wading out

I have never spent so much time in solitude in all my life. 

I grew up inside a family. I went to college and lived with roommates. I graduated and moved in with Mike. We lived together, and then got married, and never spent more than a few days apart. We had three children and parenthood took whatever sliver of boundary between me and other people that I once possessed and made it more diaphanous, more translucent, at times bordering-on-nonexistent (after a birth, or after Mike died). The way I have learned to move through the world is in direct response to other beloved people. All the time.

And here I am at the midpoint of a five day mindfulness retreat, led by a student of Thich Nhat Hanh in the spirit of his particular Buddhist school of practice and thought. When I planned this trip, I only knew I felt compelled to heal in a deeper way, to take a risk in the hope of becoming more whole. I clicked register and gave this retreat center lots of money because I wanted to accept and be present to whatever is, without fear and without shame. 

When I spoke to Beatrice at the tail end of the first day and heard her plead why can't you come home now, for about five minutes I seriously considered it. I mean, yeah, why can't I come home now? A big part of me wanted to. That part of me was extremely uncomfortable. Why exactly did I drive five hours away, leaving my children and my clients, burdening my friends and coworkers and mom, risking all kinds of domestic mishap, and inviting nearly a week of worry about all of it just so I could sit on a diminutive bean bag in a silent room doing absolutely nothing at all? How insane was that choice?

Now I've been here for three full days, and I'm beginning to understand. I think I needed about two days to fully wade out of the fast-moving stream of everyday life. In the beginning I couldn't truly comprehend that there was nowhere to be and nothing to do. I wanted to make a snack for someone. I wanted to drag myself up the stairs to do a bedtime routine. I wanted to reach out to a client I'm worried about and try to squeeze them into my overfull schedule. I wanted to make friends with the other people here and listen to their stories. But I resisted that initial impulse, in part taking a cue from our teacher, and instead I spend meals and open time mostly alone. 

Somehow my mind and my body have come into alignment. I almost look forward to sitting on the beanbag; at the very least, I feel at ease climbing onto that humble mount. I noticed right away that whenever I walk the path back to my little shared cabin and open the door to my room I smile. Hello little room, I actually say out loud. I'm back. It feels so safe and welcoming. I noticed I was also doing that with my meditation cushion - I didn't greet it out loud, that's just too weird in a group setting, but I felt an inward sigh of happy recognition - ah, I'm back. Here we are. 

This spontaneous at-homeness has made me curious about the experience of being at home in my own imperfect body, in this very imperfect moment, whether I am alone or with my people. Of having arrived, and arriving, over and over again. I'm back. I'm here.

Though I've resisted my usual ways of caring for others, I did bring four or five books because I didn't know before that I would find ways to feel like myself here, and a good book is a reliable way for me to feel at home. I've been reading The Overstory by Richard Powers which I feel like you've probably already read so you probably already know where I'm going with this: a book about trees is the perfect book to read when one is surrounded by trees in all their autumn glory with more time than ever to notice and admire them!

I just read the most moving passage this afternoon, which we have off from formal practice, in which a very lovable and solitary tree scientist reflects on how interconnected and cooperative trees are in the forest. She thinks that the more she and her colleagues learn, the less sense it makes to consider individual trees or even distinct species. "Everything in the forest is the forest."

OH! Non-self! I suddenly understood a Buddhist teaching in a new way. Everything in the forest is the forest. There is no part of me, and no part of you, that makes sense separate from our family, community, ancestors. We are trees, yet we are forest. 

Then I tucked my book into my backpack and took a walk in the forest here. I kept losing the path beneath the quickly accumulating layers of dead leaves underfoot and backtracking, uncertain which way to go. I was a little stressed and thinking things like they should really mark this trail better and maybe I'll let guest services know because someone could get lost! But then I took a breath and thought: I'm home. I'm home in my body, on this path/non-path, in this forest, on this retreat. And it was so beautiful there. I sat down on a rock to fish a pebble out of my sneaker, and I didn't get back up. I watched the birds in the canopy, the chipmunks scurrying along moss-covered rotting logs, the drifting brown and yellow leaves that floated in and out of shafts of sunlight on their way to the forest floor, each one landing around me with a quiet dry settling sound. After awhile I thought to myself shouldn't I get going? And then responded: I don't want to.

So I didn't. I stayed for a long time. There was nowhere I needed to be. I don't think that reality has ever registered quite so peacefully with me before today. 

This practice has been hard. I have felt a lot of pain inside me, and done my fumbling best - is this right? is this how? - to greet it with compassion and love. Inside me I find an ocean of love, and an ocean of grief, fathomless and deep. I imagine they are there inside you, too. I have cried inside my mask, gumming it up with mucus and tears, and wished to hide. I have confronted how afraid I am by the very idea of transforming my suffering. I have thought oh come on and inwardly rolled my eyes and then later sat with a book in my lap and looked up with surprise: Non-self!

I've felt spontaneous bursts of gratitude. For friends, family, work; for trees, sunlight, delicious food I don't have to cook, the moon, meals taken alone in a room full of people, for everyone who has supported me in making this possible. For my body. For all the places in this world where I can be at home. For two more days, and how I will hold it all with tenderness at the end and remember as I step gingerly back into the stream.