“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
Have you ever gone to a retreat? I bet you have, and maybe itinspired you. My first experience with one happened in High School, and it wasmemorable, but not in a good way. My mother decided I should attend a retreatwith a youth group from our small-town church. I wasn’t in the group, and sinceI hated church, I wanted no part of the deal.
The groupraised money for the retreat by washing cars. I reluctantly helped, even thoughI had no plans to attend the event. But my mom thought otherwise. Then,something tragic and horrible happened. I was a teenager, so everything thatwasn’t wonderful felt tragic and horrible. Every kid from my church opted outof the weekend except for one boy much younger than me. I still had togo—alone. I hitched a ride with some teens from another church located in a bigcity. They intimidated me immediately with cool talk of happenings beyond mypay grade, and they befouled me with their stinky cigarette contraband. Evenso, I would have been happy to bunk with any one of them. But that didn’thappen.
My assignedroom left me utterly alone without the welcome presence of crickets chirping.My room sat mutely inside an expansive dormitory floor with dim hallwaysreminiscent of midnight in a lonely hospital. I had no roommate nor adultsupervision, and no one else checked in to my floor. Yes, you heard mecorrectly. I remained alone on the whole bleeping floorunless you count spiders. It was a nightmare! It was also eerie, as if a zombieapocalypse had scrubbed every living soul from the wing of rooms. At least Ihad privacy in the communal showers.
The first thingI did upon arrival was find the big city girls on another floor that bustledwith laughter and voices. But they spurned me and my lonely predicament. Ireturned to my private wing. Needless to say, I’m only halfheartedly ashamed to say Iditched the scheduled events and spent all my time at a nearby mall. I didn’teven eat at the cafeteria, instead opting for pizza at Rocky Rococos. I'm suremy mother never heard the end of it.
I’m on a writing retreat in Colorado with Ted Talking and award-winning authorJess Lourey! What will happen this time? I’ll keep you posted.
