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By Root 636 0

late. Then comes the second day. The first forty-five-minute “sit” is grueling, starting well before daylight and caffeine (which isn’t recommended, but I have some anyway). After breakfast, where everyone moves too slowly through the buffet line and makes annoying chewing sounds, I go to a succession of forty-five-minute sits, with breaks in between, as if I am attending classes at a school where absolutely nothing happens. Each session is an eternity long, people breathe and sniff too loudly all around me, noisily shifting their cushions and props, and all I can think about, aside from lunch, all the work I have to do when I got back, the pain in my right hip, and how many frequent-flier miles I need to amass before I regain my executive status, is when the hell is the bell going to ring? Between sits, I pick up a novel and read, parched for words and entertainment.

By afternoon I am going nuts with boredom and can fixate only on the fact that I am just a few minutes away from Point Reyes Station, where I know a restaurant that serves Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap. I don’t think anyone has ever meditated so long on a cold pint of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale—its slightly bitter taste and golden color, its perfection among beers, how supremely thirst-relieving it would be in the midst of a hot Marin County summer afternoon, how well it would go with a medium-rare Nieman Ranch hamburger with bleu cheese instead of all this vegetarian hippie food, how my body would feel bathed in it to my chin. Breathe in pale ale, breathe out pale ale. May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I drink pale ale. May all beings everywhere drink pale ale.

The second day, we have a small-group meeting with one of the retreat leaders, and I am assigned to Sharon. I was hoping the fact that it is a silent retreat would mean that we wouldn’t have to go around the circle and share how the retreat is going for us, but this seems to be the one exception to the no-talking rule. As usual, I instantly have the feeling I have in small groups where you have to go around and introduce yourself and talk about your feelings, of a mood ring that has turned black, a misanthropist who wants nothing more than to be anywhere but in a small group going around the circle. One by one, the participants describe how calm the retreat is making them feel, what a wonderful opportunity it is for them to deal with their pain, grief, anxiety, and impatience and search for meaning; how already they can feel themselves opening up and accepting, achieving a sense of balance, purpose, and equanimity. Only a couple people admit to any problems; they are basically confused about whether they should focus on breathing into their nostrils or their stomachs when they meditate and relax visibly when Sharon tells them there is no one right way.

Then it is my turn. I give a calm smile, as if to show that I, too, am reveling in a higher state, off swimming with the dolphins in my own personal pool of serotonin. Then I open my mouth. “All I want,” I blurt, “is to get into my car, drive to Point Reyes, and have a nice cold pint of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.” Then I glance around the room, looking surprised and slightly offended, as if that outburst had come from someone else.

There is silence. Unlike at the rest of the retreat, this is silence you can hear, loud silence. I don’t believe everyone is stunned into realizing how much they, too, desire a pale ale; they are doing their karmic best not to be judgmental about what an unenlightened, impulsive, alcohol-addled bitch they have in their presence. And then Sharon gives a gentle laugh, a kind laugh, a real laugh, not laughing at me, exactly, but at how funny people are in general, working themselves up so about being in a small group and bursting out with the truth about wanting a beer.

“If you’d like to go get a beer, Laura, then why don’t you?” Sharon says. This is an honest offer, not a leave-and-don’t-ever-come-back threat. People in the group sigh, perhaps relieved, perhaps disappointed I’m not getting thrown off the island,