ANNE WAS AT THE WHEEL AGAIN—me riding shotgun—on our way back to the Lodge, but I hardly gave it a second thought. Not that her driving had improved, just that I had other things on my mind. “I should’ve mentioned it earlier,” I said, “but with all the other stuff going on since my arrival, I nearly forgot all about it. Dr. Mendez signed me up for a four-day workshop at the Esalen Institute, starting tomorrow.”
“Well, goody for you,” she said, which surprised me. For some reason, I’d expected her to make light of the plan. Four days at ground zero for the New Age movement, meditating and soaking your way to nirvana? What are you thinking, hon?
To be honest, I was a bit nervous about spending this much time with a bunch of people I didn’t know. I’d heard rumors about nudity and drugs, but, according to Dr. Mendez, the workshop promised to touch on advanced behavioral and psychological concepts that I couldn’t pass up. “Each experience you expose yourself to,” he assured me, “and each relationship you forge, regardless of how trivial it may seem, provides an opportunity to unplug from the bonds of your old reality and change the manner in which you perceive the world.”
“Esalen is great for exploring what makes you tick,” Anne said, swaying her head to a heavy rock band on the radio. “I’ve been there for several forums myself, mostly to do with nursing and healing.”
“I heard it’s kind of New Age,” I ventured between throbbing drumbeats and screeching guitars.
“Yeah, they often deal with stuff that lies beyond the imagination, with unrealized human capacities and that sort of thing.”
I valued Anne’s opinion and was glad to hear this. So far, at least, it concurred with what I’d learned about the place. “I heard some great writers and thinkers share ideas there.”
Anne eased up on the accelerator, which brought the car’s speed down to fifty around a curve marked for forty. “You heard right. It’s sort of a blend of Eastern and Western philosophies. Did you know it was home to the Esselen tribe?”
“One of the reasons I agreed to go there. It’s the tribe of my mother’s people.”
“Thus you.”
I nodded, feeling a stab of pride.
Anne must’ve noticed we were losing speed because she floored the gas pedal, and the Volvo surged. “I read somewhere there were no full-blooded Esselen left.”
The thought saddened me. “According to my research, there are only a few hundred Esselen descendants of mixed blood. Some history books list the tribe as extinct.”
“It’s all experimental, you know,” Anne said, doing it again, changing the subject and leaving me disoriented, yet curious, always curious.
“What is?”
“The stuff that goes on at the Institute. There are no guarantees.”
I dug in my purse for some chewing gum and found a single piece, wrapper partially open. “Ha. Just like life.”
“You’re prepared, of course, that nudity is common in the hot springs, massage area, and swimming pool?”
I knew she’d get around to that sooner or later. “Are you trying to dissuade me?”
Anne turned and grinned. “You’re blushing.”
I put the gum into my mouth, needing a jolt of Juicy Fruit to quench my sudden thirst. “I don’t plan on spending my time swimming or hot-tubbing.”
Anne punched the accelerator. “Chicken.”
“You’ve got that right.” I said, wondering if she was just trying to get a rise out of me. “I’m staying out of trouble, with a capital T.”
Hypocrite. Hadn’t I concluded during my talk with Holly that “getting into trouble” was a necessary ingredient in life?
“Staying out of trouble isn’t always the best way to go,” Anne said. “You might miss out on something important.”
I snapped my gum. “Naked bodies? I don’t think so.”
“You know, don’t you, that you’re chewing on aspartame and plastic,” Anne said.
I bit my tongue. Ouch. “So now you’re going to tell me there’s an organic version of gum, too.”
Anne reached into a storage compartment in her dashboard and threw something onto my lap. “Certified one-hundred percent organic.”
“Goody, and not even individually wrapped.” I took the aspartame and plastic out of my mouth, put it back into its foil wrapper, and replaced it with Anne’s organic mixed berry variety.
“So, what workshop did you sign up for?” Anne asked, peering at the winding road as if we were on a casual Sunday drive instead of racing the Indy 500.
“Something about healing the past and living in the present, using the Gestalt approach,” I said. The fog was rolling in. Good thing we were almost back at camp.
Anne took her eyes off the road long enough to give me a searching glance. “Unresolved inner conflict stuff?”
The texture of Anne’s organic gum wasn’t as bouncy as mine had been and the favor was fading fast. What was it made of? Tree sap? “Something like that.”
“Let me guess. With parents and an ex-lover.”
“You are too awesome,” I said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. She was right, of course. My two mothers, my ex-fiancé, and my conscience all added up to deep inner conflict, hard, if not impossible, to resolve in a lifetime, let alone four days.
Anne shook her head. “All that fear, anger, and guilt.”
“As I said, I need to deal with all that crap before I can move on.”
To her merit, Anne refrained from chuckling. “So, you’re going to find yourself through Gestalt therapy. I never did understand it.”
“It’s complicated,” I admitted.
“Can you give me a definition in one sentence or less?”
“Probably not.”
“Try anyway.”
I looked out the window at the passing trees and greenery. I smelled pine, but suspected it came from the little tree-shaped deodorizer dangling from the Volvo’s rearview mirror. “Well...it helps you stand aside from your usual way of thinking.”
“Which is?”
“Darn it, Anne. Don’t interrupt. Now I have to start over.”
“Sorry,” Anne said, not sounding the least bit apologetic.
I gathered my thoughts to try again. How to explain Gestalt therapy? I was certain far greater minds had tried and failed. “You stand aside from your usual way of thinking—”
“Whatever that is,” Anne slipped in.
“—so, you can tell the difference between what’s actually being perceived and felt and what’s only residue from the past.”
Anne lowered the volume of the rock station charging the car’s interior like a shot of adrenaline and cracked open a window, allowing the true scent of moist pine forest to flow in. “So, let me get this straight. What you feel and observe in the here and now—”
“—is real and important,” I concluded.
“The goal being?”
“Insight,” I said with great authority, though I had no idea what I was talking about.
“You’ve lost me,” Anne said, lifting her hands and then dropping them back onto the steering wheel. The car swerved only slightly.
“A person somehow learns to become aware of being aware, or something like that.”
“Okay, so if you’ve got to be present in the here and now, how does the past fit in?”
Darn it. She knew I didn’t know, yet she kept egging me on. “Residues of the past affect the here and now.”
“Oh, really?” she said with what sounded like a touch of sarcasm.
“Often our lives aren’t based on the truth.”
Anne pulled into the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park entrance and slowed the car to a crawl. “So, what else is new?”
I wanted to cry. I wanted to throw up my hands as Anne had done earlier. Where was I coming up with all this crap? “Which leads to feelings of dread and guilt—”
“So, you’re going to rediscover yourself,” Anne said.
“That’s the plan.” We were back to the same old subject—self-discovery. It sounded so fruitless. Like the taste of this mixed berry organic gum.
“Want me to drop you off at the Institute?”
“No, I’ll be fine,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “But I’ll need to give you Adam’s journal for safe keeping while I’m gone. And... Could you keep an eye on Holly? Make sure she’s okay?”
Anne pulled into the Inn’s parking lot. “You’re a glutton for punishment.” She noticed that I was looking for a place to dispose of my gum. “Throw it out the window. It’s biodegradable.”
Nope. Still litter to me. I put it into the foil wrapper with my discarded Juicy Fruit and stuck it into my purse to throw away later. “By entrusting Holly with the care of my tent, I hope she also gains the confidence to take care of herself in a world otherwise beyond her control.”
“I don’t have much faith in her parents,” Anne said. “They may steal your tent and everything in it.”
“You told me to shed the tent anyway.”
Anne laughed. “You mean your security blanket?”
“Might as well start now,” I said, though the thought of leaving was bothering me more by the minute.
“I’m going to miss you,” Anne said.
My heart did a crazy flip flop, and I fought back tears. “It’ll only be four days.”
“And then you’ll pack up and go home.”
I wish. “No. I still have some unfinished business.”
“With your birth mother?”
I took a deep, ragged breath, beginning to realize that this ‘business’ with Antonia probably couldn’t be completed in the short time I was here. “Yep.”
~~~
After Anne left for her room, I felt alone and confused. It was my twenty-ninth birthday—a depressing thought. Three months ago, I discovered that I was adopted, was part Native American, and had an identical twin sister. Enough to blow anyone’s mind. So, for the first time in over twenty-eight years, I was questioning who I was and what the hell I was doing on this earth.
Antonia, who had started all this with her freaky messages, was now remaining maddeningly silent. The woman who had awakened me from a comfortable, though aimless, life path and thrust me into a world of confusion seemed to have packed up and split.
Like I wanted to do.
“Thanks a lot,” I muttered, knowing in my heart that Antonia had done me a tremendous favor. How else would I have met my twin and the two loves of my life, Morgan and Joshua? Yet, although Antonia had led me to the door of self-discovery, she wasn’t about to walk me through it. I had to do that on my own.
Time for some reflection. Something I’d put off for too long.
After changing out of Anne’s finery, I slipped out of my room and hiked to a nearby clearing just wide enough to set up my Medicine Wheel. I placed my marker stones in a circle, marking north, south, east, and west, then took my smudging tools from my backpack and lit the stick of herbs. Its fiery red tip glowed before I extinguished the flame, and as the sage, cedar, and lavender smoldered, I, too, smoldered, in a sad, lingering way. I fanned the smoke toward me and inhaled, visualizing the smoke blanketing me and penetrating deep inside. I waved the smudge stick above, below, and around me and finally placed it on the abalone shell where it could burn itself out.
Then I sat in the place of the South, eyes closed, thinking of how my Medicine Wheel symbolized the universe and my own personal reality. “I’ve come to seek the power of the Spirit of the South,” I said. “To feel its energy flow through and around me.”
According to what Ben, Gentle Bear, Mendoza had taught me, the Southern direction of the Medicine Wheel is the direction of the past, a place to set one’s beliefs aside for a while, get close to all living things, and learn to trust and expect the best.
In order to follow the path of trust and innocence, I would have to awaken the child within me, not an easy task considering I was such a goal-oriented busybody. Maybe if I thought about Holly, the way she sensed the soft and tender in those around her, I could remember how it once was.
I reached into my backpack for my journal and pen, trying not to feel rushed. It was getting late. The moon was shining through the swooshing tree branches, its fullness waning, as if part of it had been scooped away. That meant its energy was waning, too, making it a good time to rid myself of the things that were holding me back.
I’m upset, Antonia, I wrote. You upset me. Your emotions, your sorrow, are taking me down. Is your unhappiness linked to the past? Does it involve Bob, my birth father? I’m reaching out to you in the only way I know how. I can’t move on until I know what you want and if there’s something I must do.
I zipped my jacket against the dropping temperature. I wanted to head back to my room, crawl into bed, feel warm and protected. What was I doing out here?
“Damn it, I’m scared.”
Someone started crying. I thought of Holly’s shadow people and shivered. “Mother, I’m scared of what I can’t see and what I don’t know, and I’m scared of what you might tell me. But I’m not going to run from this. I’m not going to run from you.”
As the crying continued, I felt a wave of emotion surge from my chest outward. What if I’d been getting the situation with Antonia all wrong? I’d been making it all about me, wanting to know what she wanted in order to shut her up and get her out of my life. What if she needed help to reach that place where dead people go, a place of purported peace and happiness? Was it possible that she’d been crying all this time for my intervention on her behalf?
It was almost completely dark now. Long fingers of fog were drifting in. I needed to get back to my room or risk getting lost. I gathered my marker stones, convinced I couldn’t do this alone.
Then call in your sister, a voice said.
Veronica?
I already had, but she hadn’t shown.