Retreat Day 1

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday August 5, 2010 – Retreat Day 1

Arose at Tony’s place about 6:30am. Sat at 7am. Already in the 80’s outside with serious humidity. A shower and breakfast, and then he and I headed out to the Whole Foods on Houston (just typing that phrase makes me shake my head) to do the basic shopping for the weekend. Tony took a page (or maybe 2?), and I took a page (largely the vegetable and fruit page). An hour or so later, 8 or 10 bags of groceries. Citibank saw a $250 charge try to go through at a grocery store in NYC, and elected to not approve the purchase, on the chance that the card had been stolen (speaking to them later, my snarky reference to the fact that I had purchased the airline ticket on that card didn’t make much of an impression). So, Chase got that business today, and Citibank did not. We hailed a cab and headed down to SoHo to the retreat location. Managed to make all the keys work, unloaded the groceries, turned on the air conditioning (by this time 80º was only a fond memory).

We headed back up to the Village to Tony’s place to get the guitars and a few necessities (Tony and I will be returning to his apartment to sleep throughout the weekend). Again cabbed back to SoHo, and found that Jaxie had arrived. A few bits of Housecraft, and then we hit the streets for a slice for lunch. The rest of the team would be arriving between 2 and 3pm. Hot and crowded out, we brought the pizza back to eat in comfort.

Tom called to let us know he and Robert were a few blocks away, so we went down to meet them. Loaded out their car, and Tom left to put it in the parking lot. Dev and Victor arrived next, looking a bit wrung out, having driven from Boston with no AC in the car. Victor came in, and Dev set out to the parking lot. Sandra arrived, and we loaded her gear out. Tony accompanied her to the parking lot. By tea time, we were all present and accounted for.

Over tea, some discussion about the weekend, with Robert leading off regarding his aims. We all weighed in on our sense of the weekend, and talked about the flow of the days, meals (everyone is on kitchen duty at every meal – only dinners are at all involved, but even they are going to be as simple as possible).

Eight of us in a wonderful kind of choreography as we improvised our way through the dinner prep. Dinner had a force in it. I gave Mr Bennett’s blessing, nearly stumbling on the line that often gets ironically inverted. More discussion over dinner about Guitar Craft, GC History, and this group.

For the evening meeting, Robert presented the exercise for our morning sitting, which ties directly into the exercise we will be taking on throughout the day. Afterward, some guitaring seemed to be calling us. We sounded tired and a bit dispersed, but a necessary breaking of the ice. Robert, still on UK time, called it a night about 10:30. The rest of us sat and talked another hour before Tony and I left for the 20-minute trek back to his place, and the rest settled into their beds.

[go to Day 2]