From comfortable distanc.., p.57
From Comfortable Distances, page 57
Their eyes lingered on one another’s for a few moments. There was unrest in his eyes that was familiar to her and yet not something she could articulate.
“Michael,” she said, just as he was about to go. He stopped and turned to her, holding the door with his hand. “It’s all for the best,” she said. “Everything is going to be fine,” she said, and with that, he closed the door behind him.
Chapter 60: Knowing
Tess sat at the traffic light on the corner of Avenue U and E. 68th street, her fingers tapping the steering wheel as if the action would speed the light to turn green. Ahead of her on the corner was Temple Shalom and behind it was St. Bernard’s Church.
The prospective buyer, Antonio, or Tony as he had asked her to call him, was very promising. He had good taste and seemed to have the funds to back it up. As she had suspected, he had absolutely loved the posh home on Royce Place in Bergan Beach. She had saved the best property for last, a tactic she had learned early on in her career. Tomorrow she would give his wife a grand tour. Not bad at all in terms of progress and momentum, although she hadn’t expected to spend so much time with him – nearly three hours. He certainly knew the right questions to ask, which was fine with Tess as she had the answers, and if it led to a quick sale, and she anticipated it would, then it was worth every second of her time right now. Of course she imagined the paperwork would drag it out for a few weeks, but still, if his wife loved the house as much as he did, then Tess could get the ball rolling in the next few days. Her plan was to head back to her office for another few hours of work, and then she was going to call it a day. It amazed her: she could be done with this house stuff, ready to leave it behind, and then get pulled back in so easily. Perhaps there would never be the perfect time to walk away until she just did it. The light turned, finally, and hearing the church bells, she made the split-second decision to make a left turn and pass by the church.
Apparently the school day was over—children were walking out of the school building, and parents were scattered all about the entrance, some talking, some straining their heads, she supposed, to find their kids. On the right side of the street loomed the church with its three church bells reaching over 10 feet into the air, the sound of their ringing resonating as she moved closer. She inched her way to Veteran’s Avenue, careful to be mindful of the children crossing the street, the double parked cars scattered about, and there, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Neal. Was it Neal? He was standing looking at the church, with his back to her. The minivan behind her beeped; yes, she was sure – it was Neal. Why was he looking at the church? Then as if in answer to her question, he made the sign of the cross, turned around, and was moving away from it, parallel to her, so that if he looked to his left with the slow moving traffic, he would have seen her. He walked as if in a trance, like he had just exited a movie theater into daylight. Had he been in the church or had he only stood outside of it? He was making his way to the bike rack; yes, he had deliberately gone to the church, rode his bike there. The car behind her was beeping again and she had to move, step on the gas, reach the corner, make a left turn and head back to her office where work awaited her, but something in his trance struck her. Ah, damn that car behind her! She pulled off to the right and motioned the car to go around her, but due to the traffic on the other side of the road, there was no room.
In the ruckus Neal turned slightly, almost seeing her before he faced forward again, and then as if someone had tapped him on the shoulder, he turned fully now, just as he approached the bike rack, so that he and Tess’s eyes met. Or was he looking beyond her? She exhaled, not realizing that she had been holding her breath, and her instinct was to keep going, to pretend as if she didn’t see him, but she was stuck in traffic as the crossing guard on the corner held the cars still while she beckoned students to cross the street. Neal gazed at Tess and she gazed back and for those seconds, it was as if the world had stopped, as if there was nothing else to see or know or feel but that moment.
The car behind her beeped again; now there was a steady lingering of beeps from various cars, all desperate to get themselves out of the gridlock, to move on to the corner, to turn left or right, and be on their way. She could pull over to the curb, that much she could maneuver, only then what? What was there to say? I know? I understand why you were at the church today. Because she didn’t know. This was guesswork, this was what she feared most and so thinking it so was easiest for her. What if he had decided no such thing? What if he had spoken to the priest and told him that he was leaving the church forever? That too was a possibility. Why was she so fatalistic?
They held each other’s gaze and she kept driving, kept moving, making her way to the corner and as she passed Neal, she stared back at him in her rearview mirror and he was still, watching her with his gaze, not moving, expressionless. She thought of that very first night they spoke at this same church, how when they had parted, she had watched him on his bike in her rearview mirror. How free and happy and serene he had seemed that night. And now? How did he seem now? Pensive, serious.
At the corner, she was free to pull over – perhaps wait for him to come to her or go to him. His eyes still on her in the distance, she hesitated, what was it in his eyes? What was he trying to say to her? And in that instant, she knew. She understood. She glanced left and right before she made her way through the intersection, and as she moved forward, tears formed in her eyes, and the heaviness that had manifested in her heart and throat overwhelmed her, so that she fought herself from pulling over and weeping. He was going back. She had seen it in his eyes – the silent confirmation. He had received his message from God.
In Your Own Garden
A Separate Peace: December 2003
“What do you seek?” the Abbot asks.
Truth. To know myself and to know God in myself.
“What do you seek?” the Abbot asks.
The one life.
With each departure, a return is implicit. I understand that now. It is not about coming or going, but about reconnecting. I am trying to come to terms with the fact that back does not mean backwards. Back can be a movement towards the future, the unknown.
I had thought that I needed to be away from the monastery in order to be closer to myself. I had thought that I needed to be away from God and voices telling me what I should believe. I have begun to understand that it’s not about where I am. I have begun to understand that the world becomes one place once I tap into the one life.
I chose to be a monk because I was chosen to be a monk, not because I was looking to escape anything. Monastic life is human life. I knew that at the monastery but ideas of the secular world tempted me into believing otherwise. Now, I am sure that we are all the same—monks, lay people. The problems that riddle people outside of the monastery are problems that riddle those of us in the monastery. The human heart is a region of conflicting desires. Of wanting it both ways: now this, now that. Hearts are not left at the gate of the monastery. One brings oneself wherever one goes.
The biggest struggle of my life as a monk was the everydayness of being a monk. The routine. Waking each morning, praying, reading, scrambled eggs, tea, work. I had wished for diversion, newness, but I had taken a vow of conversion, stability, which had to do with staying in one place, under a rule and an abbot. That vow was taken so that I might put down roots. I had taken a vow in the same way that lay people take marriage vows. If I kept moving from place to place, I would never be grounded. My vow was not to be an obstacle in my life as I let it become, but rather a guidepost.
I have spent days watching trees—the way their leaves dance in the breeze, the way their branches sway. If a tree wasn’t rooted and firm, it wouldn’t be able to sustain itself against the wind or the rain or snow—it would collapse. It’s only the grounded and rooted trees that endure. I understand that now.
I was afraid of the solitude in the monastery. Although my brothers surrounded me, I often felt secluded. I didn’t want to always be so alone. Now, here, with you, I’ve come to accept my aloneness a bit more. I’ve begun to understand that aloneness doesn’t mean lonely, it means being okay with myself, enjoying my own company.
God spoke to me. That is why I became a monk. It wasn’t in a complete sentence and the voice came and went, but it came to me. As much as I want to pretend that it didn’t at times, as much as I want to run away, to be free to do and live as other men, God is with me, speaking to me, through me. He asks so little, but still he asks: “Do not harden your heart to my voice.”
To love, I believe, is to possess the capacity to receive and to be touched, to be drawn into something more. Something beyond the self, beyond this realm.
I have always lived by my heart, letting its deepest desires drive me. I often wish I could share my heart with you. Show you how it works, but no matter how much I try to share it, I am always left with something of myself that I cannot give to you. That is something that I am coming to accept. I cannot give away my most pure thoughts and feelings, as there is always something that gets lost in translation because I am me and you are you and our interpretations are distinct and unique. I had mistaken that being trapped within myself was a monk thing but now I understand that it's a fate we all share regardless of our paths.
I entered the monastery because I wanted to be near God. The voice influencing me to stay here now—to keep going and living as I am— may never fade, but in the silence of each morning, the silence of each night when the world is still and I can be alone with my thoughts, I believe that my vocation is to be with the Lord. To wake up this Christmas morning and say Mass with my brothers. It doesn’t always make sense to me why that is my vocation, but that doesn’t make it any less true in my heart. My first love was, is, God. Just because I have walked away from the monastery doesn’t mean that I have walked away from my heart, which is where the God I love and know resides.
“What do you seek?” the Abbot asks.
The mercy of God.
Dear Neal,
I’ve always felt it’s easier to talk to a person face to face, but I understand now that I haven’t been able to do that very well, as often, what I think is not what I say. When opportunity arises for me to talk to you, I seem only to be able to make small talk although there are so many questions that I want to ask you. I want to know me through your eyes. Only I don’t know if that’s possible—as you’ve said, there are limitations as you are you and I am me and things get lost in translation.
I used to think that if I had someone around me, I could get away from myself for a bit, and now I’ve begun to embrace my aloneness and honor it, crave it, because it’s the space in which I get to know myself. I sought company all along when perhaps it was me that I sought—the chance to know and hear and see and feel and listen to me. I think that’s why no man was ever right for me—it had nothing to do with another person. That’s why working all those hours for all of those years helped me to pass the time, but never filled me up. What I sought had nothing to do with accomplishment. That’s why my mother never made me feel the security I felt I deserved, that I craved. All along, it had to do with me wanting me and not knowing how or where to reach me.
I’ve been thinking about moving back up to Woodstock. Somehow in my mind, that has seemed to be the logical thing to do. Return. Start over, try again. I’m not sure if I am trying to redo anything or if I feel that parts of me never left there. I’m beginning to believe that life in many ways is circular and that where we start is where we will end. When you told me that the other half of the rainbow is beneath the surface, I thought I understood it, but today it is a bit clearer to me. All the beauty, along with the sorrow and the joy and the mysteries, are always in motion. Life keeps going, round and round, one big giant circle, so to think there’s a place to get to is an illusion. We are always exactly where we need to be.
I don’t know if I’ll go back to Woodstock for good. I’m not sure that’s the answer, as I don’t yet know the question. Somehow, we have arrived at the same place, one of comings and goings and perhaps the questions or answers to our riddles are irrelevant. Perhaps whatever we each do is fine.
In The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that he must follow his dharma, which is to fight his family and friends in battle, but he reminds him to keep his feet pointed at the lotus heart of the Lord—to remain open to love, to life’s wonders. Krishna reminds Arjuna that one must embrace one’s duties while remaining mindful of a more timeless reality—that one must sometimes act without consideration of the immediate results. We must each follow our paths, Neal, but we mustn’t lose our joy, our love, and we must remember that there is a higher reality than this one.
I think sometimes about a reality with you other than this one, Neal. A timeless reality when you and I may share our dance for a bit longer, without any choices to be made or places to go; without any other duties than to hear the music and move to it, together. I think so many things at so many different points in the day that I wonder what it would look like if I were to draw a map of my thoughts. Would I have traveled anywhere or remained in place? I’ve clung to my life as I know it because it’s what I know. I’ve resisted change while the world changed around me. The other day, I drove to New York City and I didn’t know why I was there until I arrived at the church quote board.
A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly. —Andre Guide
Perhaps all this trying to know oneself, trying to understand oneself, searching one’s soul, is what keeps us from the next chapters of our lives, which will come, inevitably, whether or not we continue to cling to what is.
The plane ticket included in this letter is for you to return to Saskatoon on Christmas Eve so that as you desire, you may wake up amongst your brothers on Christmas day. I hope that you will take this gesture as I have intended it: my seeing to your safe return, my honoring your decision, and as a token of my respect for you. I will miss you, Neal, and I’ll never forget this path we have traveled together. I am not sure if we ever truly know if we’re traveling in the right direction, but perhaps if we listen—to our hearts, our soul—we will always arrive.
Fondly, Tess
Chapter 61: The Wanderer
The dew was thick and heavy, the air frosty as Tess made her way from her porch, silently, adjusting her scarf so that no skin was exposed. She felt moody knowing that for the months to come, each time she went outside she would need to bundle up, delve into her shell, isolating herself from all that surrounded her. Cold weather made other people seem out of reach.
There was solitariness to Mill Basin in this pre-dawn hour that was both unsettling and appreciated—she turned in her tracks to make certain no one was behind her and then kept going, moving with precision and a sense of purpose as she coasted down 66th street, the rhythm of her feet hitting the pavement her metronome. She had woken up at 3:00 a.m. alert and preoccupied, her mind darting from subject to subject, like a bird in search of prey. She had stared at her ceiling for some time, trying to focus on something, anything, until it registered that tomorrow was Christmas Eve, the day that Neal was set to leave. She wondered if she would see him before then. She was free to visit him at his home—she couldn’t imagine what Lyla could object to at this point. He had left her a note in her mailbox that simply said: Thank you, Tess Rose. He was leaving. The thought flashed in her mind as though it were a neon sign: Neal is leaving, Neal is leaving until the next thought registered: in three days it would be her 56th birthday. Life was so short; why was she filling it with so much worry, so much anxiety, when in truth, she only got to live such a short time? She would die, as her mother had, and then there would be darkness forever.
She moved past the houses quickly. Not too much was stirring at this 5 a.m. hour; some of the houses were still darkened, some adorned with flickering Christmas lights and yards decorated with lit-up plastic snowmen and sleds pulled by Santa. In some of the homes she could make out Christmas trees in the windows and a sense of warmth filled her thinking of families with young children and grandchildren all gathered around. She wondered if Lyla had put up a tree with Neal, but she didn’t make a move to turn down Barlow Drive to investigate. There were some houses with lights on inside and for a moment, she wondered what went on in other people's homes, behind all of the closed doors.
As the sky transitioned into its darkest moments before it gave way to dawn, Tess felt a fleeting desperation mingled with a desire to scream, not to be so invisible, and then it passed, as quickly as the twilight did and the first rings of daylight grew visible beyond the houses, where she envisioned Jamaica Bay to be still and silent. She took in a deep breath, coughing as the rush of hard air hit her throat, her lungs. It was a few moments before she reconnected with her mind, her feet moving faster than was her normal pace, and she wasn’t sure if they were attempting to carry her away from the cold or if they were working to keep up with her darting mind. In moments she lost the cold, lost the motion of her feet, and was trying to recall what it was she aspired to. People that were insistent on following their dreams had surrounded her at different phases in her life. Her first three ex-husbands had wanted to make enough money so that they could retire in their fifties, but was that a dream or was it greed? Tess believed that those type of trade-off dreams—if I have this, then I will do that—were not dreams at all, but little contracts one made with oneself and voided once other things came up, replacing those wants and desires. She had made her share of trade-off dreams: if I can get distance from Woodstock and my mother, then I will get to figure out who I am. If I can just not be pregnant, then I will focus on my career and be a better wife. If I can just get through this divorce, separate myself from this person, then my life will make more sense. All of those dreams had seemed tangible to her, something to strive for, something she had strived for, but each of them had focused on the future, ignored the present.
