We know how hard it can be to go someplace new by yourself.
It’s one thing to book a retreat from home, when you’re looking at the projects you want to make, thinking about a few days away, and imagining how nice it would be to have someone else cook your meals for a change. It’s another thing entirely to pull into a place you’ve never been, knowing you’re about to walk through the door and meet a whole group of people you don’t know.
People come alone to Big Raven Farm often.
Sometimes a friend couldn’t make the dates work. Sometimes nobody they know is interested in the same kind of retreat. And sometimes they simply decided this was something they wanted to do, even if it meant doing it on their own.
Whatever the reason, I imagine there have been more than a few people who have pulled into our driveway, turned off the car, looked toward the Farm and thought, Okay. Now I actually have to go in.
And I understand that.
Walking into a new place by yourself takes a little courage, especially when you know you’ll be spending the next few days with people you’ve never met.
The good news is that the part you were worried about usually doesn’t last very long.
The First Few Minutes
When you come through the door, nobody expects you to immediately know where to go or who to talk to. You’re arriving somewhere you’ve probably never been before, carrying your bags and trying to figure out where everything is.
We’ll show you around. You’ll find out where you’re sleeping and where to put your things. Other people will be arriving too, doing exactly the same thing. There are bags coming through the door, trips back out to cars for things that were forgotten, introductions happening here and there, and Auggie may wander through to see what’s going on.
Somewhere in the middle of all that ordinary stuff, it starts feeling a little less strange.
Then we get to dinner.
There’s Something About Sitting Around a Table
Meals are a big part of retreats at Big Raven Farm, and I think they’re also one of the reasons people start feeling comfortable with each other so quickly.
We sit down and eat together. Darin cooks, people start asking about what he made, and the conversation gets going without anybody having to force it.
It might begin with food or where everyone came from, but it rarely stays there. Before long we’re talking about kids, trips, jobs, husbands, dogs, hobbies, houses, things people are excited about and things they’re completely tired of dealing with. Sometimes the whole table is part of one conversation. Other times there are three conversations happening at once.
Nobody has to be particularly good at meeting new people. You don’t need a collection of clever stories or an outgoing personality. You can sit down, eat dinner, listen for a while if that’s what feels comfortable, and eventually find yourself joining in.
By the time dinner is over, the room doesn’t feel quite so full of strangers anymore.
By Morning, You’re Already Settling In
Morning at the Farm has its own rhythm.
People wander in looking for coffee. Some are ready to talk immediately. Others need a little more time before they become fully functioning humans.
Eventually everyone starts working on whatever brought them here.
One of the nice things about making something together is that you never have to work very hard to find something to talk about. You have a reason to be sitting beside someone you didn’t know yesterday, and pretty soon you’re asking what color she used, she’s asking how you got something to work, and both of you are trying to figure out where the scissors went.
Then comes the question I hear pretty regularly at creative retreats:
“Is mine supposed to look like this?”
Probably.
And if not, we’ll figure it out.
There’s something very easy about getting to know someone while both of you are concentrating on something else. You don’t have to sit across from each other and manufacture conversation. You can talk for twenty minutes, go quiet for half an hour while you work, and start talking again when something comes up.
It’s easy. It doesn’t have to be forced.
You Don’t Have to Be Social All Weekend
This part matters, especially if the thought of spending several days with people you don’t know sounds like a lot.
You don’t have to be “on” all weekend.
There are plenty of opportunities to be with people, but there’s also room to wander off. Take your coffee outside. Walk the trail. Read for a while. Sit somewhere quiet. Go to bed before everyone else if you’re tired.
Nobody is keeping score.
I wrote about some of this in “Why Women Need Retreats,” because I think one of the things women are often missing isn’t simply time away. It’s time when they aren’t responsible for making sure everyone else is okay.
That applies here too.
You don’t have to keep a conversation going or entertain anyone. You don’t need to make sure your friend is having fun because, in this case, you didn’t bring one.
There’s actually something pretty nice about that.
By Saturday, Things Look Different
This is the part that’s difficult to explain when someone emails me before a retreat worried that she’ll be the only person who doesn’t know anyone.
By Saturday, it’s hard to tell who arrived together.
People have moved around. A pair of friends who drove here together may be working at opposite ends of the room. The woman who arrived alone might be drinking coffee with someone she met the night before. A conversation that started over breakfast can still be going two hours later while both people work on completely different projects.
There’s usually a mix of laughter, people helping each other, projects being held up for everyone to see, and periods when the room gets surprisingly quiet because everybody is concentrating.
Nobody is thinking about who walked through the door alone.
You’re just part of the weekend now.
Creativity Makes Meeting People Easier
Trying something new has a funny way of putting everyone on pretty equal footing.
Even someone who has been making art for years can sit down in front of a new project and have absolutely no idea what she’s doing. At a Pick Your Project retreat, one person may be working on something she has done before while the woman beside her is trying an entirely new technique.
People ask questions. They borrow things. They offer suggestions. They admire what somebody else is making and then immediately complain about the part of their own project they can’t get right.
You start learning little things about each other without realizing it.
By then, you’re no longer “the person who came alone.” You’re the person making the really cool thing at the end of the table. Or the one who brought the good snacks. Or the one who figured out that tricky part and is now showing everyone else.
That’s usually how it goes.
Coming Alone Has Its Advantages
There’s another side to coming to a retreat by yourself that people don’t always think about until they’re here.
You don’t have to coordinate with anybody.
If you want to do one project and spend hours on it, you can. If you want to try three completely different things, do that. You don’t need to check whether your friend wants to go outside, stay inside, take a break, keep working, go to bed, or sit up talking.
You can make the weekend yours.
For women who spend a lot of their everyday lives taking other people into consideration, that can feel surprisingly strange at first.
We’re used to thinking about what everyone else wants. What should we have for dinner? What time do we need to leave? Does this work for everybody? Is everyone having a good time?
Then you come here by yourself and suddenly there isn’t anyone else to consult.
What do you want to do?
You might not get asked that often enough.
And Then Sunday Comes
Sunday always seems to arrive too quickly.
Projects are being finished. Bags start appearing near the door again. Everyone is figuring out how they accumulated twice as much stuff as they arrived with.
There are phone numbers being exchanged and hugs at the door. People are talking about another retreat they want to try and figuring out how they’re going to fit everything they made into their cars.
And that person who sat in the driveway for an extra minute because she didn’t know anybody?
She walks out knowing people.
I don’t want to turn that into a promise that everyone who comes to Big Raven Farm will leave with a new lifelong best friend. That would be silly, and it isn’t really the point.
The point is that you don’t have to bring someone with you in order to belong here.
You can arrive alone, have conversations with people you never would have met otherwise, spend some time by yourself when you want it, make things, eat really good food, laugh more than you expected to, and have a weekend that was entirely your own.
Don’t Wait for Someone Else to Be Ready
If you’ve been looking at a Big Raven Farm retreat and thinking, I would love to do that, but I don’t have anyone to go with me, I’d like you to try something.
Take the second half of the sentence off.
I would love to do that.
That’s a perfectly good reason to come.
Finding a friend who has the same interests, the same available weekend, the same budget, and the same desire to go can be harder than it sounds. If you wait until all of those things line up, you may be waiting a long time.
You don’t have to.
EXPLORE UPCOMING BIG RAVEN FARM RETREATS!
Book the retreat you want to attend. Pack your bag. Make the drive.
And if you sit in the driveway for an extra minute when you get here, that’s okay too.
Come inside when you’re ready.
We’ll have a place for you at the table.