Reflection Upon Returning

First day back at work after a four-week trip to teach and travel in Europe. Two weeks in the UK leading a workshop in Cambridge and a silent retreat in the mountains of northern Wales. Then two weeks in Italy, sightseeing in Milan, a silent retreat, then three nights on Lake Como.

This going and coming across the Atlantic is now a familiar pattern in my life. It’s always centered on teaching and practicing the work of waking up with friends.   I feel blessed, embarrassed and disturbed to have fallen into such a glamorous life-style.

Blessed – to ascend again and again into the stratosphere and look down on the endless shapes and patterns of this fragile planet. I always want a window seat. As the shore of France appears beneath us, I remember the shapes and colors from my grade school maps of the world. I delight in the snowy mountains and deep valleys of Switzerland and the clustered burnt sienna rooftops of the small Italian towns surrounded by pastures and fields.

Blessed – to be in places of great and unusual beauty: The harsh and ancient landscape of the mountains of northern Wales. The sandy architecture and traditions of Oxford and the University where learning has been a sacred and wondrous activity for centuries. The Duomo of Milan – gleaming white and magnificent in the afternoon sun. The rain clouds coming and going on Lake Como, revealing and hiding the high mountains that contain this pristine and touristy site.

Blessed – to spend time with old and dear friends on the path: People who have devoted their lives to waking up and to creating opportunities for others to do the same. Teachers and students in the mindfulness movement. Friends who open their homes to us, who take care of us, who make it all possible with their work before, during and after our trips.

Blessed – to be part of a Zen community here in Worcester that has the leadership and the energy to keep going while we are gone. So many people step up and do the little and big things that ensure the Temple, the gardens and, most importantly, the practice are still here when we return.

Embarrassed – to say in casual conversation, as if it’s no big deal: ‘Yes, I’m just back from Europe. We’re off again in August.’ To post pictures on Facebook that so easily look like ‘Look how wonderful my life is.’ – but wanting to share the wonder and beauty of new things so not being able to resist.

Disturbed – to have to leave my garden in the spring when everything is coming once again into being. To be taken out of my comfortable morning routine of tea and writing. To have to change my watch and my body clock again and again. To sleep (or not sleep) in strange beds and eat dinner at a time when most reasonable people (people like me) should be fast asleep.

Of course, I am blessed to be disturbed—to get a chance to step away to step back. In the coming home, I see once again the wonder and specificity of my daily life.

And though I rarely think of myself as rich, I live a life of astonishing privilege and I probably should be constantly embarrassed at the ease of it all.

I’ve had a few days to re-adjust my body clock and to find my way back into the blooming life of my garden. This morning, I have my calendar set with appointments, have my to-do list carefully ordered by urgency, and am ready to once again put on the comforting cloak of my social identity.

But now I have a slightly enhanced sense of how provisional it all is – truly a dream that appears and vanishes in an instant. I vow once again to appreciate the strangeness and beauty of daily life.