Open season

On finding community out of the comfort zone

Photo courtesy of one of my fellow Write Doe Bayers/new friends.

There’s a moment I notice every year with the same potency. It’s a moment I live for, one that gives me life time after time. It’s that magical moment when the spring sun shines after months of cold, gray rain. It always catches me off guard, as if I suspected I might never see it again, as if it doesn’t happen year after year. Like a flower, I find myself leaning into it, turning my face to it, soaking up its rays.

I had a similar moment a couple weekends ago while on Orcas Island for Write Doe Bay, a writing retreat held at the beautiful Doe Bay Resort. It was a stunning location, the perfect place for the change of pace I was craving. As a freelancer, I have the freedom of a flexible schedule, which is everything I’ve ever wanted but also means my days look different from those of other people in my life. I sometimes don’t know what to do with all the time I have and then I feel guilty for not doing “enough” with it. I kick myself for not being productive “enough,” for not being creative “enough,” which of course only makes me feel worse and less likely to be productive or creative at all. I end up spending a lot of the time at home stuck in a state of analysis paralysis, unsure of what to do or where to go. It starts to feel like the days of the pandemic, where each one bleeds into the others, creating one big, monotonous blob.

As you can imagine, not going out and doing things lends itself very well to creativity. And by very well, I mean not at all. There’s a reason why Julia Cameron suggests a weekly Artist’s Date in The Artist’s Way, the creative book so many swear by. Because I stay within the same four walls day in and day out, I’m not exposing myself to much that might inspire me. And although there’s beauty in the everyday, in the mundane, there’s also something to be said for switching things up. This is ultimately what led me to wanting to go on a retreat. (Well, that and my friend and fellow Substack writer,

Morganne Hatfield

, who went on an amazing retreat a couple summers ago. Since hearing her talk about it, I’ve been eager to do the same.) I liked the idea of a writing-focused retreat, hoping it would bring me together with other writers and reinvigorate my writing. I did what any retreat researcher would do and took to Google, which brought me to several different retreats, all of which conflicted with other events on my calendar. Eventually, however, I found Write Doe Bay.

Initially, I waffled, unsure if I should take the time and spend the money, but after talking to the founder on the phone, I was convinced. I regurgitated all the information she told me to my husband and he laughed.

“Well, you have to go,” he said.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“It’s basically just a list of all your favorite things.”

He was right. The retreat involved:

Beautiful scenery.

Writing workshops.

Delicious food.

Morning pilates.

Sound bath.

Dance party.

Yep, just add dogs and that’s basically everything I love.

I signed up and tried to keep my anxiety at bay. Although I was excited to do something new and get out of my comfort zone, I was nervous for the same reasons. I was also nervous about the logistics of it, namely getting to the island and staying in a cabin without a bathroom (I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the most outdoorsy person). I leaned heavily on my friend who has been to the island before to help me figure out the ferry system (thank you, Dannielle 🙏) and got everything prepared as best I could before I went.

But things like this aren’t things you can really prepare for. They’re things you just have to do and experience. Though I was fighting some significant anxiety, I set the intention to stay open. I tried to remember this intention every time the uncertainty or discomfort threatened to close me off – and there were more than a few instances where this could have been the case.

For example, when I checked in and realized I was not only on my period as of that very second, but my cabin was further away from the bathroom than anticipated. It was the same moment when, after pulling all my items up the hill to said cabin in a wagon they kept spilling out of, I also realized neither my key nor my cell service worked, and had to make my way back down to my car to get to the main office to ask for help. It took almost all of the time I had hoped I would have to collect myself before the retreat started that afternoon and left me feeling scattered and sweaty, and honestly, alone. But as soon as I was in the retreat house with a fresh bowl of homemade Thai soup, I remembered my intention. So I struck up a conversation with someone who, it turned out, lives in my hometown, which was the first of several moments of kismet that weekend.

I see now how these moments of kismet are clear examples of the benefit and joy that can come from being open. It can be harder to recognize when you’re in it. Openness can be scary. In many ways, it can be a gamble. It could be kismet, or it could be embarrassing/isolating/any other terrifying adjective. It requires vulnerability, which is why it can be so hard to do, why so many people actively avoid it.

Ultimately, being open led me to what I really needed: being around other open people. For three full days, I listened to talented, seasoned writers and artists talk about their creative processes. I listened to my fellow attendees share their beautiful writing, from their responses to five-minute writing prompts, to the beginnings of their novels. I talked with people who were similar to me, people who were different from me, and people I must have known in a past life. Not once was I or someone else asked “what we do” in terms of our jobs. Instead, we got right to the heart of it. We talked about our work – our writing. We shared our stories – our souls. We listened and laughed and occasionally we cried, and all of it was welcome. I (nervously) read an essay aloud – one about the isolation I felt growing up and feel still – that caused several people to approach me afterward and tell me how they went through something similar and felt the same way I did.

At the end of the weekend, we went around the room and shared our takeaways from the experience. When it was my turn, I mentioned how the last few years have felt like the winter of my life. How I’ve felt I’ve lost my spark, not just as writer, but as a human. How I’ve always been the most sensitive person I know, and how that hasn’t always felt like a good thing. How it seems like few people around me can or are willing to go deep, and how empty that makes me feel. But here, on this magical island with all of these incredible people, my cup is full and I’ve found the sun. Despite my initial anxiety, I quickly warmed up, leaned into the light of this community, and found the energy – the life force – I’ve been missing.

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Author’s Note: I’m back home now, already missing my new friends and actively resisting falling back into the monotony of “real life.” This post barely scratches the surface of all the things I learned, noticed, and appreciated, but it’s a decent initial snapshot of the beauty I found. To add a little more color, here are some literal snapshots. For the record, it was sunny almost the whole time, but I somehow managed to only take the most photos on the last (overcast) day. 😅