Writing Retreat
finding rest in a landscape built on survival
Last month I went to Ariel Gore’s writing camp in Joshua Tree, California. It was the third year I’ve gone—and this year it arrived just in the nick of time.
Lately it feels like there’s so much to fight against, stand up to, and speak out for that getting out of bed requires armor. When I told people I was going on a retreat, in my mind the word sounded like the cry of neighborhood kids running out of water balloons while rival kids from another street advanced with super soakers and laundry baskets full of water bombs. Retreat!
But the desert gave me what retreats are supposed to give—space. Rest. Time to think and make things. The kind of quiet that restores something in me so I can return to the battles that matter: for my family, the world, and myself.
As I hiked the Lost Horse Mine Trail, I kept wondering about how much we’re meant to endure.
You can read about it in my dispatch from Joshua Tree:
https://readingandtraveling.net/lost-horse-mine-trail/
