Pausing

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness. —Pema Chodron

Perhaps the best part of spending four days at a monastery is the experience of finding space and stillness. Of course, for me stillness doesn't necessarily mean sitting still. When I want to escape my own circling thoughts, I usually go outside for a walk. I need the rhythm of my muscles moving and the sound of my breathing to help me achieve that stillness, that spaciousness.

All around the monastery are miles of hiking trails that go up and down the hills, along the edges of sheep pastures and through the forest. The monks keep about 300 sheep so the pastures are pretty extensive. The fluffy white bodies of the sheep contrast with the brilliant fall foliage and still-green fields. The pastures are edged by woods, mostly on the steep hillsides, woods that smell of dead leaves and mud.

I kept my winter coat buttoned against the cold wind that rushed against my face, swept through my brain, and kept me awake and alert and very much in the present moment. From atop a hill, I looked down at the monastery, the white steeple just visible amongst the trees. How different things look when I am able to pull back and gaze at them from a different perspective. I walked until my fingers were numb with cold, and then I retreated to the chapel. Shivering, I pulled open the heavy wooden doors and stepped into the warm, musky air. That familiar smell of incense and melting wax is a scent that always makes me feel safe.

Inside the chapel, I climbed down the long stone staircase into a crypt, a dark room lit by natural light streaming though stained glass windows, set high on the walls, and the flickering light from the vigil candles that cover the low stone altar in the center. I sat in in my favourite spot, cross-legged on the floor on the stone floor, and gazed into the vigil candles, feeling pleasantly tired from my hike and entirely at peace.

Reading through the mist

Saturday morning at the monastery, I woke early and walked outside into a foggy, rainy world. White mist wove itself through the hills, across the sheep pastures, contrasting with the gold, yellow, and red foliage. My sneakers and the bottoms of my pants were soon soaking wet as I wandered through the barnyard. Even though it was early, the monks had been up even earlier: the first prayer of the day is at 4:45 am. As I wandered over to the apple orchard, I could see Brother Swings Arms walking up the hill. Even though he was carrying an umbrella that hid his face, I could tell it was him from the way he walked and the way he swung the one arm that was not carrying the umbrella.

The wind and cold rain gave me a good excuse to spend the rest of the morning inside, with my books and journals. I sat at the round table in front of the big window of the guest cottage, with a cup of tea and a piece of Monking Friend's homemade banana bread. Monking Friend and I each bring a stack of books with us when we go on retreat, mostly books that we've read over and over again, voices we want with us on retreat. We look through each other's books almost as soon as we arrive, both smiling at the familiar names. That morning, I chose a book my friend had brought, When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron, and a book from my stack, Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. I alternated reading chapters of those two books, while also writing in two of my journals, the black spiral-bound book that is my everyday journal and the journal with the purple cover that is my special monastery journal.

Monking Friend and I read and wrote, mostly in silence, although sometimes one of us would look up to share a quote from what we were reading. My monastery journal contains the history of my visits to the monastery, 24 visits in all, and I like to read through and see how much I've changed. This sheep farm high in the hills has been an important part of my emotional and spiritual life over the last ten years.

At noon, the bells at the top of the chapel began ringing, and I put my raincoat back on to to join the monks at prayer.

And I shall have some peace there

The drive to the monastery took us through small towns, hills of farmland, and woods filled with brilliant colours. I drove with Monking Friend, a longtime friend. We talked the whole way in the car, catching up on news. I've got two kids in college, and she has three. Our lives are changing as our kids get older. The first time we came together to this monastery was ten years ago, and our kids were young. I'd just stopped breastfeeding my youngest so it was the first time I could go anywhere for the weekend. How ten years changes things! Our kids — and we each have four — are all teenagers and adults now.

As the car sped past cornfields and pumpkin patches, we talked about our husbands, our extended families, our work. The conversation grew more introspective as we moved past the roles we play — mother, wife, daughter, sister, teacher or social worker — and begin talking about our emotional lives, our spiritual journeys. We talked about friendships, about projects, about healing.

By the time we reached the narrow winding road that leads up to the monastery, we were analyzing ourselves. We're opposites in many ways, so we always tease each other. I'm an extrovert; she's an introvert. One year, we both spent time figuring out where we fit on the Enneagram, which is an ancient method of understanding personality types. I'm a number four, which is characterized by the "need to feel special," which isn't surprising for someone who grew up with a bunch of sisters close in age. Monking Friend will often tease me about that trait, which is one she does not share. And yet, as a friend, she understands my need to feel special, and she does things like bake banana bread especially for me when we go on retreat.

By the time we pulled onto the grounds of the monastery, we were already feeling talked out and relaxed. We were staying in the East Casa, a little guesthouse tucked just under the big barn, with a bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and a living room. We carried our stuff in and then I sat down gratefully, feeling the peace of the monastery envelope me as I looked out the big windows to the pastures, the hills, and the sheep grazing just outside our window.



View through the window of the guest cottage.

Off to the monastery

I've gone in search of sheep, real life sheep, to throw at my facebook friends. I'm tired of cheap imitations.

Tomorrow I will return for a four-day retreat at my favourite Benedictine monastery, a working sheep farm that includes two big barns, many hillside pastures, several guesthouses, and a chapel. I am looking forward to hiking through the woods, walking through the sheep pastures, and wandering through the barnyard. I'll go to services in the octagonal chapel, sitting in the same wooden pew I always choose, listening while Brother Tractor plays the harp and the other monks chant psalms. I'll climb the stone staircase into the crypt to light candles, to sit cross-legged on the stone floor and pray. I am looking forward to the quiet and peace that always comes with a trip to the monastery.

Ecky Thump

The summer before he began eleventh grade, Boy in Black showed me his class schedule. He'd signed up for the usual academic classes, but what startled me was that he had registered for Band.

"You signed up for Band?" I asked. "But uh ... you don't play a band instrument." He did play piano, but as far as I knew, there was no piano in the concert band.

Boy in Black shrugged. "Oh, I'm going to learn to play the drums."

The whole thing seemed odd to me. He was going to join a concert band even though he didn't play any of the instruments? Seriously, what the hell was this kid thinking? What was the band director going to say on the first day when this kid showed up with no instrument?

But as usual, I was wrong, and Boy in Black was right. What the band director said was: "Okay, cool." Boy in Black started taking drum lessons and playing percussion in the concert band. When he started taking guitar lessons, he joined the jazz band. Apparently one week of lessons is all you need to become a member of the band.

When Shaggy Hair Boy started high school, he too jumped into the band, playing percussion even though he had little prior experience. And last year when With-a-Why began sixth grade at the junior high, he told me he wanted to sign up for Band rather than Chorus. Even though I should have seen this coming, I was still bewildered. "Uh .... you play the piano. There isn't a piano in the band."

With-a-Why is a boy of few words. He said simply, "I want to take Band."

So I wrote a note to the junior high band director: "With-a-Why wants to take Band. He doesn't play a band instrument. He plays the piano, though, so he can read music and knows something about music theory."

I could just picture the band teacher reading the note and then looking at the kid in front of him, a painfully shy kid who most likely stood there with his long hair in his face, not saying a single word. I guarantee that With-a-Why just handed the note to the teacher and said nothing at all. And what the band director said was, "No problem. Tell your Mom to buy you some mallets, and you can play the bells."

That's been my experience with school band directors. They will take any kid who wants to join. Knowing how to play an instrument is not a prerequisite. On the stage at a concert the other night, I counted over a hundred kids, all with whatever instrument they happened to choose. When Lisa Simpson made the saxophone popular for girls a few years back, the band director simply welcomed all the new saxophone players. If twenty kids want to play percussion, he shrugs and says, "okay."

When Boy in Black decided he wanted to learn more about music theory, the band director let him do an independent study, making time to give him one-on-one attention. When Boy in Black graduated from high school, he chose to play the guitar and sing a song as his valedictory speech, a Bob Dylan song to which he had written his own lyrics. When administrators gave him a hard time, trying to get him to change the lyrics because they didn't approve of his message, the band director showed up of his own accord to support Boy in Black.

As a teacher, I too know how to be supportive and inclusive, and how to encourage students to follow things they are passionate about. So I guess I am not completely surprised that these music teachers know how to support my kids' love for music. But here's what amazes me: I go to concerts at the high school, I sit in the dark auditorium, and I look up at the huge group of students who have taken over the whole stage, an odd assortment of students from all different backgrounds, who walk in lugging their instruments and music stands. And then, through the dim air of the auditorium, from the borrowed and rented instruments held by these high school kids, comes beautiful music — melodies that tug at memories, rhythms that change my mood. Incredible, lovely, stirring music.

And that's the part that stuns me.

Unstructured time in nature, baby

Above the wooden "No Swimming" sign, a bright red sign warns: "Violators subject to $100 fine. And/Or 15 days in Jail." That sign has been there, at the side of Pretty Colour Lake for as long as I can remember. We've always treated it as a joke.

Imagine three criminals exchanging stories in the prison dining hall.
"Whadda you in for?"
"Assault and robbery."
"Murder."
"Me? I went swimming in Pretty Colour Lake."

I'd told my students about the sign, but I think most of them thought I was teasing. When we arrived at the lakes, they kept saying, "The sign! It's really there!"

We'd come, simply, to leave the city behind to spend "unstructured time in nature." After reading Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods, a book which talks about how children nowadays suffer from what he calls "nature-deficit disorder," my students kept saying, "We need some unstructured time in nature! The book says so." So I signed up for one of our buses and brought my students on a fall day to one of my favourite places.

We hiked back to the second lake, Round Lake, a small glacial lake with incredible green-blue water. Some of the students wandered off to explore the trails, climb trees, or sit quietly with their journals. Another group sat near the edge of the water, chatting lazily and looking out over the lake. Formed by a glacier, this small deep lake is surrounded by hills that rise sharply from the trails. We were the only humans in this little valley of hardwoods and cedar trees.

Of course, my students found the clear water of the lake, on this unseasonably warm fall day, impossible to resist. The threat of a prison sentence did not deter them. They stripped off what clothes they could, the guys getting down to boxer shorts and the women to t-shirts or sports bras. The water gets deep immediately, so they had only to step off the shore to plunge in over their heads. Other students climbed the cedar trees that hang over the edge to leap more dramatically into the cold water.

Not everyone went swimming. RedCurlyHair and LovelyVoice sat on a rock in the sun, sketching. One student had brought her camera to snap photos of the illegal activities. TallGuy demonstrated his prowess at skipping stones. CameraGirl set down her camera to fashion a boat out of twigs and leaves, a sailboat that actually did float across the water. FromElsewhere, who was playing in the water at the edge, picked up a hunk of smooth clay, and the students began rubbing the clay on their faces, their hands, their arms. We were talking quietly, in hushed voices as if we were in church, and rubbing the clay onto skin was a strange ritual somehow in keeping with the changing leaves, the sound of geese overhead, and the soft autumn air.

Eventually, it was time to walk back to the buses. Storm clouds had rolled in, and rain came crashing down. Half of my students were already wet, and no one seemed to mind. By the time we got to the parking lot, big puddles had formed, and we splashed through them gleefully. Everyone was laughing and talking as we piled onto the bus, some clutching handfuls of wild grapes. SparklyEyes said to me, as she walked soggily past, "This was so wonderful. It's like all the stress of the semester just melted away."



One of my students climbing out to leap into the lake.

Bounce

I was grading papers at my desk yesterday afternoon when loud noises began outside my door. It sounded like my teenage boys were bouncing balls off the door of my office. The balls would thump, the boys would laugh, and every once in a while, I heard a crash as something hit the floor. I listened for a minute. I could hear a bunch of muttering that sounded as if they were making up rules to a new game, and the repeated use of the word DRAIN, which usually followed the crashing noise.

I put down my pen and opened the door.

"Hey, watch this, " said Shaggy Hair Boy. He threw a ball, which bounced off the floor, banked off the wall, and fell into the metal garbage can they were using as a basket. Boy in Black grinned at me before turning to toss a ball over his shoulder, backwards. The ball hit the floor, bounced, banked off the bookcase, and just missed the metal basket.

"Isn't this really an outdoor game?" I said, reverting to the kind of language I used when the kids were young.

Boy in Black and Shaggy Hair exchanged a glance, both sort of rolling their eyes. With-a-Why looked at me in surprise. "How could we play this outside? We need walls to bank off."

Another cat

Rachel was jealous that her sister Rogue was getting so much attention on the blog. So I told her that she could pose naked.

Then I think, really, I am going to have to take a break from all these nude photos. Naked cats! With faces even! This blog is going to hell in a handbasket.

Ringing

When I was a kid, no one ever went running through the house asking, "Where's the phone?" No one ever began tossing newspapers and papers off the couch, rummaging about, swearing, searching desperately for the phone. No one ever yelled, "Someone call me so I can find my phone!"

The telephone, black and impressively big, was firmly anchored onto the kitchen wall. We all knew where it was. My mother kept a pad of paper and pen right near the phone, so that anyone who answered the phone could take messages. The answering machine hadn't been invented yet. Cell phones hadn't been invented yet either, so the only time you might see a phone vibrating against someone's leg would be in a comedy skit.

I can still remember my first cordless phone, and what a luxury it was. With several small kids at home, the telephone was my connection to the world of adults. The cordless phone allowed me to talk to a friend while I followed my kids around to make sure they weren't sticking things in their mouths or setting anything on fire. I learned to play Candy Land with a small child, change a toddler's diaper, breastfeed an infant, and balance a phone on my shoulder all at the same time. But yeah, it was weird to have a phone that I could lose. My friends would come over with their kids on Wednesday mornings, and right before they left, they'd gather up all the toys that were scattered about my small living room and dump them in the toy box. Inevitably, that's where I'd find the phone.

My kids have grown up with the idea that phones are portable devices that can be tossed from person to person and left stranded wherever you happen to be when you end the phone call. Without a phone attached to the wall, they were never trained to write down those phone messages. Shaggy Hair Boy is usually the quickest to answer the phone, but he is terrible about giving me messages, even when I'm just downstairs in my office. As my parents' car will pull into the driveway, he'll yell, "Oh, yeah, I forgot I was supposed to tell you. Grandma said that they were coming over."

Yesterday, my mother called and left a message with Shaggy Hair Boy that she had apple pies in the oven and that we could have one if we came over at 4 pm to pick it up. Shaggy Hair Boy came bounding down the stairs to tell me the news. He loves homemade apple pie. Just before 4 pm, he reminded me again. When we entered my mother's house, which smelled wonderfully of cinnamon, my mother laughed. "I knew somehow that this was one phone message that Shaggy Hair Boy would remember to give you."

Raindrops

My husband and With-a-Why left town this afternoon on a trip they've been planning for a while: they've driven to Town That Sounds Like Dishware. Right now, they're settled into a hotel room and are snuggled on the bed together, reading comic books, and tomorrow, they are going to Famous Glass Museum. With-a-Why has always been fascinated with glass statues and glass artwork, and he's looking forward to seeing the glass-making demonstrations.

What's most unusual is that we have no extra kids here tonight. Most of the kids in Shaggy Hair Boy's grade are sleeping in their own homes because tomorrow they have to get up early to go take a standardized test. But Boy in Black is here. As he lounged on the couch, eating potato bread dipped in balsamic vinegar (one of his favorite snacks), he and Shaggy Hair had an earnest discussion about the Ultimate Frisbee Club that Shaggy Hair is starting over at the high school. An English teacher and a gym teacher have agreed to sponsor the club, and their first meeting is Tuesday. "If Gym Teacher wants to help explain the game, let him," advised Boy in Black, "and if he gets something wrong, you can just tactfully correct him."

Soon the two boys had their guitars out and were deep into a conversation that made absolutely no sense to me, filled with phrases like, "the dorian mode of the A major scale." After they jammed on the guitars for a while, Shaggy Hair moved to the piano and Boy in Black to the drums. It's funny: when Shaggy Hair was younger, he and Boy in Black always seemed like such different personalities to me, but as they get older, they seem to get more and more alike.

So it's an unusually quiet Friday night here. Sitting on the couch with a computer in my lap and a cat at my feet, I am listening to the music and chatter from the two boys and during pauses, the sound of the raindrops hitting the window panes.