The moment is now

Upon finishing nine months of chemotherapy, I ask my oncologist about my survival odds.  "It's not a horse race," he reminds me. "Even if I give you statistics that 90% of women with your same diagnosis, age, and family history survived X number of years, you still don't know if you're the 90 or the 10.  The longer you live, the better." "Well the same can be said for the whole world," I argue. He says, "Exactly!  None of us knows how long we have. All any of us has is this very moment." 

Despite that conversation it takes me another eleven years and my father's passing before I download some apps, read some books and find meditating, and learning to stay in the moment, actually works.  My life feels calmer and I'm a lot less bothered by things that used to bother me.  A guiding principle of my life is if some is good, more is better, so I enroll in a weekend-long silent retreat.  Please read the last post for more detail: http://bit.ly/1qaHamE

First impressions
Upon arrival Friday night the dining room is completely chatty and I am immediately disappointed, having braced myself for noble silence.  I don't want to hear everyone yapping about other retreats they've done or how they found this one. I sip my tea alone, trying to tune out conversations, ready to meditate away my annoyance, but at the first "sitting" in the meditation hall we are given our instructions and the noble silence begins - finally!

The place
I am expecting some austere, Dickens-esque orphanage but it's a sprawling brick mansion filled with light some rich guy built in the 1970’s.  It's had additions in the same style and the floors are all polished light wood throughout, including the dorm rooms.  Bright and sunny, light paint colors and plants everywhere - it's beautiful and immaculately cleaned by retreatants, but not me because the retreat job gods are smiling on me.  It would make a lovely place to recover from a breakdown. 

There are yoga rooms and even a bowling lane for bowling meditation - who knew? No arts and crafts but there are 240 acres in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains which makes for great hiking. The trails are well-marked but that doesn't stop me from walking face-first into a spider web and then smashing my hand against a tree frantically trying to get it off me – all while maintaining noble silence although muffled cries of horror can be heard. I mean, if I scream it will seriously alarm people.  Oh, and we all took a vow not to harm any being, including mosquitoes and flies, so the spider lives to tell his version of this. (“So all of a sudden this giant face…”).  But I do make it out of the woods safely albeit slightly traumatized.

Jobs and people
All retreatants are given jobs and I luck out with bell-ringer.  There’s only one clock in the main hall so different people are assigned times to walk the campus with a giant, brass, triangle-shaped thing that weighs around ten pounds and signal when it's time for a meal or meditation sitting.  At first it looks like the only time slot is the 6am wake-up bell and I’m reminded of a story I used to read my first-graders called Who Wakes Rooster?  But then I see there is an opening for the late lunch slot so I grab it.  

It takes about ten minutes to make all eleven stops and I only have to do it the one time. It’s way better than vacuuming, cleaning a bathroom or even working in the kitchen despite the hot guy working there. Other than he there are (thankfully) no really hot guys that would've become the focus of my meditation and kitchen guy is not part our retreat. My phone is locked away but the only way to deactivate my man-radar is to give myself a stern talking-to. Still, if you’re a seven (out of ten) or greater, you will set it off.  Kitchen guy is a strong nine.  As bell-ringer I have to await his signal when the meal bell is ready to ring and he’s playful even without speaking.  Playful and cute are a powerful combo.  Personality activates my radar so given the opportunity to get to know people, there are definitely others with potential, but I digress.  Where were we again?

Oh, right,  we're out of time! But stay tuned for part two where I will talk about the food, my so-called practice, and (spoiler alert!) reveal the secret of life…
Namaste, amigos!