SPIRITUAL RETREATING

Here’s what I thought would happen. I thought I’d spend Sunday, sipping mushroom broth and apple juice and being hungry. I thought I’d sit on my yoga mat and meditate and then journal about my hunger before starting to drink the medicine that would clean out my guts. I imaged that the clean out part would be like the beginning of one of those spiritual retreats where everyone drinks a psychedelic mushroom tea that makes them vomit profusely before seeing visions of the person they can or want to be. Except instead of vomiting profusely it all comes out the other end. The next day, I would euphorically walk into the GI Diagnostic Center ready for my first colonoscopy.

That’s not what happened. Well some of that happened. I drank mushroom broth and apple juice. There was no yoga or meditation. No journaling and certainly no vision quest. I drowsily walked into the GI Diagnostic Center, not euphorically. When I walked up to the receptionist, she called me Penelope and I said “yes!” At least two more times before the procedure, I was addressed by the wrong name. Then my nurse couldn’t find a vein for the IV, which is not surprising. Nurses have struggled with the veins in my arms on good days. IV in, a run down of what was going to happen next confirmed and they wheeled me to another room for the colonoscopy. The anesthesiologist explained that he was putting something into my IV line and that it might burn. I said “Ouch.” and then I woke up in another room with a different nurse asking me if I wanted to wake up now.

I almost told her “no.”

Ten minutes later, I was walking out the door and Michael and I went to brunch. Michael dropped me off at the restaurant door with instructions to put our names on the wait list while he parked the car and then remembered that I was still high and groggy. So he added “Just don’t do anything crazy." to his instruction list. I must have put a recognizable name on the list because eventually we were seated and I rested my head on the table while we waited for food. My plans for the rest of the day was to eat and then go back to bed and sleep for four hours, but I only ended up eating. When we got home, I crawled into bed and closed my eyes, but I didn’t sleep. Instead I listened to Rosie (robot vacuum) bang around the house. She never gets to do my room because I shut Josephine up in there during the day. This time, since I didn’t close the door all the way, she managed to break into my room. While she clumsily moved around my floor, I thought about the time I was under anesthesia. The thing is, I don’t remember even closing my eyes. I didn’t see colors flashing behind my eyelids. I didn’t dream. Seriously no concept of time because when the nurse asked me if I wanted to wake up, all I could think was I just closed my eyes. All I could tell you about the mere seconds I was under is that it was if I was wrapped in a weighted blanket and placed in a room devoid of light and sound.

And I want to go back to that room.

I want to spend more time in that space. The nothingness of that space was soothing. This part of all the above was the only thing that matched my idea of spiritual retreating, not because of profound visions, but because of the lack of visions. In those seconds of time I was nothing and even though I felt heavy, the idea of being nothing for a little while was freeing. I wasn’t a caregiver. I wasn’t a career woman. I wasn’t a yoga teacher. I wasn’t a photographer or writer. I wasn’t a daughter. I wasn’t living up to other’s expectations of who I should be. I wasn’t living up to expectations of who I think I should be. I don’t need visions of the person I want to be or can be. I need to be nothing. Now, I’m not saying that I could have stayed there forever, but what a relief it was to be nothing for that short amount of time.

I never ended up going to sleep. Michael came in to check on me later in the afternoon and I was watching garbage TV. He asked if I’d slept at all and I shook my head no. “Not at all?!?” he asked. “Not at all.” I replied. Anyway…cancer screens have all been completed. Colon is fine. The dermatologist this morning said that my skin looks fine. The consensus for everything is three years. In three years, I get to repeat all of the tests and scans.

In three years, I get to experience nothingness.