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Sitting in the cool living room of the Porches Writing Retreat’s civil war era home having left the scorching porch where the sun darkened my skin shades of richer brown, Yo Yo Ma’s cello sings through my AirPods, Six Evolutions – Bach: Cello Suites. My feet, ankles, and belly are swollen. Heart failure patients must avoid piercing summer heat. Kidneys work overtime distributing sodium to bloodstream causing water retention, ultimately straining the heart. The temperature is 90 degrees Fahrenheit as it has been (or higher) these past twelve days. I should have left the porch hours before, but my recuperating mind refused. There is mental healing in the sun and summer breeze.

I will miss the Porches when I return to Washington, DC where I have access to no porch, balcony, or backyard deck, little natural light inside my apartment. I am less than able-bodied so unable to enjoy the languid strolls I used to take. There is no deep greenery providing home to goldfinch, cardinals, hawks, and hummingbirds. There is no expansive dramatic sky flaunting its theatrical clouds outside my windows. Washington sometimes feels bereft of nature.

I left home to stop. I left home where there are near impoverished men earning minimum wage driving Tesla Ubers. I left my cardiologist and his staff to appeal United Healthcare’s decision to decline payment of $22,000 monthly Vyndamax. I left to replace the sound of traffic with the hubbub of roosters’ crow. There are no million dollar rowhouses in this unincorporated town. There are only neighbors separated by woodland, the Blue Ridge Mountains, invisible freight trains, gardens and bees, farms and barns, the James River, a post office, churches, and an ashram. When I began coming to Porches 17 years ago, there were horses down the road and cows and maybe sheep around the bin. The horses are gone, leaving the fields plowed, but as far as I can tell, uninhabited. I haven’t heard the neighbor’s donkey haw, but I have heard his three scrawny black dogs barking, probably at rabbits who have made their home beneath the bushes between the cabin and firepit. Baby sparrows hatched in their nest in the rolled up porch curtain; I saw two open mouths peek up as mama fed them. They’ve gone now. I haven’t seen a squirrel or a pigeon.

I brought my Waterman ballpoint pen and a recycled denim German journal with 256 empty, numbered, dotted pages. I didn’t know what to do with it, there are so many ways to approach a journal and those who journal are quick to direct writers on the myriad “only” way to do so. My friend S, author of three novels, is also trying to figure out what works best for her. She suggested prompts as a way in and shared the names of two Substack writers she is considering – Leigh Patterson, author of “Moon Lists” newsletter and Suleika Jaouad, author of “The Isolation Journals.” Both women are sharp and attuned to what my therapist always reminded me whenever I was immune to self-compassion - the human condition. They are assessible guides without being pedantic, introspective witnesses, open with seeming ease. I trusted them and freed myself to write 67 pages in six days of self-examination. Each entry called for a nap on the porch chaise or across my bed, six pillows beneath and around me.

Sunday, I leave. Susan will drive me to Charlottesville where I board Amtrak for the two and a half hour ride to Washington’s Union Station. I will sit by the window, away from the bathrooms, 20 ounces of coffee on my tray along with Annie Ernaux’s “The Use of Photography,” Trader Joe’s honey kissed pretzels, and my iPhone playing the Bach suites Yo Yo Ma first played at four years old.

I love the rumble and flashing landscapes from a train. Once when severely depressed I bought a roundtrip ticket from DC to Manhattan, riding back and forth, half hour wait in between, reading the Winnie-the-Pooh collection. By the time I reached my apartment I had finished the books and the depression had lifted.

Three months retired now, days are free for finishing my manuscript, practicing my beginners’ cello, bi-weekly lunches with Eugenia, preparing dinners, refresh twice monthly with decaf lattes and lunches at Bread Bite Bakery or Emmy Patisserie, reading down the TBR pile that has amassed into an entire bookcase, conducting home maintenance, which I recently discovered is wholly satisfying, and most importantly, spending all the time allowed with toddler twin godsons, Damari and Dorian. Forced to make time for medical care, following appointments I will indulge in a caffeinated Tatte Bakery cappuccino, salad, and a buttery pastry. Preservation of my mental health is my commitment to self, which was all but depleted when I arrived here at the Porches on my birthday nearly two weeks ago.

Two words are on my search dial: sanguine and sanctuary. The quest as I leave Porches is to nail the feeling so palpable here. Babies, music, bakeries, friends, and light are a start, but the beginning is with introspection and compassion. Maybe the way to find them void of the Jungian therapy I’ve had off and on for 48 years is inside a 256 page, recycled denim German-made journal dotted with responses to prompts and stream of consciousness meanderings. Whatever it is, I must find it and when I do, I will call it home.