Stepping out: Musings on the Meaning of Retreat

April 10, 2025

by Dianne Aprile, creative nonfiction faculty

On a sunny day last month, I filled the tank of my dusty Subaru and hit the road from Louisville to Monterey, Kentucky for a visit with Gray Zeitz. A legendary letterpress printer and publisher of fine-art books, Gray lives and works on land bordered by Owen County’s Sawdridge Creek. Visitors enter his property by crossing a flat, low-slung, single-lane span that passes over the swirling waters of the creek. Gray warned me to check the forecast before coming. Heavy rains are known to rise over the bridge and cut off access.

But skies were clear when I took off on I-71. I felt excited about spending time with my old friend, though I was also not looking forward to the balky highway traffic between here and there.

Of course, the first leg of my hour-plus drive to Monterey was just that: snarls of slow-moving trucks and speeding hot-shots, weaving in and out, slipping from lane to lane. It didn’t take long for me to exit that highway with a sigh and head instead to a pastoral, curving, two-lane roadway that hugged the shores of creeks and small rivers for miles and miles. Not another vehicle of any kind shared my lane, and very few passed me going in the other direction.

How lucky am I, I thought to myself as I drove. This route spoke a quieter language. The road hummed rather than growled, as if someone had declared a ceasefire. I was a solitary soul among the green grass, the distant forests, and the nearby rushing waters. I felt at peace, forgetting anything and everything but the scenery surrounding me. At some point, I began to muse on my drive’s purpose—to talk to Gray about his planned publication of a collection of my poems. My uptight shoulders relaxed. My thoughts turned as clear as the blue sky above me.

My retreat from the hurry-scurry of the highway gave way to a subtle retreat from the rush and shuffle of everyday life.

By the time I arrived at Gray’s, my mind had changed gears. I took note of this switch to a sense of wonder and peace. I felt relaxed. Refreshed. Revived. I was grateful for the country road that not only brought me to Gray’s print shop but put me in the right frame of mind for digging into such a project. We talked shop for an hour or so, and then I left for home. Without internet to support my GPS, my ever-faulty sense of direction dumped me back on I-71, bypassing the sweet comfort of that winding country road. I arrived home, once again nerve-wracked from maneuvering the highway traffic, my sense of excitement temporarily swept away, replaced with exhaustion.

It was the next day before I realized what I had experienced on that drive to Monterey. It was all a metaphor. One retreat standing in for another. Crossing the bridge to Gray’s place. Taking myself out of the daily fray. Going it alone—if only for that hour’s drive north of home.

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And that was when I began thinking of all the splendid writing retreats I’ve taken. Solitary overnights, weekends, sometimes even weeks and weeks on end. Those retreats too were in the service of writing, resting with the work, learning where I have to go, to paraphrase Roethke. I recalled the highlights of so many stays—in a hermitage in Nelson County, isolated cottages by the sea on San Juan and Whidbey Islands in Washington, convent rooms, monastery rooms, rented rooms. And the cherished day-only, me-only getaways spent creating, revising, lost in the act of putting words on paper and screens.

Thinking of all that visceral recharging and rewriting, I decided to use this gifted space to encourage you, dear readers, to find yourself a retreat home where you can revive yourself and your art. All it takes to design such a retreat is a bit of sleuthing or a question put out to friends online. I will leave that to you.

But what I will do for you is offer some tips gleaned over decades of making use of such havens and hideaways to re-juice my spirit, to move forward, creating.

A writing retreat metaphorically is all about moving forward toward a goal by withdrawing from the tumult of the everyday. Taking a byway rather than a highway stands for the way we open the door to creativity. And productivity.

Retreats do not have to be as high-end as a room at one of the prestigious, competitive spots touted in the back of lit mags, nor as out-of-the-way as an oceanside suite in Maui. To finish off the metaphor, they can be as simple as a tranquil drive on a country lane. It’s the aloneness and the desire to move forward, exploring your own imagination, that makes it a retreat.

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So how to plan?

Choose a change of physical space. Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island, for example, puts you in the heart of nature—woods and sea a few steps away. But simple is good, too—whatever it takes to remove the usual distractions.

Make a food plan. Sounds trivial, but knowing beforehand where and how you will take your meals translates to more time spent writing.

Create structure (but not too much of it). Make a daily plan. Block out periods of working on your project but include walks, yoga, naps, meditation or other mind-body activities. Stick to the plan but don’t let it get in the way of spontaneity. A schedule will be your weapon against procrastination.

Be flexible. The internet and lit mags like Poets & Writers are good search sources. But if you can’t afford or don’t qualify for certain retreat spots, look locally. I’ve had some of my best experiences within 200 miles of home. If time and/or money is short in your busy life, reserve a room in your public library. It’s quiet there!

Try a digital withdrawal. Turn off notifications. Shutter the outside world if possible. Tell only those who need to know where you are.

Bring comfort items if you’re going to be on retreat for more than a night or two. A favorite pillow. A special photograph. A yoga mat. Fresh flowers.

Remember: those down-time walks are when ideas jell.

Pick a project to focus on (revising a manuscript, starting a new work) but allow inspiration in other directions if it comes knocking at your door.

Don’t weigh yourself down by over-packing. It’s just you and your work. You don’t really need much else.

Take stock. Notice your habits on retreat. Keep a daily journal of your getaway.

Finally, if you don’t have a specific project, a retreat is a perfect time to explore. Write with abandon, investigate some of the ideas you’ve put aside for ripening. But just keep writing.

And on your way home, however you travel, think of ways to hold onto the things you’ve learned about yourself and your process.

A journalist for 30 years, Dianne Aprile has taught creative nonfiction at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing since its inception in 2001. Her most recently published essay (in Still: The Journal) is nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize.