Vacationing (or praying?) at the Metro

A month or so ago as Japhia and I began our vacation (now over for a few days already), I felt anxious about it.  We had one week planned at a cottage which we knew would be thoroughly restful and vacation-ish.  But I worried about the rest of the time, the three weeks in total we would have at home.

My anxieties were heightened by an article I read about that same time about how to make stay-cations into real va-cations.  It talked about things like finding a theme, planning outings you normally don't take time for, not letting the time just slip by, having an intentional and refreshing rhythm to the days rather than random-ness, and so on.

It sounded like a bit of work, but the kind of preparatory work that would pay off in vacation benefits and keep me from returning to work wondering where the vacation went and why don't I feel like I've even been away.  Not unlike the kind of prep work we accept as necessary to a good, refreshing and sustaining prayer life.  Because vacation time and prayer time have at least this much in common -- that both are a sustained step away from normal, active life that are meant to help us return to normal life refreshed, renewed and deepened in our appreciation of the world and our life within it.

I was worried, though, because we didn't have a stay-cation theme (and I didn't think Japhia was too interested in finding one).  Nor apart from the week at the cottage did I expect we would take any uncommon outings.  I worried that letting time flow by languidly like the Lazy River that meanders through every water park on the continent, would waste the vacation.  And as the vacation unfolded I wasn't sure that the rhythm we were finding -- of waking whenever, then easing our way through each day with light meals, reading (one book in particular we got entirely wrapped up in is The Last Resort by Toronto-based author Marissa Stapley), and napping would be as refreshing and renewing as I thought I needed.

Silly me.

It was wonderful. 

And one of the more wonderful parts of the whole month away?

It was the week or more at home when every day we would make a little trip together to the Dundas Metro to pick up a few things we wanted for a meal that day, or as treats for grand-kids who were coming over, and how every day we were there -- 5 or 6 days in a row, we would go through Val's cash line.  Not my sister Val, but someone as warm and personable.  

We have been served by Val for years at our Metro. But it wasn't until we ran into her in the Emergency Room at St. Joe's one night a couple of years ago -- she there with her married son and us there with Japhia's gastroparesis, that we really connected.  Since then, even though there are four or five cashiers we really like and look forward to chatting with when we're at the Metro, we now feel a special connection with Val as she seems to with us.

So it was nice when on our vacation, the first day we went to the Metro for a few little things, Val was the cashier whose line was the shortest, and we got to talk vacation stuff with her as she checked through our purchases.  The next day she was there again, and again with the shortest line.  The third day, there again but with one of the longer lines.  No worries, though.  We were on vacation so we took a spot at the end of her line and waited the extra time just to have a few-minutes chat with our friend as we settled up with the store.  And so it went for the whole week, until Val began her own vacation and we knew she would be away from work for a while.

And it's thus that a real stay-cation happened.  That we found a theme -- chatting daily and connecting with Val.  That we did something we normally don't -- went to buy groceries together, in little bits, one day at a time.  That instead of just enduring the time in the check-out line as wasted or dead, we made it a gift.  That we saw our ordinary world with new eyes, and felt a little heart-beat of delight as part of each day that week.

Great vacation.  Refreshing, renewing and deepening.  

We didn't plan it, or give it a lot of thought. 

It was just a matter of being open to, and aware of what and who was there.  And letting ourselves be both grateful for it, and intentional about it.

Kind of like prayer.

Namaste for the way

Vacation is almost over.  I could get used to this.  And as usual I figure it shouldn't be that hard to maintain -- or at least to make room for, this experience of rest, peace and openness to the present moment even when I'm back at work.

I wonder how (maybe even, if) others do it?  Maintain some practice of restful sabbath in their routine, workaday life?

Unlike last year, this year we made it to the cottage.  Thank you, John and Judy for your continuing generosity.  It was a thoroughly peace-ful week.  Japhia calls the place God-kissed, and that means a lot coming from her. 

For me, a great gift of the week was the opportunity to visit the Tisarana Buddhist monastery featured in a recent issue of Broadview (the new incarnation of what used to be The Observer) as one of ten "spiritual road trips" worth taking in Canada this summer.  When I saw it and noticed the monastery was just a little over an hour from Varty Lake -- just a few kilometres south of Perth, and that they welcomed day visitors, I knew I would get there.

Online I learned that Saturdays at 1:30 they host a Public Meditation, described as an hour-and-a-half to two hours that begins with chanting, then 45 minutes of meditation, followed by a talk and a time for Q/A.  So Saturday morning I looked at the maps, wrote down directions to help navigate the backroads I would have to take, checked one last time that Japhia didn't want to go and was okay with me leaving her at the cottage for the better part of the day, thanked her for the lunch she made for me to eat on the way, and I set out.

Twice along the way I lost the route.  The first time I just flat out missed the sign for the road I needed to take.  The second time the roads themselves had been changed from whenever the directions were posted, so a turn I needed to make wasn't where and how I was told it would be.  So twice I drove for a ways in a wrong direction, turned around when I realized it, and asked for help (can you believe it?) from strangers to find the way again.

The first time even after asking I almost decided to go in exactly the opposite direction I was advised.  Even though I was in unfamiliar territory I thought I knew better because -- oh, it pains me to admit this level of Western white bias! -- the man advising me was a Korean convenience store owner who spoke broken English.  The second time -- yeah, you guessed it! -- the advice came from a young, tanned, blond, White man who I listened to readily.  Both knew the territory better than me.  Thankfully I asked for help and, regardless of bias and prejudice, accepted it from both.

And isn't that the way?  

And isn't the way more important in the end than the destination itself?  The choosing of it, the losing of it, and the continual re-finding of it in ways we don't expect, with the help of strangers, over and over again?  And, just as important, knowing peace and gratitude in, in spite of, and because of each present moment of the journey, no matter how we might feel about it?

Which is exactly, of course, something that Buddhist awareness, mindful meditation, and the life of faith are all about.  

As I was reminded of, in the Public Meditation at the monastery which, by the way, I reached with time enough to spare.