During my time in retreat, I wrote. A lot. I wrote down my dreams, what I observed in nature and the process of shedding my roles and identity and living in the uncertainty of what was to come. I’ve fondly come to refer to this period as The Holy Middle: the in-between space when one chapter ends and another has yet to begin. A sacred time of waiting. Standing at the door of a new beginning. Unmoving.

Two years in, COVID hit, then cancer, and I wrote about that too. Below are a few pieces from this period. If you’d like to read more about my time in retreat, please check out my new collection, Sheltering in Place: Poems, Dreams and Essays.