The Lament of the Hostess

Heaven knows, I am a compliant soul. My female condition, not to mention my Catholic girlhood, incline me towards obedience. So when, in this virusy era, residents of the community where I live are directed to wear a mask, stay out of stores and each other's houses, and keep a six foot distance from each other, I bow my head and strap on the mask, reject the shelter of a friendly roof in the rain, and keep both friend and foe a sword's distance away from my body.

When a visitor arrives, I carefully place our chairs eight feet apart on my front porch. We sit and strain to hear our muffled voices beneath our masks, guess at our hidden smiles, and peer into each other's eyes to discern the real meaning of what we think the other just said. Even in Vermont, it gets hot at this time of year, and as the hour passes my friend and I begin to sweat while our glasses fog up, and we hear the air conditioner's chilly hum in the forbidden indoors.

None of this is easy, but for me one of the hardest parts is not being able to offer her...anything. I'm not talking about a four-course dinner, or a smear of brie on a cracker, or a single roasted peanut. I'm not even allowed to give her a cup of coffee (iced and with a splash of cream would be lovely in this weather), or a glass of wine, or a drink of water. In order to swallow any of these things we would have to remove our masks and open our mouths, thereby shooting clouds of virus into the atmosphere.

I don't know why this particular restriction seems so hard, but as my friend and I sit mumbling into our facial coverings, I keep having to quell the urge to jump up and run inside and bring out something for us to share. I had no idea that the hostess instinct was so rooted in me, but there you have it.

I suspect that I'm not alone in this. There is something atavistic about the desire to offer food and drink to a visitor. Perhaps as she hands over a bowl of dip and a plate of crudités, the hostess's subconscious is saying "See? My hands are full of good things. I cannot attack you." And the guest's subconscious sighs: "Whew! I guess it's o.k. to relax."

Our fellow primates, the monkeys and apes, share food with their friends. My dogs Wolfie and Bisou used to share bones (well, Wolfie, who outweighed her by seventy pounds, used to let Bisou have his). And partaking of meals is at the center of countless religious rituals.

So yes, it's tough, and it feels inhuman not to be able to eat and drink with friends. This is why restaurants were among the first establishments to open in many states (restaurants and tattoo parlors, the latter pointing to the even more primitive urge to paint one's body), and people flocked to them. And many of those people are now paying a heavy price.

Which is why for now I'll keep my fridge door tightly closed when a friend comes over. Instead I will indulge in one pleasure that is still allowed and never gets old: complaining.

Leopard on Exhibit

I am one of those sleek, reasonably contented leopards that you see in modern, enlightened zoos.

I am not exactly caged in. My sleeping quarters are warm and comfortable. The outdoor exhibit comprises many acres of woods and fields over which I am free to roam. If I see another animal coming my way, I give it wide berth. We leopards are a solitary species. My range used to be much larger, though. I traveled regularly in search of food, and sometimes even went hundreds of miles to visit other leopards.

Every evening, my keepers leave food outside my door. We must never be in the same space, because I am a danger to them and they to me. But, like I said, I am reasonably contented. I don’t have to worry about poachers setting traps, or hyenas stealing my kills. And now that the public isn’t allowed to visit, I am not bothered by their inane comments about my spots.

I spend a lot of time grooming myself, getting rid of pollen and dead leaves, and hunting for ticks. I take naps. I force myself to chew my food thoroughly, to make mealtimes last longer. Every day I roar over the ether at other leopards I used to know, but their voices break up in the distance, and it’s hard to know what they’re saying. Occasionally I make marks on tree trunks with my claws.

I look at the sky. I smell the earth. I watch the sunset and wait for the keeper who brings the food. Did I say that I am reasonably contented? We leopards are a solitary species.*

*In case you find this confusing: the retirement community where I live has prudently closed the campus. No visitors may come in, no residents may go out.  

Round and Round the Bodhi Tree

To reach enlightenment, the Buddha sat and meditated for forty-nine days under a fig tree, later called the bodhi tree. My meditation group now has its own version of the bodhi, a big, scaly-barked, winter-bare sycamore. And instead of sitting under it, we walk around it.

For the last five years, the group met in one of the buildings in our retirement community. We would gather there two mornings a week for meditation stripped to its bare essentials: other than the chime that I rang to signal the beginning and the end of twenty-five minutes of sitting, there was no ritual: no reading, chanting, or even a candle. Just a silence that felt full rather than empty.

The corona virus put an end to that, at a time when we needed meditation more than ever. But since we’re still allowed to go outdoors, we decided to give walking meditation a try.  

Yesterday morning, we met by the sycamore. The weather was brisk, but my fellow meditators are hardy Vermonters, and they showed up booted, coated, gloved and hatted. We spread out around the tree, at six –foot intervals. Feeling slightly foolish, I rang my chime and started walking. How, I wondered, would we find the right pace, not too fast but not too slow? Obviously we couldn’t shut our eyes, but where should we look? And what about the breath?

Somehow, by the time we’d gone around once, all these questions had answered themselves. There is something self-regulating about the rhythm that walking imposes on the legs, the arms, the breath. Without thinking about it we managed to keep our distance from each other. Nobody tripped or got dizzy, and we spontaneously matched each other’s pace.

I kept my eyes on the ground, put one foot in front of the other, and felt more focused than I do during sitting meditation. Also: I have never in my life either talked to a tree or been addressed by one. But this time, circling the sycamore like a planet, I became subtly aware of its presence. Was it saying something? Probably not. But I was feeling something, and that is what matters.

I kept the walk to fifteen minutes, and when it was over people thought that we should increase it to twenty minutes and add a third day, because it felt good and we are all in such need to be in each other’s presence.

We dispersed until the next time, but before leaving I went to the sycamore and , disobeying the six-foot rule, put my hand on its scaly bark.