I splurged and got U2’s new album before I left for the retreat. And then I proceeded to listen to it the entire way to The Last Resort in Utah. Keep in mind that it’s a seven hour drive from my parents’ house, so I listened to it back to back about 8 times or so. And I’m totally in love with it. It’s almost as if the entire CD was written for exactly where I am right now. And even if I couldn’t relate to it at all, it’s just such a good album on its own merits.
And now I’m here at the retreat. There is an interesting mix of people here, although it’s not like I have a wealth of experience from which to draw for what “normal” is. There is one other woman who has never done a silent retreat either, so that helps a bit with the nerves. We agreed to figure out together how to ask someone to pass the salt, in silence.
But I am still nervous and feel very strange. I’m sitting right now in my room and I’m so totally grateful that I got a single room. There are only two of them here, the other 4 are shared, double rooms with bunk beds. Which would have posed two problems for me. I’m an only child and typically don’t play well with others in a roommate situation. And if I were the second person to get into my shared room and had to sleep on the top bunk, well given my fear of heights, that would pose a very, very large problem indeed.
The silence will officially start tomorrow morning. We were able to chat this evening over dinner and afterwards so I was able to get to know everyone just a little. It turns out that about half of the people know my mom and have been in retreats with her before. So we mostly talked about her and how she’s doing. Which was a little odd. Almost as if I was starting off the retreat as her daughter instead of just me.
Anyway, I’m just babbling now. Rambling on, my mind just running to run.
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