Disclaimer: With regard to other women on retreat, personal descriptions and other details have been changed.

It does seem to be traditional in the state of Texas and other Midwestern places for some women, in the spring and summer, to go on retreat as a group, and relax, eat with abandon, and do spiritual exercises. I feel it is a sign of my assimilation into the local culture that after four years of living in the region I also was invited on an annual woman’s retreat by a friend, and we have gone together to lakeside state park lodges each of the last three springs, to share, sing songs, meditate, and take walks by the side of the water.

I always claim, and never more vehemently than this weekend, that there is no way I have time to do this. Somehow I always find the time, move things back and around in my schedule, put a few clothes in an over night bag and set off with my friend for the hinterland.

As I do leave town for the weekend, I am always unwilling, grousing, thinking that I don’t know if I will ever do this again. I go anyway, because I am convinced, from empirical observations of myself, that it is beneficial. Getting away from it all is never possible, as a wife and mother, unless you start by excluding all the men and all the minors, because they are, quite simply, the Source of All Deeply Felt Commitments.

The fact that we women will spend the weekend talking about our relationships with men and children, as well as parents, and trying to get a better perspective on them, is irrelevant. Women’s retreats are, categorically, about being with women. And retreat may not be a bad word to use to describe our withdrawal from the center of family life. There seems to be, from some mystic psychic center of the world, some argument for the benefit of getting together, just us girls, to share our perspectives, our joys, or sorrows, and even sometimes our secrets.