No Map for This
Series: Dispatches from the Unretreat
Let me be honest with you.
This is not a retreat. There are no yoga mats. No silent breakfasts. No one will wake you with bells or offer a circle in which to “process.” There is no lake. There is no goddamn lake.
There is, however, movement. Actual. Emotional. Narrative-adjacent. The kind of movement that takes place when you leave your apartment, or your inbox, or your life, and go somewhere else, and for one golden moment feel something unnameable happen in the space just above your ribs. You know the feeling. You try to write it down. You fail.
This is about that.
Over the next few months, I’ll be traveling — not spiritually (god forbid) but physically — through a series of real and peculiar places: the dust-wrinkled corners of Costa Rica, the catacombs of Paris, the gilded, bat-patrolled libraries of Coimbra, and onward. I’ll send dispatches. Not recommendations. Not itineraries. Dispatches. (There’s a difference.) Each one will offer three things:
A strange or beautiful moment from the city I’m in
A tiny workshop — on craft, creativity, or writing life (terms I distrust but employ for your convenience)
An invitation to play
Because this isn’t a curriculum. It’s a trick. A soft little trick we’re playing on ourselves. “I’m on a retreat,” we say, while seated at a wobbly café table in our usual town, hair unwashed, laptop open, fifteen tabs deep into nothing of importance. And still. Somehow. The words come.
You see, writing needs no permission. But writers? Writers are a neurotic, ritual-prone species. We like the idea of permission. We enjoy the fiction of a frame. Call this your frame. Your bell. Your lake.
Call this your summer of elsewhere.
No deadlines. No critique. No maps. Just a loose companionship and a bit of wind at your back.
If you write nothing — fine. If you write something — even finer.
So. Sharpen your pencils. Or don’t. But stay close. The first stop is a little coastal town in the Pacific Northwest of Costa Rica, where everything tastes of salt, and nothing moves very quickly.
Let’s begin.
Retreat Prep (Packing List, Metaphorical and Otherwise)
You won’t need much. But if you’re the sort who likes to feel prepared:
Bring a notebook that doesn’t intimidate you. The kind you’re willing to ruin.
Pack one sentence you’ve never finished.
A grudge (optional).
A curiosity (not optional).
Something utterly useless but beautiful: a seashell, a line of poetry, the memory of someone who said the right thing once and then disappeared.
Do not pack:
Expectations.
Timelines.
Your inner MFA panel of judges. (Let them stay home. They’ll be fine.)
The first dispatch — from Costa Rica, with its wide skies and unapologetic insects — arrives in two weeks. You’ll want to be somewhere unhurried. Or if not — somewhere with decent shade.
Invitation (Soft, but Sincere)
Write a list titled: What I Thought a Writing Retreat Would Fix.
Make it as short or as long as you like. No one will read it but you.
Then tear it up. Or tuck it under your pillow. Or tape it above your desk and cross off what it does, in fact, fix — despite everything.
About Me
I’m the sort of writer who likes deadlines and resents them. I believe in coffee more than clarity. I’ve written Flash, CNF, short fiction, and longer fiction, taught classes, and led workshops, but I still get nervous about opening a blank page. I think white space is a kind of genius. I think you are not wrong for hesitating.
This summer series is for you — if you write, want to write, or need to be reminded that art can begin in small, defiant scraps. I’ll be writing from the road, from café tables and slow trains and sun-warmed stone steps. You can write from wherever you are.
You’re already here. That’s enough.