A few days after the inauguration, I found myself with an unscheduled Saturday to myself. Feeling battered and exhausted from the chaos of the previous five days and dreading the uncertainty of the days to come, I decided to use the day as my own mini-retreat.
I didn’t even skim the headlines for the day. I curled up in front of the fire, napping, reading poetry and an Ann Cleeves/Vera Stanhope mystery. I ate Progresso loaded baked potato soup and crusty supermarket sourdough for lunch. At intervals I stared into space. I cried a little about the state of the world. I read and napped some more.
And at the end of the day, I felt a little better, a little more able to face the world again.
The day sparked me to think about the word retreat. The English word comes from a French word that had similar definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says that one definition of retreat is a withdrawal into seclusion, quiet, or privacy. We hear about spiritual retreats and writing retreats, both designed to provide quiet time for reflection and focus.
In military parlance, a retreat is a withdrawal from the battlefield. It’s not the same as surrender which is giving up the fight and admitting defeat. Military retreat is a strategic move that allows an army time to recover and regroup in order to fight another day.
The OED says that retreat can also be a physical space: a refuge which provides shelter or security.
At first, on that January Saturday, I felt guilty about stepping away from the very real crisis facing our nation and the suffering that it is going to generate for many people. It felt selfish to curl up with my poetry and my mystery novel when it felt like the world was on fire.
A couple of days later, I was listening to Terry Gross interview writer Pico Iyer on the “Fresh Air” podcast, and the topic of retreat came up again. For over thirty years, Iyer has been spending several weeks a year retreating into solitude at a Catholic monastery in California. Gross said (I’m paraphrasing here) that some people might say that retreat is a selfish action that is available only to a privileged few. Iyer responded that retreats can make a person less selfish. “For me, that’s the whole point of going on retreat. . . . Solitude is a gateway to compassion. . . . ”[1] I think he meant that retreating from the world created a kind of mental space where he could really see and understand what others might be experiencing.
As I’ve thought about it over the past several weeks, I’ve come to think that we need to spend more time in retreat as we face these difficult times. We need to withdraw in order to recover and regroup so that we can join the battle another day. As the philosopher poet David Whyte put it, “withdrawal can be the very best way of stepping forward. . . an art form underestimated in this time of constant action and engagement.” He adds, “We withdraw, not to disappear but to find another ground from which to see; a solid ground from which to step, and from which to speak again in . . . a clear, rested, embodied voice.”[2]
I’m going to try to remember how much better I felt after my mini-retreat and give myself permission to take the time and space to regroup more often. How about you? Do you need a retreat?
[1] Pico Iyer interview with Terry Gross, “Fresh Air,” podcast aired January 15, 2025,https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/1224776147/pico-iyer-aflame
[2] David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, (Langley, Washington: Many Rivers Books, 2014), p. 265, 267.
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