How Poetry, Meditation and Thích Nhất Hạnh
can help us to experience the noise of life as music.
Driving alone on a warm June morning in 2016, I approached a three-way fork in the literal road. Slightly concerned about getting lost, my posture was more rigid than usual. I aligned my directions with the approaching signs to find my way to New Haven, CT. I chose correctly, relaxed back in my seat and continued on with the cool rush of anticipation.There is a loop of that way that replays in my mind from time to time as a splendid moment of no-turning-back.
I was en route to attend Yale’s Summer Writer’s Workshop for Poetry. At the time, I was relatively new to marriage with a three-year old-son and I was pregnant with our second child. I was also the co-owner of a Yoga studio in Manhattan. Heading to Yale was my way of reclaiming something in myself that had been growing in silent retreat. As I checked in at the registration desk of the university courtyard, I shook off lingering guilt for indulging in time away from family and business. Wearing a denim maternity jumper and sneakers, I carried my small suitcase towards the old stone dorm and I felt strong in my moment of independence. I noticed a couple of birds who had built their nest in a light-fixture near the entrance. I paused for a moment to watch them, and felt a reconnection to that sense of freedom experienced as an undergraduate — when the only person I was responsible for was myself, and now slightly matured, I also felt my connection to the world at large.