The Writing Retreat

Go, If You Want To Go

A writer—very famous—but more importantly, dear to me, akin to a real-life mentor, so closely has she touched me through her prose; posts on Instagram that she’s hosting “an intimate retreat for a handful of writers” at an old inn in New England this summer.

I pause.

July? I check my calendar. On those exact dates, I’ll happen to be visiting my parents in Vermont, not far from there. I’ll be available, and equipped with childcare.

I feel my life shifting a little bit.

Sometimes my writing friends send me links to writing retreats –four days in Italy or one week on Martha’s Vineyard, to get away from it all and write! Is it tempting? Yes, of course, it sounds glorious, but I always resign myself to being too smart to fall for it. A writer’s retreat? Can’t everyone see? It’s a cash cow. The writing life is already something I have! What more of it can I buy? My creative mantra this year has been Don’t Do The Thing That Is Not The Thing, and retreats were definitely on the list of things not to do.

“I’ll go on this retreat with you when we’re the teachers!” I text back.

But this feels different. Serendipitous. So what if I’m a fan girl? I click through the pictures of the writer's life, fantasizing.

***

The author lives in a bucolic area in an old white saltbox house. I’ve read all of her fiction and her non-fiction. I know the stone steps in the grass of her sloping backyard. I know the geese that fly overhead. I know her bearded, serious husband who makes films. I’ve watched her teenager grow up and change interests and become a college student. Her deep, knowing voice on her Podcast has kept me company on long days. Tentatively, I have even tapped “like” on a few of her posts—even though I know, I know—Don’t Tap The Things! But I feel that I know her.

And I feel that she knows me!

She has clarity and authenticity in spades. When she finishes her captions “I love you,” it is truly somehow not jinxy or hokey. When the other famous writers I admire all put XOs all over her comments—it sort of feels like my friends have all gathered at a party to which I’ve not arrived. So, I have to admit, being with her on a tiny, intimate retreat? Getting to show her my writing? Receiving her judgment and input? I know I said I’d never do one of these things, because I should just stay glued to my chair, but. I’m starting to warm up to the idea of breaking my own rule. Just in case, I follow the link in her bio, and send the email to express my interest. The price, I learn, is cringeworthy.

While I wait, I start to test the idea with my inner circle.

“Couldn’t you be the teacher?” my mom asks. “But go, if you want!”

I tell my husband the stupid price of it. He raises his eyebrows. “Go, if you want!”

I ask my brother who sometimes does crazy things, and he says that if I want to go, it’s not crazy. “You can’t put a price tag on inspiration.”

If I want.

Why do those words stop me? Wanting doesn’t seem like a good enough reason, even though this year, we have splurged on the wants of everyone else in the family! Ski trips for our ski lovers; golf trips for our golfers; a brand-new aquarium for our animal lover. My husband has entered what I liked to call “Member Guest season.” And “guest who” stays home and covers the bases? I want to call my best friend to talk this through, but she’s out of town, doing something she wants.

It’s always summer when I start to feel that annual twinge of ennui—a general boredom or frustration with my life. Even, if I’m honest, just a little bit blue, like the blue-gray Suburbans that gather in the country club parking lot. In June, my radius shrinks to about three miles: bus stop, tennis courts, swimming pool, gas station, groceries, repeat. I’d gotten so blue in the past couple of weeks that I’d been praying more, which required me emailing the pastor at our church to ask how exactly to pray?

(I’ve never been embarrassed to ask dumb questions. It’s so much better this way—the laughter and connection that comes after asking someone how to pronounce their name, or what exactly they do for work? I don’t want to ignore these gaps in my knowledge, like I might ignore a tiny spider in my laundry room. Asking the pastor how to pray is just like that—Oh hello! And please remind me? Tell me again?)

The pastor has a wonderful answer—and I try to incorporate it: tennis, grocery store, bus stop, God’s abiding presence, gas station, grocery store, laundry.

Still, the long, hot, blue days.

The writer’s assistant responds and asks me for a writing sample, which I’m promised “is not a test!” I provide it, wishing it were a test, because if it is something I could win, it would be a license to go, instead of just plain old booking a trip. Within hours, the assistant emails me to say I’ll be “a great fit.” In addition to the writing sessions, there will be gourmet meals in the garden. Yoga. There will be a one-on-one conference with my idol. There will be long open mornings to discuss the invisible thread of the universe which connects us all. There will be empty afternoons for reflection and revision.

My heart beats fast. I hum while I cook the dinner. I let myself scroll through more pictures of the rooms at the inn. In the bar, there's a tapestry of a buck with majestic antlers.

But later that night, the self-doubt crawls back. I want to be a real writer; not a traveling fan-girl.

“Yeah,” I tease myself, “You’re a great fit to fork over the money.”

Last fall, I told my students at Charlotte Lit that “ambivalence”—having two strong feelings in opposing directions—makes for glorious essays, but shitty days.

The next morning, in search of clarity, I go to the library and check out all of the author’s books I haven’t read. Her memoir of her marriage. Her memoir of exploring spirituality when her child is young. I am engrossed by this one. Her favorite daily prayer—a form of meditation—goes like this: May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be strong, may I live with ease. I love the book so much. It thrums with the invisible thread! As I restrain myself from underlining her passages in the library book, thinking, me too, me too, the thread between her and me seems real, as if I could reach out and tug it. And I can! If I want.

Ugh.

Holding her book in my hands, I decide it: I will go.

An hour later, I’m tossing and turning, as my mind makes one last battle:

I am such a loser!

This is basically fat camp for skinny people!

She probably has a large and unexpected medical bill! And I am just a lost white lady with a check book!

I try to remember something a friend said: So what if you’re supporting her by going? That doesn’t mean it won’t be worthwhile for you. You can support each other.

I breathe.

May I be safe. May I be happy. And then, I can’t help it: May I spend a lot of money to do something I want.

It makes me snort.

“What?” my husband says. “I was almost asleep.”

“How much would you pay to play golf with Rory McIlroy?”

“A lot. But that would never happen. Go to bed.”

Years ago, I was content in a situation in which another friend was not. A mutual friend comforted her with the words: “Don’t worry. Caroline could find the beauty in a rock.” At the time, I took it as a compliment. I do delight in the details! It is my signature! I can be fine anywhere!

But recently, I’d been doubting that part of me. The part that rolls with it and deals with it. What if, for a couple days, I didn’t have to find beauty in the rocks? Or in the difficult child’s socks? What if I could literally be walking in the foothills of the Berkshires, dining with this small, curated constellation of women from various corners of the country, speaking of things that I never speak about at swim team or in carpool?

What if the author and I hit it off? What if she tells me that the invisible thread that connects all of us in this universe is alive and well in my writing, and unlocks some new chapter for me? What if I make a bosom friend?

Or, what if none of that happens?

In a low moment, standing around the kitchen island while they snack, I explain the quandary to my kids: the days away just to frolic and play with words, the expense, the guilt.

“You should go, Mommy,” says my son who is about to turn ten. “Really. If it’s too expensive, I’ll skip one of my golf camps.”

The next day I’m at Publix picking up his birthday cupcakes when my friend calls.

“Of course you must go,” she says.

I round the neon corner of the bakery with the birthday balloons. I’d requested kelly green frosting to look like grass under golf ball toppers, but the decorative golf balls are delayed on Amazon, so I have these hideous green cupcakes for no reason. My son turning ten is a joyous thing, a real miracle. What a handsome, mature and sweet soul he has become in this decade! But there’s a shadow: his birthday also marks the tenth year of me being home at the dishwasher finding beauty in the rocks. In these ten years, who have I become?

If I go to Connecticut, I explain to my friend, with my cell phone pressed against my shoulder while I scan plastic tablecloths in the self-checkout, perhaps I’ll be closer to finding out who I am now. In fact, the contrast of these harsh green Publix cupcakes and the soft green meadows around the old inn in Connecticut is precisely why I need to go. To get out!

“Right?” I ask her, the friend whom I can ask everything.

“Yes.” She agrees in her most commanding tone. “You must.”

Finally!

That’s it! I’m going to freaking Connecticut, to bask in the details! I turn up the music on the radio and the garish cupcakes dance in the passenger seat.

A lot of my friends are Ennegram 2s. The helpers. This means they derive identity and self-worth from helping others. You should see the way these Twos fly around this southern city in their shiny vehicles, doing favors! Volunteering! Pitching in! Doing good! Showing up! It fills their cup to fill cups!

But try as I might, even though my day-to-day consists of helping and supporting others—I can’t get much more feeling out of it than “I did my duty.” It is not my identity. Even though I am safe, healthy, and living with ease, I long for more. I do love helping others! But not on committees or in classrooms or through chicken tetrazzini. I love to help people like this: staring into my freckle-faced child’s eyes and trying to say the most specific, magical, and true thing. I do it by finding the right sentences. I do it with the details. Filling other people’s cups with actual water? It can drain my cup. The retreat seems like a pitcher of something cool and delicious.

“You’re quiet tonight,” my husband says, that night, when the ambivalence grips me in its claws, and the inside of my head is loudest.

“I like being a mom,” I say, but I’m not able to say much more than that. I’m doing the thing where I’m kind of crying in the dark on my side of the bed. I can’t explain how this is related to the retreat. It’s probably PMS.

“Listen,” he says gently in the dark. “My work can be really demanding, and sometimes I have hard days. But this life? My family, and my house, and my few good friends? They’re enough. It’s enough for me. I am happy.”

I can't answer. I want for this to all be enough. It should be enough. I don’t want to feel empty.

He goes on: “If there is something you want, that you don’t have right now? You have to go get it. You have to do that for yourself.”

These are very kind words. I am flooded with love. I tuck them in the top kindness quadrant; they’re nicer even than his other recent mercies: “you can take as long as you like turning left” and “you don’t have to buy your underwear on Amazon.” Why is it sometimes hard to know what you want? To admit it?

The author wants the money via Venmo, and when I wake up, I’m ready to fork it over. But first, I have to do a couple uncomfortable things. I have to ask my mom if she’ll actually babysit. Not hypothetical; for real.

“I’ve got it on my calendar!” she says, and the little hint of excitement in her voice makes me feel weepy with relief. May I live with ease.

“Can I have the Venmo money?” I ask my husband. He sends the actual, not hypothetical money. In the note he puts a pizza emoji. May I be happy.

Then, I tell the kids I’m going to do it. “Oh great,” they say, barely looking up from Bluey, not caring even at all. May I be missed! (Not too much, but just a little?)

The author has supplied the last four digits of her husband’s phone number—but I would recognize the unsmiling filmmaker’s mugshot anywhere. Venmo goes “cha-ching!” and I’m able to laugh about how poor we are now. I text everybody on the committee, updating them on my decision, and receive so very many “party” emojis.

I still don’t know if breaking my own rules and going on this retreat is the “right” thing to do. All I know is that there is something I need that I don’t have right now. My family is telling me to go get it. They’re saying it’s ok to want something. The thread of the universe is gently pulling me, and I’m telling myself to just go.