Announcing My Retirement

And reincarnation

A meditation retreat is a strange place to feel ashamed of one’s career but I was able to manage.

Perhaps it was the metal folding chairs, or the name tags but the Q and A portion of the retreat (complete with mic runners) had most speakers lead with “I am the CEO of blah blah blah” or “I am a pediatrician and researcher…” It was not the introductions I expected from a meditation retreat. This retreat was named “A Meditation Party” and promised to be ‘not at all a silent retreat.’

When L was little he was very confused about adult parties. “Why” he asked “do you call it a party when all you do is sit around and talk. Where are the balloons?”

Peering in the window of the Main Hall where every single one of our sessions was scheduled to take place I saw row after row of folding chairs. “Folding chairs don’t really say meditation OR party to me.” I told the woman examining the room next to me. That joke went over like a lead balloon.

Our setting was the Omega Institute, an old summer camp re-made (program wise but not physically) into a retreat center. A friend and I had flown across the country to NYC, spent a night on Riverside Drive, taken a train along the Hudson and spent a day in the almost-too-cute-to-be-real village of Rhinebeck. We chose to travel this distance because three of our favorite meditation instructors, well two of our favorite instructors and one of our favorite interviewers, were coming together to host a retreat that they hadn’t done before. I was excited to watch them together and watch a new sort of gathering unfold. I wanted to be part of it.

I had grown out my beard in advance of the retreat because when I spend hours a day meditating things like embarrassment over facial hair fall away. It’s one of the ways that I know that I won the retreat. Other ways to know that I was victorious? Speaking like a muddy river, forgetting my phone, and losing the ability to do simple addition. After some retreats I even forget to keep score. Thank you open awareness!

Each night after scooping sauced cauliflower, chard and/or fava beans onto my plate I would find a seat at a formica table with fellow retreat goers (I say fellow but after a session counting I can tell you that on average 2 out of 12 which is 1 out of 6 which is 1/6th which is 16.666666% of the participants were male, yet almost 50% of the Q and A folks were male. Yuck) we would work through the same set of questions. Where did you come from? Have you done a retreat before? What do you do for work? Yup. Work. At past retreats I have never talked to anyone about work. Some of those retreats were silent, others on Zoom, but even the ones where we shared similar curried cauliflower we never asked each other our professions.

• Denver.

• No, but this is the largest one I have been to.

• Unemployed. Unemployed. Unemployed.

For our last supper I brought my sodden greens to a table filled with people who looked older. We ran through our questions. The woman draped in cashmere whose hair was in a complicated updo answered first.

• Cleveland

• Many many, but this is the largest.

• Retired

• You?

Retired sounded so much better than unemployed. Let’s see..I used to work. Now I choose not to work. I don’t plan to work again. That quacking really does seem like a duck. A duck that walks with its ducklings, and eats bread crumbs, and swims around in circles.

Photo by Andrea Lightfoot on Unsplash

So I answered:

• Denver

• Several but this is the largest one I have been to.

• Retired

Back in Denver I found myself leaning towards the magnifying mirror, listening to a football podcast on my phone, while counting the hairs as I attacked. I had lost the retreat. Still, I found something too. My new career as a retired person. Here is my pond. All are welcome. Bring bread. The literal kind, not what you earn as a CEO. You will recognize me by my beard.

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You?

Where are you from?

Have you done a meditation retreat?

What do you do for work? Kidding skip that one.