From The Innkeepers

On Being Fooled

I don’t think it’s an accident that April Fools’ Day takes place two weeks after the Spring Equinox. Spring is the season of nature’s foolery. If your flip-flops are sitting next to your boots right now, you know what I’m talking about. The sandhill cranes arrived here at the Inn promptly on March 1st, only to find that they were a little early to the party when we got four inches of snow two weeks later. Before that snowstorm, we had watched a pair of trumpeter swans return to open water on the lake to claim this year’s territory. A few days later, they were defending a patch of ice against a rival gang of swans. It turns out the birds weren’t the only ones being fooled this past month. I spent a fair amount of time fooling myself too.

In February, I worked up the courage to offer a retreat concept I had thought up out of my own longing. What if I offered our space as an escape for writers? A place to come, write, and be fed, in fellowship with other writers. I wanted people to feel a sense of purpose, but a gentle one. A nudge, not a shove. Instruction-free, critique-free, judgment-free. Thus, the Low-Pressure Writing Retreat was born.

I picked my dates and created a flyer. One of my biggest fears in hosting my own retreat was that only one or two people would sign up. What would I do then? So I built into the flyer the fact that the retreat would be confirmed when we reached a minimum of 6 participants. That gave me an easy exit strategy. I picked a deadline, posted it on Facebook, and hoped for the best. Four people registered in the first two weeks! Then there was a lull. Then the deadline passed. My ego died a thousand deaths.

The morning after the deadline, I agonized over what to do. I could offer to run a scaled back version of the retreat, but if any of those four decided to back out, it could get painfully small. I was within my right to cancel, but I didn’t want to disappoint the people who saw value in the idea of this retreat. They might not register again if I tried again later. And of course the real hesitation with cancelling was the fact that no one likes to eat crow.

Do you know anything about the archetype of The Fool? In literature and mythology the fool is a character who naively pushes forward into the unknown. A friend of mine who does tarot readings shared with me that in a tarot deck The Fool card signifies taking a leap of faith. The Fool is about to embark on a journey without knowing where it will lead. The card itself depicts a solitary figure standing on the edge of a cliff, one foot forward, about to step off.

I decided to run the retreat with four. Four people plus me was enough to offer some fellowship, I reasoned. Four people was a low stakes entry into trying this retreat model. Four people who registered deserved to be given what I promised. So I sent them all an email letting them know we didn’t reach our minimum of six, but I was willing to give it a go if they were. Everyone was still in.

Then one of the participants messaged me to let me know she thought a friend of hers could join. Then another person sent me an email asking if there were any spaces left. Then another. Then another. And then there were eight. Apparently, a deadline passing is a more powerful motivator than a deadline approaching. (One person later needed to cancel, but still, for a shining moment in my imagination, it was a full house.)

I spent the week before the retreat feeling so thankful for these dear people who put their trust in me and obsessing about the experience I wanted them to have. Ryan, Aaron, and I wrote and revised the menu three times. I wrote prompts to offer each morning at brunch. I thought up concepts for “inspiration stations” people could visit in the meeting house. I gathered supplies and assembled a small offering of my appreciation to leave in their rooms. As I prepared, I noticed the same thrill that I feel when my writing or art is unfolding in a way that delights me. I realized that facilitating a retreat is an act of composition with the same creative rewards.

The richer rewards came during the retreat itself. It was the first retreat we had hosted where I was also a participant. Ryan and Aaron took on my dish duties, and I joined the group for meals, shared in conversation, and wrote during writing time (worked on a first draft of this blog entry, in fact). We had a diverse group of writers working on different genres and in different phases, but twice a day we came together to eat, and we were able to ask questions of each other, share resources, and trade book recommendations. One writer shared a powerful poem with the group after dinner on the second night, and my heart just about burst witnessing this act of bravery. The next night, another brave soul shared a short vignette he wrote that day, inspired by a vintage photo he found at one of the stations I created. That inspired three more of us to take the leap, adding a beautiful tribute poem, a hilarious and vulnerable personal essay, and an innkeeper’s blog to the evening’s spontaneous program of readings. There was a palpable sense of support and warmth around the table afterward, not only from appreciation for the great writing we all heard, but also from the shared understanding that reading your own writing out loud to others is one of the scariest things a writer can do.

At our opening night dinner, one writer mentioned he had recently read A Prayer for Owen Meany, which is one of my top five all-time favorite novels. He had learned that John Irving writes the end of his stories before he writes the beginning. Even though I’ve read that book three or four times, and I remembered the opening line almost by heart, I now had to go back and reread the ending and imagine John Irving writing to that destination from his masterful first sentence. I couldn’t imagine having the luxury of knowing how a piece of writing will end before it begins. But then I realized that in my life, I write the ending first all the time by making up a story in my head, and I often paralyze myself out of fear that the tragic ending I wrote will come true.

Creating this writing retreat and offering it to the world was one of the scariest things I have ever done. I felt like I was laying my tender little heart out to the world. I was so tempted to cancel when my conditions were not met, just so I could escape my fears. I had already written several tragic endings in my head: No one will sign up….The four who signed up won’t want to come if it’s going to be that small….The eight who signed up are going to be underwhelmed with the lack of structure….The one who canceled is probably just the first….These people are going to quickly discover that I’m not a real writer. But I didn’t cancel. I decided to step off the cliff, and it turned out to be a most rewarding journey.

By the last day, it was clear to me that none of the tragic endings I had written in my head came true. I couldn’t have been more pleased with how the weekend turned out. None of it would have been possible without Ryan and Aaron, who not only picked up my slack in the kitchen without complaint, but brought their own warmth and humor to the group with every meal.  Watching my brother charm a table full of strangers gave me a whole new appreciation for him. It also turns out that a meal served fresh at our dining table is much more delicious than a warmed up plate of leftovers eaten in our apartment. But our guests were the ones who truly made the weekend magical. Though most arrived not knowing anyone else, they were open and friendly, smart and funny, curious and willing to share about themselves. Through our last breakfast conversation and comments in guest books, everyone expressed that they valued their time here and would come again.

So if you’ve made it to the end of this journey with me, the wisdom I have to offer is this: The next time you find yourself stopped in your tracks by a tragic ending you are writing in your head, remember that it’s likely fiction. Don’t let it scare you from stepping off the cliff. You will never know the real ending unless you’re willing to set out on the journey first. Unless you’re John Irving.