Illustration by Chelsea O'Byrne
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My partner and I are contemplating a second cup of coffee when the rain stops. Sunlight penetrates the patchwork of clouds and sifts though our RV window.
“Let’s go for a walk. We can chat over coffee when the rain returns.”
“Right, the forecast called for a two-hour break at 9:00. Its right on cue,” John replies. We don our insulating layers, leash up the dog, and head down the gravel road toward the ocean. Maple leaves lazily drift to the ground, and showers of fir needles sprinkle our heads.
I pause to look up at a massive granddaddy fir tree by the path to Miracle Beach. “John,” I call out, “could we stop and ponder this giant tree for a moment?”
I return my gaze to the tree and reach my hands out to handle the deep vertical grooves in its rough bark. “How old do you think he is?” I wonder out loud.
“Who knows,” John replies as he shifts his weight restlessly. He is curtailing his usual impatience this morning – treating me delicately. Our morning coffee talk has gone deep – the grief I have been feeling for the loved ones I’ve lost in the last year or so. It has taken me quite some time to open up and talk about things, and I have not yet found peace.
“I think he’s older than the hundred-year-old trees at Cathedral Grove, but younger than the three-hundred-year-olds. Two hundred is my guess.” I ponder the events this tree has witnessed. The new generations coming into being; the old ones passing. I linger a little longer, then turn to continue the beach walk. A swift diagonal streak catches my eye as a pileated woodpecker latches onto a tree trunk. John stealthily slides his cellphone from his pocket. Now, it is my turn to wait.
My mind drifts to a meditation I recently learned through the local hospice: Listen. Listen to every sound around you. Try to listen to each sound with equanimity.
A shift toward diversity forced me to speak up for my name
I listen to the woodpecker boring into the bark. I listen to the wind moving through the tree tops. I try to balance both sounds equally in my consciousness.
In the distance, I hear cars on the road and the deep woof, woof of a camper’s dog. I try to balance all four sounds, both near and far, with equanimity.
I hear the dry maple leaves scuttling on the ground, and I hear a camper’s smoke alarm piercing the air. I concentrate. I try to bring back the wind and the pecking bird – to hear all the sounds near and far, sharp and soft, welcome and unwelcome. As my attention draws in all the sounds, my breathing slows, my shoulders soften.
The woodpecker flutters away. John nods and we proceed to the beach. I tell him about the meditation. “I see,” he murmurs. He is not a meditator. I myself am only a sporadic attempter of the practice.
Each time I return to Ireland, I draw strength from its ever-changing light
Light ripples dot the expanse of the ocean. The horizon is hazy. I slowly breathe in the odours of the living and dead things tangled up with each other on the beach. My toe turns over some matted seaweed to reveal clinging sea snails, miniature crabs scurrying for cover, and vacant shells.
After a time, we take the forest walk to the estuary and come to a sign. No dogs past this point. The estuary, with its autumn-tinged sedge grasses gracefully bowing before us, is not accessible today. Something in there would be upset by our big boisterous pooch, and so we turn toward the forest.
As we amble along the shaded path, we are treated to a near Jurassic experience: an explosion of sword ferns thrust their fronds high above the understory of Oregon grape, deer foot, and nurse logs with their tiny saplings feeding on decaying pulp. The sun filters through a break in the forest canopy, casting dark shadows on some things and bright shimmers on others. We pause to take it all in.
“You know, John, I was thinking about that listening meditation. I think it’s meant to teach a person more than listening with equanimity. I think once I figure out how to do that, I can do it with everything in life. Some things are soft; some sharp. Some things are open; others closed for now. Some things are welcome, and some not so much. You know, I think I know all that intellectually. I think I need to know it in my bones.”
“Sounds like a plan,” John replies as he tilts his head up to look at the sunlit raindrops that have begun to fall indiscriminately on the thirsty plants and on our heads. I try to hold both the sunlight and the raindrops equally in my consciousness for a moment.
Then, we pull up our hoods, hold hands, and head back for that second cup of coffee.
Carolyn Lambrechts lives in Nanaimo, B.C.