Five Days of Silence

The basic structure of a Vipassana meditation retreat is quite simple. You arrive, unpack, get the lay of the land, greet old friends (if there are friends to greet), finish your registration, and have dinner. The first evening, there is a welcoming talk, and as a group, you take temporary vows for the duration of the retreat, including a vow of silence.

Over the course of the retreat, the teachers give talks and meditation instruction, but the students remain silent. The only time you speak is during your fifteen-minute interview with a teacher once or twice during the course of the retreat.

Retreat silence encompasses more than not speaking. It also means avoiding eye contact. So you spend the weekend (or the five days or the ten days or the month), getting to know everyone’s shoes and socks intimately. At this particular retreat, I roomed with a stranger. I did not meet her by name or hear her voice, nor did I look her in the eye until we broke silence on the very last day. And yet an intimacy and tenderness grew between us. I did everything I could to respect her needs and to honor her practice. She felt like a friend by the end.

Embracing the Undone

The class rosters I have not brought up to date. The brochure I have not printed. The bed I have not made. The clothes I have not folded and put away. The cancer memoir I have not begun. The toenails I did not clip. The education I never received and will never receive. The emails I have never read. The copies of The Sun that sit on my bedside table and ask to be read. (I have never read a single one. I read novels instead). The ring on the bathtub, the refrigerator that has not been cleaned in half a year. The office I used to work in, the one behind my house, the beautiful office with the Mexican tile floor and the wood stove for heat, the one with termites and no insulation, a high peaked ceiling and my father's old bed up above to nap in. The windows all around looking out at a garden Karyn planted for me to enjoy. The desktop computer, fax machine, copier and printer, the two phones, one for home, one for business. The files of ex students, ex clients, aborted projects, books I edited years ago. Now the room is full of boxes and cobwebs, shelves full of the delitrous of selves I have left behind. 

Who I Used to Be

Alive, energetic, happy, hopeful. And then the world caved in and I hunkered down in my corner as best I could, laced up my boxing gloves and prepared to take on the world. But I was still a child and no amount of armor or helmets or big gloves could protect me. I sat alone on the bench girding myself for the next fight. Alone, alone, out in the rain, cold and alone. I walked through life doing my best to pretend I was human like everyone else, but always chilled to the bone with loneliness. I was a lone operator even though I pretended with the best of them.

Life After Cancer Feels Like This

Life after cancer feels like this: A giant wave has come into the beach, a tidal wave, it has crashed onto the shore, altering everything in its path. Some things have been destroyed forever, others swept out to sea, still others remain, changed for ever. The water has pulled back out to the ocean and the sea is back to its normal rhythm, breathing in and breathing out, the tides shifting, pulling, releasing. Looking out on the sea, you might think that it is the same and has always been this way, but I know better. For I am the shore that has been scooped out and changed and I do not recognize myself. And although I sit quietly at the shore, I know another tidal wave could come.

Life after cancer feels like this: there is a long tunnel going down into the earth. I do not know where it is leading, but I have set out on the journey. I am relaxed and whistling. I carry a very small backpack, just some water and a few healthy snacks. I have been heading downward for a long time. I do not know where this trail is leading me or how long it will take. I walk this trail alone.