We had a wonderful, busy, exciting grand opening at 628 Monmouth this past weekend to celebrate RW Studios, AmlinDesign and Gertrude’s Writing Room officially opening our doors!
It’s a great honour to be sharing such a beautifully creative space with Greg and Mary Lou!
To find out more about RW Studios – click here!
To find out more about AmlinDesign – click here!
We had yummy food to devour, and folks were coming from near and far for hugs and celebratory cheers as well as to purchase Greg’s incredible jewelry.
I’ll admit, I was exhausted come Sunday! But super filled up with love and energy for what is to come at Gertrude’s Writing Room! I urge you (nicely, with a little rub on your back, maybe?) to subscribe to the Gertrude’s Writing Room website so that when I post about classes and workshops, you’ll always be in the ‘know’.
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So how am I feeling about this dream coming true?
Well, I’m feeling like IT’S TIME TO GET TO WORK, YO.
Since June, I’ve been filling my office with things to make it feel like ‘home’ for this dream come true. Then, there was the planning for the opening and the opening itself. It’s all been a beautiful and a nerve-racking (wracking?) experience. It feels real when I’m in the space, but now it feels real outside of it too, if that makes sense! Now, it’s time to make decisions about the classes and start thinking about workshops. I’ve begun to talk with writers about ideas, and I can look at my long list of dreamy workshops and see what I can make happen at Gertrude’s.
But, I’m also thinking about writing. I haven’t had an office space since the flood of last August…so nearly a year. My books had been packed in bins for months and months, and are now breathing freely in my office space. It’s been a weird struggle to make time to write in spaces that are filled with all things family life…on the sofa in the living room say, or on the dining room table, my laptop in the centre of a sea of busy family-life things (bread basket, fruit tray, mail, books, napkins, etc.). It’s not that I can’t write in these spaces, because I can. But, one of the things that’s so special about Gertrude’s is that it’s my first ever, grown-up-going-to-work space for my writing. Essentially, for my ‘career’. A career that has flapped like a flag on wind for many, many years.
Have you ever felt like you needed weights on your soul to keep it in place? To hold it down for all its wild wondering songs? Well, this new office, this dreamy space that is Gertrude’s – it’s that weight. I like to think I’m strong in muscles of all kinds so that I will be able to manage carrying this hefty dream. I think I can. I think it’s exactly what this forty-year-old vessel needs. I’m not saying I won’t fly to cloud nine nor will I take breaks from this soul-root every now and then. Not at all. But for now, for however long this rootedness needs to cultivate, I’m gonna carry it.
And I think it’s gonna do something really, really special for my writing life. The reason I believe this is because when I sit in the space, when I look around at the walls, the books, the art – I feel like I’m home. I feel like I’ve been there before!
That has to mean something.
This blog…this website that has carried me along…that I have used to share my thoughts, frustrations and dreams – it’s not going anywhere. I still need and want this place to talk to you. To write it out. To let you know that you’re not alone in your own thoughts, frustrations and dreams. And that I believe in your dreams as you’ve believed in mine.
This thing called creative loving is a two-way path that never, ever ends.
I have a big, personal writing goal that I intend to hit come this Friday. And after that, I’ll be working on two new projects that I am bursting to explore and play in.
I’ll have to be more disciplined than ever now. I think I’ve created a space in Gertrude’s that can cultivate this discipline, this play, these new characters and, holy cow you guys – NEW DREAMS!
Summer is blasting forward. August starts in two days! I’ll admit there are parts of me that yearn for the crisp air of September, back to school, back to sweaters and long walks in Ojibway…but maybe, like, a few toes only! I love summer like crazy, and August has promises of so much fun!
I hope you’re enjoying your summer as well. There’s lots left, so enjoy it!
What are you reading? I recently finished Stray Love by Kyo Maclear. It’s a sad, deeply heart-full story of love in so many forms. I cried as I read it…and held it to my chest when I finished reading…so sad to stop reading the characters. They’re still with me, and will be for some time. It’s that kind of story! Thank Kyo!
I’m reading A Beautiful Truth by Colin McAdam. I began reading it before I went to Humber, but then, after hearing Colin speak about it…and seeing and feeling his love for the story and for the chimps (yes, I wrote chimps), it’s been a different experience diving back into the story. There’s more context, and I feel my heart has opened to let the story in even more.
When I finish this, I’m not sure what I’ll read next.
Well…here we go.
Thanks for reading! And loving!
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 