(01/15/16)
I'm standing outside the cabin. The dog is leaning against my leg.
It's snowing, but so gently.
Whichever way I turn the mountains show me something beautiful.
I wish everyone could see this. I wish I could wrap it in a beautiful package and mail it to them.
I wish I could take a picture of the quiet.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Shower
(01/15/16)
I made friends with the shower today. Can I get a hell, yeah?
I passed judgement on it for two reasons. First, the location: the ugly, mottled, discolored stall squats to the left of the front door between the door to the Prior's room and the ladder leading up to my loft. The only thing preventing everyone in the kitchen from seeing you get in or out is a curtain you pull across the hallway. Even then, there is still the possibility of the Prior, Master K, emerging from his quarters at an unexpected moment and surprising you in your full naked glory.
The other challenge is the stall itself. It is tiny, lacks a shower head, and the tap is installed up five feet instead of the usual height. If you are short enough, you can duck under the faucet and wash that way. Otherwise, you use a hand-sprayer. Selecting this second option means washing yourself one-handed while directing the sprayer with the other. You have to twist and contort in the tiny space, while always being mindful of where you're pointing the sprayer lest you send a jet of water blasting out of the cubicle into the temple.
Today something miraculous happened.
I was wringing out dirty rags when I noticed a spot on the shower. When I wiped it, not only did the spot come off, but so did some of the shower's discoloration.
Could it be? Was it possible this shower is not a stained, too-small, faucet-in-the-wrong-place irritation chamber at all? Could it be just really, really dirty?
Reverend V fortified me with cleaning supplies and I went to work.
It felt good. The shower was transformed, gradually revealing itself to be a shade of off-white instead of its previous color of blighted hellscape. More importantly, the process of caring for the stall changed my relationship to it. I sounds stupid, but I'm going to say it anyway: That shower and me, we had a moment, you know?
This is why I came here.
I made friends with the shower today. Can I get a hell, yeah?
I passed judgement on it for two reasons. First, the location: the ugly, mottled, discolored stall squats to the left of the front door between the door to the Prior's room and the ladder leading up to my loft. The only thing preventing everyone in the kitchen from seeing you get in or out is a curtain you pull across the hallway. Even then, there is still the possibility of the Prior, Master K, emerging from his quarters at an unexpected moment and surprising you in your full naked glory.
The other challenge is the stall itself. It is tiny, lacks a shower head, and the tap is installed up five feet instead of the usual height. If you are short enough, you can duck under the faucet and wash that way. Otherwise, you use a hand-sprayer. Selecting this second option means washing yourself one-handed while directing the sprayer with the other. You have to twist and contort in the tiny space, while always being mindful of where you're pointing the sprayer lest you send a jet of water blasting out of the cubicle into the temple.
Today something miraculous happened.
I was wringing out dirty rags when I noticed a spot on the shower. When I wiped it, not only did the spot come off, but so did some of the shower's discoloration.
Could it be? Was it possible this shower is not a stained, too-small, faucet-in-the-wrong-place irritation chamber at all? Could it be just really, really dirty?
Reverend V fortified me with cleaning supplies and I went to work.
It felt good. The shower was transformed, gradually revealing itself to be a shade of off-white instead of its previous color of blighted hellscape. More importantly, the process of caring for the stall changed my relationship to it. I sounds stupid, but I'm going to say it anyway: That shower and me, we had a moment, you know?
This is why I came here.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Mountains Are Walking
Today I went for a lovely walk down the mountain...and a torturous one back up again. Stalked by dogs.
Leg day came early this year.
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Hang On St. Christopher (Part 2): The Descent
(01/13/16)
I'll finish the story of my first day. Spoiler Alert: my journey ended the way it started, with me bawling my face off missing everyone and everything.
I'll get to that. First let me describe my descent to Lytton.
Picture a narrow, winding mountain road with a cliff wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other. Now picture a Greyhound bus hurtling down said road at unnerving speed while trucks charge past going the opposite direction like giant, metal jousting competitors. Oh, and the bus is rattling and shaking and the engine is making strange, pained-sounding noises.
Now picture me trying not to soil myself.
Some say the world will end in fire, others in ice. I'm thinking, why not both? while imagining the bus tumbling down the cliffside in a fiery wreck before plunging to the bottom of the icy river below.
I'm also thinking of the St. Christopher's medallion in my backpack that my Dad gave me. I'm wondering if I should be wearing it right now. Or clutching it in a white-knuckled death grip. Maybe I should have swallowed it.
I want to be sure St. Christopher, patron saint of travellers, knows which guy I am.
Eventually the cliff ends. I'm breathing a silent prayer of thanks to St. Christopher and whatever Bodhisattvas watch after wayward Albertan flatlanders when the valley leaps up on either side of the bus like mosasaurus jaws and eats the fucking sun!
All that said, its also very pretty.
Moments later I step off the bus where the monks are waiting for me.
* * *
Unlike the larger multi-building Shasta Abbey in California, most of the action at Lion's Gate Buddhist Priory takes place in a tiny cabin ten miles up the mountain from Lytton proper. This first evening, the other lay resident, a twenty-one year old bearded young man I'll call LT is making vegetarian quesadillas, Reverend V, our lone female monk, is doing work on the computer. And I am petting the monastery dog and trying not to cry.
I'm shocked at my response. In the weeks leading up to my departure, I was worried I wasn't sad enough. Now my chest is so full of Sad, I'm worried it might explode and leave me with my ribs pointing in funny directions and pieces of my heart all over the walls and rug.
Not the first impression I'm aiming for.
I'm so thankful for this dog. Pieces of me would be falling off without him. Stroking his fur gives direction for the overflowing sadness which--uncontained by the reservoir provided by my loved ones--is threatening to flood its banks and drown me from the inside out. When I look into this dog's eyes, I'm looking into the eyes of everyone I've ever loved.
Later I take a trip to the outhouse. Snow falls though my headlamp beam; the world is soft with white.The quiet is more complete than any I've ever known. It is so quiet, the air is thick with silence.
I think: Once the sad stops, I'm going to like it here.
My bed is a mattress squeezed into a tiny loft under the sloped roof, accessible by ladder. When I turn off the light, I discover that someone has decorated the ceiling with dozens of tiny, glow-in-the-dark stars.
I'll finish the story of my first day. Spoiler Alert: my journey ended the way it started, with me bawling my face off missing everyone and everything.
I'll get to that. First let me describe my descent to Lytton.
Picture a narrow, winding mountain road with a cliff wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other. Now picture a Greyhound bus hurtling down said road at unnerving speed while trucks charge past going the opposite direction like giant, metal jousting competitors. Oh, and the bus is rattling and shaking and the engine is making strange, pained-sounding noises.
Now picture me trying not to soil myself.
Some say the world will end in fire, others in ice. I'm thinking, why not both? while imagining the bus tumbling down the cliffside in a fiery wreck before plunging to the bottom of the icy river below.
I'm also thinking of the St. Christopher's medallion in my backpack that my Dad gave me. I'm wondering if I should be wearing it right now. Or clutching it in a white-knuckled death grip. Maybe I should have swallowed it.
I want to be sure St. Christopher, patron saint of travellers, knows which guy I am.
Eventually the cliff ends. I'm breathing a silent prayer of thanks to St. Christopher and whatever Bodhisattvas watch after wayward Albertan flatlanders when the valley leaps up on either side of the bus like mosasaurus jaws and eats the fucking sun!
All that said, its also very pretty.
Moments later I step off the bus where the monks are waiting for me.
* * *
Unlike the larger multi-building Shasta Abbey in California, most of the action at Lion's Gate Buddhist Priory takes place in a tiny cabin ten miles up the mountain from Lytton proper. This first evening, the other lay resident, a twenty-one year old bearded young man I'll call LT is making vegetarian quesadillas, Reverend V, our lone female monk, is doing work on the computer. And I am petting the monastery dog and trying not to cry.
I'm shocked at my response. In the weeks leading up to my departure, I was worried I wasn't sad enough. Now my chest is so full of Sad, I'm worried it might explode and leave me with my ribs pointing in funny directions and pieces of my heart all over the walls and rug.
Not the first impression I'm aiming for.
I'm so thankful for this dog. Pieces of me would be falling off without him. Stroking his fur gives direction for the overflowing sadness which--uncontained by the reservoir provided by my loved ones--is threatening to flood its banks and drown me from the inside out. When I look into this dog's eyes, I'm looking into the eyes of everyone I've ever loved.
Later I take a trip to the outhouse. Snow falls though my headlamp beam; the world is soft with white.The quiet is more complete than any I've ever known. It is so quiet, the air is thick with silence.
I think: Once the sad stops, I'm going to like it here.
My bed is a mattress squeezed into a tiny loft under the sloped roof, accessible by ladder. When I turn off the light, I discover that someone has decorated the ceiling with dozens of tiny, glow-in-the-dark stars.
Friday, January 15, 2016
Hang On St. Christopher
(01/12/16)
After my mom left, I showered, listened to music, and paced my darkened condo while crying like a little bitch.
From there, I walked to the bus station.
We crossed the mountains in the dark, stopping at Hinton, where a younger me, my late brother, and his then-girlfriend went to Bull of the Woods, and in Vailmont, where a carload of burlesque dancers and I once spent the night on a trip to a convention in Seattle.
Catholic monks take a Vow of Stability--promising to spend their lives in the same place. Stability is a funny word for me though, because I associate monasteries with instability. Even getting to them requires byzantine travel arrangements: My last couple trips to Shasta Abbey in California have involved stops at airports in Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver, Redding, California and Medford, Oregon. Those latter two are very small although Redding Airport plays 70s hits over the loudspeaker that you forgot existed, let alone how much you loved them, and Medford has a cool little model airplane display in a glass case.
So far, I've been lucking in my travels. Only once have I had a problem when inclement weather delayed my flight from Medford enough that I missed my connecting flight and had to spend eighteen hours in the airport in Seattle, reading a Lee Child novel (I forget the name, but it's the one where Jack Reacher solves the mystery, sleeps with the tough female agent, and kills the bad guys) at a twenty-four hour newsstand while the employees politely mopped around me.
Fortunately, Buddhism neither requires, nor makes any promises around stability.
Neither does life.
When daylight arrived, the flat, wide, open of Alberta was gone, and we were trundling through corridors of snow-covered trees, creeping across the palm of BC's mountain and valley-lined hand.
I transferred buses twice before Lytton: once in Kamloops, which hugs the contours of the terrain like body paint on a swimsuit model. My next stop is where I am right now, Cache Creek. There are less trees here, and the snow has a more tenuous grasp on the scrubby ground. The countryside has widened into a series of rumpled, rocky hills, lumpy as the comforter on a badly made bed.
In any case, here I am, writing in a restaurant in Cache Creek next to a trio of bus drivers, one of who has just informed me that one of my bags has not made the trip with me.
"Probably in Vancouver right now," he tells me. "Or maybe still back in Kamloops."
"Not Vancouver," a second driver says. "That bus is still two hours out."
"It'll be in Lytton tomorrow," the first driver reassures me. "You'll just have to come back into town and get it."
"The screw-up probably happened in Kamloops," the second drive muses. "Or Vailmont. That's an important transfer point."
"Come into Lytton tomorrow, we'll have it for you," the first driver says. "Everything gets done right here. Just not in a way that leaves everyone happy at the time."
Like I said: Instability.
After my mom left, I showered, listened to music, and paced my darkened condo while crying like a little bitch.
From there, I walked to the bus station.
We crossed the mountains in the dark, stopping at Hinton, where a younger me, my late brother, and his then-girlfriend went to Bull of the Woods, and in Vailmont, where a carload of burlesque dancers and I once spent the night on a trip to a convention in Seattle.
Catholic monks take a Vow of Stability--promising to spend their lives in the same place. Stability is a funny word for me though, because I associate monasteries with instability. Even getting to them requires byzantine travel arrangements: My last couple trips to Shasta Abbey in California have involved stops at airports in Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver, Redding, California and Medford, Oregon. Those latter two are very small although Redding Airport plays 70s hits over the loudspeaker that you forgot existed, let alone how much you loved them, and Medford has a cool little model airplane display in a glass case.
So far, I've been lucking in my travels. Only once have I had a problem when inclement weather delayed my flight from Medford enough that I missed my connecting flight and had to spend eighteen hours in the airport in Seattle, reading a Lee Child novel (I forget the name, but it's the one where Jack Reacher solves the mystery, sleeps with the tough female agent, and kills the bad guys) at a twenty-four hour newsstand while the employees politely mopped around me.
Fortunately, Buddhism neither requires, nor makes any promises around stability.
Neither does life.
When daylight arrived, the flat, wide, open of Alberta was gone, and we were trundling through corridors of snow-covered trees, creeping across the palm of BC's mountain and valley-lined hand.
I transferred buses twice before Lytton: once in Kamloops, which hugs the contours of the terrain like body paint on a swimsuit model. My next stop is where I am right now, Cache Creek. There are less trees here, and the snow has a more tenuous grasp on the scrubby ground. The countryside has widened into a series of rumpled, rocky hills, lumpy as the comforter on a badly made bed.
In any case, here I am, writing in a restaurant in Cache Creek next to a trio of bus drivers, one of who has just informed me that one of my bags has not made the trip with me.
"Probably in Vancouver right now," he tells me. "Or maybe still back in Kamloops."
"Not Vancouver," a second driver says. "That bus is still two hours out."
"It'll be in Lytton tomorrow," the first driver reassures me. "You'll just have to come back into town and get it."
"The screw-up probably happened in Kamloops," the second drive muses. "Or Vailmont. That's an important transfer point."
"Come into Lytton tomorrow, we'll have it for you," the first driver says. "Everything gets done right here. Just not in a way that leaves everyone happy at the time."
Like I said: Instability.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Taking The Next Step
"The mountains belong to those who love them."
-Eihei Dogen, thirteenth century Japanese monk
"Hang on St. Christopher and don't let me go."
-BulletBoys, 20th century American heavy metal band
Well...I'm off.
The meditation group made me a cake that said: 'Taking the Next Step.' My sister gave me a calendar of my nephews. A lover made me a journal. My dad gave me his old St. Christopher medal.
My oldest nephew gave me a picture he drew of a "made-up dinosaur" and my youngest nephew gave me a cold.
An ex, ever practical, gave me a bottle of water and box of granola bars for the bus ride.
We went dancing at the bar last night. When I say we, I mean a handful of the usual suspects, some strangers we met there, and a couple people I didn't expect who came to see me off.
I've had a lot of good times at the bar. At the end of the night, I found myself watching everyone milling around and felt a rush of affection for all these people--friends and complete strangers both.
Today I am packed and ready to go. My place is mostly empty. The stuff I'm taking fits into surprisingly few bags. Looking at them waiting by the door, I feel...smaller. Like I'm small enough to step out of my life, and it will flutter to the ground behind me like an empty suit of clothes.
Nice clothes. Clothes to fold and reverently put away.
I'm not stepping out of my life though. I can't. The next step is only possible because of the steps I've taken along the way to get to this point, and the people who carried me when I was unwilling or unable to walk.
I'm taking the next step with almost nothing, and at the same time, I feel I'm carrying you all with me.
Thank you for all you've been for me.
- DB
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