Meet the Parents by B.

 

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Matt asked me to make a guest appearance on his blog to share my experience from his parents’ Gurdjieff Studies seminar a couple weeks ago. Since Matt already posted his experience from the Arizona seminar, he thought a virgin experience might be more interesting. If you’ll indulge me, here goes…

His dad was kind enough to invite me, never having met me before. Though I didn’t have much of an idea of what the weekend would entail, it almost certainly would not include a Memorial Day barbecue, but when you have the chance to learn from a spiritual teacher with 7 published books (and 3 videos), and you’re dating his son, how can you say no? At the very least, I figure, it will make a good story. 

I spend the first 24 hours totally confused and, frankly, a little pissed off. My seminar roommate later tells me that she worried about me that first day or so, using the word “morose” to describe my energy. Nevertheless, everyone leaves me alone to make my way on my own. It turns out I am just tired and confused that first night. I get over my fantasies of escape after a good night’s rest and am ready for early morning yoga at 6:15am. 

Matt’s dad leads the sessions. He is stern but loving. His Irish chuckle is a welcome reprieve from the serious mood that permeates the air here. I work with the ideas he is introducing - getting out of the “head brain” and “into the body.” They aren’t unlike ideas I have heard at yoga classes in the city, but it is new to be applying them with such intensity and duration. It requires a lot of nap-taking in between scheduled sessions. In fact, one impromptu nap takes place in the reeds on the side of the road because my bed is just too far away. 

In case I haven’t already mentioned it, this is a journey that everyone at the seminar takes alone. I thought that the weekend would be a good chance to spend some time with Matt before he hit the road back to California. I hadn’t anticipated that he would pretend to ignore me from the moment we walk in the door. Aside from feeling confused and a little abandoned, I feel invisible. That’s not something we feel every day, even in the crowds of NYC. I say that Matt “pretended” to ignore me because, at this point, my ego is stubbornly holding onto the idea that I am of interest to other people, that they are watching me, that I can’t be ignored. I heard other people echo this sentiment, as well, concocting paranoid fantasies that they are being singled out and tested. I am quite sure that was not the case. 

When Matt’s dad says my name during yoga (a light chiding for doing the pose wrong), my heart jumps. Someone has acknowledged my presence – I am here! It’s shocking how much we rely on social interaction to stay sane. I am reminded of a recent New Yorker article that discussed the cruelest form of torture – solitary confinement. People spend years in prison left to their own thoughts. As Matt would later joke, it’s pretty heavy to realize, after spending only 3 days with nobody to distract you from your inner dialog, that your personality kind of sucks. By this time, I think we all are starting to get a little tired of listening to our whiney, repetitive inner voices.

On Saturday night, I finally figure out what we are supposed to be doing. I heard it the first night, but was so distracted and agitated that it takes hearing it a second time and listening to other people’s experiences for it to sink in. Putting it into practice during the break between the discussion and the evening meditation, I begin to understand. It takes only a sip of water – the first real sip I have perhaps ever taken – for me to start to come into my body. I feel charged and hyper-aware of everything around me…the feeling of my clothes against my skin, the weight of my body on my feet. As I turn to return to the meditation room, I see that Matt has been standing behind me. That’s all it takes to bubble up all of the emotions I’ve been wrestling with the past 24 hours – the hurt, the anger, the shame, a little more anger. I barely make it to my seat in the back row before I’m overwhelmed with emotion. Tears pour down my face and onto my shirt. It’s not a cry of sadness, but of release.

That night is remarkable. Walking along the road on which I fantasized my escape the night before, I notice specks of light in the distance. Feeling the lure like Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounters,” I laugh out loud suspecting that I’m so high I’m hallucinating the shiny dots. The next day I see on the map that I was walking toward what’s known as Firefly Meadow. Maybe they truck in the fireflies so the seminar participants feel like they are getting their money’s worth from the weekend. Regardless, it is pretty magical.

By the final morning, I’m existing in the moment, letting seductive thoughts of past and future slide by without dragging me along. Walking around the grounds, I can’t believe how beautiful everything looks. How did everything I’ve been seeing for the past 2 days suddenly get so beautiful? I’m positively filled with joy, thrilled to be alive. I see the cafeteria as if for the first time. Eating meals in the cafeteria has been the hardest part of the experience for some reason, but I don’t even try to hide the huge smile on my face as I eat my oatmeal. The rest of the morning is spent packing and attending a couple final sessions. Matt motions for me sit next to him during the final discussion. For the last exercise, we all join hands in a circle and I position myself next to him, feeling like a scheming schoolgirl. I will never again take for granted physical contact. 

Once we have hugged and shared a few laughs, his parents come over. I give each of them a big hug as his dad says, “Nice way to meet the parents, huh?” At lunch, we decide it’s either the best way to meet the parents, or it’s my new “worst date ever” story.