This weekend I am on the North Carolina coast with four other women who participated in our 2014 Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat. We have rented a friend’s North Topsail Island beach house. Here we look east over the Atlantic Ocean to write, share meals, tell life stories, renew friendship, drink wine and Oaxaca mezcal, and offer encouragement and gentle feedback. This is not an organized workshop but an interlude to the next February 2015 workshop retreat (one space open), a coming together of writers and those who want to write in Oaxaca, Mexico.
In honor of the women who brought us into this world, we decided at breakfast to dedicate this morning to write about our mothers. We will then share, listen and offer supportive feedback. We are self-guided. There is no leader. Some of us write regularly, others less frequently. Some of us publish and others have not yet taken that next step. We all have something to say and want a place of retreat to get it on the page.
Beyond the second story balcony of my white-curtained bedroom is dune grass, their tassel tops wave in the wind. The mid-day sun is already intense. Beyond the dunes, white caps fold over themselves. The horizon is hazy. Gulls, wings outstretched, ride the air currents. On the floor below I hear muffled sounds of women who prepare lunch. We come together in friendship and mutual support to honor and remember our mothers, to write and to tell our stories, to renew our creative lives, and to enjoy each others’ company.
Happy Mother’s Day!
My own son is further south at Carolina Beach to attend a friend’s wedding. He will join us tomorrow night for supper and overnight before he returns to Los Angeles for his day job and creative life as a comedy writer. Soon, I will return to Oaxaca after I continue to pack and store my belongings, move out of my North Carolina house, and prepare for a different future.
Tribute to Mothers: Feliz Dia de la Madre
Red roses for love, a Mother’s Day Gift to you
First, a bouquet of red roses for all mothers, daughters and foster mothers. For the women in our lives who give us strength, courage and determination to stand up with shoulders back, head high. For the women who came before us to open the path and show us the way. Saludos y felicidades, siempre.
Mother’s Day, dedicated to my own mother, Dorothy Schafitz Beerstein, b. February 14, 1916, d. November 15, 2015, and the remarkable women of Mexico.
Embroidered story rebozo by Teofila Servin Barriga, Patzcuaro, Michoacan
Rosa, center, and her nieces, Magdalenas Aldama
In Yochib, Oxchuc,talented weaver with impaired mobility, limited health care access
The girls who will become women, learning from the matriarch
The young women, keepers of tradition and culture
To those of us who explore and discover and support the makers
Cousins Maya and Alicia in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca
The generations: Grandma Juana, Baby Luz, and Mama Edith
Grower of native corn, Mixe region of Oaxaca
My own mother, two years before her death at age 99
For everything hand-made, here’s to the makers!
The women pottery makers of San Marcos Tlapazola
Intricately embroidered blouse, San Bartolome Ayautla, 8 months to make
To Lila Downs, who tells stories in song, with compassion
Frida Kahlo Calderon, our muse and heroine
Susie in Chiapas, thanks to the adventurers who visit
To the women who love and give care
Deceased potter Dolores Porras, inspiration for Atzompa
To Margarita, the basket weaver, Benito Juarez Market
Thank you to all the women who make a difference just by being you!
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Photography
Tagged Mexico, Mother's Day, photographs