When I first heard Michael Pollan’s interview on Fresh Air, then read his book, I knew I was onto something. I would read articles on Medium about microdosing LSD and wonder if I had the balls to ask friends to ask friends until I found someone I knew that knew how to get some. But we live in Trump’s America, and my husband is a legal resident, not a U.S. citizen. Doing something illegal and putting my family at risk wouldn’t be worth it.

During this time, the Chaplain and I were deep in talks about if, how, and when I should pursue trying psychedelics for personal development, spiritual breakthrough, and relief from depression and anxiety. We started with a fuzzy goal of wanting to make it happen by around my 40th birthday.

I wiki’d where it was legal to use psilocybin, a substance that has shown real promise for treating depression and anxiety. I came up with two places that seemed like they might work. I started with Jamaica. I was specifically looking for a guided retreat. I wanted it to be a safe, purposeful experience, and I wanted to get as much bang for my buck as I could. The retreats offered in Jamaica sounded amazing – a week long, with three different psilocybin experiences during the week with a day in between each one.  The cost was about two grand, not including airfare. But cost aside, I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to leave my family for that long. Or if I even needed to do it three times.

Given the specs of the Jamaica retreat, I knew it would require waiting and saving, which I was OK with. But I was feeling very stuck. So now that I had an idea about the legality of it, I just searched, “guided psilocybin retreats” and up popped the Netherlands. Instead of saying, “Yes! It’s legal!,” the Netherlands chooses a more subtle approach of allowing it without condoning it. The retreats in the Netherlands were significantly shorter (a weekend) and significantly cheaper (even with airfare). Also, an important factor for me – they offered women’s-only retreats.

For many reasons, a women’s retreat had the most appeal to me as a safe way to have my experience. And they had a women’s retreat over my birthday weekend this year. We went from talking about making it happen in a few years to talking about this year. With the Chaplain’s blessing, I started the application process, which involved a lengthy written section, and ultimately, a Skype call with one of the facilitators in Great Britain. Once I was accepted, I could apply to any of their available retreats.

It was late summer when I got confirmation that I’d been accepted. While the website said there were still spots left in the women’s retreat, when I tried to book, it said it was full. I was a little heartbroken. I emailed them and told them I was specifically looking for a women’s retreat, and if they had another one coming up, I wanted in. I was ready to wait. At that time, there were no other women’s retreats listed on their website. I prayed my way through this process, and at that point, I understood that if there were no women’s retreats available, that was God’s way of closing the door.

They emailed me back to let me know that due to interest, they were considering adding a second women’s retreat. Not long after that, the dates were confirmed and I signed up.

At this point, the dates were a Thursday through Sunday. I’ve mentioned before, when I was a teen, I spent two hours at the airport in Amsterdam, and it pained me that I didn’t get to explore. Now, it looked like I’d be doing that again, 20 years later. I was afraid to ask for more time away from my family, because it felt like I was already asking for too much.

Then I started looking at flight dates and times. The flights available wouldn’t put me where I needed to be in time to take the group taxi to the retreat, which was out in the country outside Amsterdam. The best option seemed to be to fly in the day before and out the day after. And my time (albeit brief) in Amsterdam became a reality.

This quickly became a panicked mental frenzy that lasted for a few weeks, intermittently mixed with inability to think about it at all. Internet searches about where to go while in Amsterdam were overwhelming. I knew someone who had traveled there over the summer and got some recommendations from her, but I wouldn’t be there for as long as she had and didn’t know if I could get to everything that had been suggested.

And then there is the Anne Frank House. Have you heard of it? It is the house where Anne Frank hid during the war, and it is open for tours – if you are willing to buy one of the limited tickets in advance and commit to a time slot.

I was torn. I really wanted to have the experience, but with only about 24 hours in the city, and the uncertainty of international travel, I didn’t want to commit to a time for anything. So after tumbling the idea around in my brain and visiting the Anne Frank House website repeatedly, I finally settled on not going. I planned to walk past it, but the tour would have to wait for a future trip.

Instead, I committed to a ticket to the Rijksmuseum, and planned on doing a self-guided walking tour of Amsterdam, with a stop for tulips bulbs (it’s the season to buy them), and a visit to Schreierstoren, where Henry Hudson set sail for North America (and eventually ended up in my city). I thought about also trying to dip in here.  I got Airbnb digs for the nights before and after the retreat, and I planned on hoofing it and sucking in all the sights, smells, and sounds I could, while hopefully not getting run over by any bicycles.

The retreat itself would be serving vegan food. They encouraged us to bring art, music, and poetry to share with the group, and to wear comfortable clothes we feel good about ourselves in. Being the Nervous Nelly that I am, that naturally sent me down a rabbit hole and caused me to spend all my blow money and then some in October and November on “stuff” for the trip. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that it won’t end up being that much cheaper than Jamaica in the long run. Womp, womp. But I also hoped that when I came back that maybe, just maybe, the stress spending would be less of a problem.

I’d be bringing a couple of paperbacks, a journal, and some art supplies. I would have loved to bring an instrument, but I couldn’t bring my dulcimer, because then I wouldn’t have room for clothes. At least I could take my voice.

I planned to put together a playlist, to include some soca, reggae, acapella/instrumental music, and Christian pop. Paralyzed with indecision as usual, I put this off until the last minute. When I finally sat down to do it a day or two before I left, I ran into tech issues, and ended up with a very short playlist. This ended up working perfectly.

Searching for control in the time leading up to the trip, I went on a repair binge, gluing together broken dishes, globes, shoes, a picture frame, and a piggy bank, patching holes in clothes, waterproofing the canvas cross-body bag I’d be using on the trip (it didn’t rain on my trip), and making handkerchiefs (those, I ended up using).

Sunday afternoon after the retreat, I’d spend in Amsterdam before taking a flight back to New York on Monday in the early afternoon. I wanted to do a little more walking around, and hoped to attend a service at Hillsong church in Theater Amsterdam. I’m grateful I had that extra day to use to reflect and just be with myself to figure out how to be when I get back.

I didn’t know if I’d want to talk about my experience. I would be gone for less than a week, to hopefully come back a better person, for myself, but also for my family.

Remember how I talked about the watery grid as my plane approached the Netherlands all those years ago? It was just as I remembered it. But this time, I was able to capture it.