This past June I worked the kinks out of my pandemic-induced social atrophy by doing two things I love dearly: floating rivers and learning about writing. I participated in the Missoula based Freeflow Institute, a collaborative that offers workshops for creative people in what it calls the “Earth’s wildest classrooms.” For three days in June, when the temperatures soared above 90, my classroom was the famed Blackfoot River and the writing workshop was led by Chris LaTray, a writer you should immediately become acquainted with.
LaTray is a Métis storyteller and the winner of 2018 Montana Book Award. The workshop theme was “Silence: The Daily Practice” with the intention of cultivating a silent, observatory daily writing practice, largely inspired by the natural world around us. There were nine participants, two river guides, and Chandra Brown, Freeflow’s founder and instructor. All of us had varying relationships with writing and rivers. Some were established writers, some were teachers, some were hoping to write more and experiment with form. All of us were thrilled to spend three days on the river, with the added bonus of creative workshops and meeting new people. For most of us the trip was the first time since March 2020 that we had spent any amount of time outside of a close-knit COVID bubble.
The workshop was crafted around the importance of a daily writing practice. Silence was supposed to be an element that allowed for observation and reflection. But for a group of strangers who quickly became friends, LaTray shifted gears. He allowed our conversation and storytelling to help us understand what we were looking for in our writing lives.
The days were hot, but we luckily had the river to cool off in, and sometimes we took our literary inspired conversations to the water itself, lounging like otters on boulders, discussing favorite authors, occasionally pausing to dunk into a deep, cold pool. I wasn’t the only group member who felt like the year was stifling, that my own creative work felt disconnected from the world. In a year that had us distance ourselves, this was the first time – thanks to vaccinations – where connections with new people was once again possible.
That trip was a shade over six months ago, but that experience on the Blackfoot hasn’t faded from memory. It showed me how daily practice could work, despite a pandemic, young kids, and all the messiness that constitutes a life. It was also powerful reminder that connection and vulnerability – doing things that are tricky or uncomfortable like showing up on the river for a writing workshop when you don’t have a book under your belt – are critical elements that make our lives fuller and richer. They’re worth pursuing.
May you find possibility in the New Year.
Maggie Doherty is the owner of Kalispell Brewing Company on Main Street.