by Tina Welling
Most of all I moved through my days with a new spaciousness in my head. My chest felt full, in a nice way, a soft swirl of feeling. Didn’t know what that was about.
So head empty, heart full, I was still pretty sure I was the overgrown ski bum I had always been. Yet by the end of the retreat, I’d come a long way from that first weekend. The last day I teared up like every other person when my turn came to hold the talking stick, actually an elk antler, decorated with a turquoise stone, feathers and wrapped with rawhide. This was Jackson Hole, after all—got to get the cowboy-and-Indian thing in. That was closing council and we were to pass the talking stick and say a few things, if we liked, about our experience.
One guy said he was going to pay for two spots next time so he could eat twice as much food; he thought it was so delicious. Another said he kept expecting our teacher Luke to detach, create some distance between himself and the rest of us, but—here the fellow choked up and had to regain his voice—Luke never did, was always right there, available. I choked up then, too. That was a typical guy’s experience with other men, especially leaders of any kind, including fathers—detachment. The Kleenex box got passed around the circle on that one.
I was relieved to hear one woman talk about how much she sometimes wanted to jump up halfway through a sit and snatch the gong to end it. I was embarrassed to confess how much of my own time was spent imagining the same thing.
But for me—and I said this out loud—it was being left on my own with people all around but no one to impress, no reason to act in any special way, no approval to seek, no need to make a story to explain anything. Me. Without a story. Now that was a new experience.
One more thing left to do. Call Lola, and make another damn appointment.
Thirty-seven
Annie
“Jess, you’re finally back. Your phone message said you’d be gone on a retreat for a while. It was a long while.” Not that it mattered. The store was closed now in mid-April until summer season began in mid-May, and Jess had warned me that he might go out of town.
“I know. Should have signed up for a weekend, but I signed up for two weekends . . . including the week in between them.”
“You were on a retreat for ten days?”
“And nights.”
“What kind of retreat? A ski retreat?”
“This is what helped me stay there the whole time, looking forward to telling you this—wish I could see your face. It was a Buddhist retreat.”
I was aghast. “Buddhist?” I said it again, louder: “Buddhist?
What made you do such a thing?”
“I thought they said ‘nudist’—ten days, no clothes, naked women, sign me up.”
I laughed. “You did not. Tell me.”
“Hard to explain. Somebody came into the store—you know, like they always do—wanting to tack up posters. I read it, told the woman I’d sign up. A whim. I don’t know what the hell got into me. Thought it’d be good. You know, a pretty place, somebody else cooks. There are talks in the evening, company around.”
“And?”
“It was all that. It was held in Granite Creek Canyon, in the lodge near the hot springs. The food was great, the talks were exceptional . . . but it was a silent retreat for all-day meditation.”
“You meditated?”
“For ten days.”
He sounded proud and . . . forlorn. I got the giggles. Jess joined me, and the laughter accelerated as we both held the image of Jess sitting in meditation day after long day.
I said, “But now how do you feel about having done that?” Instantly I regretted the question. This was the kind of thing Jess hated—How do you feel ? I started to rephrase it.
Jess butted in, “I feel good. I don’t know why, but I feel good.”
“Oh, gosh.”
“And I’m making an appointment with Lola.”
“Oh, gosh.”
“You’re a college student now. Expand your vocabulary.”
“But . . . Jess. Gosh.”
“I know.”
A Buddhist retreat. An appointment with Lola. I was spinning. I alternately swooned at this news of Jess grabbing hold of his life and addressing his problems, and laughed when picturing him sitting on a cushion on the floor with his legs curled.
I asked, “What was it like?”
“Meditation is all about awareness, paying attention to your mind. And my mind is like a new puppy sometimes, got to watch it every second. Or the puppy will pee on the carpet, chew the cherrywood table leg or hide my boot. Busy scampering all over, then suddenly it falls asleep. That’s me in meditation.”
I laughed. But clearly something else had also happened for Jess. He was present with me; his defenses seemed at rest. We talked about the boys, the business and my classes. Seemed Jess was full of talk, as if having stored it up for ten days made it multiply and burst forth. Perfect for seeing Lola.
I mustn’t expect anything, I kept reminding myself after we hung up. Yet I had reason to hope. Jess was trying to make changes. Not just talking about them, but taking action toward them. I warned myself not to alter my path because of his. If changes occurred, great. Whether they did or they didn’t, I must live my life. And allow Jess to live his.
Then, as Lucille said, we could get together for dinner and have lovely conversations.
I arranged with several of my professors to work toward my degree in art therapy back home in Jackson Hole, online and during short campus sessions here in Hibiscus throughout the next school year. The college was making every effort to enable my independent study.
In Jackson Hole the main project for my art therapy degree was a program I had already begun to set up with St. John’s Hospital. I had gained approval to offer art supplies and journals to patients, along with guidance from me during hospital room visits. First step was to set up a wheeled cart like the one they already used for offering patients DVDs and library books. My cart would hold sketchbooks, journals, watercolors, clay, yarn, card-making supplies. Besides earning me college credits, this project allowed me to begin my intended work of enhancing the healing process through creative energy. The hospital in Jackson Hole was supportive, and I looked forward to the work and imagined eventually pulling in artists and writers to volunteer their talents.
My creative toolbox had become more fully equipped with each skill I had been taught: encaustic, pastels, sand play. And in the next year or so of schooling, it would become fuller yet. Already I had begun picturing my life back in Jackson Hole after my final classes this spring. I intended to work part-time at TFS, and if my other two partners agreed, I’d stock a pet corner. Carry a line of collars and leashes, dog backpacks and especially my knitted sweaters. Customers had always spent time with our dogs, since they missed their own left at home. I thought those customers might like to take back a souvenir for their pets.
I walked Jeter and Bijou to the marina during the times Daniel—or, rather, Nick—and I had agreed upon for the possibility of returning Jeter, lunchtimes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It had been a month since our houseboat trip, and I no longer expected to see Daniel whenever I approached the pier where he had moored his boat. Still, I leashed Jeter, because the boat sat unsold and I was afraid the dog would try to board it. Today I intended to say goodbye to this place, as I was doing with all my favorite spots. Soon I would be returning home, and it looked like I’d be taking Jeter with me.
Stocker no longer sat on a picnic table wearing his wingtips and shorts, binoculars around his neck. The go-fast boat no longer sat riding the waves on the horizon. It was my habit to walk the length of the pier, past Nick’s boat, to the Turtle Nest, where we had lunched together so often, then down onto the boardwalk and across the wide stretch of grassy park, dotted with Australian pines. As the dogs and I stepped off the boardwalk onto the grass, Jeter pricked up his ears, looked across the stretch of grass and trees to the parking lot, then looked pleadingly at me. I followed Jeter’s look, my own heart pumping in rhyth
m to his excited tail wagging.
A maroon SUV was angled against the curb, wavy air emitting from its tailpipe. A man stepped out of the driver’s side, leaving the car door open, and I saw it was Nick. Still not out of the woods, I guessed by his careful actions. So I didn’t wave. Jeter pranced in place. I bent down and unleashed him and watched as the dog raced, ears back, teeth exposed as if in a smile, across the grassy park toward Nick, who had squatted down to catch his dog’s headlong run. Nick greeted Jeter, enfolding him head to toe; then he held my eyes for a long moment.
A sob gathered in my throat.
Nick stood and motioned for Jeter to jump into the opened car door; then he turned to me. We stared at each other another long moment. Nick made a fist. He knocked it against his heart, once, twice.
I answered. I knocked my fist against my heart, once, twice.
He got in the car, pulled off and was gone.
My shoulders heaved and I swallowed hard to hold my sob, put sunglasses on and walked away, down the boardwalk.
It was difficult to concentrate on wrapping up my school semester, while saying goodbye to people I cared about, and at the same time preparing to meet my life in Wyoming. Underlying all that, worry continually churned over Dad—were we doing enough, had we thought of every possible solution, could we have prevented his strokes? All concerns Daisy and I bounced back and forth between us, while lobbing questions to every medical authority we could find. Meanwhile, we followed Dr. Jack’s advice to prepare for the future.
Today I was in Stuart for my last visit before leaving Florida. Daisy and I needed to sign legal papers giving us power of attorney. We picked up Dad on our way to the lawyers. We all felt uneasy. I sat in the backseat of Daisy’s van, and as often happened to people during stressful occasions, my attention latched on to the mundane. I made a mental list of the array of items strewn on the floor and seats of my sister’s vehicle—a curled-up bathing suit looking as if someone had just rolled it wet off their body, crayons, photos, candy wrappers, straws, beach umbrella, boxer shorts, a stuffed monkey, sandals, hairbrush. There were nail clippings in a cup holder, fishing hooks stuck in the sandy carpet and pairs and pairs of dirty socks. I recalled having heard one of the twins say, “Mommy, we need to go shopping. We don’t have any socks.”
Gratitude rose whenever I thought about the success of our trip on the houseboat. Dad had seemed to remember his best self around the family, corny jokes and all. He’d played his old tricks on the boys, despite their being college students.
“Grandpa cheats at rummy,” Cam complained. “He makes me look at something, and when I do he takes an extra card off the deck.”
“He pulled that on you when you were eight, pointing out the window, then stealing a bite of your dessert. Time to catch on, sweetie. Don’t look.”
“He told me there was a naked girl on the beach.”
Those memories of our houseboat vacation, that final family trip, both cheered and saddened me. When I had decided to spend the winter in Florida last January, I had never suspected how meaningful it would be.
After the lawyer’s appointment, back at Daisy’s house, I set out ingredients for making soto ayam, or at least my version of the Asian chicken soup. I began to poach the chicken breasts.
“Well, hell,” I said.
From the dining table, where she was reading the newspaper, Daisy asked, “What?”
I wailed, “The sugar ants are on the stove now.”
“Just turn on a burner. Heats up their tiny feet and they leave.”
I glared at her. She turned a page of the newspaper and continued to read. I stood before the stove for a moment, ready to give up and take everybody out to dinner. Then I turned on the burner beneath my chicken broth, and in seconds the sugar ants evacuated the stove top. I glared at her again.
Daisy laid her arm across the paper to hold it down as a breeze from the deck blossomed a page up from the dining table.
“I have a confession to make,” I said to her, keeping my head lowered to chop vegetables. “There’s something I want to do before leaving here, at least something I want to say.”
Daisy said, “Forget it. I’m not getting rid of the sugar ants. They’re part of the family.”
I tossed the diced onions and sliced carrots and celery into the chicken broth, then turned to her.
“It’s just . . . well, I want Dad to know that it’s okay for him to talk about dying.”
Daisy’s eyes teared. “You think he’s worried?”
“I don’t know.” In Dad’s presence, Daisy and I had taken on the cheery position that all would be well soon, but I was feeling more and more uncomfortable with that falseness. Somewhere inside, our father may be feeling uncomfortable with that fiction, too. And if so, he was aware of the truth and facing it all alone. Dad, despite being the Big Typhoon, held some fundamental ideas that he’d left unexamined during his life.
I began to chop the cilantro. I was considering teaching Dad how to make clouds disappear. Since that morning years ago when the family sat on the beach together and made clouds disappear by following the directions in a book Cam read to us, I had held a different view of life and death. I carried the realization that nothing died; everything just changed. Clouds didn’t actually disappear. They changed into another form of moistness—dew, rain, mist, another cloud.
Our family had shared the experience with Daisy and Marcus one day while on their boat, so I bounced the idea off her.
“The experience might inspire Dad and give him comfort,” I said.
Daisy said, “You thought he’d be inspired by seeing the Hale-Bopp Comet, too. Remember? You took him to the beach one night to view it. Then those thirty-nine people committed suicide, and for years afterward Dad called it ‘your killer comet.’ ”
I’d completely forgotten how he used to refer to my “sentimental crap.”
Daisy said, “I don’t think he’d be comforted. He’d just blame you for every drought on the planet.”
Daisy and I decided we’d stop our positive talk about the future and watch more carefully for Dad’s need to know the truth.
When I returned to Hibiscus, I invited Sara, Perry and Marcy to a picnic on the beach for our final gathering. Trip after trip, I carried food, wine and blankets from my car up and over the dune bridge. I had collected driftwood during the week and cached it in the sea grape for a fire tonight after the sun went down. After carrying over my last load, I pulled out the firewood and stacked it. One by one my friends appeared over the dune and walked barefoot, sandals swinging from their hands, to where I waved.
We walked along the shore before eating, stopping now and then to examine special shells, though most often we stood ankle deep in the warm salt water, waves occasionally wetting the hems of our shorts, caught up in talk. For each one of us, school had become a lively focus and had changed every part of our lives. We loved to talk about how that was going.
Perry had settled her sights on becoming a decorator; next semester she’d be taking the textiles class I had taken. Sara wanted to teach middle school. That career excited her much more than being a paralegal, which her husband had been promoting; Sara loved the energy and possibilities of preteen kids. Marcy hoped she’d discover a direction for her studies soon. She said Guy was pressuring her to choose a major and she couldn’t decide on one.
I asked Marcy, “What do you want to do?”
“Thanks. I thought you were on my side.”
“Sorry. I should know better. That’s how I felt every time someone asked me exactly why did I leave on a marriage sabbatical.”
“Yeah, why did you?” Marcy said.
“Okay, we’re even.”
“So it’s the same deal,” Perry said. “You had to leave Jess and create the time and space to figure out why you left, and, Marcy, you have to take some classes to figure out what you’re interested in besides new cookie recipes, after all those years of being a mother and housewife.”
We
stayed on the beach long after dark, talking around the bonfire, hating to say goodbye. Eventually we gave in to the reality of final hugs.
Tonight I was spending the last night in my apartment. Tomorrow after packing the car and having breakfast downstairs with Shank and Lucille, I would hit the road for the long drive to Wyoming with my bird, Kia, and my pup, Bijou, in the backseat.
I had come to love so many things in Florida that I was going to miss. Hidden courtyards in Old Town Stuart with twisted ancient vines holding up the walls and stone fountains with algae-covered grout and mossy corners. The sound of raindrops on tile. Small stretches of exposed creeks between town buildings in Hibiscus surrounded by patches of dense growth. Tiny frogs leaping from trees. Blossoms wafting heated fragrance.
In Jackson Hole, extreme skiers called the response to facing something difficult “flashing the crux.” When the sudden appearance of an exposed boulder looms while skiing the narrowest part of a couloir, a skier must blow through it without hesitation, just make the jump to fresh snow. That’s how I’d have to leave Florida, blow through the severing without hesitation, flashing the crux.
As I completed my packing, I found Jess’ note to me.
I love you for a hundred raisins.
I held the card to my heart and suddenly experienced a burst of awe over the force that had kept us together during our long history and that even now pulsed with new life and promise. I realized Jess may go only as far as he needed to in order to keep peace between us, and then backslide as usual, but we were surely more related to each other than to anyone else. Though science claimed that siblings were the closest biological relationship, Jess and I had breathed each other’s moist night breath for twenty-six years, those exhalations that carry the tastes of the same foods eaten and the fragrances of each other’s dreams.