{"id":274,"date":"2013-10-17T06:17:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T10:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elitemporaryblog.wordpress.com\/2013\/10\/17\/the-days-are-twice-as-long"},"modified":"2016-01-15T17:40:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T22:40:52","slug":"the-days-are-twice-as-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangette.net\/2013\/10\/the-days-are-twice-as-long\/","title":{"rendered":"The days are twice as long"},"content":{"rendered":"

This time last week, I was in a wood stove-heated cottage with no Internet, no telephone, and no television, reading my sixth New Yorker<\/i> of the day. I am fully caught up with\u00a0The New Yorker<\/i>. (!) (!!)\u00a0 Those words may never again be assembled in that order by me, or by anyone, ever.<\/p>\n

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Actually, I should already switch tenses: I was caught up with\u00a0The New Yorker<\/i>. Briefly. Past tense.<\/p>\n

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Last week, I had the pleasure of spending two nights at Hedgebrook<\/a>, a nonprofit retreat for women writers, located on Whidbey Island<\/a>. It\u2019s an incredible place: just six one-room cabins, a cottage, a farmhouse, a garden, and a couple of woodsheds on 48 acres, dedicated solely giving women the time, space, and quiet to write, free of charge. (!) (!!) At the end of each day, at 5:30 pm, the six or seven writers in residence gather in the farmhouse kitchen to share a meal cooked for them by one of Hedgebrook\u2019s chefs, with ingredients largely harvested from the garden. And afterward, they each take their flashlight and a basket of breakfast makings and lunch and walk back to their cabins in the trees, and no one disturbs them, or comes looking for them, or asks anything of them, and definitely, definitely<\/i> no one there needs a diaper change or wakes up crying in the middle of the night, and this superlative quiet continues until 5:30 pm the next day, when the writers meet for dinner again, walk home with their baskets again, etc. etc. etc. (!!!) \u00a0I try not to use the word magic<\/i> too often, <\/i>not unless the topic is actual magic, magical magic. But Hedgebrook has it.<\/p>\n

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This fall, Hedgebrook is celebrating its 25th birthday, and it has also just released a cookbook<\/a> of recipes served at the farmhouse table, and because of that, I was offered a stay there, to experience it. I don\u2019t usually do PR stuff; it\u2019s not what I like to write about. But I had heard about Hedgebrook years ago from a photographer friend of my mom\u2019s, and I had thought about applying to be a writer in residence someday, but I was too intimidated to do it. So boarding the ferry for Whidbey Island, I was giddy, electric. It took a full day for my insides to stop vibrating.<\/p>\n

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I stayed in a cottage called Meadowhouse, which is apparently the same place where Gloria Steinem stays when she goes to Hedgebrook. (!!!!) \u00a0Most writers stay at Hedgebrook for two to six weeks. I was there for 48 hours.\u00a0The time seemed so short that it almost hurt to look at the clock. I spent the first day resisting the urge to make a to-do list and launch into it at breakneck speed. (Shower in the same shower that Gloria Steinem showered in: CHECK!<\/i>\u00a0Pee in the same toilet that Gloria Steinem peed in: CHECK! <\/i>Prod log in wood stove with same wrought iron poker thing that Gloria Steinem prodded log with: CHECK!<\/i>) But having nothing to do but take care of myself and do my work – whatever that meant, because no one would be keeping score – the hours felt slow, expansive, extra<\/i>, as though I had gone through a portal and come out in a universe where the days are twice as long.<\/p>\n

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I learned how to build a fire in my wood stove, and how to keep it burning. I read eight\u00a0New Yorkers<\/i>\u00a0and started Madame Bovary<\/i>. I took a walk in the woods on the property and another down to the beach. I listened to an owl. I ate two slices of butter cake filled with raspberries. I had two dinners and easy conversation with six other women writers. I slept in. I took pictures. I was temporarily blinded by euphoria and a ray of sunlight and walked into a blackberry bush. I went out to the woodshed and brought in more firewood. I thought about what I might write next, whenever I feel ready to write another book.<\/p>\n

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Every year, to mark Delancey\u2019s birthday, we donate the evening\u2019s sales to a cause we believe in, and next year, I announced to Brandon, we\u2019re going to give them to Hedgebrook. There aren\u2019t many (any<\/i>?) other places where a woman can go to be nurtured this way, given food and shelter and supportive peers and space to do creative work, without an exchange of money and regardless of her means. I hope Hedgebrook is still around in another 25 years, and for a long time after that.<\/p>\n\n

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Recipe<\/div>\n

Denise\u2019s Fruit-Filled Butter Cake<\/h2>\n

Adapted from Hedgebrook Cookbook<\/a><\/i><\/h3> \n \n <\/header>\n\n
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