On Retreating (Or, Maybe the Longest Blog I've Ever Written)
Getting Ready
I have realized I need a retreat in early June—that this is a necessity I’ll need to work into my schedule, probably forever. So, almost exactly a year to the day after taking my life-changing retreat last year, I went away again. While I wanted to return to the apartment where I’d stayed last year in the middle of the woods, far from everyone and everything, I opted instead this time for a room at a nuns’ residence in the city, mainly because the college student who would have S was living nearby for the summer, and so, it made sense to show up in the city, surrender my car and my daughter to her, and retreat. (I will admit that my long and painful battle with poison ivy after last year’s retreat also played a role in my decision).
In preparation, I read through what I’d written in my journal while on retreat a year ago. The demon I was battling then was anger—anger at all the people who had hurt S; anger at the school, their treatment of her and me, their inability to take responsibility for not following her IEP, and inability to meet her needs; anger at the many friends who had disappeared when the going got tough, who had not responded to specific e-mail pleas for help; anger at the administrators who had thoughtlessly fired several people and added tasks to my job description without offering me any additional compensation in order to get through a budget crisis.
Re-reading that journal helped me to recognize how far I have come in the last year. While I’ve been angry since, my anger has never reached that pounding-the-ground-until-my-fists-hurt anger; in the last year, I have been able to let some things go, to better determine what is and is not in my control, to recognize that sometimes I have to do the best with what is provided, and try to compensate for what others cannot provide. But I also realized that some of the practiced I’d promised myself back then that I ought to continue—yoga, prayer, journaling, working in earnest on my writing projects—had not happened. Of course, this realization was accompanied by shame and guilt and frustration with myself.
But, in re-reading those entries, I’d also had a sense of hope. Since the beginning of Lent, I had at least tried to spend some time in reflection each day. I’d also been reflective about my parenting by discovering a new parenting paradigm and connecting with other adoptive parents via listserves. I had opened up more to the adoptive parents in my own community. I was making progress with S, and I was definitely a better parent than I’d been a year earlier—less likely to blow up at her, more likely to be able to be present, even in the hardest moments. S, too, had made great progress, at least in part to my work on my end—she was talking openly about her abuse, better able to verbalize her stress limits.
I thought that my demon this year, if it can be called a demon, would be grief. I felt I hadn’t yet truly mourned my father. And, there were other griefs, too—one of S’s college buddies, on whom I relied for emotional support as well as support for S, had graduated and left town just a couple weeks earlier, and many other college students S and I loved a great deal had also left. I knew I was still angry at friends who had not been willing to be there for us on our terms, and I knew there were some situations at work that were making me mad, too. But mostly, I thought, it would be grief I would have to work through.
There were other things bothering me, too. I was going back and forth between two extremes. On one extreme, I felt my job held so much possibility. I had the ability to finally shape a program truly committed to social justice, that could be truly life-changing for people. I had spent much of the first year on assessment to determine the best ways to do the work, and I was excited to dive in this summer and finally finish our website and create a plan of action.
But I had faced a great deal of resistance and even outright refusal to collaborate or help move projects forward from an employee who was forced to take on some work for the office, a former employee still involved with some of the projects, and administrators. I felt I couldn’t create in the way I wanted. In addition, in the fall, I had received the first really bad set of evaluations of my teaching career—I had all kinds of excuses for this, but they stung, and I lost some of my confidence.
In short, I liked the idea of my new job, and I loved the students who were working with me, but the other staff involved in the projects, my supervisors, and other frustrations kept me from being effective. So, I felt that I couldn’t be effective, and on some days, this, in addition to my growing alienation from friends here, made me feel I had outgrown my time here, that I needed to move on to another—what? Job, life, group of friends, location? I wasn’t sure. On other days, I felt these challenges were simply that—challenges, and that I just needed to persevere, live and act authentically, and set and meet realistic goals. The college students who have been so important in my life at work and in our lives at home, keeping us afloat in the worst times, gave me hope.
A couple weeks before the retreat, I had discovered Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun who wrote the book Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears. I was so moved by it I read it twice, all the way through, which isn’t like me. The book was very much in line with my discovery of Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control, the parenting paradigm I had been using, in that it focused on creating space between what others do and say and my reaction, and finding a way to realize that I could control only my own behavior. The book also touched on the fact that our traumas effect what “hooks” us—i.e., what words and actions others say or take are most likely to cause us to react out of fear—which translates either to reacting with cruelty or by shutting down. It was our job to heal from these traumas, of course, but also, to recognize that these triggers would be ours forever, and that we would have to be able to recognize them when they arrived and keep ourselves from responding.
I had already done some of this work even before reading the book: I knew that my triggers with S, and with the people at work who aggravated me, included being ignored (because I felt as a child that no one had bothered to try to understand me); physical or verbal violence (because of my father’s treatment of me); laziness (because my family believed so strongly in that immigrant ethic of hard work); and an inability to take responsibility for or apologize for one’s actions (again, my father’s most aggravating behavior as a child). Of course, I am prone to all of these triggers, too—in other words, I can ignore people, lash out violently (though never physically, thankfully, except for one time when I hit my father when I was a teenager), be lazy, and not take responsibility for my own actions—so, of course, when I behave in these ways I trigger myself and create a spiral of shame and blame. NAME HERE talked about this, too—about how hard it is for westerners to simply recognize a fault, and realize that one’s life is all about making progress on the fault and just moving forward, rather than beating ourselves up and creating negative spirals.
Day One
So, when I went into my retreat, these were the thoughts I was carrying. I arrived at the center with S, her college buddy, and another college student we’d picked up along the way, and they hugged me goodbye, and I felt like crying, thinking maybe this wasn’t right, leaving S with them, going off by myself—I was afraid. And then I was suddenly very much alone.
On the first day, I spent some time starting a new journal—besides my musings on this blog and a typed journal I kept during Lent, this was one of the few times I’d journaled, and the first time I’d journaled longhand, in a very long time. I wrote about the room I had—it’s three beds, its ghostly watercolors on the wall, the calligraphied message: “peace/peace/I leave you peace/but not as the world gives peace.”
I discovered in the drawer of one of the dressers a book of poems by a man named John P. Cock (I know, I can’t get over his name either, which is why I won’t refer to him by last name in this paragraph) called By Cosmic Design. I almost dismissed it altogether because the poems are not good in a literary sense—but as I read them, they began to feed me, to get me to the deeper place where healing can happen. The author had realized, to paraphrase, that Spirit was not meant to be discovered or accepted—Spirit simply was always present, accessible, and was constantly growing and changing. I read and wrote and copied lines for about three hours.
Then I went out to the hallway, following signs for a meditation room. I entered and found myself breathless—there in front of me was an icon of Jesus, the old Byzantine version, his hand raised in blessing, his other hand holding the Word. There were three candles placed in front of it, a beautiful wall hanging behind it, two windows—and that was all, besides the meditation pillows and chairs. I sat on a pillow and did the Greek Orthodox prayers for the ninth hour; I decided as prayed those old psalms that I would follow the hours while I was here, let them work in me, see what happened.
One of the sentences from psalm 84, for some reason, really spoke to me: “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tent of wickedness.” I felt so moved when I read this verse, though I couldn’t say why. I realized I saw myself as a doorkeeper—someone who welcomes people in, who is not necessarily always noticed, nor wants to be, but who ensures that the door stays open.
I realized how many doors I felt had closed on me, and how pained I felt by this exclusion—not just in the last year, but throughout my life. I realized that some of my problems with people at work had to do with this sense of exclusion—of needing to be at the center of things to the exclusion of really welcoming others, or of being so deeply rooted in an institution that they could not see how the very institution itself is exclusionary.
I realized, too, that I am irritated only by faults that I myself share, and that doorkeepers don’t only let people in—they are often hired to keep people out. How can I be devoted in every way, in all aspects of my life, to radical inclusion? I prayed. How can I be sure that my door is truly always open, that I can look beyond the obvious things that keep people separated from each other. And, most importantly, how can I know how to open the door, and keep it open, without making the other person’s journey all about me, without needing people to tell or show me how important I have been to their process? And how can I make sure, through all of this, that those who have entered, and that I, remain safe?
I went on journaling most of that afternoon, finally writing about incidents in the last year that had hurt me, telling the stories in their gory detail. I had wanted to much to tell them to someone who could hear them—and my therapist and some friends had heard some of them—but there was need to write them in, as Chodron says, to “lean in” to the feeling, allow myself to fully experience it so I can later let it go. In the process, I realized how lucky I was to be feeling this sense of exclusion, this emptiness—to not have a lover or primary person in my life who is my equal, to not have someone I can truly consider a “best friend,” to be so unsure of everything except for my love for S.
This was an emptiness I had not felt in a long time, and the last time I’d felt it, years earlier, when leaving an abusive relationship, it had nearly destroyed me—I had been so full of longing and of holding on tightly to everyone around me. After my more recent break up, I realized, I’d done the same thing—lashed out at everyone around me who couldn’t fill the holes, who didn’t do the things I needed. In a way, I was still doing that, though my responses weren’t so childish or obvious.
About a month earlier, I had complained to one of my adoption lists about this loneliness, and so many had responded with such kindness about how they, too, had found their friends distancing themselves after adopting. But one woman wrote that she wondered if I wasn’t somehow keeping people at arm’s length too, and urged me to look at myself. I dismissed this at first—I had, after all, asked directly and specifically for what I needed, and had gotten very few responses. But I was now revisiting what she’d written and realizing that I had wanted my friends to fill holes they couldn’t fill, to do things they couldn’t do for me. Never mind that I’d done as much or more for them at hard times in their lives, never mind that I’d asked more directly and specifically for help than anybody had ever asked me. I had to accept what they could give, and be grateful, and not expect everything I needed.
After writing for awhile, I went into the meditation room and read the vesper service and sat in meditation. I came back to my room and did yoga—I decided to finish each meditation session with yoga. I ate a simple but healthy one-pot meal in the ill-equipped kitchen, and then read some of a book by Elizabeth Lesser called Broken Open. I didn’t like the tone, and the whole book was pretty much geared toward upper-middle-class people in that weird way that so many books with any sort of self-help focus are—though I would find truths nestled within the chapters, and I decided to make reading it a practice of accepting what I could get, and discarding the rest without resentment. (Not that I think people shouldn’t be critical of books—but that I wanted, in this particular case, to find some way to practice accepting what I could get from a source and not trying to force it to be what I wanted it to be).
Anyway, one question she asked really spoke to me: “What will it take for my longing for wakefulness to become stronger than my fear of change?” I would return to that question over and over throughout the weekend.
Day Two
The next morning, I did the Matins service, and the 7 a.m. hours service, and then yoga—it felt so good, so liberating, to stretch. Again I wondered why I don’t do it every day, how I had allowed my body to become so stiff and sore. On my way back to my room, the hallway was buzzing—down the hall there were offices for the many programs the nuns run in the community, and I saw people who already looked foreign to me, walking busily down hallways with files, the way I must look at work. I realized I was in the zone now, and that only healing could happen.
I noted in my journal that I felt I wanted to weep, but couldn’t. I also realized I’d identified some things I was still or now angry about, so I went to the pillow, as I had a year earlier, and pounded them out. The process was quick this time. I went to the dark places and just let myself feel it all, and imagine the worst possible ways I could hurt the people who had hurt me. And then, suddenly, not long after, all the anger was out. I remembered how I had pounded for the whole three or four days last year, how my palms had been swollen, how heartwrenching it had all been. It felt so good to realize not only that I was still capable of “going there,” and coming back in one piece, but that I didn’t need to stay there as long anymore.
I promised myself I would try to be aware of my anger, to keep it before me, to do this pounding work as things came up, instead of saving it for June each year.
I discovered another gem in Lesser’s book: “I realized my only hope was to give up the life that had been, in order to make room for the life that is. I call it my ‘choiceless choice.’ Making that choice, over and over again—to accept what is, to release what was—has become the major focusing agent of my spiritual work.” I was noticing a theme here, how all the quotes that spoke to me were about letting go of resistance—something that is hard for a feminist, an activist, an abuse survivor, a member of an oppressed group—to do.
But I realized it was my work for this moment, anyway. I did not have a father living anymore. This was a fact. My relationships with my family and friends had profoundly changed for multiple reasons in the last year, mostly having to do with my having a child—this was a fact. S’s college buddy, my dear friend, had moved away, and her other college buddy, to whom I’m equally close if not closer, would be returning from a semester away, but would then be leaving in either December or the following May, probably to go back to Germany, to be with someone with whom she’d fallen in love. These were facts. I couldn’t keep holding onto a past that wasn’t anymore, no matter how beautiful those connections, those long talks on our back porch, had been.
I went on contemplating these truths, writing them, went on praying the hours all day. I hadn’t left my room yet, and suddenly I realized I had been there for a whole 24 hours. I had an appointment to talk with a spiritual director after my first 24 hours at the center. I knew I would need to process what was coming up, that I would need some kind of spiritual guidance at that point.
An elderly woman showed up in my room; she was dressed in one of those cheerful pantsuits so common among middle class women in their 70s. I soon learned she had left her vocation as a nun after 15 years, but that she had remained connected to the order, still believed in using her gift of spiritual direction for people who needed it. As I began to talk, I felt an odd disconnection from her. She smiled a lot, and her eyes often got wide and dreamy at the wrong times. I was convinced she was only half present with me—oh, great, I thought, just what I need. She was forgetful, too—she would ask questions more than once, even forgot at one point that my father was dead.
But then, as the hour drew to a close, a strange thing happened. She clarified for me what I needed to pray for. She said, “So, what you’re telling me is you need soul sisters, friends who are really connected to you in the deep spiritual ways. And you need a spiritual community of some sort, a group of people who are willing to be really present with each other. And you need to decide if you want to stick it out or find new work, which means you have to look carefully at the blocks that are keeping you from creating the change you want to change in the world around you, and whether they are part of the structure of your job or inside you. And you need to not be so hard on yourself, and to play more, which will help you to write.” It was strangely a very true summary. She added that I needed to find a permanent spiritual director in the meantime, and suggested a few resources closer to home than the cities. She also suggested I write a letter to my mother telling her how angry I was that she had died when I was young.
This was strange, but I was intrigued. Years earlier, shortly after college, I used to visit a spiritual women’s retreat center in the city where I lived. I went once every three months and spent the weekend in walking meditation and journaling. At the center, I’d also taken a writing class and gone on a group writing retreat.
My teacher was a very spiritual person; she’d once given me the same advice, and I’d responded, “But I know my mom’s death wasn’t her fault. I’m angry she died, yes, but not angry at her.” I went on to say I had plenty to be angry about—the people who abandoned me when I came out, the church that wouldn’t allow me to be the minister I knew I was at heart, my father, who had been absent or abusive for much of my childhood. “Still,” the teacher had insisted, “It’s your mother you need to forgive. You need to do this so you can write authentically.” I hadn’t thought about that advice in years, but I knew I would write my mother a letter that night, if for no other reason, to tell her about this strikingly similar advice I’d received from spiritual people more than 15 years apart.
The spiritual director and I prayed together for all of these things, and she encouraged me to stay present with these questions, to keep holding them out, and to pay attention to subtle or big shifts. Then she said, “I have a book I wanted to give you. I’m old. I’m giving away my books, and I thought you could use this one.” This was odd, since she knew absolutely nothing about me when I arrived at the center except that I’d booked a private room for three nights. She handed me a book that included weekly meditations and daily reflections—it has been incredibly pertinent to me since I started using it after getting back, all about figuring out what is blocking me from being the most authentic person I can be. And, at the very end, she ordered me to leave my room. “It’s time to get out, get some fresh air,” she said.
So I did. There was a labyrinth nearby, I knew—I’d once walked it when I was lonely and confused and sad after my break up; another time, I’d drunkenly skipped along the path with a friend in the rain (don’t even ask). I found it, but it was overgrown, and there was a sign saying it was in transition due to a building project. The sign encouraged walkers to walk it anyway—and then, to also visit a temporary labyrinth just a few yards away. But the old labyrinth was littered with several neon-colored, distracting flags, and its grasses reached beyond my knees, almost to my waist—I felt the combination of long, wet grass and flags would be distracting, make it impossible to do a walking meditation.
So I opted instead for the temporary, newer version, but it turned out that was equally distracting—the path was not very well worn, and I found myself focusing on whether I was actually following it rather than letting my mind empty. Afterwards, I sat on a nearby bench and wrote, “It’s almost comical, really. I went to the newer path thinking I would find emptiness and clarity, but instead, I found I had to concentrate to find my way. I don’t know if this means I’m supposed to stay with the emptiness longer or move forward, if I’m supposed to revisit the old, flagged, overgrown version of the path or stick with this new one, keep working it until it becomes clearer. A cosmic joke—a prayer almost answered but not quite.” I went on to walk the path a second time—this time, it was clearer, and I was able, not to meditate, but to pray for the things the spiritual director had so clearly laid out for me. As I walked, I felt a stirring to call some people I barely knew but whose presence had been comforting to me, and a profound gratitude for those who had been or were in my life who were able to go with me to the deep places—even if some of them are much younger than me. I didn’t panic, didn’t worry—I just went on praying, making note of what was coming back.
I went back to my room, prayed the hours, read part of Anne Lamott’s most recent book (not new, but new to me), which was like returning to an old friend. I took another walk later, and ended up, again, in front of the labyrinth. I walked and prayed for what I’d discovered, again, and then, I went in to make some dinner. In the process of making dinner, grief finally struck me, and I heard myself say, “All I have wanted all my life is someone to really listen to me, to really hear me, the way mom did.” Whether or not my mother really did is beside the point—of course, I could be idealizing her, but the fact is that when I was with her, I felt she was really present. I wanted to have that gift, but also to give it.
I went to pray the vespers and sit in meditation, but I was interrupted by a Buddhist group who had reserved the meditation room—their organizers hurried in to rearrange the room, and I snuck out. Later, I would smell the incense and hear them chanting, and I would go out to the hallway to listen more closely. I would find a woman who had come out of the room and collapsed on a couch in the hallway, sobbing. I wanted to go to her, to comfort her, but somehow I knew she needed to be alone. There was something profound in that show of grief, though, and I saw it as a precursor of what would happen if I could be present, really present, in my meditation. Of course, as I thought this, I realized I was striving for something rather than simply entering the mystery.
Anyway, I went to my room, remembered what I’d heard myself say at dinner, and wrote a letter to my mother. I told her I didn’t know why I had been so sure she always really heard me, but I was. I wrote about how I was making my way through motherhood blindly with only that insight to guide me, and how I found myself sometimes doing and saying things with or to my daughter that reminded me of how she treated me—letting her see me in vulnerable moments, talking from the authentic center of my heart, listening from that center, being crazy and silly with her--and then knowing I was doing something right—but how I also longed for her to be here to show me the way, and wished I remembered more.
I wrote that I was supposed to tell her how mad I was at her for leaving me, that two spiritual people had told me, 15 years apart, to do this, but that I couldn’t, because it didn’t feel true. I told her I was afraid I’d die young, still, even though there are no signs this is going to happen, and that I am angry she’s not around, and sad, but not at her.
And then, suddenly, I found myself writing this: “I should have learned this at 13, but here I am, having to relearn it—how nothing is permanent, how I must lean into the anxiety that impermanence creates, be aware of the fear there, in that statement. And so I have this moment, and the next one…my whole life, in a way, has been a longing for you, and now, at 39, 26 years after your death, I need to accept that that deep hole in my center, that emptiness, is not going to go away. And that this is OK. It is part of me. It can be a great teacher, if I will stop trying to plug it up or fix it or heal it and just lean into it, and listen. Maybe I haven’t forgiven you for dying after all. Maybe this is the last great and beautiful forgiveness—to accept my pain and loss for what they are, to stop trying to heal them or escape them, to stop being afraid of them, but also, to stop swimming in them, in the fear and anger and hopelessness they create. They are me, and I am them. Spirit works in those places if I can lean in. Maybe this is the great lesson of this retreat, if there is one.”
I told her I knew she would want this kind of authentic honestly—that I had a feeling she longed for and was grateful for the moments when she had that kind of connection.
And then, I wrote another letter, this one to S’s college buddy J, the one who is in love and may be moving to Germany after a short return here. I told her I had finally found a way to release her, to recognize that our friendship couldn’t stay the same forever, and how ridiculous it was that I had tried so hard to hold onto her and that it had taken me so long to realize I was doing this. Earlier I’d written her an e-mail, a response to a question about what I thought of her plan to return to Germany, that started out saying I was happy she was in love and though that taking risks was important, and often the very best thing to do—but I went on to say all the reasons I wanted her to be cautious, how she had to be sure. I took all of that back in that letter, and wept finally, for the first and only time all weekend, while writing her. Later, at home, retyping what I’d written so I could send it to her in an e-mail, I wept and wept some more—it was a great a beautiful release, like the woman’s on the couch, and I thought of how so many of us, all over the world, were learning to let go.
Day Three
I woke in time to watch the sunrise, prayed the hours, did yoga, had breakfast, and was shocked to realize when I was back in my room that it was only 6:30 a.m. I went back to the hard work of writing letters—letters to dead and living people, to people I see everyday and people I rarely see. I told the truth in these letters, knowing that I could decide later how to deal with the truths as they emerged. I asked forgiveness, expressed my rage and pain. I know I will only send a handful of the letters I have written—some were written so that I could let go, in one way or another, of unrealistic expectations, of unresolved anger—some so that I’d find a way to continue working with or knowing or even loving someone without that person holding me back from whatever it was I needed to do to live my authentic life. At 10:30, I fell into a deep sleep, and woke at noon.
It was a rainy day, so I kept on writing, taking breaks to pray the hours, after which I would sit in meditation, and then do yoga. Eventually, I came to find myself feeling gratitude for everyone to whom I had written, and others besides—even people like an abusive partner I’d had several years earlier, about whom I rarely thought these days, and the lover I had after her, who loved me deeply and completely but couldn’t stay faithful at a time when I so desperately needed stability. I realized that each of these experiences, and so many more, had led me to this time of reflection, when I could finally face this truth about the impermanence of everything—not just in an intellectual way, but really face it in the deep places, learn how not to hold on too tightly, and also not to push away, but to simply allow people to enter and leave my life, to soak in their impact, to do my best to impact them, without force, but instead, with love.
At three, I showed up in the meditation room for the ninth hour prayers, and then I found myself sitting, my mind truly empty and open for the first time since I had arrived. I realized that just noticing that meant I was thinking, so I resolved to be present without judgment, to just lean in to whatever came up. And I heard outside some people calling to each other in voices that showed familiarity and love, joking voices, warm voices. There were car doors slamming and laughter. I noticed this, and at first, I thought, that is what I want.
But I have had that, and I will have it again, and nothing is permanent, I told myself, and then I began to laugh with them, to feel their joy somehow through the window, and I also thought, if nothing is permanent, that means that isolation isn’t real, because how can we be isolated if the universe is always changing? If we are all changing, always, then we are all connected, always, too. And I laughed and laughed at this, and then I went back to my room and, instead of yoga, I danced. I danced and danced for about an hour, just let my body do whatever it wanted, whatever it could, mournful, joyful, angry, silly, sexy dancing, whatever came out. It went on and on and I thought to myself, this is ecstasy, I should cherish it, and then I thought, oh no, this, too, will pass, so rather than cherish, which means you are already in the future when it will not longer be, just live in it, completely present. And so I did.
Later, I ate dinner, the rain stopped, and I walked again for awhile, ending up finally back at the labyrinth. I decided this time to walk the old path, despite the neon flags and the tall, wet grass. I was soaking wet by the end, but I went with it anyway. I went slowly, singing Agios o Theos three times, stopping, praying part of the service, then going on. The sun began to set, bright in the sky, glistening on the wet grass. I realized I’d really watched the sun rise and set for the first time in years.
I exited the old labyrinth just as the vespers were over, and then I went to the new, where I walked and I prayed for whatever came to mind—for soul sisters—to recognize the ones I already have and to be open to others, for a spiritual community, to be a good parent to S, to be able to remember that nothing is permanent and that therefore isolation and fear are false, and to be able to work through those feelings when they came up, lean into them and let them go. I prayed for clarity about my vocation, for a way back into either using my current job as a vehicle for healing and social change or for a new path that I couldn’t even imagine—that I would have the bravery to do whichever was right. I prayed forgiveness for all the ways my fear and loneliness had caused me to hurt others, or to shut down. I was specific, very specific—but instead of beating myself up, I let myself be unburdened. I let myself see I was capable of another way. I went back to my room and wrote these prayers down so that, when I was lost, I could return to them.
Day Four- Returning Home
The next morning, I decided to do Matins and the first hour service at the labyrinth. I sang Agios o Theos or Kyrie Eleison while walking, then stopped, prayed part of the service, went on singing, stopped, prayed, etc., until I had wound my way in and out, had finished the prayers. I used the old path this time, thinking to myself when I was done how fitting these two labyrinths were for my life—the old, overgrown, soon to be lost, and the new, not quite clear yet, and how I had to live at once in both of them, and also in the space between, the present, where each day unfolds whether or not there is time for reflection, and I must remember to go to the path, walk it, be attentive to it.
I went inside, did yoga, read through the journal in its entirety. I added more prayers as I reconnected with insights I’d had along the way. I noticed that I didn’t feel any regret about leaving, no grief or worry or fear. I was really present in the present in a way I hadn’t been for far too long. At the end, I went one last time to the meditation room to read the sixth hour prayers; Jesus is crucified, willingly giving up his life for a greater good, willingly suffering for a way of life he knows is better, more authentic, than the old way. Suffering leads to light and love. As I was walking out of the meditation room, feeling a deep gratitude for all I had experienced in that space, I noticed a little painting I had not noticed before, tucked into a small alcove at the side. I’d walked past it every day, eager to get to my pillow, and now I really looked at it. It wasn’t completely discernable—maybe it was cloud and lightning and pink and blue sky, or simply a giant, neatly framed blob of watercolor, an image of everything and nothing, of emptiness and fullness at the same time. Whatever it was, I kissed it with the same tenderness I’d kissed Jesus’ hand at the end of my meditation, in the Greek Orthodox way, touching my lips to the mystery.
Back to Reality
And then, quickly, I was tested—after a loving reunion, S wanted to go to the ballet store, needed to buy things we couldn’t afford. I told her we couldn’t afford it. I told her we had the dog, and it was raining, and a visit to the store wasn’t practical. She said she’d walk in the rain if I waited, would pay for it herself, knew exactly what she wanted, it wouldn’t take long. I told her that if she could get us there, we could go—and she led us at least 40 miles out of our way. Finally, I said, we are lost, and she hit me, hard, on the head.
But I was able to just observe what had happened, realize we weren’t safe, get us to a parking lot. I was able to sit and say to her, you haven’t hit me in a long time, you must be very afraid or upset about something. I was able to listen and be present to what she was feeling. She admitted then that she didn’t have the money, the leotard didn’t fit, she didn’t know where we were going, and yes, it would be best to go home. She was so sorry so quickly, and later, she did some extra chores for me without being asked, “so you don’t have to jump back into working so quickly.” She didn’t want to talk about it in therapy the next day, but we got through that, too, and she did, and we worked on what to do differently, and I stayed calm and present.
Inevitably, I raised my voice this weekend, a week later, and she said, “The retreat didn’t help!” But then I was quickly and truly sorry, and so was she, and she began to cry about Papou, how much she loved and misses him, and I asked her what I could do for her, to help her know it was OK to feel this way. She said she wanted to put on Greek music, and so we did.
And we started to dance, let our bodies move to the music, find and lose each other again in our living room on a rainy afternoon. She would clutch and let go; I would pull her up from the floor, we would move in our own small circles, far from each other, then end up together again.
She said, “Let’s dance a duet in his memory, Mom.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I asked.
“I mean, let’s get it ready for the next recital,” she said, and I agreed, though I said for now I just wanted to be in the present, right there in the living room with the music getting us to the deep places, with the two of us laughing and crying and dancing and knowing our bodies and the deep places within them, the soul-and-spirit places where some people never dare to reach.
I have realized I need a retreat in early June—that this is a necessity I’ll need to work into my schedule, probably forever. So, almost exactly a year to the day after taking my life-changing retreat last year, I went away again. While I wanted to return to the apartment where I’d stayed last year in the middle of the woods, far from everyone and everything, I opted instead this time for a room at a nuns’ residence in the city, mainly because the college student who would have S was living nearby for the summer, and so, it made sense to show up in the city, surrender my car and my daughter to her, and retreat. (I will admit that my long and painful battle with poison ivy after last year’s retreat also played a role in my decision).
In preparation, I read through what I’d written in my journal while on retreat a year ago. The demon I was battling then was anger—anger at all the people who had hurt S; anger at the school, their treatment of her and me, their inability to take responsibility for not following her IEP, and inability to meet her needs; anger at the many friends who had disappeared when the going got tough, who had not responded to specific e-mail pleas for help; anger at the administrators who had thoughtlessly fired several people and added tasks to my job description without offering me any additional compensation in order to get through a budget crisis.
Re-reading that journal helped me to recognize how far I have come in the last year. While I’ve been angry since, my anger has never reached that pounding-the-ground-until-my-fists-hurt anger; in the last year, I have been able to let some things go, to better determine what is and is not in my control, to recognize that sometimes I have to do the best with what is provided, and try to compensate for what others cannot provide. But I also realized that some of the practiced I’d promised myself back then that I ought to continue—yoga, prayer, journaling, working in earnest on my writing projects—had not happened. Of course, this realization was accompanied by shame and guilt and frustration with myself.
But, in re-reading those entries, I’d also had a sense of hope. Since the beginning of Lent, I had at least tried to spend some time in reflection each day. I’d also been reflective about my parenting by discovering a new parenting paradigm and connecting with other adoptive parents via listserves. I had opened up more to the adoptive parents in my own community. I was making progress with S, and I was definitely a better parent than I’d been a year earlier—less likely to blow up at her, more likely to be able to be present, even in the hardest moments. S, too, had made great progress, at least in part to my work on my end—she was talking openly about her abuse, better able to verbalize her stress limits.
I thought that my demon this year, if it can be called a demon, would be grief. I felt I hadn’t yet truly mourned my father. And, there were other griefs, too—one of S’s college buddies, on whom I relied for emotional support as well as support for S, had graduated and left town just a couple weeks earlier, and many other college students S and I loved a great deal had also left. I knew I was still angry at friends who had not been willing to be there for us on our terms, and I knew there were some situations at work that were making me mad, too. But mostly, I thought, it would be grief I would have to work through.
There were other things bothering me, too. I was going back and forth between two extremes. On one extreme, I felt my job held so much possibility. I had the ability to finally shape a program truly committed to social justice, that could be truly life-changing for people. I had spent much of the first year on assessment to determine the best ways to do the work, and I was excited to dive in this summer and finally finish our website and create a plan of action.
But I had faced a great deal of resistance and even outright refusal to collaborate or help move projects forward from an employee who was forced to take on some work for the office, a former employee still involved with some of the projects, and administrators. I felt I couldn’t create in the way I wanted. In addition, in the fall, I had received the first really bad set of evaluations of my teaching career—I had all kinds of excuses for this, but they stung, and I lost some of my confidence.
In short, I liked the idea of my new job, and I loved the students who were working with me, but the other staff involved in the projects, my supervisors, and other frustrations kept me from being effective. So, I felt that I couldn’t be effective, and on some days, this, in addition to my growing alienation from friends here, made me feel I had outgrown my time here, that I needed to move on to another—what? Job, life, group of friends, location? I wasn’t sure. On other days, I felt these challenges were simply that—challenges, and that I just needed to persevere, live and act authentically, and set and meet realistic goals. The college students who have been so important in my life at work and in our lives at home, keeping us afloat in the worst times, gave me hope.
A couple weeks before the retreat, I had discovered Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun who wrote the book Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears. I was so moved by it I read it twice, all the way through, which isn’t like me. The book was very much in line with my discovery of Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control, the parenting paradigm I had been using, in that it focused on creating space between what others do and say and my reaction, and finding a way to realize that I could control only my own behavior. The book also touched on the fact that our traumas effect what “hooks” us—i.e., what words and actions others say or take are most likely to cause us to react out of fear—which translates either to reacting with cruelty or by shutting down. It was our job to heal from these traumas, of course, but also, to recognize that these triggers would be ours forever, and that we would have to be able to recognize them when they arrived and keep ourselves from responding.
I had already done some of this work even before reading the book: I knew that my triggers with S, and with the people at work who aggravated me, included being ignored (because I felt as a child that no one had bothered to try to understand me); physical or verbal violence (because of my father’s treatment of me); laziness (because my family believed so strongly in that immigrant ethic of hard work); and an inability to take responsibility for or apologize for one’s actions (again, my father’s most aggravating behavior as a child). Of course, I am prone to all of these triggers, too—in other words, I can ignore people, lash out violently (though never physically, thankfully, except for one time when I hit my father when I was a teenager), be lazy, and not take responsibility for my own actions—so, of course, when I behave in these ways I trigger myself and create a spiral of shame and blame. NAME HERE talked about this, too—about how hard it is for westerners to simply recognize a fault, and realize that one’s life is all about making progress on the fault and just moving forward, rather than beating ourselves up and creating negative spirals.
Day One
So, when I went into my retreat, these were the thoughts I was carrying. I arrived at the center with S, her college buddy, and another college student we’d picked up along the way, and they hugged me goodbye, and I felt like crying, thinking maybe this wasn’t right, leaving S with them, going off by myself—I was afraid. And then I was suddenly very much alone.
On the first day, I spent some time starting a new journal—besides my musings on this blog and a typed journal I kept during Lent, this was one of the few times I’d journaled, and the first time I’d journaled longhand, in a very long time. I wrote about the room I had—it’s three beds, its ghostly watercolors on the wall, the calligraphied message: “peace/peace/I leave you peace/but not as the world gives peace.”
I discovered in the drawer of one of the dressers a book of poems by a man named John P. Cock (I know, I can’t get over his name either, which is why I won’t refer to him by last name in this paragraph) called By Cosmic Design. I almost dismissed it altogether because the poems are not good in a literary sense—but as I read them, they began to feed me, to get me to the deeper place where healing can happen. The author had realized, to paraphrase, that Spirit was not meant to be discovered or accepted—Spirit simply was always present, accessible, and was constantly growing and changing. I read and wrote and copied lines for about three hours.
Then I went out to the hallway, following signs for a meditation room. I entered and found myself breathless—there in front of me was an icon of Jesus, the old Byzantine version, his hand raised in blessing, his other hand holding the Word. There were three candles placed in front of it, a beautiful wall hanging behind it, two windows—and that was all, besides the meditation pillows and chairs. I sat on a pillow and did the Greek Orthodox prayers for the ninth hour; I decided as prayed those old psalms that I would follow the hours while I was here, let them work in me, see what happened.
One of the sentences from psalm 84, for some reason, really spoke to me: “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tent of wickedness.” I felt so moved when I read this verse, though I couldn’t say why. I realized I saw myself as a doorkeeper—someone who welcomes people in, who is not necessarily always noticed, nor wants to be, but who ensures that the door stays open.
I realized how many doors I felt had closed on me, and how pained I felt by this exclusion—not just in the last year, but throughout my life. I realized that some of my problems with people at work had to do with this sense of exclusion—of needing to be at the center of things to the exclusion of really welcoming others, or of being so deeply rooted in an institution that they could not see how the very institution itself is exclusionary.
I realized, too, that I am irritated only by faults that I myself share, and that doorkeepers don’t only let people in—they are often hired to keep people out. How can I be devoted in every way, in all aspects of my life, to radical inclusion? I prayed. How can I be sure that my door is truly always open, that I can look beyond the obvious things that keep people separated from each other. And, most importantly, how can I know how to open the door, and keep it open, without making the other person’s journey all about me, without needing people to tell or show me how important I have been to their process? And how can I make sure, through all of this, that those who have entered, and that I, remain safe?
I went on journaling most of that afternoon, finally writing about incidents in the last year that had hurt me, telling the stories in their gory detail. I had wanted to much to tell them to someone who could hear them—and my therapist and some friends had heard some of them—but there was need to write them in, as Chodron says, to “lean in” to the feeling, allow myself to fully experience it so I can later let it go. In the process, I realized how lucky I was to be feeling this sense of exclusion, this emptiness—to not have a lover or primary person in my life who is my equal, to not have someone I can truly consider a “best friend,” to be so unsure of everything except for my love for S.
This was an emptiness I had not felt in a long time, and the last time I’d felt it, years earlier, when leaving an abusive relationship, it had nearly destroyed me—I had been so full of longing and of holding on tightly to everyone around me. After my more recent break up, I realized, I’d done the same thing—lashed out at everyone around me who couldn’t fill the holes, who didn’t do the things I needed. In a way, I was still doing that, though my responses weren’t so childish or obvious.
About a month earlier, I had complained to one of my adoption lists about this loneliness, and so many had responded with such kindness about how they, too, had found their friends distancing themselves after adopting. But one woman wrote that she wondered if I wasn’t somehow keeping people at arm’s length too, and urged me to look at myself. I dismissed this at first—I had, after all, asked directly and specifically for what I needed, and had gotten very few responses. But I was now revisiting what she’d written and realizing that I had wanted my friends to fill holes they couldn’t fill, to do things they couldn’t do for me. Never mind that I’d done as much or more for them at hard times in their lives, never mind that I’d asked more directly and specifically for help than anybody had ever asked me. I had to accept what they could give, and be grateful, and not expect everything I needed.
After writing for awhile, I went into the meditation room and read the vesper service and sat in meditation. I came back to my room and did yoga—I decided to finish each meditation session with yoga. I ate a simple but healthy one-pot meal in the ill-equipped kitchen, and then read some of a book by Elizabeth Lesser called Broken Open. I didn’t like the tone, and the whole book was pretty much geared toward upper-middle-class people in that weird way that so many books with any sort of self-help focus are—though I would find truths nestled within the chapters, and I decided to make reading it a practice of accepting what I could get, and discarding the rest without resentment. (Not that I think people shouldn’t be critical of books—but that I wanted, in this particular case, to find some way to practice accepting what I could get from a source and not trying to force it to be what I wanted it to be).
Anyway, one question she asked really spoke to me: “What will it take for my longing for wakefulness to become stronger than my fear of change?” I would return to that question over and over throughout the weekend.
Day Two
The next morning, I did the Matins service, and the 7 a.m. hours service, and then yoga—it felt so good, so liberating, to stretch. Again I wondered why I don’t do it every day, how I had allowed my body to become so stiff and sore. On my way back to my room, the hallway was buzzing—down the hall there were offices for the many programs the nuns run in the community, and I saw people who already looked foreign to me, walking busily down hallways with files, the way I must look at work. I realized I was in the zone now, and that only healing could happen.
I noted in my journal that I felt I wanted to weep, but couldn’t. I also realized I’d identified some things I was still or now angry about, so I went to the pillow, as I had a year earlier, and pounded them out. The process was quick this time. I went to the dark places and just let myself feel it all, and imagine the worst possible ways I could hurt the people who had hurt me. And then, suddenly, not long after, all the anger was out. I remembered how I had pounded for the whole three or four days last year, how my palms had been swollen, how heartwrenching it had all been. It felt so good to realize not only that I was still capable of “going there,” and coming back in one piece, but that I didn’t need to stay there as long anymore.
I promised myself I would try to be aware of my anger, to keep it before me, to do this pounding work as things came up, instead of saving it for June each year.
I discovered another gem in Lesser’s book: “I realized my only hope was to give up the life that had been, in order to make room for the life that is. I call it my ‘choiceless choice.’ Making that choice, over and over again—to accept what is, to release what was—has become the major focusing agent of my spiritual work.” I was noticing a theme here, how all the quotes that spoke to me were about letting go of resistance—something that is hard for a feminist, an activist, an abuse survivor, a member of an oppressed group—to do.
But I realized it was my work for this moment, anyway. I did not have a father living anymore. This was a fact. My relationships with my family and friends had profoundly changed for multiple reasons in the last year, mostly having to do with my having a child—this was a fact. S’s college buddy, my dear friend, had moved away, and her other college buddy, to whom I’m equally close if not closer, would be returning from a semester away, but would then be leaving in either December or the following May, probably to go back to Germany, to be with someone with whom she’d fallen in love. These were facts. I couldn’t keep holding onto a past that wasn’t anymore, no matter how beautiful those connections, those long talks on our back porch, had been.
I went on contemplating these truths, writing them, went on praying the hours all day. I hadn’t left my room yet, and suddenly I realized I had been there for a whole 24 hours. I had an appointment to talk with a spiritual director after my first 24 hours at the center. I knew I would need to process what was coming up, that I would need some kind of spiritual guidance at that point.
An elderly woman showed up in my room; she was dressed in one of those cheerful pantsuits so common among middle class women in their 70s. I soon learned she had left her vocation as a nun after 15 years, but that she had remained connected to the order, still believed in using her gift of spiritual direction for people who needed it. As I began to talk, I felt an odd disconnection from her. She smiled a lot, and her eyes often got wide and dreamy at the wrong times. I was convinced she was only half present with me—oh, great, I thought, just what I need. She was forgetful, too—she would ask questions more than once, even forgot at one point that my father was dead.
But then, as the hour drew to a close, a strange thing happened. She clarified for me what I needed to pray for. She said, “So, what you’re telling me is you need soul sisters, friends who are really connected to you in the deep spiritual ways. And you need a spiritual community of some sort, a group of people who are willing to be really present with each other. And you need to decide if you want to stick it out or find new work, which means you have to look carefully at the blocks that are keeping you from creating the change you want to change in the world around you, and whether they are part of the structure of your job or inside you. And you need to not be so hard on yourself, and to play more, which will help you to write.” It was strangely a very true summary. She added that I needed to find a permanent spiritual director in the meantime, and suggested a few resources closer to home than the cities. She also suggested I write a letter to my mother telling her how angry I was that she had died when I was young.
This was strange, but I was intrigued. Years earlier, shortly after college, I used to visit a spiritual women’s retreat center in the city where I lived. I went once every three months and spent the weekend in walking meditation and journaling. At the center, I’d also taken a writing class and gone on a group writing retreat.
My teacher was a very spiritual person; she’d once given me the same advice, and I’d responded, “But I know my mom’s death wasn’t her fault. I’m angry she died, yes, but not angry at her.” I went on to say I had plenty to be angry about—the people who abandoned me when I came out, the church that wouldn’t allow me to be the minister I knew I was at heart, my father, who had been absent or abusive for much of my childhood. “Still,” the teacher had insisted, “It’s your mother you need to forgive. You need to do this so you can write authentically.” I hadn’t thought about that advice in years, but I knew I would write my mother a letter that night, if for no other reason, to tell her about this strikingly similar advice I’d received from spiritual people more than 15 years apart.
The spiritual director and I prayed together for all of these things, and she encouraged me to stay present with these questions, to keep holding them out, and to pay attention to subtle or big shifts. Then she said, “I have a book I wanted to give you. I’m old. I’m giving away my books, and I thought you could use this one.” This was odd, since she knew absolutely nothing about me when I arrived at the center except that I’d booked a private room for three nights. She handed me a book that included weekly meditations and daily reflections—it has been incredibly pertinent to me since I started using it after getting back, all about figuring out what is blocking me from being the most authentic person I can be. And, at the very end, she ordered me to leave my room. “It’s time to get out, get some fresh air,” she said.
So I did. There was a labyrinth nearby, I knew—I’d once walked it when I was lonely and confused and sad after my break up; another time, I’d drunkenly skipped along the path with a friend in the rain (don’t even ask). I found it, but it was overgrown, and there was a sign saying it was in transition due to a building project. The sign encouraged walkers to walk it anyway—and then, to also visit a temporary labyrinth just a few yards away. But the old labyrinth was littered with several neon-colored, distracting flags, and its grasses reached beyond my knees, almost to my waist—I felt the combination of long, wet grass and flags would be distracting, make it impossible to do a walking meditation.
So I opted instead for the temporary, newer version, but it turned out that was equally distracting—the path was not very well worn, and I found myself focusing on whether I was actually following it rather than letting my mind empty. Afterwards, I sat on a nearby bench and wrote, “It’s almost comical, really. I went to the newer path thinking I would find emptiness and clarity, but instead, I found I had to concentrate to find my way. I don’t know if this means I’m supposed to stay with the emptiness longer or move forward, if I’m supposed to revisit the old, flagged, overgrown version of the path or stick with this new one, keep working it until it becomes clearer. A cosmic joke—a prayer almost answered but not quite.” I went on to walk the path a second time—this time, it was clearer, and I was able, not to meditate, but to pray for the things the spiritual director had so clearly laid out for me. As I walked, I felt a stirring to call some people I barely knew but whose presence had been comforting to me, and a profound gratitude for those who had been or were in my life who were able to go with me to the deep places—even if some of them are much younger than me. I didn’t panic, didn’t worry—I just went on praying, making note of what was coming back.
I went back to my room, prayed the hours, read part of Anne Lamott’s most recent book (not new, but new to me), which was like returning to an old friend. I took another walk later, and ended up, again, in front of the labyrinth. I walked and prayed for what I’d discovered, again, and then, I went in to make some dinner. In the process of making dinner, grief finally struck me, and I heard myself say, “All I have wanted all my life is someone to really listen to me, to really hear me, the way mom did.” Whether or not my mother really did is beside the point—of course, I could be idealizing her, but the fact is that when I was with her, I felt she was really present. I wanted to have that gift, but also to give it.
I went to pray the vespers and sit in meditation, but I was interrupted by a Buddhist group who had reserved the meditation room—their organizers hurried in to rearrange the room, and I snuck out. Later, I would smell the incense and hear them chanting, and I would go out to the hallway to listen more closely. I would find a woman who had come out of the room and collapsed on a couch in the hallway, sobbing. I wanted to go to her, to comfort her, but somehow I knew she needed to be alone. There was something profound in that show of grief, though, and I saw it as a precursor of what would happen if I could be present, really present, in my meditation. Of course, as I thought this, I realized I was striving for something rather than simply entering the mystery.
Anyway, I went to my room, remembered what I’d heard myself say at dinner, and wrote a letter to my mother. I told her I didn’t know why I had been so sure she always really heard me, but I was. I wrote about how I was making my way through motherhood blindly with only that insight to guide me, and how I found myself sometimes doing and saying things with or to my daughter that reminded me of how she treated me—letting her see me in vulnerable moments, talking from the authentic center of my heart, listening from that center, being crazy and silly with her--and then knowing I was doing something right—but how I also longed for her to be here to show me the way, and wished I remembered more.
I wrote that I was supposed to tell her how mad I was at her for leaving me, that two spiritual people had told me, 15 years apart, to do this, but that I couldn’t, because it didn’t feel true. I told her I was afraid I’d die young, still, even though there are no signs this is going to happen, and that I am angry she’s not around, and sad, but not at her.
And then, suddenly, I found myself writing this: “I should have learned this at 13, but here I am, having to relearn it—how nothing is permanent, how I must lean into the anxiety that impermanence creates, be aware of the fear there, in that statement. And so I have this moment, and the next one…my whole life, in a way, has been a longing for you, and now, at 39, 26 years after your death, I need to accept that that deep hole in my center, that emptiness, is not going to go away. And that this is OK. It is part of me. It can be a great teacher, if I will stop trying to plug it up or fix it or heal it and just lean into it, and listen. Maybe I haven’t forgiven you for dying after all. Maybe this is the last great and beautiful forgiveness—to accept my pain and loss for what they are, to stop trying to heal them or escape them, to stop being afraid of them, but also, to stop swimming in them, in the fear and anger and hopelessness they create. They are me, and I am them. Spirit works in those places if I can lean in. Maybe this is the great lesson of this retreat, if there is one.”
I told her I knew she would want this kind of authentic honestly—that I had a feeling she longed for and was grateful for the moments when she had that kind of connection.
And then, I wrote another letter, this one to S’s college buddy J, the one who is in love and may be moving to Germany after a short return here. I told her I had finally found a way to release her, to recognize that our friendship couldn’t stay the same forever, and how ridiculous it was that I had tried so hard to hold onto her and that it had taken me so long to realize I was doing this. Earlier I’d written her an e-mail, a response to a question about what I thought of her plan to return to Germany, that started out saying I was happy she was in love and though that taking risks was important, and often the very best thing to do—but I went on to say all the reasons I wanted her to be cautious, how she had to be sure. I took all of that back in that letter, and wept finally, for the first and only time all weekend, while writing her. Later, at home, retyping what I’d written so I could send it to her in an e-mail, I wept and wept some more—it was a great a beautiful release, like the woman’s on the couch, and I thought of how so many of us, all over the world, were learning to let go.
Day Three
I woke in time to watch the sunrise, prayed the hours, did yoga, had breakfast, and was shocked to realize when I was back in my room that it was only 6:30 a.m. I went back to the hard work of writing letters—letters to dead and living people, to people I see everyday and people I rarely see. I told the truth in these letters, knowing that I could decide later how to deal with the truths as they emerged. I asked forgiveness, expressed my rage and pain. I know I will only send a handful of the letters I have written—some were written so that I could let go, in one way or another, of unrealistic expectations, of unresolved anger—some so that I’d find a way to continue working with or knowing or even loving someone without that person holding me back from whatever it was I needed to do to live my authentic life. At 10:30, I fell into a deep sleep, and woke at noon.
It was a rainy day, so I kept on writing, taking breaks to pray the hours, after which I would sit in meditation, and then do yoga. Eventually, I came to find myself feeling gratitude for everyone to whom I had written, and others besides—even people like an abusive partner I’d had several years earlier, about whom I rarely thought these days, and the lover I had after her, who loved me deeply and completely but couldn’t stay faithful at a time when I so desperately needed stability. I realized that each of these experiences, and so many more, had led me to this time of reflection, when I could finally face this truth about the impermanence of everything—not just in an intellectual way, but really face it in the deep places, learn how not to hold on too tightly, and also not to push away, but to simply allow people to enter and leave my life, to soak in their impact, to do my best to impact them, without force, but instead, with love.
At three, I showed up in the meditation room for the ninth hour prayers, and then I found myself sitting, my mind truly empty and open for the first time since I had arrived. I realized that just noticing that meant I was thinking, so I resolved to be present without judgment, to just lean in to whatever came up. And I heard outside some people calling to each other in voices that showed familiarity and love, joking voices, warm voices. There were car doors slamming and laughter. I noticed this, and at first, I thought, that is what I want.
But I have had that, and I will have it again, and nothing is permanent, I told myself, and then I began to laugh with them, to feel their joy somehow through the window, and I also thought, if nothing is permanent, that means that isolation isn’t real, because how can we be isolated if the universe is always changing? If we are all changing, always, then we are all connected, always, too. And I laughed and laughed at this, and then I went back to my room and, instead of yoga, I danced. I danced and danced for about an hour, just let my body do whatever it wanted, whatever it could, mournful, joyful, angry, silly, sexy dancing, whatever came out. It went on and on and I thought to myself, this is ecstasy, I should cherish it, and then I thought, oh no, this, too, will pass, so rather than cherish, which means you are already in the future when it will not longer be, just live in it, completely present. And so I did.
Later, I ate dinner, the rain stopped, and I walked again for awhile, ending up finally back at the labyrinth. I decided this time to walk the old path, despite the neon flags and the tall, wet grass. I was soaking wet by the end, but I went with it anyway. I went slowly, singing Agios o Theos three times, stopping, praying part of the service, then going on. The sun began to set, bright in the sky, glistening on the wet grass. I realized I’d really watched the sun rise and set for the first time in years.
I exited the old labyrinth just as the vespers were over, and then I went to the new, where I walked and I prayed for whatever came to mind—for soul sisters—to recognize the ones I already have and to be open to others, for a spiritual community, to be a good parent to S, to be able to remember that nothing is permanent and that therefore isolation and fear are false, and to be able to work through those feelings when they came up, lean into them and let them go. I prayed for clarity about my vocation, for a way back into either using my current job as a vehicle for healing and social change or for a new path that I couldn’t even imagine—that I would have the bravery to do whichever was right. I prayed forgiveness for all the ways my fear and loneliness had caused me to hurt others, or to shut down. I was specific, very specific—but instead of beating myself up, I let myself be unburdened. I let myself see I was capable of another way. I went back to my room and wrote these prayers down so that, when I was lost, I could return to them.
Day Four- Returning Home
The next morning, I decided to do Matins and the first hour service at the labyrinth. I sang Agios o Theos or Kyrie Eleison while walking, then stopped, prayed part of the service, went on singing, stopped, prayed, etc., until I had wound my way in and out, had finished the prayers. I used the old path this time, thinking to myself when I was done how fitting these two labyrinths were for my life—the old, overgrown, soon to be lost, and the new, not quite clear yet, and how I had to live at once in both of them, and also in the space between, the present, where each day unfolds whether or not there is time for reflection, and I must remember to go to the path, walk it, be attentive to it.
I went inside, did yoga, read through the journal in its entirety. I added more prayers as I reconnected with insights I’d had along the way. I noticed that I didn’t feel any regret about leaving, no grief or worry or fear. I was really present in the present in a way I hadn’t been for far too long. At the end, I went one last time to the meditation room to read the sixth hour prayers; Jesus is crucified, willingly giving up his life for a greater good, willingly suffering for a way of life he knows is better, more authentic, than the old way. Suffering leads to light and love. As I was walking out of the meditation room, feeling a deep gratitude for all I had experienced in that space, I noticed a little painting I had not noticed before, tucked into a small alcove at the side. I’d walked past it every day, eager to get to my pillow, and now I really looked at it. It wasn’t completely discernable—maybe it was cloud and lightning and pink and blue sky, or simply a giant, neatly framed blob of watercolor, an image of everything and nothing, of emptiness and fullness at the same time. Whatever it was, I kissed it with the same tenderness I’d kissed Jesus’ hand at the end of my meditation, in the Greek Orthodox way, touching my lips to the mystery.
Back to Reality
And then, quickly, I was tested—after a loving reunion, S wanted to go to the ballet store, needed to buy things we couldn’t afford. I told her we couldn’t afford it. I told her we had the dog, and it was raining, and a visit to the store wasn’t practical. She said she’d walk in the rain if I waited, would pay for it herself, knew exactly what she wanted, it wouldn’t take long. I told her that if she could get us there, we could go—and she led us at least 40 miles out of our way. Finally, I said, we are lost, and she hit me, hard, on the head.
But I was able to just observe what had happened, realize we weren’t safe, get us to a parking lot. I was able to sit and say to her, you haven’t hit me in a long time, you must be very afraid or upset about something. I was able to listen and be present to what she was feeling. She admitted then that she didn’t have the money, the leotard didn’t fit, she didn’t know where we were going, and yes, it would be best to go home. She was so sorry so quickly, and later, she did some extra chores for me without being asked, “so you don’t have to jump back into working so quickly.” She didn’t want to talk about it in therapy the next day, but we got through that, too, and she did, and we worked on what to do differently, and I stayed calm and present.
Inevitably, I raised my voice this weekend, a week later, and she said, “The retreat didn’t help!” But then I was quickly and truly sorry, and so was she, and she began to cry about Papou, how much she loved and misses him, and I asked her what I could do for her, to help her know it was OK to feel this way. She said she wanted to put on Greek music, and so we did.
And we started to dance, let our bodies move to the music, find and lose each other again in our living room on a rainy afternoon. She would clutch and let go; I would pull her up from the floor, we would move in our own small circles, far from each other, then end up together again.
She said, “Let’s dance a duet in his memory, Mom.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I asked.
“I mean, let’s get it ready for the next recital,” she said, and I agreed, though I said for now I just wanted to be in the present, right there in the living room with the music getting us to the deep places, with the two of us laughing and crying and dancing and knowing our bodies and the deep places within them, the soul-and-spirit places where some people never dare to reach.
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