treat and retreat-a day of writing

+ an excerpt

May 31, 2026

Bonjour-Bonjour,

I recently hosted a daylong writing retreat at my home. I call it the Writers’ Day Spa because we wear slippers and soft pants, we eat amazing food, prepared with love and skill by Alison Wonderland Tucker and we write with our feet up! We’re treated to two brief craft talks, one from me, and this time one from Laura Moulton, who is a steady gem!

It’s beautiful to be ensconced with fellow writers writing. (The 13th day of Christmas my true love gave to me… 13 writers writing!) If you are in the Portland (Oregon) area and would like to be on the mailing list for future retreats, let me know.

…

My mother and I moved into a new rental, a shaggy bungalow near the beach. I had my cat, Karma, and for the first time ever, my own room. After school I rode my bike around and around the block, never straying too far from our house. If you’d told me I was lonely, I wouldn’t have agreed. I made a new friend in the old man who lived in the low-slung gray apartment building across the street. In the afternoons, Ed sat on his stoop, his hard belly pressing against his slim legs. He’d scratch his sunburned head and sip from an orange Tupperware tumbler, staring at the beach and the long line of waves crushing the sand. We must have started chatting, that’s the kind of kid I was. Soon enough I was going to Ed’s every day after school. We watched game shows, The Price is Right or Family Feud, he served me a sleeve of Saltine Crackers and off brand 7-up. My mom wasn’t around much that year, studying for her MA in education. Specifically women’s studies, which was something newish in 1973 and a funny subject for her, considering the woman she was. I’d just begun 7^th grade, which meant new school, new teachers, new kids, and needing a uniform for gym class.

Our bungalow had neither washer nor dryer. Once a week, I tied up the laundry in a big sheet, like a stork bundle, balanced it on the frame of my bike and rode up the street to the laundromat, knees akimbo. I separated lights, darks and whites, trying to conceal my mother’s period underwear from Animal, the resident drunk, who snored in a plastic chair and earned a few dollars by sweeping the floor.

With gym class it was necessary to have a uniform and we were supposed to buy deodorant as well. My uncle, who’d stopped by for dinner, admonished me to resist. “What a bunch of communists!” he said, passing a joint to my mother. “They want you to conform! There’s nothing wrong with armpit stink!” But of course I knew there was everything wrong with stink. Armpit. Pot. Cigarettes. All of it.

Ed’s apartment was a tiny box. He’d sit in his chair, me on the couch, we talked in front of Family Feud on the TV. I must have told him I was embarrassed about my PE clothes and that I hated the laundromat because Ed volunteered. On Wednesdays he filled his kitchen sink, a slosh of dish soap and warm water, and I’d plunge in my clothes. He showed me how to roll them in a towel to squeeze out water and then he’d lay them over a chair in the sun until it was time for me to go home.

…

“You spend a lot of time at Ed’s.” My mom peeled the foil off a tv dinner, the steam puffing up into her face. “You want the meatloaf, right?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Do you ever feel uncomfortable over there?”

“What do you mean?” I quit stabbing my peas. Karma wove around my ankles.

“I don’t know. You’re over there alone with him. Do you ever feel… weird?” She also was not eating. She watched me, her cheek muscles flexing, her fingers tapping the tabletop. “You can tell me.”

“He’s my friend.”

“Well, maybe don’t go over there so often.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, Natalie. It, it just doesn’t seem right. He’s a grown man. You’re a girl.”

…

Even with a clean uniform, I disliked PE. I didn’t like sports in general and changing in the locker room made me uncomfortable. I was used to naked women. My mom walked around our house naked all the time, which was why I didn’t invite friends to sleepover. Standing in front of the wall heater in the morning, holding her coffee and a cigarette, she made my friends feel weird. Bodies were fine. It was just that the other bodies in the locker room were closer to women’s bodies. Mine was not.

Holding the thermometer against a hot light bulb to give myself a fever was one of my tricks. I also invented a recipe for fake puke. Mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup and pickle relish mixed with a little water. I’d hold it in my mouth and then rush dramatically to the toilet, hurling it in.

“Here’s the number of the office. Call my school if you feel worse. There’s a can of chicken noodle soup, okay?”

She slung her purse strap over her shoulder and then made me help her find her keys. Though I wasn’t afraid of being home alone during the day, I locked the door behind her. The yellow phone, with its long cord, long enough to talk and traipse from room to room, sat on the coffee table. I had Misty, a book about a horse galloping around on an island. I had Carol King’s Tapestry which I was learning by heart. And I wasn’t even sick.

Through our plate glass window the sky seemed huge. This was the most sky we’d ever had inside a home. More light than ever before and the air so bright and clear, it was as if the day had been wrapped tight in saran wrap. When you lay on the day bed beneath the window sun poured down.

My mother often sunned in our backyard, topless, shiny with baby oil, drinking Tequila and OJ. She didn’t want tan lines, and though she absolutely was enjoying the moment, she was also preening, preparing to look good for a man, for her date. I thought I might get a tan through the window and so, I spread out a towel, took off my pajamas, slathered myself in baby oil and lay in the block of sun in my underwear. I read my book. Carol King sang about winter, spring, summer, or fall. I was alone. Happy. On my back, my knees bent up, I crossed one leg over the other and danced my foot in the air. I had Triscuits and joy and when the album ended I raced to flip it over and start again. I jumped up and down on the bed in front of the window—daring and free. I was fake sick! Mattress sized clouds scudded across the sky. Misty galloped on her island, and I galloped around the living room. Still a girl. Unencumbered. I could pretend to be a horse. Pretend to be confident. I didn’t have to change in the locker room in front of girls with hair and breasts.

Soon enough I would quit galloping—even alone in my living room. Maybe I knew. Maybe this was why I wanted to stay home. Maybe this was the last day.

I was in the kitchen when he knocked. A gray shape at our glass paned front door. I know he saw me see him. I froze and then ran to pull on my pajamas, standing just outside the frame of the door.

“Yes, What?”

“Do you want to buy some underpants?” He knocked hard against the glass. Rattled the doorknob.

I did not answer. At this point, my memory shifts everything. The day becomes dark with rain and wind. The man, grizzled and bearded, wears a hood and I cannot see his eyes. His hand dips again into his pocket and he pulls out ladies’ underpants. I remember thinking, they have no tags. They are used. And, like my mother’s, they were stained. I dropped to the floor, crawling away from the door. I hunched over, knees to my chest, head down, whimpering.

“Go away. Go away.”

The phone was so far. I waited. He rattled the door again. I heard his breath and then heavy footsteps descended. He could have kicked in the door. He could have broken a pane of glass. I waited longer. Just to be sure. I did not call my mother’s school. I didn’t go to Ed’s. This was all my fault because I’d lied. I had put myself in the path of danger when I fake vomited in the toilet. There would be so many more times I blamed myself…wrong place-wrong time, beer in a red solo cup, handed to me by a boy at a keg party, too lonely, too needy, too much me.

I climbed into my bed. With covers over my head, I held onto the plastic horse I’d begged my mother to buy me at a yard sale. A palomino like Misty. Hard and scratched, I thought I could hit someone with it. I used to gallop it over my blankets, but I didn’t then. I just lay there, as if I really was sick.

Thanks for reading. Thank you for being part of our community. I am grateful that you are here.

So is Stanley:

If you missed the last few jewels… no fear! Here are a few everyone seemed to love: a restorative concert. your best future self. when a friend lets you down. grudge: the verb.

Tell your people you love them, and take care of your skin,

merci (do click the link here, it’s a terrific lentil salad),

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?