Last night, after I emerged from meditation, a big and energetically mute man walked into the kitchen carrying two six packs.
"Are you in a cabin?" he asked gruffly.
"I’m sorry?" I wasn’t sure why he was wanting to know where I slept, and didn’t want to immediately offer the information.
"What room are you in?" he asks again. "A cabin or a motel?"
"A motel," I replied.
"I’m trying to figure out if there’s a TV in the cabins and if I can upgrade to one of those. There’s no TV and no Wifi in my motel room and I can’t be alone in there with my own thoughts."
I almost laughed. Do you know where you are? I wanted to ask. Somehow this man had found himself sleeping at a meditation retreat center in the middle of nowhere with no cell service and certainly no TV anywhere on the property. The only wifi signal was in the lounge area outside the kitchen – which was in another building from what we called the "motel."
But then again, I felt compassion for him, because I didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts either.
Almost immediately upon arriving in Australia, I found myself volunteering at a meditation retreat center. The retreat center sat in the rolling hills surrounded by gum trees, with no signal but plenty of kangaroos, wallabies and pademelons to keep company.
It was glorious.
I was alone, and I was not alone. After months of backpacking Africa, being constantly surrounded by people, I was finally in my own company – save for the occasional solo silent retreatant, or (confused) tourist passing through.
Alone with my thoughts, which, if you had the chance to take a spin inside my mind, you'd see is not alone at all.
It's a curious thing, to be all alone inside yourself. I have felt the aloneness of it, I have felt the nuisance of it, and I have felt the companionship of it. It has been quite a journey, me and I. When I spend too long from myself I crave it, as I did after Africa.
But it wouldn't be long before we were together again that we'd fight, I'd get sick of myself, and then come to the realization (or reluctant acceptance?) that I am all I have in this lifetime, no matter if I choose to share my life with another. There is a grief and wonder in that, how we experience life and die – all in our own heads.
I don't know what it's like to be alone inside that man's head, but I'm still choosing mine. The devil you know, right?
The next morning, the caretaker of the center clued me in.
"At check in, I gathered that he and his girlfriend just broke up."
My guess is that they lived together, and so, needing a place to stay, he did what anyone would do: drive three hours out of civilization into rural Australia for the night.
But that's not a logical explanation is it? And so what I really think is this: he probably got into his car after it became clear that this was The End and started driving away without a plan. He probably drove so far that when darkness started to fall, he realized he needed a place to stay for the night. And then, because he had driven into the middle of nowhere, a quick search turned up the retreat center and not much else.
Why do we fling ourselves into the middle of nowhere?
I have heard the quiet voice inside of me longing to be heard. I have started moving away from what was ready to end before knowing where I was going next. I have landed on the steps of a retreat center and only later realized that my body had taken me where I needed to be before my mind caught up.
This man and I have more in common than I thought.
When I left Africa, what I craved most was connection. "I want to be in community," I told friends. "I was surrounded by so many people in Africa, but I never really felt seen for who I was, only what they could stand to gain from me. I miss my community in New York, the feeling of truly connecting with people."
And yet, my body did not take me toward community. It took me even further away from it. I arrived at the retreat center and soon realized that the connection I really longed for was with myself. That in pouring myself into connecting with those around me, as a filmmaker and a friend, I had lost touch with who I was and what I wanted. In truly disconnecting with the world, I gave myself the gift of connecting to myself. What I really wanted wasn't community, but to be seen, heard, and loved.
The heartbroken man survived the night, and I watched as he packed his meager belongings into his car and drove away. Where he was going next, I don't know. Perhaps he returned to civilization, or perhaps he kept driving. Neither seem like an adequate solution for his predicament. The outer world had become too difficult to tolerate, so he fled, but in retreat, he found the inner world unbearable too. Twelve bottles and a TV were only temporary distractions.
What we find, in retreat, is that it is not the world that is intolerable, but our feelings about the world that are intolerable. When the cacophony around us goes silent, the feelings inside us suddenly seem loud.
To be comfortable alone, we must be able to accept – even welcome – our experience of the world as it makes itself known.
Retreat, in that way, prepares us for reentry.
Recently I've been troubled by the silence in my mind.
Has my mind gone quiet or have I just stopped listening?
I can't be sure, but if I had to place a bet, it'd be the latter.
Clara Ritger
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When I think about that man, I think something inside of him led him to that retreat center. I think he knew it was what he needed. Sometimes we know exactly what we need, but we chicken out, turning to our preferred coping mechanisms instead. We land on the doorstep of change, and then we ding dong door ditch it instead.
I am standing on the doorstep of change. It is a door I have walked through before. But this time when I open it, it won't be the same. It will be like returning to an old house. The contents will be the same, but I will not be. I will see everything from a different lens. I will even see things I missed before.
I miss my company. I'm never more alone than when I'm deprived of it.
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