RETREAT!!!!

My advance check came in last week, and I decided to do something completely spontaneous and whimsical--take myself on a writer's retreat--just me, no responsibilities, no being a mom for a few days, no pressure. And I was thinking about the word "retreat" and the meaning of it resounds with me in the way perfectly encapsulated below:

Yes, the look on the middle dude's face, exactly. That's how I feel. Though it's not exactly running away when really what I'm running is TO something. To me. Back to me, to figuring out what is going on with me lately, to deal with some of these crisis' that have reared up and taken a chomp out of my belly, completely taking me by surprise and hurting like hell. The thing about motherhood is, it's hard when any deep self-reflection is limited to the hours between 1-5, and then you have to be ON again.

So I'm going off for four days to an undisclosed location. I'm going to rediscover the things I love and what brings me bliss, and I'm going to write passionately. I'm going to read things completely unlike what I "ought" to be reading. I'm going to watch movies completely unlike what I usually watch (I'm thinking of finally seeing some of the Bergman films I haven't yet). I'm going to listen to songs without words. I don't know if a four day retreat is all it will take for me to get my shit together, but it's a start.

Here's some simultaneously awful (in that it's tearing like a bowling ball through my stomach) and wonderful advice from Joseph Campbell:

Just think, 'Where do I feel good? What is giving me joy?'