sojourn

For more than two months, I sat on the waiting list for a week-long meditation retreat that begins tomorrow. One hundred people will spend a week in silence together, alternating sitting meditations and walking meditations. I've been looking forward to it. But I haven't been able to get excited about it because of the waiting list thing.

After you pay the retreat fee, you wait to see if others bail. I start off somewhere around number 30 when I sign up, and soon am number 26. By late October I'm 13th in line. Then I don't hear anything ever again. I begin to wonder if this is a test. You clear your week, and wait to see if you are called. It's a game of Zen chicken.

I'm doing pretty well with it, I think, though the suspense is driving Laura nuts. Last night she reaches the end of her rope.

"You haven't heard from them??!! I'm going to call them and pretend I am you."

"No, La," I tell her. "We're supposed to wait. I'm on the waiting list."

"But this is ridiculous! You've cleared a whole week and you have no idea if you're going to be able to go."

"But it's kind of interesting," I try. "It's like those trips where people aren't told where they're going until they get there."

"This is ridiculous," she mutters.

I start to itch, like you do when you see someone else scratching. I kind of would like to know where I'm pitching my tent next week. I'm up for the retreat, but I'd also like a week of writing. I've been imagining both with equal interest and anticipation. Which will it be? And what if I could choose? So often I don't choose.

So last night I write to the retreat center. "Uncle!" I say. "Please take my name off the waiting list for the retreat which begins any second now. I fold. I am not Zen enough to wait any longer."

Actually, no. I don't say that. I do say Uncle, though, and then after I send the email I worry that they won't understand that. I'm afraid they'll think I'm addressing them using the Chinese term of filial piety. (This reminds me of how my beloved brother Lee once advised us younger siblings as we entered a large party of mostly Chinese adults: "Don't worry. Just call the men 'uncle' and the women 'auntie' and you'll be okay.")

So I lost the game of chicken. And now the world is my oyster!

I hate oysters.

Laura and I begin to scramble to find the right thing to Occupy me next week.

I don't want to stay at home, as much as I love home. Give me a totally unscheduled week at 15 Main Street and I will spend it oiling squeaky doors, taking out the recycling one yogurt container at a time, checking out The Messiah flash mobs on YouTube, and cooking for the masses.

"Don't stay here," says Laura wisely. "You'll end up buying a dishwasher."

I start looking at B&Bs within walking distance of grocery stores. Laura is looking at yoga retreat centers in Puerto Rico, beach rentals in Florida, a small island off the coast of Brazil. When I look up from my computer, pondering a B&B run by Fred and Ethel and their three dogs, Laura is on her computer looking at Club Meds. Club Meds, she's looking at!

"It doesn't cost anything to look," she says without batting an eye.

"La," I tell her firmly. "I am not going to tell my clients that instead of the meditation retreat I went to a Club Med. I won't be able to face them."

Here my mind gets stuck on how it is that Laura loves me better than I love her. Not more; just better. If I break something, if I leave the oven on, if I screw up somehow, we all agree that it's a good thing it was me and not Laura. We laugh about it, but deep inside I hate how true that is.

If Laura had a week to play with, I would try to make it seem like a fabulous idea to do it on the cheap. Hey! How about you go stay with your mom? It's so comfy there. Or: how about you curl up near this cute, little, shedding Christmas tree we picked up at Lowe's? You could sit right in front of a warm fire. I would dig up lots of reasons not to go whole oyster, while hoping it sounds like her happiness is my top priority.

I have so much to learn about being a good person.

I am leaving Sunday morning and will write more from the retreat I have chosen.