A week on retreat

On silence, laughter, solitude and togetherness

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Hello,

I spent this week at a writers’ retreat in Erth in Cornwall. Although I occasionally run retreats for other people, it’s not something I get to do personally very often - in fact, I last went on retreat before Bert was born. Today, I wanted to share my diary of the week. 

Monday

I get on the train at 7.39am, knowing I have upset Bert by leaving. It’s hard enough for him to understand when I have to travel for work, but this is for me, and I didn’t want to lie. I’m exhausted after several years of big change and hard work. I need some time to myself. 

My suitcase is enormous, carrying all of this year’s notebooks, five reading books, my laptop, walking boots, swimwear, thick sweaters. I am convinced that everyone else will have packed light, but I am incapable of such a thing. Still, I plan to make some significant progress on my book this week, and I don’t want to be without anything. 

I arrive at Paddington to find everyone else already there. Everyone has packed light. They are looking at the departures board, where our train is marked simply, ‘delayed’; not delayed by an identifiable amount of time, but delayed in general. The lack of specificity raises my stress levels a notch. We ask for information and nobody seems willing to say anything more than ‘keep an eye on the boards’. 

After a while, we all sit down for coffee, and I realise for the first time that I’m gathered with a group of brilliant people, all of us desperate to talk about this weird writing life. The retreat has begun, albeit in unlovely circumstances. Eventually we board a train two hours’ late, with no seats available. It’s a three-hour journey. After spending an hour propped in a corridor, we squat guiltily in some empty seats in First Class. Should the conductor come along, I cannot decide whether I will be belligerent about the poor service, or offer to pay for an upgrade. Given my stress levels today, I suspect it will probably be both. Nobody comes. 

We arrive at Plymouth Station, get in a taxi to the retreat venue, and wind our way through country roads. It is nearly five, and all my plans for the afternoon are gone. Still, it is beautiful here. I’m so grateful to have made it that I hug the owner. Everyone is shown their rooms, and I’m taken around the 11th-century chapel where we’ll gather every morning, with its faded wall paintings still visible. It seems impossible that we get this place all to ourselves. 

We congregate in the living room and chat over tea and brownies. There is so much to say. Someone is already taking a nap, an impressive feat of relaxation so early in the game. It isn’t long before it’s time to head over to dinner in the barn, where a huge, square table is scattered with candles, and each setting is decorated with a frond of fern. There’s a fire burning outside, scenting our meal with woodsmoke. We eat, and gossip, and talk gratefully about the hidden parts of the writing life, the endless uncertainty, the feelings of exposure, the insecurities and slights. It is an enormous relief, a release of pent-up energy. 

I am in bed by 9pm, feeling strange energy bubbling through me. It is a long time before I get to sleep.

Tuesday

We begin the day with a ‘silent sit’ in the chapel - in invitation to gather for an hour with no set practice, just an absence of words. Standing on the chapel steps to greet everyone, I watch a bat circle above my head. It is still dark, but light is paling the edges of the sky. We go in, one by one, and sit or lie on our yoga mats as dawn breaks through the arched windows. The air is full of birdsong, and at one point I’m certain I can hear the clicking of the bats. As the hour winds on, I watch the the sky fill with light through the tall windows. I go to breakfast filled with peace. 

Back at home, I would be in the frantic rush of making breakfast and packing school bags, but here I can just sit down and eat. The conversation is effervescent, and for the first of many times this week, it strikes me how easily we have all slotted together. 

After breakfast, we are taken for a walk around the house. Erth is surrounded on three sides by the River Lynher, and it seems that whatever direction we turn, there is water. We wind our way through this waterland to a little slate beach where we wade in and swim. It is freezing cold, and perfect. We dry off, saying how glad we are to be here. 

Back in my room, I open my laptop, prop myself up in bed and start work on the manuscript for my new book. I’ve just finished a very shoddy draft, and in some benighted corner of my brain I’d assumed that I would turn it into something competent over the course of this week. After an hour’s reading, it is abundantly clear that this is not possible in so short a time. I should have known that already. I eat lunch feeling slightly disappointed with myself, fully intending to return to my work in the afternoon, but there are too many interesting people to hang out with and I end up not doing that. 

Later, we gather together in the living room for afternoon tea and cake, and I hold a workshop on resourcing yourself as a writer and as a community leader. It is so utterly delicious to be immersed in conversation with my peers; I get the chance so rarely. We flow into dinner, and then linger at the table over cups of mint tea. Soon, we’re talking about how exhausted we are, and everyone is once again in their beds by nine. I fall asleep right away…