Retreat!!!

Every writer needs a retreat, and I had pretty much zapped my energy by the time I left Atlanta. Rocking "alterna-grass" star, Lenny Lasater, and her band of Roxie Watson mates are traveling in the fast lane to fame, and I'm a slow lane writer. I drove the trip from Atlanta to Asheville, NC in record time, not stopping for my usual scenic detours. I arrived at Jane's house about 4 pm on a Monday.

I was house-sitting for my friend, Jane, while she taught a watercolor course at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. I walked right in, threw down my backpack, and fell into bed. Her tiny bedroom is perched in the treetops at the back of an old cottage style house. The bed itself is surrounded by windows, thick green branches filtering the breeze as it blows through the screens. I slept for two solid hours--this from a person who rarely takes a nap.

From that moment on, I did nothing but sleep and write. Eating wasn't even a priority. I visited briefly with a couple of friends. I enjoyed one short workout with my friends Kam and April, owner-operators of The Fire personal training studio, then shared a great brunch with Marianne in West Asheville on Tuesday.


But for the most part, I lay in that glorious treehouse room in a bed filled with pillows, scrawling notes and poems into a notebook on my lap, reading, and in general catching up with myself. Now that's what I call a retreat!

Every writer, artist, or creative needs to retreat (get away, fall back, let the others do the fighting) at least once a year, even if you have to do it from your own home. That's not always easy as long as we remain surrounded by our lives and responsibilities; it takes more than a modicum of willpower to block out the everyday of our regular worlds. My advice is to save up enough money, or points on your credit card, and blow it on a motel room as close as 30 minutes drive from your house. And for two days laze around and write or draw or pick on your guitar whatever comes to mind. Sleep. Eat bonbons or gluten-free cookies; whatever trips your trigger. Answer no phone, no email, no knocks at the door unless it's room service.


All you need is a good bed, your computer or notebook and pen, a couple of books, and a little extra cash. If that's hard to come by – believe me,I understand the monetary plight of writers – pack a cooler with some of your favorite treats and drinks before you go, and bring it in with you. Leigh has an embarrassed laugh she reserves for the moment I walk into the hotel and get the rolling cart so I can load all my shit for a one or two night stay. But hey, as much as it costs to live in one of those places for a night, you better make sure you have what you want. That's my philosophy.

You can also experience the luxury of an artist's retreat in a cabin, or house-sitting for a friend, as I had the opportunity to do on my Asheville trip. The point is that all of us need the peace and comfort that solitude brings when we are busy getting our work out into the world on a regular basis. The creative mind needs to sleep, dream, go slow, exist quietly inside itself as it turns over new ideas or shapes the future of things unseen. No, you can't take your lover, no matter how quiet he/she promises to be. You can't take anyone--you have to go alone. That's part of the retreat. Once you've retreated this far, you'll find you'll want to re-treat yourself, time and again. Don't worry, it's what I like to call a positive addiction. Besides, you'll never find the time to do it as much as you need, so take full advantage when you get the chance!

Reading, Rocking, Rolling in Atlanta, GA

Having been chased by tornados from central Arkansas through Jasper, AL and all the way to Atlanta, GA, I was suffering from a new form of PTSD by the time I arrived at my friend Lenny's house in Decatur. Post Tornado Stress Disorder. It was so bad, I kept Lenny up all night watching the weather channel. Atlanta (and I) got lucky as the tornados split around the big city and one went north and one went south. I got very little sleep that night.

By the next evening I had recovered enough to give my poetry reading at Charis Books in Little Five Points, one of the oldest feminist bookstores left in the country. Charis was my bookstore when I lived and policed in Atlanta and my memories of that store are long and fond. So I was pleased to be reading there one last time before they move from their present location to a new one and begin to diversify to include more than books.

The reading was small, but with some of my oldest and dearest friends attending. Friends and fans often say to me when I tell them I have butterflies in my stomach before a reading, "Oh, you can do this blindfolded. You've been doing it forever." But the truth is every reading is different and every audience is different. My own perception and mood is different, and no matter whether you still have post tornado syndrome or not, the show must go on.

The flavor of this reading was sweet. I had come all the way from being a cop in this city to being a visiting poet, some 20 years later. The audience was incredibly attentive, almost spellbound, although I know how this may come across. I can only say this was the look I saw on their beautiful faces as they gazed at me, listening hard for the next word, the image, the metaphor that would hopefully strike a chord with them. And they made noises of affirmation and understanding. No reading can compare to the one where your audience actually amens in one way or another. To a preacher's kid, it is the ultimate signal of a job well done.

Well, sounds and selling books--which I did. As many listeners bought my family cookbook as they did my book of poetry and I was thoroughly pleased. Of course, there were several good cooks in the audience who just couldn't let the idea of a book from which I had drawn family recipes for women's potlucks all those years ago get away from them.

Admittedly, I felt exhausted after the reading, but the weekend was just beginning. I was to hear my favorite band, Roxie Watson play in both a parade and onstage at the Inman Park Festival. Saturday morning, Lenny and I loaded up the car with her bass, amp, and gasoline generator and headed over to meet the band just a few blocks from where both she and I used to live over twenty years ago. Beth, who plays mandolin for Roxie and is one of the original founders along with Lenny, owns a big old F-150 pick 'em up truck. A talented carpenter, she has devised a stage which can be built on the back of the truck in about an hour and taken down in less than that. This is really an amazing feat and a testament to the many talents of Beth Wheeler.

Then the band climbs up (and I mean UP) on the stage with their chairs and instruments all set in place and the driver slowly, carefully (with a stick shift no less) drives them along the parade route with all the other acts; none of whom, I might add are actually doing a live set on the back of a pick-up truck! They were singing "Jolene," the famous cover by Dolly Parton, when they passed Victoria and me where we lounged beneath a giant shade tree. I have to agree with Lenny, that nobody sings that song as well as Becky Shaw from Roxie Watson.


The next day, Sunday, the band was scheduled to play at the Inman Park festival in the early afternoon. At least they had a stage that stayed in one place this time! A huge crowd gathered when they learned who would be playing next, and I found myself surrounded by fans shouting and stomping with every song they played. I grinned the whole time as they played several songs that I and my partner Leigh had co-written with Lenny. I had written a song on the spur of the moment a couple of years earlier called "Five Easy Words" and this was the first time I had heard it played by the band. The refrain goes, "It's gonna be all right." When they got to the chorus and were repeating the phrase in harmony, they completely changed keys altogether in one voice, it seemed, and chills ran through my entire body. Both that song and Lenny's true song about being a coal miner in the deep mines of Alabama continue to haunt me.

When I finally left Atlanta for Asheville, I made my way to my friend Jane's house and barely made it to the bed before I was asleep; knocked out cold for 2 hours in the middle of the day. I slept for a couple of days to recover from the excitement of ATL, Roxie, and Big Lenny Lasater. But every moment was worth it. Well, I could have done without the tornados, but not without a minute of the rest of that 5 days. So far, it was Mendy's Excellent Adventure all the way.

—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.

Poetry in Motion: Taking It on the Road

Julia Cameron calls them "artists dates." I call them "risk adventures." Call them what you will, but these forays into the unknown broaden our sense of the planet, allow us to taste a life we did not choose to live, and give us a new-found self confidence about our right to be anywhere, everywhere in the world. Not to mention all the new material we can collect. Adventuring with a sense of awareness can provide us new opportunities for self-expression and a certain respect for our earthly neighbors.

I've been away on a poetry journey; a 3-week long writer's retreat of sorts. Writers simply must retreat once in awhile from the head lines, the front lines, the hard lines and laze around in a soft bed with nothing to write but what brings them joy. I covered several states in my journey, slowly making my way through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Western North Carolina, and ALL of the extremely long state of Tennessee. My state of mind varied as much as the states through which I drove and the weather. I ran from tornados, swam in the sun, hid from thunderstorms, wore both jackets and shorts along the way. And I wrote about all of it.

Sometimes, there's nothing better than a decent motel room in a distant town where you know no one and nobody knows you. There you can let your curiosity roam well beyond the confines of the big, boring (but safe) building with its giant TV, WiFi, and exercise room to wander the streets of the town in which you've arrived. One of the towns I explored enroute to a reading in Atlanta was Holly Springs, MS. I wasn't even staying there, but it was the first sunshine I'd seen in days, and that was enough to tempt me off the beaten path.

In the town square of Holly Springs, I walked around the old courthouse studying the historical markers which told of the area's involvement in the "War of Northern Aggression." I am still fascinated by that period in the history of this nation and the Southerner's point of view, both black and white, of what occurred before, during and after that devastating civil war. I'll stop on the side of any highway to read an historical marker anyway, and here they all were within walking distance. Holly Springs is a trip back in time, not so far as the civil war, but at least to the 1940's or 50's.

I ate at a restaurant called "Aunt Whooeys" on the square which served me a dessert called "apple enchilada." It was several apple dumplings rolled long and baked in a pan with a syrup of butter, sugar and cinnamon poured over it. Heated, with a perfect round of vanilla ice cream melting over it--what can I say? The word orgasmic may seem crude, but it is close to my actual experience of this homemade delight. And I think it cost all of $2.75. That alone was worth the 3-mile drive from the interstate to the town center.

After lunch, I walked around the square and went into an ancient drugstore with a real soda fountain and soda jerk working hard to serve a long line awaiting the cold, creamy treats. Even with a belly full of apple enchilada I was tempted to try one of the icy confections the customers held in their hot little hands. I did buy a postcard of the town there, then wandered back to the historical post office to mail it to Leigh. I am in love with old P.O.'s in all their different settings and would search high and low for something to mail just so I could get it postmarked there. I did all this on my lunch break with miles to drive before I reached my overnight destination of Jasper, AL.

This was the beginning of my trip and I tell you about it, creative reader, to remind you that the journey from one place to another never need be a straight line. Human beings, as a rule, are in too much of a hurry to get where they think they are going. I believe the road should not be straight and narrow, no matter what the Bible says. In fact, it should be as wildly adventurous and as full of nectar as a bee's flight. At nearly every exit, around the next bend in the road, two easy miles from your boring hotel, adventure awaits. Go! Be free! But don't forget your pen and paper. Or your camera...

(Photo 1 source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/courthouselover/2351780036/. Photo 2 source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Springs,_Mississippi)

—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.