Faced with views custom-made to inspire writers, I didn’t. Write. Or edit the 50 pages I’d brought with me. Instead, I continued reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming. Occasionally I glanced up from the book and gaped at the storm–then I’d consciously try to slow down my reading instead of zooming to the last page. It’s a novel I didn’t want to end.

Sometimes my husband and I, on our own for the first time since our son was born 11 years ago, took walks, giddy from the altitude, soaked when the rain returned–but we didn’t mind: the mountains were too interesting. Ours was one of the only houses with a car out front and lights on–we explored a tree-lined ghost-town of tall, beautiful homes, playing the ‘which one would we live in’ game, whooping when the rain pelted us and the wind whipped our hoods from our faces. If anyone was home in any of those houses, I’m sure they thought we were crazy.

On one walk, my husband returned after only 10 minutes–our lab had growled at something up the road. Our lab never growls. My husband didn’t wait to find out if it was a bear. On another walk, we came upon a trail leading to a snow-covered meadow filled with oak trees. We slipped and lumbered and created oversized snowballs and oohed and ahhed at the views of the lake when the clouds lifted their skirts briefly.

Mostly, my husband wrote at the farmhouse table and I sat on the couch before the fire and read and paused and read. I wasn’t fighting writing or revising–my gut ordered me to read, not work, or create. And I obeyed. And returned home from reading, walking in the rain and snow, the views, feeling clearer about my work, armed in fresh ideas for meeting my goals.

If you haven’t read Becoming, I can’t recommend it enough. Same rec goes for a mountain get-away–especially one with more than one cozy place to relax with an inspiring book. And, of course, a retreat that welcomes dogs.

Yours in vital escapes,

PB