i quit my silent retreat

a black eye, a redeye & a visit from the holy ghost

I think a lot about becoming a nun, despite my situation.

My grandmother bought an old house in Bethlehem, Connecticut to be near the Abbey of Regina Laudis when she found herself a young, Catholic and divorced mother of two small boys. My sister and I were raised in that farmhouse and we visited the monastery a lot. I didn’t interact with the Benedictines, who were always busy with their goats, gardens and godly obligations, but I figured they knew I lived in town on their account, and that made me special.

This winter, I learned that an order of Benedictine monks in Big Sur rents cells for laypeople. You can book a small, narrow room and take your noontime meal alone, in silence, looking at a ragged cliff over the Pacific. In April, when I finished a draft of a book I’ve been at for years—years through which I’ve developed tinnitus from our four, young sons—I thought: LFG. I’d love to talk to nobody in holy-adjacency. Come find me in the quiet, Holy Ghost.

Poppies // Martiros Sarian

The plan was to add three days at the hermitage to a friends’ fortieth in Calistoga. I arranged the trip in haste and with the attitude: “how hard can it be, the adventures are all in one state…” a breezy assumption for a girl from the smidge of Connecticut. The monks’ website warned that Highway 1 had been washed away by a landslide, the hermitage accessible only from the South. I pictured a few switchbacks.

And I’ll admit: I felt righteous about my car.

The Kia was small, moss-green, and electric. I felt guilty leaving home and had developed intrusive fantasies about being punished for going. I experience a low-grade, non-localized guilt almost all the time, but my California romp gave the feeling real, festering purchase. I hoped the EV might absolve me.

Driving from San Francisco to Calistoga, I noticed the Kia had only a quarter charge, which never budged. I put my faith in Hertz, deciding that even if the gauge was busted, they’d have filled the battery. I sped past swaying, orange poppies and hills dotted with black holsteins, then turned left onto Petrified Forest Road. I slowed for traffic around a bend and there, across the yellow lines, lay a dying doe. She raised her heavy head and her eyes met mine, two cosmic orbs where space and time collapsed.

My stomach turned and spit pooled in my gums. A woman ran down the hill, past her flung-off fender, waving her arms, her face twisted with shame and remorse. Killing this creature was the only kindness we might offer, but I lacked both the courage and the wherewithal, so I pressed the accelerator. Sorry. I zipped on, feeling sick, missing my sons, wondering if there was a Bambi in the tall, golden grass, and whether his dying mother was a sign I should go home.

I found my friends in a circle on the hotel lawn, eating pizza. My heart leapt for joy. I changed into my red bathing suit, slipped into the hot spring and marveled at how girlish and sanguine I felt in my friends’ company, giggling with my arms slung over an XL pool noodle. How far I’d come! I spent most of our college years hard-boiled and bony, with a walled-off heart. Mostly, I sulked alone because it’s hard to have fun when you’re starving. Occasionally, I became the life of the party, which is how I met these women.

Floating in the hot pool, I inhabited all my glee and darkness. I ached for my kids. I wondered how all of us animals, with no shared language, know to communicate through our eyes. I’d witnessed something sacred in that dying deer; she’d given me a gift. Moments later, my friend did an impression of a guy from Penn that was so apt and so hilarious, I peed.

Fairy Lake // Martiros Sarian

Saturday night, I tried to use the hotel charger, but I couldn’t penetrate the ranks of Teslas. They didn’t move in the morning, either, so I hiked to a plug at the fire department, hoping I could make it to the Whole Foods in Santa Rosa, where the EV app said ⚡️⚡️⚡️…the fastest jounce around.

After breakfast, we exchanged tearful, joyful goodbyes. The birthday girl gave me a lift to my Kia in a car so laden I rode with my legs out the window. Onward, alone, I looked for evidence of the deer, but she was gone.

The Whole Foods chargers were occupied so I paced the shop, collecting chocolate almonds, Barista Blend Oat Creamer and instant coffee—I suspected the monks were tea drinkers. An hour later, I plugged in, chewed my bulk nuts, and swallowed mouthfuls of panic.

Already, it was early afternoon. The monastery admitted guests from 4-4:30pm at the bookstore. Otherwise, on a Sunday, the shop was shut. Google maps showed a route around a mountain—a detour which hadn’t registered when I researched on our New York IP address. The drive would take twice as long as I’d expected: not three hours, but six. I left a message on the monks’ answering machine, which had a lovely closer: “Pray for us.” Dude, pray for me.

I tried to say the Rosary, but I’d forgotten the first three prayers, so I said the Hail Mary several hundred times, driving over the Golden Gate at 1/4 charge. But wait: do the monks drive EV’s? In traffic, I checked the app for bolts in Big Sur and found the closest charger 2.5 hours away—‘round the mountain. Even on a full battery, I couldn’t get to the Benedictines and back.

Nevertheless, I persisted… alongside my doubts. What if the bookstore was locked? How would I get into my cell? Did I have the chutzpah to camp on Pfeiffer Beach? I had such courage once, but at forty, with four kids, I found my bravery waning.

Still driving, I called the hotel where Christopher and I spent two nights on our honeymoon. They had a room! And a charger!! I told them I was headed to the hermitage and they said great that’s two miles away & three and a half hours’ drive ‘round the mountain.

My chest got tight and my eyes stung. These monks were waiting for me. Weren’t they? They weren’t. There were so many variables, I couldn’t make a plan. Swap the Kia for a gas car? Spend the night at a hotel and take a second road trip tomorrow? I felt lonesome, inept and confused. Some voice began to whisper: how much peace is this retreat going to cost you?

Holy Ghost…is that you?

I pulled over and downloaded the jetBlue app, praising past me for not trading her smartphone for a Nokia flip. I booked a redeye to JFK, drove to Hertz and asked the attendant if he wanted my creamer, which they’d chuck at security. “Unopened!” I yelped, battling tears. I’d judged Piper so hard for abandoning the Tibetan monastery on account of non-organic mush and now, wandering SFO, my choices were: sushi, smoothies or chia pudding.

I felt shame for being so proud of my plan in the first place. The girl who grew up by the Benedictines would’ve slept on the beach if it came to that. She’d have looked the deer in its dying eyeball and said Godspeed, but it ain’t my time. But I’m not her anymore. I am soft and fragile and I travel with oat creamer. I am not so special after all.

About an hour into the flight, shivering in the dim bulkhead, I started giggling. I could practically feel the grip and heft of that Calistoga pool noodle; the way it cradled my armpits, buoying me for hours while my heart pinged love through the teal water under the navy sky, blinking with stars. I saw myself floating in the constellation of my dearest friends, all the years of affection blowing our pathways wide open. We love each other so much. We know things no one else can, having shared a college bathroom. “I am not Piper, I am Laurie!” I shouted over the jet engines.

Laurie:

But I had this epiphany today: I don’t need religion or God to give my life meaning, because time gives it meaning. We started this life together. I mean, we’re going through it apart, but we’re still together. And I look at you guys and it feels meaningful and I can’t explain it, but even when we’re just sitting around the pool talking about whatever and name shit, it still feels very fucking deep. I am glad you have a beautiful face and I’m glad that you have a beautiful life. I am just happy to be at the table.

I grew ever-more ecstatic, thinking of my friends and me, bobbing at the mid-point of time; neither young, nor old—but mature enough not to take a second for granted. I laughed and laughed.

I didn’t need the Benedictines: I had already been holy-adjacent! I had already watched time and space collapsing into the great, black cosmic beyond. I had already been blown open and seen through, past the guilt; past the shame and all the shellackings I’ve put upon myself, which my friends have always, lovingly ignored. What more did I expect the Holy Ghost to give me?

Jeez.

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Isabel