Ammi Midstokke: Accidental approaches to meditation

Someone always has to be ill on holidays, and apparently it was my turn to pull a shift. Or it was karma for complaining about my husband’s sweet potato casserole. In any case, something went awry with my body over the weekend. Bodies are kind of like that sometimes.

I tried to stave it off with the medicinal approach to alcohol, a preventive swilling of sorts. In fact, illness is probably the greatest catalyst to my alcohol consumption, otherwise limited to threats of bacchanal behavior that I forget to follow through on after a glass of wine.

Once though, I showed up at my dad’s house with a flu and all he had was cognac. He kept me slow-drip drunk for three days and I have little recollection of the whole affair. Had I been able to eat or drink anything this time, a similar approach would have been warranted.

Instead, I stopped talking. Even breathing hurt, but studies show long stints of oxygen abstinence can result in brain cell loss and I really cannot afford to lose anymore. Especially because my iPhone keeps threatening to update and I’m about one more head injury away from my teenagers demanding I switch back to a pager because they’re tired of teaching me how to use modern technology. I thought that was the whole reason we had kids. Well, that and solving global warming.

Being unwell meant I was also relegated to inside activities only. And by “activities,” I mean mostly lying about and feeling sorry for myself. Particularly when I stuffed the kids’ Advent calendars with chocolates I did not dare eat for fear it would be like swallowing swords of fire.

I stared out our large windows into the trees, noting how the frost had settled on the long needles of the ponderosas. I watched a woodpecker forage on the patio while my cat made the strange squeaks and peeps of an excited hunter. I noted how the low winter sun reaches nearly through the house, warming it just as we’d hoped.

Sometimes a child would come talk to me and I would just listen. My husband spoke a record half-dozen sentences, none of which I interrupted (also a record). I snuggled my dog because I couldn’t just say I loved her. Words of affirmation are one of her love languages, carrots and snuggles are the others.

As I convalesced, a soft quiet fell over the entire home, warmed by simmering pots of soup and baked cookies. The tea kettle gurgled from time to time. Even our footsteps seemed more tender.

Something of the outside came into the walls. The settling of the season perhaps, or permission from the plants to pause and let roots grow beneath the soil. And the perceived silence of nature that is not really silent at all, rather just space for sounds other than my own raving mind.

I declined phone calls and canceled video conferences with the apology that I couldn’t talk. Then Monday came and decided I should still be as quiet as possible, just in case. Perhaps I’ll extend the ruse through the Christmas.

Little actually needs to be said. We humans seem to make a lot of noise just for the sake of making it (see: electronica, Rush Limbaugh, sports arenas). How would our lives be impacted if we were only able to listen?

I’m certain all my meditation-retreat-aficionado friends are sitting on their cushions thinking, “See?! That’s what we’ve been telling you!” I’m not quite ready to sign up for a silent retreat yet, but I might pretend to have laryngitis from time to time. Or in the very least, I’ll practice talking less and listening more. Maybe that’s a resolution we can all get behind in the New Year.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com.