Some of you may know, but it has been my intention to take some sort of "retreat" for several years. Since the events that shaped my life between my first year of college and my sophomore year, I have craved silence and solitude. I have wanted to simply get away and pray, to listen away from all the distractions and noise that my daily life fills up with.

Yet for the five years in which I have experienced that longing, each summer I have faced the reality of not being able to fulfill that dream. Perhaps it was good for me to not be able to, because it became imperative that I introduce silence and solitude into my day-to-day life. I created shorter mini-retreats for myself on the weekend, in which I would choose not to socialize. I would choose not to play music or watch television many, many evenings after school, embracing instead that silence which is both frightening and healing. I think I've learned a lot about the discipline of solitude. We don't all get to be monks, and we don't all have the freedom to disappear for a month, but we can make the choices to retreat for minutes or hours at a time (I must admit, this is much easier for me than for my friends who are married and have children).

This summer, however, something beautiful and different has finally happened. I am finally retreating. My heart soars just writing these words, because it has been so good and healthy. It is not complete, because I still see people, but it is what I have longed for. I am at my family's mountain cabin (near where my dad works), and I have my days to myself. In the last two days of solitude, I have hiked along Roan Mountain's balds, strolled along this mountain neighborhood, played my psaltery to the wind, and most importantly spent a lot of time in deep silence--the kind of silence that fills you with love and mercy. It has been too long since I had the space to simply breathe in creation all around me, and I feel myself returning to who I am supposed to be. I feel the weight of having been so tough for so long while teaching drop off, and I remember who God is and the smile that comes from silent communion with God.

Today, after only two days of solitude, I will be returning to High Point to spend time with family (the only time that would work for them) and then once again coming back to the mountains on Saturday. There is something ironic in the broken up way of my retreat. I dream of the monks who disappear for weeks at a time, but that's not the real world for me. Family, friendships, commitments, etc. are, and those too demand their time. As my days in this country come to an end, I would not for any reason neglect those people that I will soon miss very much. So I find myself on the middle road--balancing retreat with relationships... and I appreciate this strange in between. As I retreat, I hope I become a better listener, and I hope I value the people with whom I interact better.