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During the second week of June, Ed and I drove an hour west to Yellow Springs
to attend a silent meditation retreat. I had been investigating alternatives to the
Catholicism of my childhood when I met Ed and he, also a lapsed Catholic, had turned
to Buddhism. He taught me to meditate shortly after we began dating. At first we sat in
the straight-back dining chairs at my house where I could only sit without moving for
the five minutes he set on the microwave timer. Over the three years we were together,
I progressed to a meditation mat and cushion of my own. By June of 1995, when we
practiced every evening, I could sit nearly motionless for half an hour.
Retreats and meditation instruction tapes had debunked the common
misconception that the primary purpose of meditation was to calm my mind. Instead, I
learned to watch my busy thoughts and see how the stories made me miserable. While I
hoped for calm, I didn’t expect it anytime soon. The occasional moments of peace I felt
during each sitting period became a welcome surprise. And because the bulk of each day
was filtered through the film of my anxiety and depression, any residual bit of serenity
I experienced when I wasn’t meditating felt like heaven.
But the news of Dad’s illness had unearthed any strides I had made on the
cushion. Now my mind spun in a way that my newly-honed meditation skills couldn’t
touch. I drove my station wagon toward this retreat hoping for some of that elusive
calm. The fields that rolled out verdant and lush on either side of the car felt inviting
and hopeful. Ed touched my arm as I nosed the wagon into the narrow entrance of
Glen Helen nature preserve. The wooded lane shaded and cooled the car and my breath
deepened.
The days were sticky and green with cool breezes coming in the open windows
of the Ecology Center building where we sat on rows of cushions on the concrete floor.
Although we took a vow not to speak to each other or anyone else during the week, and
although we slept in separate dorms far away from one another, a sort of wifely radar
kept me constantly alerted to his whereabouts. I felt him standing behind me in the
lunch line; a twinge in my stomach alerted me that he was walking beneath the maple a
few feet away.
We alternated half-hour periods of sitting with periods of slow walking. The
first evening of the retreat, although I sat quietly, I felt as if my body were still in motion,
still packing my suitcase, still riding in the car. The half-hour sitting periods stretched out
endlessly. Walking out in the weedy yard, I hesitantly lifted one foot and then another, as
other shadowy forms moved in slow-motion beside me. My limbs jerked, uncooperative
and stiff. My face felt like a mask.
The next morning a squirrel scurried back and forth across the browning lawn
outside the hall. Occasionally he carried an acorn to a burrow beyond my vision. The
summer promised to be dry and hot and even the animals prepared to rest as the heat
approached. I let myself watch the squirrel and didn’t scold myself for failing to notice
my breath. To think about anything other than my father felt like meditation.
In the afternoon we had a long break. I began walking the woods. I walked
across a clearing and followed the driveway around a curve to a house and a group of
large pens in the woods. An information board explained that it was the Glen Helen
Raptor Center, part of Antioch College devoted to educating the public and saving
injured birds of prey. I began walking along the split rail fence and looking in the pens.
The first two housed owls. The sleeping creatures huddled together in boxes hanging
waist-high along the backside of the shaded pens. Slits of light showed their unruffled
feathers, moving only as they breathed.
The next pen, the largest at the facility, was set back into the woods thirty feet
behind a split rail fence. It rose more than twice the height of the owl pens, forty or fifty
feet into the air, and was made of open woven wire instead of wooden slats. I scanned
the pen. When I didn’t see anything I read the graying wooden sign that hung from the
fence, “Solo is a male bald eagle of the southern subspecies.” An eagle! My eyes raced
around the pen, but still I saw nothing. I read the sign for more information: As an
immature bird, he flew into a power line. His left wing had been amputated. I slowed my
eyes and began systematically scanning the pen from left to right, bottom to top. Three
quarters of the way up, a flash of white moved from behind the center pole as the huge
brown bird hopped from a hidden perch down to one just above my line of sight. Nearly
three feet tall, the color of dark chocolate with yellow claws the size of my hands and a
striking yellow beak, Solo stared at me. I returned his dark gaze. We watched each other
until the bell signaled the approach of the afternoon session. He turned away only to
preen his feathers with the curve of his thick beak. I found it difficult to move my feet,
so I bowed to Solo and then slowly turned to walk away. Before I had walked more than
a few feet, I stopped to look back. He sat motionless on the same perch still staring at
me.
Solo stayed in my mind throughout the afternoon and evening and as I fell
asleep. I awoke in the gray light that filtered through the dorm windows thinking of my
father. Will he play golf today? And of Solo. What is it like to live in that cage?
I visited Solo again the next afternoon. He sat with his back to me several feet
off the ground on a perch that had been covered with artificial grass carpeting. As I
approached, he turned his body, carefully placing one yellow claw and then another until
he looked straight across his beak toward me. We stared at each other again, he with the
intensity of his V-shaped brow and me with the curiosity of a child. He swiveled his
head nearly backward to peck at his long white tail feathers and then rotated his face
back to me. A few moments before I had to leave, he hopped to a higher perch. As
he landed, his remaining wing unfolded, brown feathers extending nearly three feet, a
glimpse of what had once been his wingspan. It felt as if his wing had fluttered across
my face even though he was at least forty feet away.
I went to see Solo every day. While I watched him, I felt peaceful, curious and
calm. But as I returned to the retreat, questions about my father’s illness crowded my
mind. What was I supposed to do? Who was I supposed to be? In the evening Dharma
talks, the teacher reminded us of the basic Buddhist principles: craving and aversion
cause suffering. There was no denying that I wanted one particular outcome with regard
to my father, but what did Buddhism have to offer me in this situation? When I tried
to relax into a state of not wanting, my body leaned toward my desire. I wanted Dad to
return to the healthy, happy, golfing father I loved. And alongside this leaning was a deep
ache, a kind of hollowness that infused my every breath. I felt myself pushing that away
even as I tried to relax into it too.
On the fourth day, I skipped the morning meditation. My mind was so busy that
I couldn’t imagine sitting still, but I didn’t want to see Solo either. I headed down a trail
that led to the mineral spring that gave the town its name. I walked for fifteen minutes
before my wifely radar went off. The insides my arms and the back of my neck tingled.
Ed approached. I smiled and began to turn away, but he caught my eye, surreptitiously
waved his hand, and motioned for me to come to him. I stopped and looked around the
woods to be sure no one was nearby as he continued walking toward me.
Once he reached me, we sat down on a granite boulder that jutted out among
the mosses and ferns carpeting the forest floor. “I went into town,” he said, smiling
shyly. Ed was forever bending the rules. Leaving the retreat without telling the teacher
was not recommended. I, ordinarily obedient, felt ashamed just for skipping meditation.
I put my finger to my lips and rapped him lightly on the arm to feign disapproval. He
shrugged. Ordinarily his jaunt into town would have brought him back beaming like a
kid who’d successfully skipped school and returned without being caught, but his voice
was subdued.
“I talked to your Mom,” he said.
I let my gaze fall to the ground. Spring had turned to summer and the wild
violets were done blooming, but patches of mayapples remained. A few white blossoms
peeked from beneath the green umbrellas and the entire stand waved in a small breeze.
My parents were at our house with our two dogs. I pictured Dad in the family room
watching golf on television while Mom poured over the newspaper at the kitchen table.
What day was it? I moved my eyes back to the flowers and scrutinized them as Ed
continued.
“The oncologist told your Dad to get his affairs in order.”
The mayapples stilled and I noticed the brown beneath their leaves. Under the
vibrant plants, decay from last fall had turned to sludge. I pushed the rotting foliage
around with my sandal. I could feel tears in my mouth. I thought, but didn’t ask, “What
about chemotherapy?” In my mind, Dad was supposed to have radiation, chemotherapy,
an operation perhaps. But nothing? What kind of treatment plan was that?
The touch of Ed’s arms wrapped around me and the questions subsided. Without
looking up, I leaned into his embrace and surrendered to my shuddering. After a wave
of tears passed, I acknowledged that the retreat was as good a place as any to receive
this kind of news. As I had been taught by various meditation teachers, this latest news
about my father’s condition could become the object of my meditation.
That afternoon, Solo had to wait. I was scheduled for an individual session with
the meditation teacher. I entered carrying my unanswerable questions. I began to weep.
“You can only be the daughter that you are,” she comforted, “You can’t be anyone else.”
Her words rolled off me like soft rain. The caressing tone of her voice stroked me. I
nodded and continued to cry. I looked out the storm door behind her. The shoes of the
next waiting student sat on the porch. I stood, thanked her, and walked into the filtered
light.
The final afternoon I returned to the Raptor Center. Solo sat on a lower perch,
closer to the front and I could see him more clearly. A lighter brown outlined the edge
of each large feather giving him a mottled look. His head drooped a little and he looked
across his beak at me without moving. My eyes scanned the sign on the fence in front
of Solo’s pen. At the bottom, I saw a sentence I hadn’t noticed before, “He is quite a
character, communicating with staff members by whistling and making an ‘Ack-Ack’
sound.” I looked around. Seeing no one, I called out, “Solo?” My voice sounded funny
after the days of silence. I whistled at him. He tilted his head to one side, but did
not make any sound. I called to him again. “Ack-Ack,” he said. “Quite a character,” I
thought.
Just what was he trying to say?
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