by Tina Welling
“You folks okay down there?” boomed a hearty-sounding voice over a loudspeaker.
Jess signaled that we were fine.
“Nick Addis sends his greetings and his gratitude.” The voice was disembodied in the bright light and whirring racket of helicopter blades, but had a Southern lazy, good tone that comforted me.
The family cheered.
“He sends his greetings to you, too, Mr. Fields. And your friends. No gratitude, though. Hurry on back to Key Largo now, boys. We got some talkin’ to do. You all been misbehavin’ something awful.”
This guy was having as much fun as my family was having once again.
Jeter kept his hackles raised and his stance stiffly on guard facing the dripping Parson Fields in the go-fast boat. I knelt down and calmed Jeter with long strokes down his back. Parson wiped his face and head on a balled-up jacket, then shouted toward the hovering helicopter, “Who’s up there?”
“No friends of yours. Get goin’ now.”
The man in the helicopter had said “friends,” and I wondered suddenly if Daniel—or rather Nickerson Addis, or Nick—was in the helicopter himself. Who knew what was possible? Though I had a strong feeling . . . and so did Jeter. Kneeling beside him with an arm hooked around him, we both stretched our necks upward. The feeling became stronger. I made a fist with my right hand and knocked it lightly against my heart, two times. My family would assume it was a gesture of gratitude to the pilot, and maybe that was all it was.
Then, amazingly, the helicopter wagged its tail, side to side, and so did Jeter. He relaxed against me, and we looked up toward the great friendly bird, its windows shining like onyx against the night, no faces visible. But perhaps Daniel—or Nick—was up there looking down at us.
Next the helicopter followed the go-fast boats around the hummock, then out of sight, toward the Keys.
We all stood with our arms wrapped around ourselves from the wind stirred by the chopper blades and listened to the motors of the go-fast boats and the helicopter fade, as the mangrove hummock absorbed the sounds and the air settled into stillness again. My eyes adjusted to the dim light. I petted Jeter and wondered if I would learn someday whether Daniel had been in the helicopter.
Dad said to Jess, “Well, son, you got away with it again.” He shook his head at the trickery as he checked the water and sky, then looked around at the mess on deck, bent and picked up a bag of chips from the floor, reached in and ate one.
Thirty-six
Jess
I did something rash. As soon as I got home from Florida, I signed up for a ten-day silent-meditation retreat. Should have tried ten minutes first. Ten minutes of being silent . . . or meditating . . . or retreating. I felt like an impostor here, and I was.
When I first heard about it, I thought, There’s my answer. I’d been feeling desperate to come up with something to help me absorb the past sessions with Lola and a way to figure everything out before Annie got home. Because after returning from Florida, I knew that if I didn’t make a damn big turn-around—and quickly—our marriage would develop a slow leak that I would hear hissing in the background all of our days and nights until our love lay as flat and lifeless as an old rubber raft with too many patches.
At the Orlando airport Annie and I had sent the boys off, then waited for my flight to board. We stood together near the security gates, faces close, holding hands. People swarmed around us. Announcements droned overhead.
I said, “Annie, I’ll do anything—anything—you need to make us work.”
How she responded scared me so badly, I still felt my heart crumble into freeze-dried little bits when I thought of it.
She said, “Jess, I don’t need you to do anything at all. I’m fine.”
To me that felt like a loosening in my belay rope—whatever safety I had in this marriage had just given out. Something had finished, something else had started. And I didn’t know what the goddamn something was.
If I went back to see Lola—and maybe she wouldn’t even take me back as a client—I’d need to report some progress, and I had nothing to offer her.
Besides that, I’d gotten tired of going home to a cold, lonely house every night. I heard about this getaway in a nice lodge, with people to keep me company and three meals a day cooked by a chef, plus a bedtime snack. Since the store was closed now for off season, it seemed the perfect thing to do. So I arrived at the lodge in Granite Creek Friday evening, got settled in my small room, went to the dining room for dinner.
Vegetarian.
Worry number one.
But the food was delicious. Next we sat in meditation for forty-five minutes.
Worry number two.
The first twelve minutes I felt all smoothed out, and my legs were comfortably curled into themselves. I sat there feeling like a real meditator, a real spiritual dude. I was calm and happy and content, all at one time. Then my toes fell asleep. Then my whole foot turned numb and next the deadness moved on up to my calves, to my knees, to my thighs. Next—this, I’d never heard of—half my crotch lost sensation.
I was sure this was not a good thing, and I spent the rest of the meditation in fear that gangrene would set in. Would Annie be sorry then that she’d left? In my mind, I composed my end of the telephone call in which I’d report to Annie that I had gangrene in my testicles.
Was this possible? Should I scream for help? I opened my eyes a bit and every single person sat still as stone in the circle. Must have been twenty-five of us. A pillar candle was set in the center of the circle and another just in front of our teacher. Behind the sitters, small altars stationed here and there held Buddha statues and little brass cups filled with water, vases of flowers and more candles. The room was a hunting lodge normally, but the local group, the Teton Sangha, had turned it into a serene meditation hall. I lifted my eyes to stuffed heads of elk, pronghorn antelope, deer—white-tail and mule—mounted on the walls. Buddhists don’t believe in killing animals, not even for their meat, so it was pretty funny to have the retreat in a hunting lodge. Candlelight glittered in the glass eyes of the animals, and the sangha had draped each one with a white silk scarf around its neck—a kata, I learned it was called. Meant to express honor.
Finally, our teacher hit the singing bowl with his wooden gong three times, ending the sit, and announced that we would do a short walking meditation before meeting back here for the dharma talk.
Walk, ha.
I was locked into position on the floor, a long way from even rising from the cushion. I used both hands to lift my right foot, then slowly laid my leg out straight. It buzzed and sizzled, and while I waited to see whether I’d need hospitalization, I slid the other leg straight and waited for it to come more alive. With both legs stretched before me, I looked around; I wasn’t the only one taking my time getting up. Also I noticed some of the guys sat on two cushions, which raised them higher, giving their legs more room. I’d try that next time, because I had to come up with something; there were nine of these sits each day. But I couldn’t think about that right now.
While I limped over to get another cushion, I noticed a stack of back jacks, little floor cushions with back rests attached. Took one of those. I could sit with my back against this and my legs straight out if I needed to. Maybe this was going to be okay. At least it would give me time to figure out my escape.
During the first dharma talk, we took the Buddhist vows to honor the five precepts for the duration of the retreat. No killing (that referred to animals for meat, not each other); no sex (this definitely referred to each other); no stimulants such as alcohol and drugs; no unnecessary talking; no stealing. Suddenly I wanted it all: meat, alcohol, drugs, talk, sex, even things I never cared for like cigars, pornography, heroin—urges just rose up one after the other. So what was it like to shoot up heroin? I should find out.
I fell into bed that first night, thinking that I didn’t really like anybody there, and I’d made a major error in signing up. I was probably just showing off for Annie, which was pointless bec
ause there were no phones, e-mail; even cell phones didn’t work down that canyon, so I couldn’t call and find out how impressed she might be.
That night at dinner we’d been told to select a tea mug and write our name on masking tape and stick it on. Our job was to take care of that mug, use it, wash it, keep track of it throughout the retreat. Easy. I had nothing else to do. Chimes rang to signal waking up, meditations, dharma talks . . . didn’t even need to keep track of time, only a tea mug.
I lost three mugs by the following afternoon. Three mugs floated around the lodge with my name on them in bold Magic Marker. The place was not that big, but I couldn’t find them and I was thirsty. Couldn’t get a drink of water without my tea mug. This mug deal was sort of an exercise in mindfulness—we walked and ate in mindfulness, which meant we were paying attention, aware of our actions. Mindful people did not lose their tea mugs, much less three of them.
I headed back toward the dining room for my fourth tea mug, deciding this time I was not putting my name on it, only an initial. I walked in and there on the windowsill, beside the tea station, were my three mugs, all with my name on them: JESS, JESS, JESS. Somebody had found them, when I had failed to, and set them there. The whole damn place couldn’t miss the message in that. Quickly I ripped the tape off two of the mugs, and from then on I found myself snapping my head around to be sure my one and only mug didn’t travel off without me.
Today, Sunday, some lucky ducks went home. They only signed up for the weekend. I spent every meditation session this morning, starting at five forty-five, trying to figure out how I, too, could casually pick up my zafu (took me a while to catch on that was the cushion I sat on) and my zabuton (the pad the zafu sits on) and scuttle the hell out of here. Forget the money I paid. Shit, forget the zafu and zabuton. Get out, I shouted in my head. Get out now.
But then, during a walking meditation, I realized that if I left, I’d feel like I did about the rest of my life: a dropout. Not exactly a failure, rather someone who left the scene one way or another before anyone could attach the label of failure to me, including myself (and highlighting Annie—who never actually used the nasty word). And, of course, my history, that backward glance that showed the path behind me strewn with unfinished projects, unmet promises, intentions that once throbbed with pink-cheeked enthusiasm, then paled from lack of nourishment, like a young boy starved of milk . . . or meat. My God, I’d give anything for a steak. A steak, onion rings, a baked potato, a bottle of beer.
But I was supposed to be meditating, not planning menus.
Walking meditation was the strangest of all the activities I’d engaged in during this retreat. It was a slow motion of lifting the heel, lifting the ball of the foot, lifting the toes. Move the foot forward; shift weight. Do the same with the other foot. All for only ten to twenty feet before turning around and going in the other direction. Back and forth.
Sometimes a force just rose up inside my chest, and I took off at a rowdy clip down the dirt road, walking as fast as I could before breaking into a jog, running until I exhausted myself.
This time, I tried to stick to the program. I staked out a stretch of snow-free ground beneath a big spruce, walked from a mushroom that had popped up overnight, moist dirt still stuck to it, to a dark stone a dozen feet away. Turned. Headed out on the long, tedious journey with eyes on the mushroom. Soon I was getting into the rhythm and it felt good.
Walking meditation was not what I expected would be the strangest thing about this retreat. I thought the strangest thing—aside from me in attendance—would be the silence.
Turn at the mushroom, head for the rock.
Everyone I told about this retreat said the same thing: Silence? You mean like no talking? But that part was the easiest. No talking felt completely natural. The underlying idea was that there was no talking even with your eyes. No need to look at anyone, nod or smile when passing on the steps or when eating at the same table. Do you know what a relief that was? Usually you only get to do that at home when you’re mad at everyone.
Turn at the rock, head back toward the mushroom.
Still, this was no picnic. Walking meditation was followed by sitting meditation, followed by . . . you got it . . . walking meditation. All day long, interrupted only by meals. With my eyes on the mushroom, I wondered why I had chosen something so hard for myself.
Right then, a squirrel scampered out of the tree above me, ran over, snatched my mushroom and tore off. I stopped in my tracks. My eyes had been glued on that damn mushroom; I felt jarred to my bones by its sudden disappearance. And mad as hell. The little shit. Who did he think he was, taking my mushroom?
Then I remembered my new training: cling to nothing, everything changes, all living things suffer, have compassion. I looked up, and the stinker was watching me from a branch with his little seed-shaped eyes, my mushroom in his paws.
“Hell, you can have it. Don’t want you to starve.” Then I quickly glanced around to see if anyone caught me breaking silence. With a squirrel.
The bell rang for sitting meditation and I sent the squirrel metta, which is Pali for “loving kindness,” and headed for the lodge. Back on my cushion, I thought of how this began. Three weeks ago I overheard some people in the store talking about a Vipassana retreat and it actually rang my bells—to make a bad retreat pun. This is it, I said to myself. Ten days of being alone, in silence, no distractions, getting it all figured out, just thinking about my life.
First thing I learned was that we were not supposed to be thinking at all. That was not meditation. If I’d gotten it right, meditation was sitting in stillness, as if “beside a river,” Luke told us. “A river of thought, sensation, emotion.” Focus on the breath, let the river flow by, do not engage in it. Vipassana, another Pali word meaning “insight meditation,” was a form of Buddhism that emphasized a kind of intuitive knowing, a thing I could find handy right now. So here I was: knees kinked, feet tucked into my crotch, back ramrod straight, hands curled on my thighs, head racing with menus, conversations with Annie, stories from my past that ran on circular tapes, just repeating themselves over and over. Little things surfaced and I got pissed off at total strangers from the past; somebody who boisterously called for their money back at the end of their vacation after skiing in our brand-new gear, bought when they first arrived. Then I got furious at the credit card companies that backed up bums like that, plus charged our store extra when their own cheap cards wore out and we had to manually punch the numbers in. I sat here on my cushion, my zafu, steamed at these people. I got hot and antsy, and everything itched as I argued in my head, knowing I was right, and they were wrong.
Breathe, for God’s sake. Shut up and breathe. Just let it all go: the cheap bum, the credit card company. Let it go.
I shocked myself during my personal interview with Luke Trapper, our teacher. I told him about letting my mom die when I was a kid. I choked up, too. And this, after he told the whole circle that others were trained to help with our stories; he could help us with our meditation.
Luke and I were alone in the small library of the hunting club, each on straight chairs angled toward each other. Beside us on a round table sat a lit candle, a box of tissues and a clock. Luke scheduled individual time with each participant. He listened to my story with soft eyes.
“Stuff like this comes up when we sit with ourselves. It’s important work. Let it come,” he said.
“My wife left,” I blurted. Geez, was I going to tell him the size of my underwear? “She loves me, but she left. I don’t know how this is connected, but I think it is.”
Luke said, “Your story is more than a difficult memory; the enormity of the grief impressed you as a young four-year-old boy with such force that the pattern of behavior—falling asleep in one form or another—likely has formed a template for your life.”
Luke checked my eyes with this comment and saw the affirmation in them. It was true. In fact, right then, instead of talking about this more, I felt a strong urge to space out
.
Luke went on. “Notice this desire to disconnect. Acknowledge it. And when the memory of your mother’s death arises, accept the emotions that arise with it. Be aware of how your body feels and give attention to the desire to escape the feelings. If you’d like to stop this memory from chasing you, this is a good, safe place to let it catch you.”
I said, “For a guy who claims not to know how to work with our stories, you’re sure working with mine.”
“There are many ways we fall asleep,” Luke said. “We over-schedule, watch a lot of TV, play computer games, read spy novels—my personal favorite,” he said, and laughed. “Some eat too much, drink too much. You could say our culture more than any other excels in offering a vast array of avenues to avoid waking up. None of these things are bad or wrong, but the use of them in order to avoid life is damaging.”
He suggested, since I had acknowledged this pattern in my life, that I give it a little bow of honor and return to just sitting with the awareness of it. Any other kind of work was for later, for inquiry, for the inner work of getting to know myself. A retreat was for gaining intuitive insight from the quiet mind.
“Just sit with this,” Luke said again.
So I sat with it.
Did I mention that we sat nine times a day? Annie would not believe this.
Things went pretty well the second half of the retreat. Except one morning I woke with the old song “Delta Dawn” in my head and couldn’t get rid of it all day: “Del-ta-ah Dawn, what’s that—hum-hum—you got on?”
I didn’t even know the words, but I started making some up during the day. Hour after hour, singing in my head and making rhymes. Finally, I remembered to notice my breathing and the tune passed on.
Hard to describe but the last couple days of the retreat something inside me felt more . . . maybe the word was “organized.” That was the only label that explained the calmness and orderliness inside my mind. It was as if a landslide had occurred years ago, early in my life, blocking the path ahead. During the retreat, boulders and stones, sand and dirt, broken trees and bruised plants incrementally moved on down the mountainside, eventually rolling into the river I sat beside, watching. A narrow path at my feet was cleared. The ease in my mind and body brought relief and gratitude.
