larry was teaching me how to shoot. And it was all I could think about. Like the time I got addicted to playing Tetris on the iPad. I loved the satisfying ping of the bullets as they hit tin cans hanging from the tree out back behind the house. I didn’t want to kill anything. Neither did Larry. But we wanted to scare off the bears from the compost. They were getting too comfortable this year. We couldn’t let the cats out anymore. Rufus did fine on the one front leg. But still.
It’s a strange thing to be thinking about while leading a meditation group in a meadow, high up the hill beyond the centre, on a late-spring afternoon. Bucolic. The kind of new-earth smells that made you want to burrow in the mud like a worm. But it was so quiet I thought I could hear the ping of Larry’s shots in the distance. Sounds travelled far in the valley. It could surprise you.
The Inner Quest was one of our most requested wellness retreats. I had created it about ten years ago when the centre was close to bankruptcy and we had to find a way to get more people to stay for longer periods of time. It lasted a full week, and necessitated that you hike up into the forest and commit to self-work the entire time. There was a two-acre meadow where we had built ten yurts in a circle around the clearing for the purposes of our week-long retreats. The plan worked. After a few bumpy encounters with the IRS, we hired some business folks and then officially became a corporation. Not something we advertised, but it was easier to run that way. Now everything ran pretty smoothly. Especially the retreat. I could lead it in my sleep.
I sat among the clusters of clover and buttercups, some flattened under yoga mats. It was our heavy season; spring always was. Everyone wanted renewal. New divorces, people who got through winter but weren’t totally fine, anyone who needed a rest, a new direction. The group in front of me were the usual suspects—recovering drinkers, newly single, depressed, and oh, the anxiety was everywhere. In all of them. Despite their money. They all had to have a lot of money to attend the week-long workshops. We used to accept anyone who could do workshare, but less so now. It was partly why I had moved off the campus and into a larger cabin a few miles away. With Larry and the dogs and the bears in the compost and the beehives in the front yard. Larry, who said things like I reckon it’s going to be a wet one. Who always left me the big umbrella by the door whenever there were clouds overhead, looming above our cluster of dense hugging trees.
I was sitting cross-legged on a small woven mat, teaching a group of women about the importance of adopting a healing breathwork practice. It was the final day, and therefore the day of sacred silence.
An ant crawled over the exposed skin of my ankle, using it as a bridge to the other side, and continued on its way. I’d always been able to rely on my body. My spirit was the thing that could falter, be lazy. That was why it was my life project, I suppose, to remedy that schism in myself and others.
I’d sent my sister, Marie, our catalogue once. Later when we spoke on the phone she said it was ironic that I was teaching others how to be more self-actualized. No one in our family can talk about emotions. No one has ever been taught to have that kind of emotional intimacy with ourselves or other people. I took her off the mailing list and didn’t answer her calls for several weeks. Which I can see now was playing right into her narrative.
I raised my right arm, signalling that the group should inhale. I counted to seven, lowered my arm as they exhaled. I walked them through each breath cycle using only my hands and facial expressions. The truth was, I had instituted the final day of silence only recently, because I had been so tired of the pleasantries and requests for insights by day five.
“That sounds like self-care,” said Blue sarcastically, when we were sitting in the mineral springs on our day off, exchanging foot massages, leaning our heads on carefully folded stacks of white towels. We were always joking about the things we wanted to do but couldn’t justify as actual self-care. Like in the summer when we sometimes rode bicycles down to the ice cream shop in town on Sundays. The last time we did that we hid behind the dumpster while Blue smoked a single American Spirit and talked about applying to grad school.
“Do you think I should?” she asked.
“How should I know?”
“You have wisdom, you’re twenty years older than me! Tell me what to do.”
“What would your mother say?”
“She’d say I should find a rich husband.”
“Definitely don’t do that,” I said.
“See? You’re like the mom I wish I had,” she said, stubbing her cigarette out on the side of the dumpster.
“I was not a great mom,” I admitted.
Blue looked at me curiously. “That seems impossible. You’re the first person from the centre I think of calling when I’m having a problem.”
“Huh,” I said, thinking that was possibly a sad sign for her life, and not a compliment to me, but I gave her a side hug as we walked toward our bikes to ascend the hill back to work.
But Blue was right that making the last day of the retreat a silent one was, in a way, self-care. It conserved my energy so I could keep giving it to others. I cared about everyone who took my workshops, even if I didn’t like some of them. I wanted them to benefit from it. I had never in my life been able to find the right balance, giving people I cared about too much, burning out, and being unable to give anymore. It was my life’s work, to let go of wanting everyone to like me.
A squirrel came close to my mat. I was sitting so still, I don’t think it knew I was sentient. We held eye contact, and when it realized I was a giant living, breathing thing, it scurried off up a tree. This was the moment I normally said, Sit with your thoughts, watch them float by you, like a cloud. This was their fifth session, so they knew to do this already.
I’d been running the workshop for years and had trained others to lead it, but there was a bit of the cult of celebrity about mine. The greyer my hair got, the longer I was with the centre, the more respect I garnered. There were waiting lists of hundreds who wanted to attend. We were booked solid for the next two years. Every day I received more emails and even paper letters from women who swore the workshop had changed their lives. I couldn’t even read them all to respond.
I held out my hand in the air, a flat palm, emphasizing my five fingers. Then I touched my right eye with my pointer finger and mimed shutting my eyes. Five minutes within yourself.
When I glimpsed their eyes closed, I pulled a lime-flavoured lip balm from my fanny pack and applied it to my dry lips, then took a long drink of lukewarm water from my canteen. It’s not that I didn’t believe in what I taught. If I wasn’t able to ground myself in my breath, contextualize the chaos of daily life, be in my body, I didn’t know where I would be, probably floating in space, untethered, I suppose.
I hadn’t been all that present in my joy lately, but I tried to show up for myself and be grounded as I led the women through their journeys. It was usually this time of the retreat that I started to feel solid, grounded, present in the world. I loved to see the group transform from harried city folks to women more in touch with their bodies and the natural world, who tapped into the inner selves they’d been ignoring for years. It was fulfilling to see, especially the one skeptic who had been dragged here by a friend. There was always one in every group. On the day of silence, they loosened their crossed arms, they finally managed to do some of the yoga poses they had previously assumed were too difficult, and they looked up at the stars at night and breathed deeply. I heard the whispers shift from I’d kill for a latte and a scotch and soda to I haven’t felt this calm in years.
The bright spring sun was shifting behind the clouds as I rang the bell to signal that they should open their eyes. I led the group into Savasana. A group of chickadees chirped in the bushes, and I watched them jump and thrive. A squirrel made a sound like static feedback from high atop a maple tree. I was so transfixed by the sound that I startled when a volunteer came through the bramble and tapped me on the shoulder. She ushered me into a nearby huddle of maple trees. I knew immediately that something was wrong. She mouthed, I’m so sorry, and handed me a message from the reception desk. Tegan called. Chris died. There is a memorial next month. She wants everyone from Sunflower to be there. Says Chris would have wanted that.
I hadn’t seen Chris in years, but I was overwhelmed by grief as I read it, crying out and startling the attendees, who lifted their heads from their resting poses. The volunteer opened her arms and held me there, sobbing so unexpectedly. I’m not sure why the news hit me the way it did, given our somewhat accidental estrangement, the way lots of friends move apart as they age. I knew he’d been sick. I’d been planning a visit the next time I took some time off.
“Would you like me to ask Aruni to come take over for this evening?” she whispered.
“No, I’m okay. I’ll be okay. This is what I’m teaching, right? To be present for our emotions as they come.”
She nodded at me.
I got through the evening meal and twilight nature walk. I stared up at the full moon. I remembered how at Sunflower, when the moon was full, we would build a bonfire and bring out all the instruments and play our hearts out, a clanging rock opera. Chris would stand on one of the nearby boulders, naked if it was summer, and howl up at the moon while beating his chest. He always acted as though he’d just been set free from some enclosure, running his body and his mouth, singing and jumping, twirling and pounding the ground.
I left everyone around the fire to retire to my yurt alone. Sometimes I snuck my phone on these retreats, so I could text with Larry at night, but this time I’d forgotten it. I read and reread the note. I thought about how terrible Tegan must feel, though she’d had so much anger toward him at the end of their marriage. And of course I wondered how Bryce was doing with this news. His life had grown far more conventional with age, but the last time we spoke, I could tell Bryce admired the sustained wildness of Chris’s life.
I heard a rustling outside and grabbed my flashlight, preparing to tap the metal side of the bunk to prevent a raccoon from nosing under the canvas and stealing my toothpaste. But then I heard my name, softly called by my favourite voice.
“Carola, it’s Larry. Can I come in?”
Larry had never once come up here, except for walks sometimes with the dogs when the camp wasn’t in use. “I brought you your phone, it’s been ringing off the hook.”
He came into the yurt and sat on the bunk. He was so tall and hulking, with his fluffy greying beard and giant workboots, looking at odds on the tiny cot. I scrolled through, mostly Tegan and old Sunflower friends. I slipped it into my pocket and curled up beside him, laying my head in Larry’s lap while he ran his fingers through my hair.
I got my phone out again and scrolled the texts.
“Chris died, one of the four founders of Sunflower,” I said.
“Oh, Carola, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sad,” I said, like a child pointing to a sad face on a mood board. But it felt that simple.
“Oh, of course you are.” He kissed my forehead and took a deep breath, then asked the question he’d learned to ask me in these kinds of moments. “What do you need?”
“Nothing. I’m going to call Tegan and make some arrangements to go to the memorial—it’s just outside of Burlington.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t need to come along.”
I could feel his body relax.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to come back early? I’m sure someone could come up from the centre and take your place for the morning goodbye circle tomorrow,” he said.
I shook my head.
The small log cabin Larry and I shared sat on ten acres of property. Our dogs, a collie named Pepper and a German shepherd named Saturday, bounded up to the car as I drove up the winding lane, shaded on either side with brush and tall trees. When I reached the house, I crouched down to embrace them. They pummelled me with their big paws on both shoulders, licked at my tears. “I’ve missed you, too,” I said. Pepper backed away and leapt into the air in a spiral shape, the way she does when she’s overwhelmed with excitement, and then barked. If she could talk she’d be like one of those kids who says Mommy, Mommy, Mommy non-stop morning to night. It had been a long week away from them.
Larry was on the roof of the bunkhouse he was building for his grandkids, just to the right of the house, where he had cleared the brush. The inside was a mess of plywood scraps and sawdust, but it was starting to shape up. He had accomplished a lot in my absence.
“What’s all the fuss?” he said, which was a quintessential Larry question. Larry never fussed. He actually barely spoke. He was like one of the maples that surrounded the house. He made me feel safe. There weren’t any butterflies or passionate arguments, just a consistent warmth between, us and it was everything I’d ever needed. Something I realized once I stopped expecting him to blossom into a conversationalist. He spoke rarely, but he listened. When Missy met him, she said, Is he conscious? Does he grow moss?
“I just missed them is all,” I said to Larry, while giving the dogs a thorough ear scratch. “I wish you wouldn’t be up on the roof without someone here in case you fall.”
“Don’t you worry,” he said.
“I’m going inside to make some calls.”
I left my bags by the door and pulled on my plaid house slippers. The cabin was mostly one open room, with a kitchen on one side, a living room on the other, and a bedroom in a lofted area above. A large bay window opened out onto the backyard, where there was a clearing for our garden. Beyond that it was just abundant forest. Larry had put a fire on in the wood stove, the coffee pot was full, the glass bowl on the kitchen island was full of green apples, bananas, plums, and cherries. The way Larry loved me was to pay attention to the small details. I poured a mug of coffee, pulled my feet up under me, and called everyone I needed to call. I dialled Missy first and got her voice mail. I called everyone else and then tried her again. The coffee warmed my chest, and I got settled into the couch under the quilt, Saturday warming my feet and Pepper curled around him. Rufus hopped up and joined them. This time, Missy picked up and I told her the news.
“Oh, that’s sad. I remember him. He was, uh, kinda nuts, right?” she said.
“I suppose he was eccentric,” I said.
“No, for sure. I remember he tried to teach me about the Illuminati when I was like, seven. I had nightmares for weeks.”
Missy hadn’t seen him since childhood, and she spoke of Sunflower with a certain animosity that was always hard for me. But fair, in a way, too. But still I wanted her there at the memorial. “Will you come out for it? You could fly into Burlington and I could pick you up at the airport.”
“Oh gosh, Mom, I don’t think I can.”
“I think you should be there. Chris was a big part of your childhood.”
“Was he, though? I mean Taylor was my best friend. But her dad wasn’t, like, my friend. From what I remember, he was always off somewhere, doing crazy shit.”
I realized this wasn’t a conversation I could have right now, especially since it was turning into a confrontation. So I let the silence sit between us. This was the strategy I felt worked the best. But I could hear Missy’s breathing, her rising impatience. Her dog barked. She had a fat pug she doted on that always looked on the brink of death. I inhaled again.
“Look, there’s stuff going on here. Navid and I are separating. He found an apartment today, actually.”
“Oh my lord. Melissa, why haven’t you told me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I have support. I’m fine. It’s not like we weren’t having problems, but it feels like a failure, I guess.”
“You were together more than ten years, Missy. That’s a success in itself.”
“I haven’t thought about it that way,” she said.
“We have a great grieving-through-divorce retreat at the centre. I can get you in for free. Come for a break.”
“That sounds like my literal nightmare, Mom.”
“Just think about it.”
I heard my daughter sigh dramatically. This was the moment we always reached, if I ever tried to offer her advice. And if I continued, she shut down even further.
“I have to go. I’m sorry about Chris, Mom. That must be hard.”
“It’s fine. We’re all getting older.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
Larry walked by with the dog food, and the dogs jumped up and followed him into the kitchen. Outside the cicadas roared.
Missy said, “Bye, Mom.”
“I love you,” I said.
“Bye.”
I got up and took the .22 off the gun rack by the back door, loaded it, and went outside. After the first shot, where I hit the tree instead of the can, the family of raccoons who were tumbling around the compost ran off. The sun was going down, but I hit the can a few times. Larry came out and watched from the porch, amused.
“I think it might be too windy out to be practising.”
“Okay, then,” I said, and brought the gun back in, took the bullets out, and put it back on the rack.
“Talking with Missy?”
“Yeah.”
“Hard?”
“Yeah.”
Larry brought me a cup of mint tea, placing it on the end table and then squeezing my shoulder as I sat on the couch, troubled. Missy and I had a history of stops and starts, long stretches of estrangement over the years. Our relationship was pretty good these days, but we never quite got to great. She had decided not to speak to me for most of her twenties, even after we were reunited by Ruth, but then invited me to her wedding. I couldn’t predict how things would ever be between us, but I’d learned to be grateful for what I could get.
Larry settled in his chair beside the fireplace and picked up his latest book on boatbuilding. I thought about Larry coming with me to the memorial, and meeting Bryce, who was his opposite in every sense. Larry had a low tolerance for socializing.
“I really am happy to go alone, to the memorial,” I said.
Larry looked up, nodded.
“That’s fine with me.”
This man was a balm against my chaos. All of the emotions that came up at my retreats, and in my other relationships, they all found a safe place with him. Not to mention my own sensitivities, being a Pisces with Cancer rising. All feeling.
After some time, he took my hand and brought me to bed. We made love for the first time in a while, and I fell asleep with his arms around me, a sharp wind rattling the windows.