From Comfortable Distances (41 page)

She moved to open her
window—she didn’t want it to fly away, but then it was too late. The pigeon had
leapt to flight. It glided through the air, free.

“I know I’ve already
asked, but thought it couldn’t hurt for me to check in again about your plans.
Do you intend to sell it?” Luke said.

“I don’t know. I guess
not much has changed about that since I saw you last. I haven’t thought all of
the details through just yet,” Tess said.

“I’m sorry, Tess. I know
it’s none of my business and that it’s only a few months since your mother
passed. I probably shouldn’t be making this call to you. The truth is that
folks here would like to buy the house and they put me up to reaching out to
you after I said I’d run into you recently.”

“You’re the messenger,”
Tess said.

“Yes, I suppose I am. I’m
sure it’s no surprise that the people here have a long-term relationship with
your home. They would like to convert it into a temple,” Luke said.

“I see,” she said. She
heard his words and waited for them to register. Sell her home. Give up the
place where she had spent her youth, where her mother had acclimated to America
and spread her ways. She couldn’t imagine parting with it, and yet if she
wasn’t going to live there, she believed that her mother would want the town
people to keep it alive.

“Perhaps it’s something
for you to think about? A seed that I’m planting?” Luke said.

It seemed to Tess that
she had a lot to think about: the prospect of Neal leaving, becoming a yoga
teacher, whether or not she wanted to spend the rest of her days as a realtor,
and now, did she want to sell her childhood home? She wished for a moment that
someone could tell her what she was supposed to do regarding everything.

“Sure,” Tess said. “Something
to think about.”

“I haven’t upset you,
have I, Tess?” Luke said.

“No, not at all. I’ll
think about it.”

“That’s all I can ask
for,” Luke said. “You take care, Tess. Namaste.”

“Namaste,” she said.

The moment she hung up
there was a knock at her door and then the door opened and Michael was in her
doorway.

“You look like you saw a
ghost,” he said.

“Usually people wait for
a ‘come in’ before they open a door,” she said.

“Yeah, well I’m not
‘people.’”

Tess swiveled her chair
around to face the window and then back to face her desk again. Michael made
himself comfortable in the plush leather reclining chair off to the side of her
desk, nestling his head in the headrest. Tess thought of it as her counseling
chair—no clients ever sat in it—it was generally reserved for agents having a
rough day or for Tess when she wanted to get away from herself. She couldn’t
remember Michael ever sitting there. He generally sat in the chair across from
her and put his feet up on her desk, which tended to remind her of the way he
used to put his feet up on her living room coffee table and how he didn’t see
anything gross about it. Once he had told her that his feet, which she now
found offensive, were the same feet that were in bed with her each night beside
her own feet.

“Isn’t life supposed to
get dull at some point?” Tess said.

“The mother threatening
you again?” Michael asked.

“An old friend from
Woodstock. He wanted to know if I plan to sell my mother’s home.”

“What’d you tell him?”
Michael said.

“That I hadn’t thought it
through yet,” Tess said.

“You know what I think?”
Michael said.

“What?” Tess said.

“I was expecting you to
say you didn’t care what I thought,” Michael said.

“What do you think,
Michael?” Tess said.

“You sell it. Those
people are attached to that house in a way that’s a bit nutty if you ask me,
but you and I know that in this business, it takes all kinds. People love
houses. People hate houses. But that house, those folks up there
love
that house. That was pretty clear to me when we were up there for the funeral.”

“What if I want to keep
it?” Tess said.

“As a souvenir of your
life?” Michael said.

“To live in,” Tess said.

“Tess, you living in
Woodstock is like…it’s like me joining the Peace Corps.”

Tess laughed and bowed
her head down to her chest so that her curls sprung forward. Michael’s idea of
charity was writing a check.

“Exactly. Laughable,”
Michael said.

“People change their
lives all the time, Michael. You never know. I could become a yoga teacher;
invite people into the house to meditate in the mornings. Teach some yoga
classes.”

“You’re scaring me, Tess.”

She laughed again. “I’m
going to hold onto it for now. My mother’s crew is not going anywhere and I
don’t need the money,” she said.

“They could be in there
using it, keeping the spirit of your mother alive,” Michael said.

“The spirit of my mother
is alive of its own free will for your information and your desire for me to
sell that house is enough reason for me to keep it for now,” she said. “And I
know what you’re thinking—that I’m a piece of work—but don’t you dare say it,”
she said.

“I was actually coming in
to tell you that I’m planning to go out to San Francisco to visit my step-son,”
Michael said.

“Really?” she said,
massaging her temple. “Let me guess, you’re joining him out there to devise a
plot to separate the monk and me?” Tess said.

“You’re a real sleuth,
Tessy. Tell you a way to foil our plan.”

“I’m on the edge of my
seat,” Tess said.

“Join me, us,” Michael
said.

 “Michael, I think I have
a bit too much going on for a holiday at the moment.”

“He’s your son. It’s a
plane ride away,” he said.

Tess bit her bottom lip
and took him in. She was too tired to play his games.

“You’ve gone to see
Prakash, mmm….never in the past few years. What’s this all about?” Tess said.

Lynn buzzed in over the
intercom just then: “Prakash called, wants you to call him back.” “Thanks,”
Tess said.

“Shall I ring him back so
that he can fill me in?” Tess said.

“Prakash wants us to
partner with him on a new property he’s designing. Part residential, some
office buildings. He’d like Best to take on the sales and rental aspect of
it—get an agent onsite in San Fran. I told him I’d take a look. Of course we’d
like you to be there, too.”

“One big, happy family,”
Tess said. She smiled. “You go and tell me all about it. Send pictures. As my
trusted adviser, I’ll take your word for it.”

“We could go over the
weekend, take in some sights, have some fun?” Michael said.

“I’m busy with teacher
training. Only a few weeks to go,” Tess said.

“Right. How could I
forget,” Michael said.

“Be sure to let him know
I’m still planning on visiting him around Christmas time,” Tess said.

“I take it I’m dismissed,”
Michael said.

Tess’s eyes followed him
to the door. He about faced once he reached it. “Tess,” he said.

“Michael?”

“Please don’t move to
Woodstock. Really. I like having you here.”

“I’m certainly not going
anywhere today,” she said, her eyes holding Michael’s for a moment longer than
was comfortable. She knew that he was waiting for her to say something more
definite to him. Nothing was definite, though. He nodded and closed the door
behind him.

Tess swiveled to face the
window again. Outside, the birds continued to coast—they made it look so easy
to be free, to float, to move on, away. They certainly didn’t seem worried
about where to live, what to do next. There were moments, like now, when the
not knowing was torturous to Tess. Only no, that wasn’t true, it wasn’t
torturous. She smiled at her melodramatic mind. She just wished she knew what
the future held although she knew that the wish was in vain. For that’s what
living was, the not knowing, the not being sure what was next. She wondered
what her life would be like if she could once and for all let go, live, coast
with the birds in the sky. Her intercom was buzzing but she didn’t have the
strength to turn around.

She wondered if her life
was an act of free will, or if her course was already predetermined and someone
up above was laughing at her struggling, trying in vain to figure it all out.
Her mother had often spoken of “getting into the flow of one’s life” as if it
was a lane on the highway that one could move into. Her mother believed that if
you were living, there was no need to worry or wonder about what would come
next as life was unfolding one moment at a time. It wasn’t that Tess wanted to
preoccupy herself with what to do next in her life; it was that she didn’t know
how to let go. After a lifetime of clinging, of trying to create her outcomes,
control them, she didn’t know how to go with the flow. She believed that with a
few words, her mother would help Tess to make sense of everything right now.
Loss, regardless of what the spiritual said, was tangible. But maybe, just
maybe, she didn’t need anyone to guide her. Maybe it was about listening to
herself. Maybe she had all the answers to the questions she faced and to all
that lie ahead, if she tapped into Tess.

In Your Own Garden

From Here to There: May 1980—Getting There

The flight from JFK
Airport to Minneapolis that May was uneventful. I was still caught up in
college graduation and the fact that I wouldn’t be going back in the fall, that
classes were over, exams all past. I wasn’t sure what I had learned those four
years as a math major. How to solve equations and manipulate numbers, I
suppose. So while I wasn’t sure about my past at that point, I did feel
strongly that my vocation was to devote my life to God. That last year of
college the feeling, the knowing, as I believed it, was intensified, until I
knew that I would act on it. I wasn’t afraid to be on my way. After landing in
Minnesota, there was the flight to Saskatoon, Canada. I remember becoming a bit
uneasy boarding that flight as mostly fathers and sons were in line. They all carried
packed up rifles and fishing gear. I began to feel dispirited—why wasn’t my
father with me? How was it that we never did father and son things? I thought
about calling him then and there and asking him if we could spend more time
together but then I realized that didn’t fit in to the life I was discerning.
Amongst all those fathers and sons, I wondered if my father viewed me as a
failure if I didn’t take a wife, didn’t have children—if he would think me
unmanly. My stern, distant father who believed in hard work, in discipline. I
wondered if I were an embarrassment to him, and if he would ever embrace those
terms, admit that truth to himself, or go on resenting me, disapproving of me,
silently.

It was a small plane, a
jet, with no more than 90 or so seats. I sat in a window seat and during the
flight, I didn’t think. I focused on the world outside the window: fields, dry
and parched; acres and acres of fields that spanned in every direction. I
remember that I didn’t want the plane to land, and then it did just that, and
there I was, in Canada, walking off the plane, the men and boys around me
laughing and carrying on. There was the urge to call my father again, perhaps tell
him that I’d changed my mind—that I wasn’t going to devote my life to religion
after all. I was desperate for him to love me, accept me, only if I did make
that call, I’d be lying to myself and I believed back then that living a lie
was a harsher fate than feeling unloved. Besides, I believed that God was
calling me and in the end, I feared disappointing him more than I feared
disappointing my father, my own flesh and blood.

I claimed my luggage and
made my way to customs, feeling isolated and afraid—it was my first time in a
foreign county. The customs officer detained me. He didn’t buy my story about
going to the monastery, said he’d never heard of some monastery out in
Muenster. Asked me why I was really there and then when he opened up my bag and
saw all my books and journals, my Bible all marked up with my notes, I could
see he was starting to wonder if maybe I wasn’t telling the truth. It was then
that another customs officer gave him a look, pushed him aside, stamped my
passport and waved me on. I guess I had been holding my breath, because when I
walked, I felt dizzy and weak. I suppose that a part of me had wanted them to
hold me back, to ask me to return to Minnesota where I’d get a flight back to
New York.

None of the taxi drivers
at the airport knew where Muenster was, let alone the monastery. There was a
woman taxi driver—I guess she sensed that I was near tears because she
approached me and asked me where I was going and when I told her St. Peter’s
Abbey in Muenster, she nodded and told me to get in her car. It wasn’t until we
were driving away from the airport that she told me she didn’t know where the
monastery was, but that Muenster was about two hours away. She asked me why I
was going to the monastery and I told her that I was discerning taking monastic
vows and she nodded at me, and then when we reached a stop sign, she turned to
look back at me and said, “You are becoming a priest,” with a slight smile on
her face. Her accent was thick and deep, so that her words slurred a bit. I
didn’t bother to tell her that I was considering becoming a brother, which was
different than a priest, far less learned, and that becoming a priest was
something that I would consider later. She, Dora, seemed content to think of me
as a priest and I was content to watch her wispy chestnut-brown shoulder length
hair blow in the wind and the way she focused on the road, her eyes squinting
as if it was all too much to take in. When we reached a traffic light, she
studied me in the rearview mirror with her black eyes, and asked if it was okay
if she stopped to pick up her husband—he was home as it was his day off—so that
he could drive with us as she wasn’t a hundred percent sure of the way. That
made me feel a bit uncomfortable—my imagination was already on overdrive and I
envisioned the two of them kidnapping me or something of the sort. Things like
that happened in foreign countries.

Dora was in her house for
about five minutes when she emerged with a stocky, short, balding man, who made
his way into the driver’s seat. He, Alex, didn’t say much at first although he
smiled at me solemnly in the rear view mirror at times, so that I couldn’t tell
if he felt sorry for me going off to a monastery or if he felt sorry for
himself that he had to drive so far on his day off.  During the ride across
barren, deserted roads, the dry, penetrating heat rushing in through the open
windows, Dora told me about her life in Romania and her two children. Alex
warmed up to me during the ride and told me about how they had come to Canada
and how they had managed to make a life for themselves. Endless miles of
sun-parched land loomed out the window. It seemed absurd to me that people in
Brooklyn lived so close together, practically on top of one another, while all
these miles of desolate land existed. There came a point in the journey as I
listened quietly to Alex and Dora going on about their families—both in Romania
and the one they had in Canada— that I felt a change of heart. I wanted to ask
Alex and Dora to take me back home with them, let me stay with them for a few
days, meet their children, give secular life another try. I craved space and
time away from God, from my family, from myself. I wanted to be amidst these people,
who I believed were sent to save me from a mistake I was about to make.

When we pulled off of a
deserted road into the monastery grounds, Dora turned to me, smiling. We were
there, St. Peter’s Abbey. The road leading in was about half a mile long and
the grounds were covered with burnt grass and weeds that were four-feet high.
It seemed deserted and I began to question if we were headed in the right
direction. We crossed over railroad tracks and then there was the entrance—a
gravel drive with a solid oak tree that had a tinny St. Peter’s Abbey plaque
nailed to it. It felt as if we were riding horseback as the car maneuvered its
way on the gravel, following the signs to the main chapel. Dora was searching
in her bag, facing me still, and then handed me a card with her phone number
and Alex’s work phone number in case I needed to reach them and taking it from
her, I felt calmer. There was a way out if I needed it.

Alex was taking my bag
from the trunk and then I was out of the car, my body damp and sticky beneath
my khakis and button down, so that my pants stuck to the back of my knees. The
ride had taken a little less than two hours. The sun was still burning strong. The
sky was a vibrant periwinkle blue and then a peaceful breeze swept by so that I
felt some relief. I heard the birds chirping and the hum of the crickets—Dora
had told me it was crickets—and all around, there were tall, thick Evergreens.
The prairie, the first I had ever been on, was flat and seemed to go on
forever. It was in those moments of taking it all in that I knew it was going
to be fine. I saw the Abbey’s college in the distance, and that made me feel
better, too, as my parents thought that teaching at the college on the grounds
would at least make my four years of college studies worthwhile. There was also
a press building and a farm and a sign for a gym with an arrow pointing in the
distance. After only a few moments standing on the grounds, I began to imagine
starting a life there.

Father Demitrius, the
guest master, thanked Dora and Alex for driving me, asked them if they wouldn’t
come in for something to drink or eat, but they assured Father Demitrius that
they had a long ride back and should leave before it grew dark. Together, we
waved them off.  Following Father Demetrius into the building in his flowing
brown robe, I wondered if he was hot and if it was difficult for him to move
around in his garb. He was tall, over six feet, slightly overweight and mostly
bald and I smiled when I saw that he was wearing sandals. There was something
sad to his movements, slow, methodical, and yet his presence was warm and
inviting—I felt safe with him immediately. Father Demetrius showed me around
the grounds a bit before he left me at my room. I was to stay in the guest
quarters while I was discerning my interest. My room was a white-walled square
with white and black speckled linoleum tiles that were reminiscent of the floor
of a dentist’s office. There was a window with white tinny blinds through which
the sun beamed, casting a shadow on the floor and walls, and above the window
was a cross. The cot was dead center of the room, and beside it was a small
desk with a lamp on it and a Bible off to the left. There was a closet with
hangers and a spare blanket folded up on the top shelf—he told me that it grew
surprisingly cool at night. Then he opened another door, which exposed a
bathroom with a shower —I hadn’t expected that and was pleased. My quarters reminded
me of a hospital room with its disinfectant smell and its cold, bare feel. Down
the hall was a kitchen and a common area where he told me guests often sat to
read and talk amongst themselves. I asked him if there were many guests and
learned that there were a few nuns on retreat from other parts of Canada and a
few like me, discerning their monastic interest and some lay folks who were
there taking a break from life. He left it at that and then excused himself. He
promised that he would give me a tour of the preserves in the basement and the
apiary and potato farm in the next few days, and that I should make myself at
home in my surroundings for the time being, and that he would see me in the
chapel when the church bells rang.

That first night, after
supper with the other guests, during which we all sat quietly as we ate the
salad and soup that was given to us—I had learned that the heartiest meal of
the day was eaten at lunch time—I went for a walk with the guests around the
five-mile trail that bordered the monastery grounds. It was my first real
experience of the prairie, in which objects appeared much closer than they
were. There were a few times during the walk when I was sure the massive church
bells adorning the chapel were just a few feet away, only to realize that they
were miles beyond. None of us said much. For me, there didn’t seem to be
anything to say once I was there. When we returned to the grounds, the church
bells began to ring and we made our way in to Vespers.

In the pews, I looked
from brother to brother, each of them in their tweed brown cloaks and tried to
imagine myself sitting beside them. There were 31 of them per my count, and
they crossed all age groups, from 20’s to what I imagined 60’s and they seemed
to be in good humor, gentle. I couldn’t tell who the priests were versus the
brothers, although I knew that there were about six among them. One of the
brothers stood out with his wild, curly, long-black hair. Later, I would learn
that he, Brother Kurt, was a painter, guitarist, and psychology professor. As
the weeks went on I studied his paintings scattered throughout the guesthouse
and the university library and lounge. In the late afternoons, I would listen
to him play folk songs on his guitar outside by the picnic benches near the
dining hall while I sat in my room, journaling, with the window cracked open
slightly. He would be the one to tell me about Father Demetrius’s cancer—how he
was battling it for the third time around, and that the chemotherapy had begun
to take a severe toll on him.

Later that first night, I
wandered outside of the guest quarters into a little garden that was wedged in
between the guest common room and the chapel. The daylight slowly began to
fade, the moon taking over the twilight sky. The air grew cooler in a matter of
moments. I had my journal in my hands and was trying to sketch the scene
although I wasn’t much of an artist. When the clock struck 9:00 pm, the sky was
still verging on darkness. It was then that I saw a rainbow arcing the sky and
it seemed to me to be one of the oddest scenes, as I hadn’t ever remembered
seeing a rainbow streak the sky when it wasn’t raining. I began to think of all
that had transpired in the past 12 hours, between the plane rides and the car
ride and moving into my room, and the shared meal and the chapel and the tins
of cookies that were left for the guests in the kitchen—ginger and
chocolate-chocolate chip cookies that I couldn’t seem to eat enough of—and the
bird garden and the fields, and the garage where they kept the 20 or so cars
and trucks that the monks shared to run errands and deliver goods which they
made—cookies and honey and jellies. It seemed impossible that it was still
light out and that it was still the same day. I was exhausted. It was time for
me to sleep. I went to my room, opened the window, and then pulled down the
blinds so that they rattled ever so slightly in the breeze. I decided to move
my cot by the window so that I could feel the fresh air. I wasn’t thinking
about religion that night or the world outside of the monastery or about my
family or what was right for my life. When I got into bed, there was nothing
that I wanted or needed or wished or hoped for. I just was. For the first time
in a long time, I felt that I was exactly where I needed to be. Through the
chinks in the blinds the night sky shone black, and the crickets hummed and the
owls tooted their
who who’s
. I closed my eyes. I was home.