Now and then in my life, I have tried to meditate. It’s supposed to be good for your brain or something, plus I belong to an organization that suggests daily prayer and meditation. There was a period of maybe three years where I listened to one of those meditation apps every day. It didn’t really take, but at least I gave it a shot.
People go on retreat, too. I knew people who went to Malvern Retreat House, where they held regular retreats for sober alcoholics. My husband went to Holy Cross Monastery in New York State on retreat once, too. It was one of the most significant experiences of his life. He would have liked to be a religious brother, in another life, which considering what I know about him was pretty consistent with what I’ve heard about religious brothers, and take that any way you like. He belonged to a group at his Episcopal Church that was going through A Course in Miracles. I don’t know if he went to Malvern Retreat House.
Going on retreat isn’t my style, though.
No, I really suck at sitting still and concentrating on nothing, and I should just own up to that.
Except at one time of the year, during the couple of weeks before Christmas, when all I can do is sit still and concentrate on nothing. Of course, it doesn’t count as meditation, not really. That’s because I’m not doing it deliberately.
I think there is supposed to be some kind of intention, with meditation.
This year, I am working my way through the thirty detective novels of a minor mystery writer. I scroll through the public feed of Reddit in the way I used to read Reader’s Digest as a kid. In addition to reading, I sit with my cat in my lap, petting him. I do jigsaw puzzles, or least bits of them. I listen to Mozart, or to George Friedrich Handel, while eating cookies and tortilla chips. I run at least one errand a day, and then I go home. I do laundry, make the bed, and run the dishwasher.
Heck, I even talk to people, sometimes in person. So it’s not a completely silent retreat.
I know some of the theoretical reasons why my December retreat happens like clockwork every year, though none of them are relevant any more. Family history, cycles of the years, and so on.
No, it’s just my annual winter gloom, arriving on schedule, and if I choose to call it meditation, I feel so much better about it. It’s my personal retreat, and I will embrace it until it’s over. Which will happen the day after Christmas, when I take down my pretty glittering Christmas tree.