The pink arrives before the sun does.

It bleeds slowly across the water, a blush so faint you almost miss it, the whole lake holding its breath and perfectly mirroring back the sky, doubling the beauty as though one sky was never going to be enough. Somewhere above the treeline, an eagle flies overhead without a sound, and its reflection moves across the still water like a ghost of itself. The air smells of pine and cold and something faintly sweet you can never quite name. A loon calls from the far shore. You don’t move. You don’t want to. This is the kind of morning that makes you feel, without any words for it, that life is good.

What Just Happened?

It’s been a little over a week since my 15th annual artist retreat here in the Adirondacks, and something is still sitting with me, something I’ve never quite been able to say out loud until now.

Why do people come back? Year after year, five times, 10 times, 14 times. Why do strangers who met on a Saturday not want to let go of each other the following week? Why are there tears at the closing session from people who “came to paint for a week”?

I think I finally know.

More Than Paint

It starts simply enough. Nobody has to cook. Nobody has to clean. Nobody has to answer to a job or a calendar or a person who needs something from them. No sacrifice. No caring for or answering to others. For one week, all that is lifted, and what fills the space underneath is … other people. Real ones. Present ones.

They stay up late talking to their roommates. They eat breakfast with someone new. And then they go outside and stand side by side in front of a beautiful view, brushes in hand, and something happens that doesn’t happen anywhere else.

Side by Side

There is something about painting together, shoulder to shoulder, eyes on the same horizon, that loosens something in people. Conversations wander. Someone mentions something small. Someone else follows. And before long, you are not talking about paint at all.

One thing leads to another, and then, shockingly, a woman quietly shares that she had lost her son to addiction. Before she finishes the sentence, another voice: “That happened to us too, just recently, with my nephew.” Others open up about marriages, partners, about loneliness, about fear, about the particular weight of the things we carry that we have never said out loud because we were not sure anyone else would understand.

And here is what I have come to believe: There is something almost sacred about discovering that your private struggle is not private at all. That other people have walked the same road, survived the same storm, and are still standing, still painting, still reaching for the light. You are not as alone as you think. 

Unlike Group Therapy

You could call it group therapy. But it is not quite that, because in traditional group therapy, you sit in a circle with people who share the same wound and a professional who guides the conversation. What happens here is wilder and stranger and, I think, more human.

With 81 people, you end up alongside different people each day. Different ages, different backgrounds, different stories. Someone who painted with you yesterday at dawn is across the lake today, and tonight at dinner you meet someone you haven’t spoken to yet. Maybe you’re sitting around a table while others are singing in the bar. Each conversation is a new thread. Each thread leads somewhere unexpected. And somehow, across all of those moments, you begin to feel woven back together.

Why They Return

On the closing morning, a woman found me before she left. Tears in her eyes. She paused for a long moment before she said anything.

“I thought I was coming to paint,” she finally said. “I had no idea. You have changed my life. You have changed the lives of every person here.”

I don’t share that to take credit for it. I share it because I teared up too, driving home, thinking about what any of us are really here to do.

What Is It For?

After all these years, I keep returning to the same question: What is the point? Not of the retreat. Of everything. Of building something, running something, showing up day after day.

Earlier in my career, I thought that purpose was about building something. About growing. About the numbers. And those things matter; I’m not going to pretend they don’t. But they are not the answer. I know that now, in the clearest way I have ever known it.

Purpose is about what happens in the space between people. It is about the moment when someone discovers they are not alone. It is about being the reason that moment occurred.

What About You?

So now I want to ask you something, and I want you to sit with it.

Where in your life are you creating that kind of space? Not the polished, organized, agenda-driven kind. The side-by-side kind. The slow morning kind. The kind where someone can say a true thing and be met with another true thing in return.

You don’t have to run a retreat. You don’t have to host 81 people on a lake in the Adirondacks. But you do have to be intentional about it, because this kind of connection does not happen by accident. It happens when you create the conditions for it.

The Conditions Matter

Think about the people in your life right now. Not the ones you see at events or exchange texts with, but the ones you could really be with, really present, for more than an hour. When did you last do that? When did you last go deep?

What would it look like to design a day, a weekend, a gathering, around making room for that? Around removing the obligations and distractions that keep people in the shallows?

What is one thing you could do this week to be truly, unhurriedly present with someone who needs exactly that from you?

Life Isn’t Empty

Chasing a number is empty. Chasing recognition is also empty. But making someone feel seen, helping someone realize they are not carrying their burden alone, staying by their side long enough for something real to happen … that is not empty at all. Being a part of something that’s bigger. That is the whole thing. 

The pink sky fades. The eagle flaps out of sight. The lake goes quiet.

And all of it, every gorgeous, fleeting second of it, points to the same truth: Life is richer when it is shared. Don’t let another week pass without finding someone to share it with.

Until next Sunday, 

 

Eric Rhoads

P.S. Today as I eagerly await Father’s Day calls from my independent grown children, I flash back to all the hard moments, all the days of caring for sick triplets, all the special moments worth celebrating, and I wonder, am I going deep enough with them? Can I meet them on a different level? Not the parent level, not the friend level, but the level that makes them know I deeply care about hearing them and sharing true vulnerability. That would be a great goal for us all, to break through at a deeper level.

I miss my parents every day since they passed, and my dad, who taught me so much, who always had my back, who always showed his belief in me. I wonder if my kids will feel the same when I’m gone? Only if I can be as good a dad as mine was, I’m guessing. During my time at Florence Academy I met two young 30-something men who grew up with deadbeat dads who let them down, abused one of them, and left them feeling that no dad would be better than the dads they have. That breaks my heart, and I told both of them I’d be there for them to the best of my ability.  

Next week I am doing something I probably should have done years ago. I am running an Oil Painting Boot Camp online, and I want to invite you to join me.

Here’s why: I love oil painting, but for the longest time I was intimidated by it. The different oils, the mediums, the drying times, the materials … it all confused me. I put it off. I found other excuses. And when I finally sat down and worked through it, I wished someone had just explained it clearly from the start.

That’s what this is. A boot camp for beginners who want to finally get in, and for experienced painters who want to make sure they are doing it right. We are going to cover solvent-free painting, which protects your health and your studio environment, and we are also going to talk about how to make your paintings archival, built to last decades or longer. Whether you’ve never touched oils or you’ve been painting with them for years, there is something here for you. It’s online, it’s affordable, and you can find out everything at oilpaintingbootcamp.com.

And one more thing: If last week’s letter about the Adirondacks stirred something in you and you wished you had been there, I have good news. My next retreat is already coming together, and it’s half sold out. We are heading to Acadia National Park for Fall Color Week, and if you’ve ever seen the coast of Maine in October, you already know what that means. If you haven’t, imagine the most visited national park in America, its granite headlands and birch forests blazing orange and gold, the cold Atlantic light doing things to the color that you simply cannot photograph. We paint it. We live in it. And yes, the same conversations happen, the same friendships form, the same magic occurs. But seats are going fast. If this sounds like something you’ve been waiting for, don’t wait much longer. Look it up online.