At a Writing Retreat

By Chad Fisher

 I sit in darkness as the flames of a bonfire cast light and then shadow on the faces around it. I’m encouraged to see only the basic features of those faces, because I figure it means the others can’t see the emotions marching across my face. I’m more nervous than I’ve been in a long time and am certain it shows. My hands shake, worse than the slight tremor they usually have.

When a pause comes and I know it’s now or never, I speak up. “I have something I’d like to read.”

I flip on my headlamp, using the red-light function so as not to fracture everyone’s night vision more than the fire is doing already. I begin tentatively. My voice falters, but I’m committed now. I read a personal story to a group of people I’ve only recently met, barely know, and likely will never see again. It feels like I’m baring my soul as I read about a memory formed many years earlier, in what now seems to be a different life. I forge ahead, trusting the darkness, my old friend fire, and the like-minded people gathered around it, listening.

I’ve always wanted to write, even when I wasn’t sure what that meant. As a kid in western North Carolina I read Louis L’Amour novels and talked with an elementary school friend about how we would be authors when we grew up. In high school I attended a three-week writing camp at Warren Wilson College, but then I graduated, and life moved on.

I spent about thirty-three years working in wildland fire management and in the last of those years, the closest I came to writing was the preparation of briefing papers, policy documents, countless emails, and performance reviews.

In the spring of 2023, I retired and stayed busy around our home in Boise. My wife Sarah has a demanding job, we have two teenage boys in the house, and for years I had neglected multiple homeowner chores. I wasn’t bored, yet I thought about things I’d like to do in retirement. One hot midsummer morning as I drove home with a load of groceries, I listened to George Prentice do an interview on Boise State Public Radio. He spoke to Mac Test, director of the Hemingway Center at Boise State University, who seemed to be talking directly to me over the airwaves as he described the upcoming inaugural Sawtooth Writing Retreat. I drove home, looked up the retreat online, and knew I wanted to attend.