My first thought was, A free retreat at Laity Lodge? What do I have to do? I clicked on the link and quickly read the overview and requirements.

The retreat is at the end of this month. Presenters include Gregory Wolfe, editor of Image, on whose fine mind I have a teensy weensy crush. Also, Jeffrey Overstreet, award-winning author of the Auralia Thread books, who’s been kind enough to have coffee with me a couple of times and also do a blog interview with me.

And Laity Lodge? My former pastor went there for a week to study with N.T. Wright, and couldn’t say enough good things about it. And the Chrysostom Society, whose members are to me the glowing inner circle of great Christian writers, meet there twice a year, and since I not-so-secretly long to be invited to join their ranks, Laity Lodge holds a sort of aura, like the mandorla of light (or pink bubbles) encircling a saint in old paintings.

So, yeah, I want to go on a free writing retreat there. All I have to do is blog about why I want to go, and I’ll be entered in a drawing. A drawing? I can write garbage, and I’ll have the same chance as everyone else? Sign me up!

But as the days went by, I began to have second thoughts. The babies aren’t weaned yet, so leaving for three days would mean I’d have to wean them.

Also, Laity Lodge is in Texas, which means I’d have to fly. By myself. I hate flying. I especially hate flying alone. Without Doug or the kids to distract me from my fear, I’d probably have a nervous breakdown somewhere over Utah.

Then, too, the retreat is the same weekend as our church’s men’s retreat, and I promised Doug he could go. He’s been so tired, so in need of a break from work and 24/7 parenting, and I want to give that to him.

Clearly these are signs from God that I’m not supposed to enter this drawing.

When I told my friend Cindy this, she rolled her eyes. “We’ll cover it, Kimberlee. If you get a chance to go, don’t let the men’s retreat stop you. We’ll find people to watch your kids.”

My sister echoed this. “Honey, that’s what grandparents are for. Call John and Peggy and schlep the kids off on them. It’s just for a weekend. They’ll recover.”

I wasn’t convinced. The whole weaning thing combined with the men’s retreat just seemed to scream at me that the timing was wrong.

But last night while I was brushing my teeth in the dark of the bathroom, a flash of clarity nearly knocked the toothbrush out of my hand. The babies and the men’s retreat are excuses. Even my fear of flying is an excuse. They’re just covers for deeper fear.

The sorry truth is, I am very, very afraid of stepping out of the comfort of my little world. Here, in the midst of my family and friends, my rhythm and routine, I am competent and confident (mostly).

But at Laity Lodge, I won’t be the center of attention like I am at home, the hub around which my small world revolves, my kids like so many planets around my sun. No, I will be part of the Oort Cloud.

Surrounded by other writers, gifted writers, writers who are going somewhere, or who are already there, I will feel two of the things I most hate to feel: inept and self-conscious.

Imagine the conversations I’ll have when brilliant writer after brilliant writer asks me, “So what do you write?”

Well, I wrote a book on the church year, but, uh, it’s out of print. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. It’s kind of a conversation stopper.

So how about this: I write two blog posts every week! Hm. Somehow that lacks a little…je ne sais quoi.

Or maybe: I have this novel I’ve been working on for the past eight years, and I’d like to get back to it. Someday, you know, if I could just stop having babies. Or is that unprofessional?

Perhaps I could punt: Mostly I write about my kids. Want to see a picture?

Of course, I could avoid such awkward conversations altogether and just hide in my room or, when I have to come out, pretend to be invisible. You know, keep my head down and not make eye contact, come late to the sessions, sit in the back, and leave early. Sort of like my freshman year of college all over again.

Neither option is particularly appealing. I’d rather spend the weekend single parenting.

And yet – if I could just get over myself, I know the retreat would be good for me, a stretch outside my cozy world of home, a chance to embrace the writer part of myself that gets subsumed in the mother part of myself, to let my inner writer play on the main stage for a few days.

So even though I’m afraid, I’m entering the drawing. After all, I don’t want to live my life in fear.

(But secretly, I’m half-hoping I don’t win.)

photo of the Tarantula Nebula, captured by ESO’s New Trappist Telescope TRAPPIST/E. Jehin/ESO

I would like to. But I can’t. Because, alas, the rumors are true. Yes, yours truly has given in to the gods of marketing and started twittering. Doug informs me the correct verb form is “tweeting.” Twittering. Tweeting. Whatever. It’s all the same: 140 characters that destroyed Western Civilization.

Actually, Western Civilization started going downhill when we began using cheap ballpoints instead of fountain pens. Now we don’t even use cheap ballpoints. We use keyboards.

And what do we do with our keyboards? We tap out inane little messages about what we’re eating for lunch, as if anyone else cared. Most of the time I don’t even care what I’m eating for lunch.

And my ability to navel-gaze is nearly without limit. So if even I get bored with myself, how much more readily must others find me a total snooze?

But apparently I’m more winsome than I think because I already have 28 Twitter followers. Really? I mean, who has time? And who cares?

Apparently, 28 people do. Go figure.

Since I am now a Twitterer (or is it just a Twit?), I thought I’d close by sharing with you my all-time favorite web cartoon. It’s so two years ago, but it still makes me laugh out loud; my tech-geek husband laughs, too, which makes me feel somewhat less outdated. Imagine, as you watch this, that I’m Darrin.

If you’re on Twitter, too, you can follow me (@kconwayireton) and read all my updates about sunshine and pushups. It’s fascinating stuff, let me tell you.

Though I confess I was at first hurt and slightly offended by this remark, I have wisely come to embrace the designation. It’s incredibly useful, you see.

When my husband asks me a question to which I don’t know the answer I can simply say, “How should I know? I’m just a writer sipping coffee.”

Or when I bungle a task that normal people could do with one hand tied behind their backs, I can shrug and give a faux laugh and say, “Well, that’s what comes of being a writer sipping coffee!”

Or when I forget to do something really important, I can tell my husband or my friend or whoever, “Darling, what do you expect? I’m just a writer sipping coffee.”

Of course, it does backfire on occasion. I just got another work-for-hire gig: a 2000-word review of four books (totaling 1350 pages) and another 3000-word essay. I’m getting paid a whopping $350. When I laughingly told a friend this, he said, “Wow. Must be nice to get paid that much!”

I just stared at him. Clearly, the writer sipping coffee stereotype is firmly etched in his imagination, and it cloaks me completely. I may as well get used to it.

I’ve decided that, to complete the picture of writerly bliss, I need a cigarette in my right hand. The coffee’s in my left. The open laptop is in front of me on the lacquered table of the coffeehouse. I take a long drag on the cigarette and slowly exhale as I stare fixedly into space. Then I take a sip of my latte (because this is Seattle, after all; I couldn’t possibly drink plebian drip).

Another drag on my cigarette. Still staring at nothing. Another sip of coffee, until inspiration strikes, and I type fast and furiously, whipping out my 5000 words of brilliant, perfect prose in half an hour.

Ah, the life of a writer sipping coffee.

I’m at the park with my kids. They’re happily doing what my son calls “double dides” down the twisty slide: they lie down side by side and speed to the bottom.

I sit on the edge of the sandbox with a group of other moms. They’re talking about a sale on packaged something-or-other at Costco. I’m only half-listening. A little fish of an idea has just darted into my mind, pulling an entire sentence in its wake. I see it form, and know that this is what I’ve been waiting for, working for, struggling for, the desperately needed transition for that troubled paragraph in chapter two of my book.

The fish is swimming away. I try to hold it in my mind as I dig in my daughter’s diaper bag for a pencil and note card.

“Kimberlee,” one of the other moms calls to me, “what are you doing?”

“I’m writing,” I say. I look down at the note card. It’s blank. So is my mind. Next time, I tell myself, I’ll have a net at the ready.

5:17 p.m.

I’m chopping onions to make pasta sauce. The chk-chk-chk of the chef’s knife as it thunks into the cutting board reminds me of something, I’m not sure what. I keep chopping, and waiting for the thought to materialize. It does, shimmering in my mind like a salmon.

“Mama!”

I ignore my son’s call, drop the knife on the counter, and rush to my desk. I don’t want this one to get away.

Jack runs into the kitchen. “Mama!” I pick up a pen and start scribbling as fast as I can. “Mama!”

A thud interrupts my thoughts, followed by a piercing wail. “What was that?” I push past Jack to get to the kids’ room. Jane is lying on the floor, crying. “What happened?” I say.

“She was standing on the Lego bin,” Jack says. “I told her not to. But she didn’t listen to me.”

I pick Jane up and shush her. When she’s calm, I set her down, return to the kitchen, and stare down at the sheet of paper on my desk. Whatever brilliant thought I’d had, it’s gone now. I pick up the knife and resume chopping.

8:10 p.m.

Finally, the kids are in bed. My husband is giving them last hugs and cuddles, and I am sitting at my desk, grateful for the end of the day and the chance to write uninterrupted. I open my half-finished Word doc and begin to type, the words flowing from my fingertips onto the screen. Tonight, I have a keeper.

I can hear the conversation in the bedroom. “Can I have my flashlight back?” Jack asks his dad. (During God-blesses he shined his flashlight in my eyes, and Doug took it away from him.)

“Sure,” Doug says, “I’ll be happy to give it back to you in the morning.”

Two glass-shattering shrieks follow this revelation. Then come the tears. My daughter, frightened by Jack’s shrieking and crying, begins to scream and cry, too.

After two minutes of escalating hysteria, I get up and go help my husband with damage control.

8:37 p.m.

I sit at the computer and stare at what I wrote half an hour ago. I have no idea where I was going with it, or what to write next. My third little fish of the day has disappeared into the murky deep, leaving me holding an empty net. I sigh, wondering if my little fishes will come back. But even if they don’t, even if I only catch every fourth or fifth idea, every tenth sentence, I have to do this. Unless I write, I’m not me.

I begin typing again.