Where Do I Park?
Finding My Place at a Self-Love Retreat
I drove into the retreat center and I felt adrift. No idea of what to do. On my own. I roll down my window and reach out to the first human I see and ask for help.
“Where do I park?”
He shrugs, waves his hands and says: “I dunno, anywhere. Right around here maybe?”
He signals along a lone span of dirt in front of a creek.
I do a u-turn and back into the closest possible space under a tree. Shade is clearly going to be necessary this weekend in Northern California in 90+ degree weather.
OK, I’m settled.
I walk up to the main building and sit on the bench right next to this person that just helped me park. We’re both wearing KN95 masks because we all need to test for COVID before we go into this intimate space of Loving Ourselves—Level 2 of the HAI workshop series.
His name is Marcel. That’s interesting. He looks nothing like a Marcel. At least from what I can tell behind this mask. He looks a lot more like a Mark or a Michael or maybe even a Bob. That’s where my mind goes making a judgment of the person in front of me as if I know anything about him at all.
It turns out he’s Basque—thus Marcel. Mind blown! I lived in France as a kid. All of a sudden we’re speaking French. I thought I was alone when I drove up, but it turns out I was not. There was a helpful French speaking human eager to assist with parking. I just arrived and I already have a friend. WTAF?
COVID tests, registration, removal of masks, and then a launch into the weekend.
To start, I’m eating peanut butter pretzels generously offered by Marcel. We’re relaxing on his camping chairs sharing stories while we wait for the rest of the participants to arrive and test.
And today…
I’m still in the process of integrating this very full weekend of self-exploration and connection. Right now there are just moments in time and flashes of some personal truths bubbling to the surface.
Here are a few brief glimpses:
A man holding me on the back of my neck and looking at me in the eyes lovingly with no need for reciprocity. I could just be and take it in. It felt so safe that I cried.
Dancing naked like no one was watching with other beautiful humans dancing naked or partially clad—everyone was at choice. I chose naked a lot!
Walking down the path next to a pond with my guitar on my back talking to a woman who was dealing with a recent divorce. She was here to find herself again.
A palm pressed against my belly that made my breath catch—so loving and clean it silenced the voice that tells me my body is wrong.
Showering with a woman who told me she didn’t actually know what it meant to be in the feminine. In the work she does as an astrophysicist she says she is always surrounded by men and has to behave accordingly.
The moment a male-bodied person shared his shame and frustration about feeling caught between conflicting expectations—be masculine enough to avoid appearing weak, but not so masculine that you seem threatening—and how exhausting it is to navigate that narrow path in this hard world.
Touching a woman gently from head to toe as she convulsed and knowing that she was safe in my hands.
Hearing a young man disclose his experience as a refugee and connecting with him when I shared my experience with friends in France who were refugees from the Khmer Rouge.
Watching people get up in front of the group and read poems, sing songs, dance to Pink Pony Club with rainbow scarves and beautiful dresses, and getting up myself to lead a sing-along of TV Show Called Earth.
I can see all of those faces and feel all of those moments. I know they are important. There is so much more. I am still trying to process.
A truth that I feel is that there is an “I” in me and she is listening to these tapes in her brain and they tell her certain things about herself and her value in the world. Some of them are beautiful and some of them are really hard and even mean.
I’m working on replacing the tape that says “You’re not good enough. You don’t try hard enough and you let people down all of the time.” With a tape that says: “You are rocking it by doing your best. You care. You do know how to love and how to show up. You work hard to help and you matter.”
I’m working on replacing the tape that says “You’re old and unimportant.” With a tape that says: “Your time on this planet and what you have learned here is important. It’s worth sharing.”
As I sit here today it is ninety days since my relapse. I am writing this on the patio of my mom’s house as the sun rises. I have a piece of yarn wrapped around my wrist five times. It was part of a Ceremony of Commitment to Myself—the final step in this retreat process.
We got to invent our own ritual. Theater! That’s fun! We had to draw from what was available in the space and each of us had to create and perform our rituals in seven minutes or less! That’s intense!
My ceremony included:
Two witnesses sitting cross-legged in front of me.
Three glasses of water.
Slices of watermelon in a bowl between us.
A long strand of fuzzy purple and pink yarn.
Action 1: Talk to my water.
I said: “I commit to you. I prioritize you and I will stop and feel into your needs if I don’t already know what I want or what’s going on. I will pause if I don’t have an answer and I will be okay in that discomfort. I will create art and play music every day.”
Then I drank that water and all of those words into my body. My partners drank their water too. Maybe they took in what I said or maybe they were saying their own things into their water.
As it turns out both of them used this part of my ceremony in theirs and I got to witness them!
Action 2: Eat watermelon.
Sharing food is important, I think. It brings people together. I didn’t have time to cook, but I would have if I could have. I would have made a meal and shared it.
Watermelon will have to do. It was available. And it’s one of my favorite childhood treats—huge slices of watermelon from my grandmothers garden covered in salt.
I couldn’t find the salt or I would have brought that along as well!
Action 3: Tie the piece of yarn around my wrist.
This is a reminder of my commitment to myself. I asked my witnesses to take the piece of yarn and wrap it around my wrist as many times as they could until it reached an odd number.
One of my witnesses asked: “Why an odd number?”
I didn’t actually know other than to say I don’t like even numbers. They feel too perfect. Odd numbers have this feeling for me that they are not quite finished. They have a dot-dot-dot in anticipation of completion. They are on the precipice of something new coming forward.
In fact, every time I work on a mosaic, I try to make sure the flower petals are in odd numbers. I make sure the colors I use adjacent to each other are odd. I guess I like things to feel slightly off and imperfect.
When Ethan was born, I loved singing Three is a Magic Number to him because that was so perfectly imperfect—”There were three in the family! That’s a magic number!”
The tapes are still there—the mean ones and the beautiful ones—but I get to choose which ones to play if remember to replace the tape. Marcel was right there when I needed him, speaking my language when I thought I was alone. That weekend taught me that maybe that's how life works: the helpers show up exactly when you need them, sometimes in the most unexpected ways. And sometimes, if you're really lucky, you get to be that unexpected helper for someone else.
Three days at the retreat, five wraps of yarn, ninety days sober, and countless moments of choosing the kinder voice in my head. The numbers keep adding up, beautifully odd and perfectly imperfect, always anticipating what comes next.
Now it’s time to go play music or make some art!
This is so exciting! I think you are on to something big. Keep walking that path, dear Mel!
Mel, you are such an incredible person. To me you are so courageous in your living. With everything that you wrote and what I know about you from Zoom calls, I can't imagine any part of you saying you're not good enough. Just does not compute. You are a badass.