Image: Selfie
Photo Credit: Amy Tucker, 2026
I imagine thirty days by the sea, not as a vacation, and not as a retreat in the romantic sense, but as a deliberate period of research on myself.
Arriving Without an Agenda
I imagine arriving with a minimal agenda. No deadlines. No performance expectations. No pressure to produce anything tidy or impressive. Instead, I come with curiosity, a notebook, a camera, my body, and time. The sea becomes my research site. I become both the subject and the observer.
The Body as Research Site
Each day begins quietly. I wake early and watch the sunrise before the world feels busy. I let my nervous system wake up slowly. Some mornings I swim, letting the salt water do its steady work on my breath and muscles. Other mornings, I walk along the shoreline, noticing birds, light, and small changes in the tide. I am learning again how to pay attention without trying to control what I see.
“Scholarly personal narrative writing is the unabashed, up-front admission that your own life signifies.” Robert J. Nash (2004, p. 23)
Movement becomes part of the inquiry. Yoga to listen rather than push. Walking and biking without tracking distance or speed, and swimming not to train, but to settle. My body becomes a source of information instead of something I manage or override. I notice where tension softens. I see where grief still lives. I notice when joy appears without effort.
“Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.” Bessel van der Kolk (2014, p. 101)
Art weaves its way through the days. Some days I paint or draw. Some days I photograph birds lifting from the water or shadows stretching across the sand. Some days, the art is simply sitting and watching the sea change colour. This is art therapy without diagnosis, without fixing, without interpretation. It is creation as companionship.
Silence as Data
Writing happens when it wants to. Sometimes it comes as complete sentences. Sometimes as fragments. Sometimes not at all. I permit myself to rest when there are no words. I am practising trust, both in myself and in the process. I am learning that silence is also data.
“We do not live in reality itself. We live in stories about reality.”
Robert J. Nash (2004, p. 33)
I imagine evenings marked by sunsets and reflection. I review the day gently, asking what surfaced and what settled. I do not rush to make meaning. I let experiences sit, knowing they will braid together in their own time. The sea holds my questions without demanding answers.
What I imagine most clearly is this: that after thirty days, I will not return with conclusions. I will return with something quieter and more durable. A steadier body. Clearer boundaries. A renewed relationship with creativity. A more profound respect for slow, embodied ways of knowing.
What Remains
This is what I imagine research can look like when it is grounded in care, honours the body, and allows healing to be a legitimate form of inquiry.
“The only way to find a larger vision is to be somewhere in particular.” Donna Haraway (1988, p. 590)
Photo Credit: Tucker, 2025, Sidney, British Columbia
“Care of the soul requires craft, patience, and a willingness to allow life to unfold in its own time.” Thomas Moore (2005, p. 5)
And perhaps that, in itself, is the finding.
References (APA 7)
Bridges, W. (2004). Transitions: Making sense of life’s changes (2nd ed.). Da Capo Press.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
Moore, T. (2005). Healing through the dark emotions: The wisdom of grief, fear, and despair. Gotham Books.
Nash, R. J. (2004). Liberating scholarly writing: The power of personal narrative. Teachers College Press.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
