The wind is so strong the hotel locks its sea-facing doors to the patio - they're impossible to open into the wind. But I find a way out and walk for an hour by the surf in the sunshine to the pier I had seen in the distance. Waves thrashed the pilings and I watched them from a safe distance. 

It's my last morning walk here before returning home to the cold and I'm grateful for all that I'm returning home with: poems revised, all the writing I'd planned to do is done. As I walk I am tweaking the last two (mental notes), tiny changes, but right ones. The most satisfying aspect of this retreat: I didn't whine once, I didn't give up on a single one, I trusted my instincts, my intuition, my choices, ideas and my voice.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2108