Week 9: Sit, Walk, Write

I had enthusiastically signed up for the retreat when it was announced three months before.  I had been to a a similar class with the same teacher in the fall and had loved it, seventy-six women and four really brave men, all writing our hearts out.  The snapshots of life that emerged had been so touching: a first dance or first kiss, the travails and unravellings of marriage, a near drowning, a newborn that would not survive the day, glimpses of children told with great humor, and I was eager to repeat the experience.  The one thing I had not anticipated was how raw I would feel after sesshin.

The group for this retreat was smaller than the previous class, about sixty of us including eight men.  The teachers, a female writing coach famous for spreading writing as Zen practice and a male creative writing professor from a nearby uni, had been working together for many years.  The retreat began Wednesday night with a dharma talk, or, in this case, a dharma slide show.  The female teacher also paints, and as we went through the slides of her work she encouraged us to focus on the details of a scene: light as it fell on a chair, the different colors of a tile roof, the elements of a backyard afternoon.  The author had painted her father over the years, and it was interesting to watch  the shift in both her painting style and their relationship over time as the years passed.As the talk progressed, these reflections transitioned in to a conversation between the two, banter back and forth about art as a form of mindfulness, and the importance of closely attending to what is in front of you.

The next morning we were back in the zendo for lecture, the female instructor taking the lead.  We went around the room, giving our name and where we were from (the Netherlands, Spain, Australia, Brazil, various places in Canada and the States, and my bravely offered ‘dharma hobo’).  The rules would be simple: keep your pen moving, no crossing out, say what you Want To Say rather than what you Think You Should Say.  An hour in we were given our first topic ‘write what is in front of you’ and we were off.  After more lecture (how does it feel, where did your mind go, is your hand sore?) we split in to small groups and did a series of topics, ten minute sprints followed with reading aloud to each other, then lunch and a break.  In late afternoon we met in smaller groups for more writing sprints***, zazen, dinner, and a lazy lecture peppered with volunteers reading aloud to the larger group.  The evening would close with listening meditation, in the form of a song sung by one of the attendees.  This was our schedule for the next few days.

We had been assigned two books to read for the retreat: one fiction (or as the teacher called it, “Li-ter-a-tyoore”) and the other an anthology of American Zen teachings and anecdotes.  The second day’s lecture was on the work of fiction: decomposing the structure, analyzing the characters and their arcs, placing the story in the greater cultural context.  I was a fish out of water for this one: I had not made it through the book.   The novel was set in New England, focussed around a hate crime eerily similar to actual events, with the descriptions, people and their actions cold and sharp.  I had abandoned it a hundred or so pages in, the chilly feel too much for me after the frigid February  I had fled two months before. Prompts for five words to describe each of the characters drew a blank, and to fill the space my mind began to drift: What makes something literature as opposed to fiction? Why was this gloomy story somehow more ’substantial’ or worthy than humorous fiction?  Why is a family falling apart more ‘credible’ than a young couple finding each other?  In the end, I listed random descriptors during the exercises and went with the flow.

The Zen anthology was the work of the male teacher, so the third morning’s lecture was fascinating: how he came to meet the masters (driving them to lectures while he was a student at the Jack Kerouak School of Disembodied Poetics), how he came to the idea of the book (there was something similar in other Zen traditions but not Western Buddhism), his writing practice (while he was the primary teacher’s assistant during a series of retreats), the actual process of interviewing his subjects (which never went as planned), and the publishing process (he also writes fiction and his editor re-sequenced his book releases to optimize audience draw).  He admitted how he had stumbled during the writing process; his first book (a fictionalized telling of a coast-to-coast peace walk) was written while crashing in a friends garage, the bulk of it written during the last month of the four-month invite.  He also described how he came to be a creating writing professor, and how this informed (and deepened) his own writing and his voice.

During the previous retreat I had been surprised to discover how much I enjoyed writing sprints.  The shortness of the intervals made it seem deceptively possible and I would jump in, but then my mind would ‘run out’ at six minutes and the pen would need to keep moving.  It turns out this is when the magic happens, when you run out of what you have planned to write and just write, sometimes junk but more often what you really want or need to say.  The reading aloud had been a challenge at first, mostly from insecurity, but also because I found myself writing things I had never told anyone, sometimes even myself.  With the reading aloud we found each other had the same reticence, and speaking the words helped us find the rhythm of our writing voices.  During this retreat, the writing sprints were again my favorite part.

We would meet to write in late afternoon, as the sun lazed towards the horizon, the brightness belying the high desert chill.  My group was in the kitchen, in the corners while we wrote and coming together at the butchers block to read aloud.  The silence (or near silence) of the previous weeks had had me drifting to the edge of the group during the workshop and meals, and I found my self writing from the edges as well.  “What will you have to say goodbye to when you die?” Two birds pulling dandelion fluff outside my window, the grey bird that sings from the top branch of the pine after breakfast, the new friend with a big hug out of the blue that makes me feel so safe.  “Something lost forever” Nights spent at the short track, dreams of our own team, KPM Racing: K now in a box, M lost in Afghanistan during a civil rescue flight, photos of his flag-draped coffin a favorite among the hawks calling for increased hostilities, and P, still with us, but damaged from his service.  “A secret I’ve never told anyone” Dancing around life in a secure environment, at the time it seemed cool but as the years pass you grow weary and distanced from those you love for reasons you cannot share.

More interesting was the work of the other writers.  “Your mother’s hands” A gentleman described hers caring for him as a child, playing the piano as she grew older, wrinkled and weak in her later years, and how much he will miss them when she is gone.  Another woman described her grandmother, holding her close to her Singapore roots while supporting her as she found her way in a new land. ‘Music you love” The same man admits Dylan, his creaky voice now obscuring his lyrics, has been replaced by Brittney (Spears), her new album filled with strong songs sung in a clear voice, and isn’t she making something of herself these days?   “Red, without blood, cherries or apples” A sunset in Mozambique mixed with the passion of protest anthems, from a relief worker weary from taming an epidemic in a war zone far from home. “Something lost forever” A friend, an sister, the perfection of a supermodel- gorgeous socialite’s soft hands to third degree burns. “Who would you trade places with?  A recent widower challenged liver cancer to take him instead of his beloved, a mother offering to take the place of her recently lost adult child.  Each day brought new treasures, each more heartbreaking than the one before.  By Saturday night there was not a dry eye in the house.

By the end I was drained, and eager to hit the road.  Sunday evening I packed up the car, and Monday morning I drove out, my truck pointed west towards the California coast.

What did you not pack?

What you are thinking of/not thinking of

Tell me about your mothers hands

Tell me about red (no blood, cherries, apples)

Describe a meal you have loved

Something that has made you laugh

Where do words come from?

What you are looking at/not looking at

What you want to hear/don’t want to hear

What is your original face?