On Saturday, August 9, I attended a day-long, silent writing retreat with 15 other writers. It was an extremely hot and humid summer day, spent indoors, except for breaks outdoors in the restored prairie, writing silently inside the meditative environs of the Holy Wisdom Monastery.
On Friday, the day before the retreat, it seemed that my registration from two weeks earlier may not have been confirmed. A work colleague, Becca, shared the writing retreat information with me. When I posted my weekly Facebook TGIF Update, I acknowledged that my original plan to attend the retreat wouldn’t happen. I let it go.
Instead, I decided to work at home in the writing alcove of my hideout, a 645 square foot apartment, where I live alone. Gratefully, later in the day, I learned that there were a couple of cancellations, and the retreat facilitator confirmed my attendance. Grateful. Things change!
Holy Wisdom Monastery
From the Holy Wisdom Monastery website, “People are inspired by their experiences here. They discover a spiritual connection with the land. Whether caring for it as an environmental volunteer, walking the trails or relaxing on a bench and reflecting on the beauty around them, there is something wonderful and amazing about being in a natural environment.”
Some of the writers attended earlier retreats, others like me, were new to the group. I signed up for two more retreats in September and November. As of this writing, I cancelled my reservation for the September retreat.
I share my writing and reflections from August 9 with timestamps, and end with a postscript, including why I cancelled September’s writing retreat, and my intention to relaunch a writing group, LGBTQ+ Narratives. Oh, my, yes again, things change!
Saturday, August 9, 9:25 a.m. How I Got Here
We just finished introductions and shared our intentions for today, what we’re working on, what we hope to accomplish and learn, and lastly, we’re here to enjoy the restored prairie at Holy Wisdom Monastery and the company of writers.
I heard meaningful messages during our introduction and shares before our silent writing, until we reconvene for lunch: The first message, this experience is a silent writing retreat shared with other writers in social solitude, the perfect metaphor for me, an ambivert and person who lives alone, yet needs connections with others, especially in community with creative people.
The second message was about the environment where we convene, and a metaphor for the day, that the Holy Wisdom Monastery is a restored prairie, returning the land to its original natural state, “Healing the land to heal the people.”
Restored prairie and pond
What to write?
I’ve been thinking about my new comedy routine, Funny, Not Funny! I’m planning for my return to the stage. I retired from performing in 2000, after 15 years as a lesbian stand-up comic, a member of an improv performance collective, Acting Out!, and was frequently tapped to produce and emcee LGBTQ+ Post-Pride March entertainment and fundraisers, plus produce and perform in Comedy Jams for our women’s performance space, Apple Island.
The last time I performed live, before I retired, for the exception of a couple open mics, was at the Pink Party on NYE 1999 in Madison, Wisconsin. It was the eve of Y2K and the audience at the Civic Center’s Starlight Lounge couldn’t sit still in their seats, as if they all had ADHD. Everyone was anxious and distracted, wondering, would ATMs stop dispensing money, computer dates advance to the year 2000, and more disturbing, would the world devolve into chaos?
Earlier, I submitted my info to Our Lives magazine for their arts and culture issue announcing my intention to return to the stage, to perform again after a long hiatus from stand-up comedy. Recently, the restored Atwood Music Hall opened. I had dreamed of performing there or at the Bur Oak, yet I don’t feel ready. First, I need to draft my comedy routine, practice, workshop the routine at a smaller venue with hopefully a friendly and forgiving audience, and finally produce the event and return to the stage.
I’m rusty, not ready to be on stage. I need to address my performance anxiety, especially in front of large audiences. I need to pay more attention to somatic breathing, remind myself to breathe through my feet, and practice what I learned in therapy from Karilin.
Saturday, August 9, 9:50 a.m. My ADHD & OCD Writing Style
Some days I’m challenged by ADHD and OCD behaviors. My storytelling-style meanders. Sometimes I lose my place, worse yet, I may lose my audience. Yikes! Returning to the moment, I remind myself, I’m here now at a silent writing retreat, writing in search of a story to tell.
How I got here…
Holy Wisdom Monastery Retreat Center
Arriving at the retreat, I serendipitously encountered my workmate. After the group received an informal tour by the retreat facilitator, my workmate, Becca, asked me what my intention was for the day. This question brought me full circle. I’ll write about the backstory on how I arrived at this moment.
Ten days ago, my therapy relationship with Karilin ended. It may only be a temporary break. She left UW Behavioral Health and landed at Quest Counseling in Madison, Wisconsin. I will resume therapy with Karilin if we can make insurance work.
I mention Karilin and therapy since as I write in this journal before I repurpose it for my blog as a reminiscence of this day, I’m reminded of 40 years ago when I entered outpatient recovery for alcoholism and took this drive on Highway M to the Madison Family Institute (later renamed DePaul), and I drove past Holy Wisdom Monastery and felt a calling.
The muscle memory of writing in this journal reminds me of the recovery journals. I wrote regularly in early recovery. Not daily, yet consistently. Part of the exercise of journaling for me was to journey inward, an exercise of self-examination, and an attempt to get out of my head and into my body, to identify where I was experiencing emotions, and to name the emotion I was having.
What I learned from the habit of journaling is I’d document what was happening in the moment, sometimes identify a problem, or ask a question. I’d return to the journal entry a day or two later, or sometimes a week or more would pass, and I’d begin to receive some clarification or answer to the problem or question I posed. Yes, I was recovering. Instead of simply being a human doing, I became a human being, over time learning to experience and identify an emotion and where in my body I was feeling it.
A Sampling of Journals (not including online journals).
I continued this work with Karilin. I returned to therapy after the death of my father, my last surviving parent. Some of my siblings and I became estranged, as we grieved individually in our own way and took a break from each other to heal from the loss and the conflicts that arose at the end of Dad’s life. Our family home was sold and the estate was distributed. We lost our childhood home where we all grew up, celebrated holidays, birthdays, and life’s benchmarks, where we returned as adults and the next generation joined us.
My sister, Kelly, had a life-threatening accidental fall a few months later following our father’s death. The fall caused a traumatic brain injury. She began months of recovery, OT and PT, after an extended stay in the ICU. Her husband, Bill, became her caregiver. The irony, both Kelly and Bill had spent over a decade caring for our parents and Bill’s parents.
Other siblings moved. My brother Rick and his wife, Nancy, sold their Colorado home to return to Wisconsin to be closer to their children and grandbabies. Sister, Tami and husband Ron, sold their Madison home where they lived many years in a neighborhood where I resided as a young married woman and where our family visited from our hometown Racine, Wisconsin for getaways and vacations, including UW Badger Football weekends.
Meanwhile, I explored options for my future, where to live for the last chapter of my life. For awhile, I considered a tiny home or ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) with my sister Tami and Ron. After they found their lake cottage an hour outside of Madison, I realized I wanted to remain in Madison, my chosen home. Their lot, though zoned for an ADU, was close quarters.
Tiny Home Design
Next, a cohousing opportunity opened-up on a large underdeveloped tract of land on the eastside of Madison, Voit Farm. This was not my first collaboration living in community. Years earlier, I was on the board of Union Corners Cohousing, which later became Linden Cohousing. In the end, I couldn’t afford to live there, to purchase a condo. I also made the difficult decision to not continue exploring the new cohousing collab for Voit Farm, Eco-Village.
Again, it was not an option for me, a combination of timing, affordability, and what is sometimes a challenge for me, consensus decision-making. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more impatient with process. I’m more entrepreneurial and independent at heart.
In addition to our family being temporarily estranged and displaced from our home base, I wanted to redefine my family role as the eldest child, the responsible one, caretaker of my siblings when they were young, and often codependent. I wanted to finally address the trauma of my youth, the attachment issues of growing up in a family with young parents and generational dysfunction and alcohol dependency.
For me, I was confronting how I used food to cope as a child with the stress and chaos that sometimes characterized my early life, including childhood molestation and body dysphoria, born intersex in the 1950s, oh my!
As a person of a certain age (my favorite current euphemism), at age 75, I was approaching the final chapter of my life including retirement. I continue to work half-time as an AODA Advocate for the OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center. In addition to my health, housing, relationships with bio and chosen family, and friends, I was ready to explore partnership again, find ‘my person,’ a companion.
Gratefully, my family reunited on the 4th of July at our brother Rick and wife Nancy’s home. We reconvened in their new condo with their son and daughter, grandbabies, and all the siblings and spouses. We had a meal featuring childhood comfort foods, and conversations occurred simultaneously in small groups throughout the house. Our family is known for our smiles and loud voices. We grew up in a small Cape Cod home and when we gathered, we earned the nickname, The Loud Family!
Sisters Tami (left), Kelly (right), brother Rick behind Tami.
This leads me back to today, this moment. I’m on a journey.
Saturday, August 9, 10:45 a.m. Things Change
This morning before arriving at Holy Wisdom, I abandoned the idea of writing comedy here at the retreat, which I thought was a better exercise at home. Instead, I mused about the act of retreating and how meditation is often an integral part of the experience. I decided to bring a journal to write in today rather than my laptop, which when I began writing, I was reminded of my practice keeping recovery journals and my 17-years of journaling since the end of my long-term partnership.
It also reminded me of one of my tools in recovery, walking mediations in the South Arboretum when I lived on Seminole Highway. Early in my recovery, when I lived alone for a couple of years, I’d enter the Arboretum with a question or problem, frame it, then let it go. I’d walk, be present in in the moment, pay attention to my senses in response to the environment, the sounds I heard, the birdsongs, feel the breeze on my skin, the heat of the sun, or the dew of the morning, smell the fragrances of the pine woods and prairie, and feel the earth beneath my feet as I walked paths of gravel, grass, or mud. I’d often leave the Arboretum with an answer to my question or solution to my problem
This was my answer for my writing intention today, to meditate and let my imagination, memories, and musings wander. A title emerges, Holy Wisdom Monastery Writing Retreat: Meditations & Musings.
Saturday, August 9, 11:00 a.m. Explore the Retreat Center
Prior to joining others for lunch, I took break from writing and took a self-guided tour inside the retreat center. I found a chair and a window that looked out at the restored prairie. I reminisced about retreats from my past, training weekends for Feminist Consciousness-Raising facilitators in the late 1970s, retreats with recovery friends at Durwood’s Glen in Baraboo, a past recovery retreat here at Holy Wisdom, and my peer support group who would retreat up north in Eagle River at friend and mentor, Elthea’s cottage on Perch Lake twice a year. Annual camping retreat at Peninsula State Park in Fish Creek, Door County with The Orphans, and most recently with friends on Long Lake in Minnesota. Grateful.
Full disclosure: I admit, I also wanted to check my phone and honestly, seek time alone. I’ve lived alone for over 17 years now and realize that my home is my refuge and my retreat. During the pandemic I drafted a series of journal entries, Dispatches from the Hideout, some of which became a part of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s COVID-19 Journal Project. It was an extended period alone. There was a time I never believed I could thrive living alone, and now I protect my solitary time. I’m a social being and during my three-day weekends I schedule coffee and brunch dates, text or phone calls with friends and family, movie dates, and more. I still reserve time for myself for mediation, journaling, and to enjoy my own company.
I wandered the center, grabbed brochures, maps of hiking trails, and information about retreats and events. I was ready to rejoin the group over a potluck lunch and check-ins on our writing progress.
Saturday, August 9, 12:00 p.m. Lunch & Social Time
Since I was new to the writers’ group, I initiated conversations. I was curious. My extrovert self was on stage as I shared generously about my writing process, my blog, and upcoming comedy performance. I asked questions of my colleagues about their projects and their writing experiences today.
Some were published poets and writers; one member talked about their new poetry book published by University of Wisconsin Press, we discussed Substack and other writing platforms, and where we submitted content for consideration. We shared some of the subjects we wrote about and the challenges we sometimes faced. It was a potluck of writers and their stories of the practice of writing.
Most of the writers decided to take a hike and tour of the restored prairie before returning to silent writing. I walked out the door with them, the last member of the queue and the heat and humidity overcame me. I also felt unstable on my feet. I don’t manage heat and humidity well, and after my hip-replacement surgery, I’m a little unstable on uneven surfaces. I mentioned to my workmate that I was returning inside to the air conditioning.
Holy Wisdom Walking Paths
Saturday, August 9, 12:45 p.m. Irish Goodbye
I retuned inside and immediately felt the urge to leave and return home to my writing alcove and my window on the world, where I’m most practiced at writing. Desk, chair, laptop, bank of three windows looking out at the greenspace between my apartment and the railroad tracks, the dead tree where the murder of crow’s roost, the backyard sentries.
View from my writing alcove
I decided an Irish Goodbye was bad manners. “An Irish goodbye is the act of leaving a social gathering, such as a party, without telling anyone you’re leaving. It’s also known as an ‘Irish exit’ or ‘French leave’. The practice is sometimes associated with being too intoxicated to say goodbye or with avoiding lengthy farewells that might lead to being convinced to stay longer.”
Instead, since I’m a writer, I penned a goodbye letter and a thank you. I left business cards with my contact info and link to my blog. I was grateful for the day and the shared experience. I planned on returning, again.
Saturday, September 28, 2025, 10:15 a.m. Postscript
My intention, when I left the writing retreat was to draft a story about my experience that day. I didn’t. I worked on it in fits and starts for almost two months. I couldn’t find the flow. When I’d examine what was feeling like writer’s constipation, I soon discovered two things, first, that my writing habit (style, process, etc.) interfered with writing in community with others. I was self-conscious and overthought what I was writing. My critical voice was louder than my creative one.
Next, life happened. The themes I’ve been writing about for the past 18 months have been things change, and self-care during times of uncertainty. I’ve been chronicling the current state of our country and threat to our democracy and free speech, attacks on marginalized and vulnerable communities including immigrants, children, women, and LGBTQ+; the destruction of our planet, and autocrats seizing power and starting wars. I’ve been writing daily, posting on social media, and seeking clarity in my journal-keeping. I’ve stayed in touch with my bio and chosen family, friends, and cohorts, plus my LGBTQ+ community.
Frank & Linda, 1973
For the past month, I’ve also supported my former husband under the care of hospice, as I sat at his bedside, reminisced with him, and listened to his rants. To quote Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gently into the night.” We were divorced 45 years ago, a lifetime it seems, yet we’ve remained in each other’s lives as chosen family. I’m grateful. It’s a gift I have this time with him. Grief has been front and center in my life, and I’m committed to being present in the moment and a witness to death and the cycle of life.
A gift from this experience is that I’ve been reminded how vital and healing storytelling and writing is in our lives for connecting with each other by sharing our lived experiences. Later this year, with colleagues at work, I hope to relaunch a queer writing group at the OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center. For a number of years, I was a founding member and facilitator of the LGBTQ+ Narratives Writers Group. Along with reminiscence writing classes, I began writing a memoir, Perfectly Flawed, created this blog over ten years ago, self-published poetry, spoken word monologues, and more.
I’m reminded why I write. From the film The Wife, the protagonist as a young woman states, “…a writer has to write.” Lastly, a thank you to the generosity and serenity of the Holy Wisdom Monastery for providing a retreat space for “social solitude” and “Healing the land to heal the people.” Holy Wisdom Monastery was recently recognized in a NYT article, They’re Small But, They’re Mighty.
Photo Credits: All photos of the Holy Wisdom Monastery are from their website.
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Celebrating 10 Years of Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Mining for Rubies: 40 Years of Recovery
Self-Care During Times of Uncertainty
Dispatch from the Hideout: It’s Not Over Till It’s Over!
Additional Reading on the Topic