AWBU: my conference takeaway

I returned home from Arkansas Women Blogger University (AWBU) with thoughts enough to fill ten blog posts. I scribbled ideas in my journal and attempted to reduce the weekend down to one key conference takeaway. Beyond the connections made and information absorbed and enjoyable time spent with like-minded bloggers, what was the primary benefit for me?

Everyone arrived at The Arlington Resort Hotel with different goals, different experience levels, different expectations. We attended the same educational classes, heard inspirational speakers and packed over 10,000 rice meals for the hungry (a definite highlight facilitated by The Pack Shack and Wells Fargo Advisors which you can read about HERE and HERE). We each left with more swag than anyone could imagine—thank you generous sponsors!

After spending a weekend together, I imagine we all took something slightly different home.

I think of my mind as a chest of drawers crafted from oak with tarnished pulls that still manage a shine when I take the time to polish them. Each drawer is filled with memories and ideas and to-do lists and facts and figures. Those things I’ve known forever are stored deep in the heavy, bottom drawer—song lyrics and friends’ birthdays, how to make the color purple by mixing just the right amount of red and blue paint, the difference between right and wrong, John 3:16.

Those sort of things.

A “first in” sort of storage space, my base for which the bulk of “me” builds and rests upon.

Above the solid base drawer is a drawer of treasures and secrets and wishes and dreams. Feelings otherwise buried until a sound or picture or smell pulls it toward the front of my mind.

Other drawers are more organized. Tested and known information, tried and true particulars are rolled into tight balls or stacked neatly like silk pocket squares or fine cotton linen handkerchiefs, within quick reach whenever needed.

The top drawer is filled with new ideas and plans, a blend of colors, a swirl. Sometimes when I dare look inside it, I can’t see the bottom or make out the details. Like water flowing through my fingers, the ideas stored inside this drawer are whirl, difficult to grasp.

Sometimes the drawer appears hollow and empty.

Sometimes it won’t open at all, stuck shut as though humidity has warped the wood and wedged it tight.

But now, after a replenishing weekend of laughing and learning and, yes, a little dancing with my Arkansas Women Blogger friends, the top drawer glides open. Effortlessly. Smoothly. The space brims with ideas so clear and fresh I can almost taste them. And this is my AWBU takeaway.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]My #AWBU takeaway. @ARWomenBloggers @rhealana @GPellegrini @VisitHotSprings #blogging #inspiration #ARWB[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:
Shut Up and Dance, Walk the Moon

P.S.Sometimes things fall behind one drawer and into another, and that’s to be expected in this busy, messy life. Sometimes I move them myself. I’m allowed.