Quilt Camp starts today. This time, unlike last Quilt Camps, I'm part of the leadership team. I will help with set up today, I will deliver the very short sermon for Saturday closing worship, and beyond that, I'm not sure what being on the Quilt Camp leadership team means.
In the early days of summer, when I thought about Fall Quilt Camp, I thought I would head to Spartanburg today, do my teacher duties, and then arrive for Quilt Camp. But as the semester has gone on, I've changed my mind. My students can use today to get caught up, and I'd like to be a bit less tired when Quilt Camp starts.
I am so grateful to be working at a place where I have this kind of flexibility. I am so grateful to be at a place where when I say, "I'll be leading a quilt retreat this week," and no one says, "What does that have to do with you as a teacher? No, you can't be off campus this week." I'm thinking of past bosses who made their disapproval known, even as I was using my personal vacation time to be away.
Make no mistake: I do get teaching inspiration from retreats. It may be a different kind of inspiration than I would get at a literary conference, but I am a different teacher, a better teacher, because I go on these retreats.
I am also grateful that I live closer to camp. When I first heard about Quilt Camp at Lutheridge, back in 2018 or 2019, I lived in South Florida, a twelve hour drive if all the traffic went smoothly. I was torn--on the one hand, it was a longer retreat, so the drive would be worth it; in those days, I never would have made the drive for a retreat that started Friday night and ended Sunday morning, as so many retreats did then. But on the other hand, it was such a long drive.
Because I live here now, I have the best of several worlds. I don't have a long drive. I get to sleep in my own bed. I don't feel like I'm abandoning my spouse or my other duties at home. Of course, that benefit has a shadow side--it's also hard for me to completely disconnect on retreat. But that was true of past retreats too. My brain is always working at various levels, and it's hard for me to focus on just one.
This morning I realized another value to coming to Quilt Camp from my house that's less than a mile away. I feel less pull to do the other area attractions: apple orchards, fabric stores, and Appalachian arts and crafts. At least my active brain will calm down around the other wonderful outings that I would want to be taking, if I didn't already live here.
On this morning of the day when Quilt Camp begins, I am most grateful to be feeling like my life is in better alignment than it was back in 2018/2019 when I thought about the possibility of coming to Quilt Camp and decided I couldn't make it work.
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