report from NW 19th & Flanders

[karlita]

Hello, dear co-intensivists!

You're all on my mind a lot since i checked into the International Guesthouse where we so often gathered during the intensive. It's nice to be here. My MAPW cohort finished the coast segment of our second residency today, and having a beautiful room all to myself and right near PWI feels like the perfect retreat.

It feels odd to be so happy to have moved on from the beautiful house where we lived with a high view of the sea and our own quiet beach, but living and processing together for days on end is very intense--moreso at the edge of such a vast, magical, brutal, and mysterious Pacific. My inner critic fairly ripped me to shreds in the last few days. In hindsight, i couldn't be more grateful for the totality of my experience, but again & again i have encountered moments where i had no idea how i would ever loosen the grip of some difficult pattern. The shift into a new phase of the residency feels like a breath of fresh air, with many tensions inside me breaking at last!

It's been good to hear from you who've been in touch anytime recently. Everyone else, i think of you also and wonder how things are going for you now. I so love being reminded of each of you as i walk our neighbourhood. In this context of lovely memories, it's kind of fun to still just be a visitor in Portland, feeling like i'm just on another trippy psychonautical vacation catered by Trader Joe's and Sansai. I look forward to getting back to my beloved yoga studio in the morning, too.

I expect to be settling in as a resident of Portland again sometime this September. Before that happens, i'll be spending June back in Louisiana with my family, then working as a camp nurse at the Omega Institute's camp for teenagers in upstate New York in July and August (so if any of you happens to be visiting NYC then, let me know--i'll only be about 90 minutes away and might get to drive down!). I hope i'll get to see Berry in Athens, Ohio, on my way to or from New York--i'll be stopping in for a good visit, having lived in sweet Athens three years myself! Such a tiny world technology makes...

Full of appreciation and good wishes for each of you,

and love love love love love more love,

Karlita