Monday @ MISA.

Hello again from the island.

It was a picture-perfect day on many accounts.  Classes began today.  There are three going on at the school this week – a painting course [with the hot instructor who again today only buttoned his shirt halfway], a writing course, and the one I’m taking.  What am I taking?  Good question.

I told people who asked before I came that it is a writing class.  That’s half true.  It’s writing and it’s art.  It’s all about journaling and honesty and creativity and approaching our inner-critic.  [You know, that voice that tells you you’re not good enough or your work sucks or you’ll never be as good as so-and-so.  We all have them.  Mine seems to come out a lot around my ministry so this is the perfect continuing education class for me.]  I’m not sure how it all comes together yet but we will learn one new art technique and one new writing technique each day.  It should be interesting and hopefully helpful.

If anything else, it is simply grand being here in this location.  Our class [held in the barn pictured above] ended around 3 this afternoon; we had free time to do practically anything.  We could have done our homework but me?  I took to the road.

There are a stash of bikes that hang out at the school.  First come, first serve.  I took one with a low seat; it was a cruiser, ie just one speed.  It’s a cool looking bike and I felt retro-awesome riding it but the one-speed aspect may have made the ride a bit harder than it needed to be.  Nonetheless, I took off.  I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going to go.  I turned left into the bike lane.

About 4.5 miles later, I ended up at Big Bay State Park.  I biked some more and when the roads ran out, I walked the trails alongside my bike.  A deer to the side of the path startled me and biting flies attacked me.  The view was stunning, as one can only imagine.  Four and a half miles back to the art school and my butt was beat.  It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden a bike – especially that far – and that seat was not super comfy the last couple miles.  That’s not saying it wasn’t worth it – it was.

I went into town for dinner and ended up at the same restaurant as my class instructor so we had dinner together.  [Plan A was to have my kindle as my date.  Conversation with an actual person was probably better.]  After that, I sat on a pier and watched the sun go down before returning to pajamas and last night’s Endeavour online.

Why can’t this be real everyday life?  *sigh*  Enjoying it while I can.