back to reality

So it turns out that going on retreat for a week, having my own bedroom and bathroom, getting fed three healthy meals a day, and not being responsible for anyone but myself is an extremely effective way to reduce my anxiety levels. Who would've guessed? 

There were two groups at the retreat house: my group doing Ignatian spiritual exercises in silence, and another group doing Zen meditation in silence. There was a lot of mindful walking going on. It reminded me of when I got my wisdom teeth out - when I woke up from the general anaesthetic the nurse impressed upon my mother the importance of having me move slowly until all the drugs wore completely off. So they had me slowly sit up, slowly stand up, slowly walk to the car, slowly get in the car...we got home and my mom made me slowly get out of the car, slowly walk up the steps to the apartment, slowly get in bed...at which point it was getting annoying. I felt fine. She left me to rest. I needed to pee. I got up at a normal speed, took three steps towards the bathroom and...bam, suddenly I was on the floor staring at the carpet and completely unclear about how I'd gotten there.

So long story short (and I do hope to tell you the long story at some point), I was able to take a good long look at my life and what I think is: 

(1) There is so much I want to write.

(2) I have less than no real time to write. 

(3) Even if I ditch all but the most essential of other activities (see: lockdown), I wouldn't have much real time to write.
(4) So I'm going to have to take it slowly and trust that, eventually, whatever it is that I want to write will find its way out. 

(5) But I do want to get started, somehow. 

(6) I may very well find myself staring at the carpet again.

My friend the giant sequoia. Can you see her cute smile, in front of the trunk just above where the peak of the house would be?

lest you get the impression from that last picture that the house behind the tree was the retreat house in question - no, that's the "Alte Villa" which is what remains of the natural springs sanatorium that previously occupied this spot. The main part of the retreat house today is this crazy building with hotel rooms, meditation spaces and chapels of various sizes, multiple private dining rooms (so each group can eat in its own space), and far more staircases than seems strictly necessary. This is a photo from my room, so what you see here is only about a third of the whole building. More pictures here.

This isn't a picture of anything in particular but you get the general feel of the place. The stairway downwards on the right leads to one of the dining rooms. The other dining rooms each have their own private stairways. Whatever the original reason for this plethora of stairways was, it comes in handy for implementing social distancing measures. Note the strategically placed hand sanitizer.

One day I took the morning off meditating and took a little hike to the top of the nearby hill, where there is a goat farm, a Benedictine convent, and this chapel commemorating the battle of Gubel, a turning point in the civil war between Protestant and Catholic cantons during the Reformation. "1531 against one another - 1981 to one another" says the plaque. Which just goes to show that reconciliation can take a bit of time in my adopted country...maybe something we should keep in mind in the US too?