Dorothy on the Rocks

by Barbara Suter

  17

  At noon the next day I’m packed and ready to go. I take my toothbrush, eyedrops, clothes, and Kathleen Norris’s book The Cloister Walk, about her experiences at a Benedictine monastery. It’s a book my mother sent me a few years ago. One of her attempts to convert me, but what the hell, I figure I can use it as a guidebook; every journey needs a map so you have at least some chance of finding your way back home.

  Brian rings the buzzer; I grab my suitcase, give Bixby a goodbye smooch, and head for the hills, literally.

  Two hours later we make a stop at Brian’s country house. It’s a cabin in the Catskills that he and his brother bought years ago so they would have a place to go trout fishing.

  “I have to do some chores at Two Dogs. I have a new tenant coming in next week. I’ll make you a cup of coffee and you can relax.”

  The cabin is called Two Dogs because Brian and his brother both had Labradors when they bought it, and the dogs ran the place. Since then the dogs have died and Brian’s brother got married and moved to Ontario, but the name remains. Brian kept the cabin and rents it out a few months of the year.

  I lie in the hammock in the sun and wait for Brian to finish his work. The sun is hot and the summer afternoon feels like a warm blanket. I have no makeup on, in preparation for my spiritual journey. I’m still wearing the eye patch, which I’m beginning to like. It makes me look exotic. We are going to a Buddhist monastery. Brian tells me the motto is “Life is suffering.” Boy and how. I hope the Buddha will smile on me.

  After Brian finishes his chores we head for the monastery, traveling higher into the mountains along the Beaverkill River. Finally we turn onto a long dirt road that is guarded by a large stone statue sitting at the entrance.

  “Say hello to Buddha,” Brian says as we drive by.

  “Hello, Buddha,” I call out the window.

  We pass a lovely lake. “That’s Sangha Meadow,” Brian tells me, pointing to the left. “The burial grounds.”

  “That’s a bit ominous.”

  “The alpha and the omega,” Brian comments. “The circle of life.”

  Why can’t I just smoke and listen to Joni Mitchell for the rest of my life? That’s all I really want to do. That and eat homemade brownies.

  “There it is,” Brain says.

  “Gosh,” I say, seeing the monastery in the distance. It’s beautiful, sitting serenely on a hill above the lake. It is built in the traditional Japanese design, with simple, clean lines. The grounds around it are impeccably groomed. “Well,” I say, taking it in.

  “Indeed,” says Brian. “By the way, did I tell you this is a silent retreat? I don’t think I mentioned that. Once we get inside the monastery, no talking, understand?”

  “Are you kidding? I can’t go days without talking. It’s scary being in my head by myself.”

  “You only talk to the roshi, your Zen teacher, when you meet privately with him.”

  “I could strangle you right here at Buddha’s front door,” I say. And I mean it.

  “Come on,” Brian says with a laugh. “Have faith. This is just the thing for you. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

  This is going to be a nightmare. I can feel it. We park the car at the bottom of the hill, get our things, and hike up to the main entrance. A young man in robes, with a shaved head and a cheery smile, greets us at the door. We deposit our shoes in the shoe room and are taken to our assigned quarters. Mine is on the first floor—very small with a cot, one light, an incense holder, a tiny closet, and a bathroom down the hall. It is, indeed, monastic.

  “Well,” I say. And this is my last “well,” as the cheery young man in robes reminds me that silence is now the rule. I nod, unpack my comfortable clothes, and wonder—silently—what the hell I’m doing here.

  We have dinner in the dining hall. There are about twenty-five participants. Another cheery monk explains the schedule and work assignments. It seems the monks are allowed to speak when instructing us, but we can’t respond. We must only do. After dinner we go to the meditation hall for zazen, which I’m told is the term for the sitting meditation practice we will be doing for the next three days.

  When I get back to my cell—oops, I mean room—I lie down on my cot and stare at the ceiling. I concoct a plan to sneak into Brian’s room and steal the car keys for my getaway, but then abandon it. I’m sure he has hidden them. He knows me. I decide to keep a diary. In case I don’t make it out alive and end up in Sangha Meadow at least there will be a record.

  My Silent (I have really lost my mind)

  Retreat Journal

  Day One: I realize I didn’t bring a notebook so I am writing on the back pages of my day planner. I will write small. This morning we got up at four thirty a.m. Awakened by someone running up and down the corridors ringing a bell. I thought it was a dream. It is now eight fifteen a.m. We have already meditated and chanted and eaten breakfast (some sort of porridge with cabbage and hot sauce and seaweed sprinkles). Now we have a half-hour break. I am dying for a cigarette and a nap. I’m sitting by a beautiful, peaceful lake. It is incredibly quiet, which makes me want to scream. My body is in pain from sitting cross-legged on the round meditation cushions. The fellow sitting on the cushion next to me looks and smells like he hasn’t washed in weeks. And he breathes through his mouth.

  My sublime peace was just interrupted by a monk diving into the lake. A large splash and then his bald head resurfaces. His breathing is labored. I gather my thoughts and my sandals and start back to the zendo for another three hours of meditation. I hope lunch is better than breakfast.

  Day Two: I am still here, although last night if someone had offered me a ride back to the city I would gladly have gone. Another day of this and I’ll be catatonic. I met with the Zen master last night for a one-on-one talk. I said I wanted peace of mind. He told me to think about nothing and count my breaths (at first I thought he said breasts). Count my breaths and breathe out through my tailbone. I wish I had a shot of scotch. That would help me relax more when I meditate. I think about cigarettes and I think about Jack.

  During the next two hours of meditation I feel very peaceful and very close to Buddha, except my neck is stiff and my shoulders are going in and out of spasm, my eye throbs intermittently and my right leg has gone to sleep. The man sitting opposite me in the meditation hall has only one leg. He walks with crutches when he’s not sitting. I wonder how he lost his leg—maybe a car accident or combat, or maybe he was here at a retreat and his leg went to sleep and the circulation stopped but he couldn’t move or speak so gangrene set in and the leg was amputated. The price of enlightenment can be high. I concentrate on nothing and breathe in and out. I feel like I am in the Buddha’s belly.

  The food is organic and mostly brown. I miss the morning coffee and get herbal tea instead. You have only one chance when the server goes by, and I was confused which server had tea and which had coffee. It was six a.m. I’ll probably have a caffeine headache in about an hour.

  I’m at the lake. It’s still placid. I breathe in and then I breathe out through my tailbone. The trees are blowing in the wind. The leaves look like tiny ballet dancers moving in slow motion; in fact, the whole world looks to be moving in slow motion. It is v-e-r-y b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. I am a tree.

  Day Two and a Half: I don’t want to ever talk to anyone again. I’m glad this is a silent retreat. Brian is becoming unbearable. I hate him. He is refusing to talk. I can’t stand it. He just sits quietly during quiet time and reads The Three Pillars of Zen. My Kathleen Norris book about her three-year retreat at a Benedictine monastery is redundant. I can’t bear reading it. I wish I had Sue Grafton’s new murder mystery instead.

  I am beginning to get some clarity here in all this silence, clarity about other people, and it is not pleasant. People are irritating. I’ve always thought that and now Buddha has confirmed it. I just killed a big water bug in the women’s restroom. The blood is dark orange, not red but a rich burnt sienna. This will probably set me back a few years
on my journey to Nirvana. God, I wish I could shave my legs, but showers must be short, silent, and every other day. I want to burst into a medley of Broadway tunes.

  It’s our afternoon rest period. I sit on a big rock. Two monks are swimming in the lake. I sit with my face to the sun and listen to the buzz of Buddha’s lesser creatures, and the heavy breathing of the swimming monks magnified in the quiet of the day. I wish I had some Anne Sexton to read. I am desperate for some loud, unbridled neurosis. The rest period draws to a close, and I must return to my sitting cushion and breathe through my asshole. I think about Jack for the whole meditation period and have a silent sitting orgasm which is very pleasant. I wonder if the man sitting next to me with the dirty hair finds me attractive.

  Day Three: I’m worried about the graham cracker supply. I brought a box with me as I anticipated the food situation, and Brian keeps eating them. He sneaks into my room and steals them. One thing I know about my true nature is I don’t like sharing—especially food, and especially when it is in short supply. I’m going to have to hide the crackers.

  I go for a walk during my forty-five minute break. It has been raining and a thick layer of mist and fog gracefully drapes the lake. The beaver dam is fecund with baby beavers. It looks to me like the mother beaver is smoking a cigarette. I must be hallucinating. A large bumblebee stings me on the head. I can’t remember if I’m allergic or not. I take my pulse. What if my heart stops right here? I breathe in and out and feel like I’m going to faint. I am overdosing on enlightenment.

  Day Three and a Half: The sitting meditation is very painful. I think I’m developing arthritis in my left hip. Tonight during quiet time Brian pointed out a passage from his Zen book that says women can achieve enlightenment sooner than men because they have fewer ideas in their heads. I had to bite my tongue and suck the blood to keep from committing a mortal sin.

  Day Three and Three-quarters: It is the last evening of the retreat, and my body is so racked with pain that I can’t feel the profound hunger in my belly. I would kill for a chocolate éclair. The person I’m most jealous of is the man with one leg sitting opposite me. He has only half the pain—no wonder he is so serene. He sits like a rock. I focus on his stillness to calm my mind. The fellow next to me never has washed his hair. But it doesn’t bother me anymore. I am beyond caring. I hope this is the closest I ever get to being a prisoner of war. I know now that by day three I would tell them anything and everything. Brian found the graham crackers last night and finished them. I am going to kill him as soon as we are alone.

  In my last meeting with the roshi he talked about breathing again. I told him I was too depressed to breathe. I told him I was depressed because I was in love with this guy, but I had been mean to him and now there wasn’t much chance of things working out. I also told him that I wanted a cigarette and some scotch and that I didn’t think I could go on living. I said I wanted to put my head in the oven and turn on the gas. He smiled and said, “Be here and breathe.” He’s kind of like a respiratory therapist. I’ve never really thought about breathing before. I didn’t realize it was so important, but I guess it is. Maybe I don’t need to smoke; maybe I need to breathe more.

  Final Entry: In the final meditation period I am very still and breathe in and out through my tailbone. And in a mental flash the phrase that was under Danny Panther’s picture in the high school yearbook pops into my head: “To create is to breathe, this I believe.” Maybe this is what it means, why the Zen master keeps talking about breathing. I breathe and create life, create my life, moment by moment. I am a creation, the creation of my life. My life is a canvas. My life is a poem. I think Henry David Thoreau said that, after years of living alone on Walden Pond. Stop it, I tell myself. Stop thinking. Concentrate on nothing. I look at the one-legged man across from me. He is Buddha. God, I want a cigarette. No, I want a breath. I breathe in and out and in and out. I hope there is a message from Jack when I get back home. I would like to lie down and breathe next to him again and think about nothing.

  WE HAVE A FINAL meditation very early Monday morning and then we have cleanup chores assigned. I have to clean the slate stairs and polish the railing. The once quiet monastery is now bustling with activity. Then the bell rings and we all gather for our final meal. It is an informal breakfast and everybody is talking. It’s like an explosion after so much silence. I sit next to Brian.

  One of the monks offers a toast to our Zen master, who is sitting at the front table. He bows his head in gratitude. Then different participants get up and talk about how the retreat affected them. The fellow with the dirty hair gets up and bows to the room.

  “This has been a beautiful time,” he says in a thick Polish accent. “I am renewed and I offer this in gratitude.” He pulls out a violin and starts to play the most beautiful music I have ever heard. Maybe it’s because it’s the first music I have heard in days, or maybe the air is so much thinner in the mountains that every note seems to shimmer, or maybe it’s because my dirty-haired friend is a god. Zeus with a Stradivarius. I close my eyes and float to heaven.

  I don’t see the man with one leg at the buffet. I wanted to tell him how much he helped me. I’m not sure I would recognize him in his street clothes. Everyone looks so different in a verbal, animated state.

  On the drive back to Two Dog Farm, Brian and I compare notes about the retreat. We stop at a diner and order a huge meal. Brian gets a cheeseburger with onion rings and a chocolate shake. I order a grilled Swiss cheese with a side of fries and a root beer float.

  “It was awesome,” Brian says between bites of his burger. “I was dead by the second day. I thought I would never make it, but then something happened. I gave in to the pain like it was my friend, like the pain was teaching me. Wasn’t it amazing?”

  “It was amazing. Although I thought I was going to kill you a couple of times,” I say.

  “Really?” he says. “I didn’t sense any hostility from you, and usually I’m very sensitive to that sort of thing.”

  “I liked the chanting. And the man with one leg. If he hadn’t been sitting opposite me I don’t think I would have made it.” I stuff a handful of fries in my mouth.

  “A guy with one leg? I didn’t even notice him. You know I spent a month at an ashram in India and it was great, but nothing like this. So intense. The sitting. The zazen. It’s like a Berlitz course in spirituality. I mean, Mags, don’t you feel incredibly evolved?”

  “My legs feel sore and my neck is out of whack and, yeah, I guess I do feel more evolved than usual. I think the incense made me high.”

  “And you haven’t smoked, have you?”

  “No, I haven’t. It’s a week today.”

  “Wow, it was great. And the guy with the violin. Wasn’t that fucking amazing?”

  “It was. It really was amazing.”

  We spend the night at Two Dog Farm. We both are dead tired and go to bed about nine o’clock and sleep until noon the next day. We have a huge breakfast at Sally’s Pantry Kitchen. French toast and eggs.

  We get back to New York in the late afternoon. Brian drops me off in front of my building.

  “Thanks,” I say, getting my bag out of the trunk. “It was good to get away—way away.”

  “You’re doing great, Mags. Call me if you need me.” And off he drives. And here I stand on the curb in front of my building. It feels strange to be in the city after days in the silence and peace of the mountains. I get up to my apartment and unlock the door.

  “Maggie,” a voice calls out. It’s Sandy and she is sitting on my couch. Mr. Ed dances around at my feet. “I didn’t want to startle you. Ed and I have been waiting for you to get back. I thought you said you’d be back this afternoon.”

  “How long have you been here?” I ask.

  “An hour maybe. Look, all hell broke loose. I’m going downtown to stay at a friend’s place. She is out on tour with a show and she said I can stay at her duplex, but I can’t bring Ed. So I was wondering if—”

  “Hang
on a sec.” I cut her off midsentence. “What hell broke loose, and why are you going there?”

  “Dick told me to get out. I saw Todd again,” she says. “It was going to be the last time, but when I got home Dick was waiting for me. He had packed a couple of suitcases for me and told me to leave. That he was disgusted.” Sandy sobs and buries her head in her hands. “So I’ve stayed here the last two nights, and then I heard from Kelly that I could stay there, but the building doesn’t allow dogs and Dick said he won’t take care of Ed because he’s really my dog and besides he was a witness to my indiscretion. In fact, Dick said Ed was an accessory. Can you believe that? I don’t know why I didn’t leave him years ago. He’s an idiot. Do you know we only have sex once a month? For years. Once a month? Is that normal?”

  “Wow. I’m sorry. Of course I can look after Ed.” I reach down and pet Ed and then look for Bixby. I find him lying in the bathtub, his favorite hideout. Sandy is getting her things together when I go back to the living room, carrying the Bixer. “Are you all right? Do you want to talk? Have a cup of coffee?”

  “I need to get going. Thanks, Maggie. I’m sorry,” she says.

  “Are you going to see Todd again?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. It seems so complicated now. It takes all the joy out of everything. Why bother? What’s so great about love and sex, anyway? I’ve been married to Dick for twenty years. Twenty years. We’ve worked and saved. We’ve eaten thousands of meals together and filed joint tax returns, then one day this somebody comes along and wants me. Really, really wants me, and makes me feel beautiful and sexy, and he wants me more than once a month. And I give in for a while, but then I let it go, and that’s when Dick, Mr. I-love-you-but-only-on-the-third-Saturday-of-the-month, tells me to get the hell out of his life.”