hands.  Their land and their barns had a history of both labor and joy.

I'm grateful for memories of summer weeks spent there.  Of rising early with my sister to climb up into barn rafters, holding the front seams of our shirts to make pockets for collected eggs.  Of cows, bulls with horns that frightened me, and stinky pigs.  Of climbing up to the top of a corn silo to look out over the farm and play in the pool of kernels. My little girl self relished in the wild freedom of it, and got lost in experiences so real you could hold them in your hand.   

Lifetimes later, I sat in a barn in Midland, North Carolina.  I'd turned forty and decided to do something brave, something that represented next steps.   

So, I'd accepted an invitation from another set of sisters to gather on an autumn night with a circle of writers.    Emily Freeman (from Chatting at the Sky) and her sister, Myquillyn Smith (from The Nesting Place), along with singer/ song-writer, Christa Wells, opened up the doors to a refurbished barn,  and created a generous space for exploring the creative within. 

And there is just something about a barn.   

Intuition tells us old, rustic barns have histories of stories rich with family, humility, sunrises, sunsets,  weathering hard times, clucking roosters, laboring with your hands and play among the rafters.

This night, as a grown up version of the little farm loving  girl, I sat in an old barn turned beautiful with vintage furniture, eclectic decorating, soft glowing strung lights, roosters ambling outside, glowing candles, crisp air through open windows, cats wandering through, and heart-stirring songs sung.

I'd said yes to a barn. Yes to time spent with writers who had inspired me.   Yes to turning old memories into written word.  Yes to looking for beauty in the ordinary.  Yes to tending to the writer in me.

They read poems, quoted authors and shared their experiences, speaking of story, art, mistakes and bravery.   And as Saint Benedict suggested, I listened and attended with the ear of my heart. 

Instead of collecting eggs, I collected an awakening.  I filled my journal with books to read, quotes, thoughts and challenges, all of it renewing some of that wild, hope filled freedom of childhood barn memories.  Doubts were silenced and vision stoked.

Back home, I'm certain to be reflecting again and again with gratitude on a most magical autumn night gathered in a barn.  And now I've sharpened some pencils and am saying more yeses.   Yes to the writer hiding under doubt and excuses.  Yes to allowing the Lord to use my words in new ways.  Yes to vulnerability.  Yes to the value of creativity.  Yes.

There's just something about a barn.

 

This is day two in a 31 day series: Tending to the Writer in Me.  Check out the write 31 challenge.