Family

Throughout the whole of human history, people have lived in family groups. In my own life, for a long time I thought it was important for me not to do so. My parents did the best they could, both of them, but they were what’s known as functioning alcoholics, and once I earned a college degree, I moved as far away from them as I possibly could and still be in the same country. My family lived in Tulsa; I went to Honolulu—and my initial plan was to travel on to Japan in a few years. I don’t remember why, but it sounded so remote, so deliciously foreign.

I didn’t make it to Japan, but I married someone from New York, someone from another religion. We lived together for about six months before the wedding. It all felt very experimental and free. Then, coming home after our honeymoon, I was shocked one day when I opened my mouth to say something to my Jewish husband and heard my mother’s voice issuing from me. I don’t remember what I actually said; the words weren’t important. It was that harsh tone of voice that told me I had not escaped my family.

I gave the marriage my very best shot, but seven years later, I was once again leaving my “family,” this time it was my husband—my by now disinterested husband. I left him for a master of meditation, for the glimmering hope this swami gave me that I could find radiance inside myself.

I did have some incandescent experiences, and I wrestled with my severity, my insensitivity. I learned that sometimes I could keep my mouth shut, and sometimes I could temper my delivery. I began caring less about being right.

Ultimately, some thirty-five years later, when it was time to leave the guru’s ashram, I heard the instruction from inside: “It’s time for you to go.” I wasn’t running from anything then. I was following an inner command. But once again, upon leaving, I chose to live someplace that was new for me—a rural and forested island in the Pacific Northwest, an area where I had visited only once before, a place where I knew only two people.

Now, I’ve lived on Whidbey Island for seventeen years—and in that time I feel that I had made a home here. I have sweet memories; I have friends whom I love… I wasn’t thinking about going anywhere. And then this last Sunday, Kathleen and Jay, my landlords, paid me a surprise visit. We each took a seat in the little conversational circle that is my living room. There was a moment of silence, and then I blurted, “What’s happening!” We all laughed. They told me that they need to sell my unit and my next-door neighbor’s unit. The two of us are in a duplex.

The landlords have a really good reason for doing this. Their son, a delightful young man—well, to me he’s a young man—was in a skiing accident a few years back. He hasn’t been able to work since then, but he hasn’t been approved for federal disability support either. He has been living on his parents’ property in a shack with no plumbing. This man who has difficulty moving his body has been using an out-house. The money from the sale will make his living situation much more comfortable.

Kathleen said they were hoping that I might be interested in buying the duplex, but I explained that I do not have sufficient resources for a step like that. She and Jay also said that anyone who did buy the property would likely be very happy to have long-term renters like myself and my neighbor. This might be true, but I’m really clear that any new owner is going to raise the rent. My rent was $650 a month fifteen years ago; it’s $1400 a month now—but still it’s way under market value.

The last thing the landlords said was that this will likely take six months to happen; it could even take a year. Still, at my age—which is almost eighty—everything takes me longer to do. I know I have to start on this search for a new home right now.

After they left, I spent a little time looking at the postings of rentals in South Whidbey. There is a man just a few doors down the street who’s advertising a duplex apartment for $1400. The funny thing is that I spent an hour and a half talking on the phone with this very man about this very duplex before I moved to Whidbey. I was looking for my first apartment then, and it seemed to me that his duplex might be perfect. At the time, though, I had a cat, and he did not want a cat. In the moment, I do not have a cat. “Wouldn’t it be funny,” I thought, “if I ended up there all these years later.” Looking at the photographs, however, I could see that this unit has a kitchen with no counter space. I mean, literally, no counter space. The photograph shows a refrigerator, sink, and stove that look as if they’re connected by symbiosis. Above the sink is a shelf that holds an eye-level dish drainer. There is no counter anywhere—no place to chop an onion, to beat an egg, to roll out a pie crust… It might work for someone; it wouldn’t work for me.

Of course, it’s possible that the perfect place will appear… but I know it’s even more likely that it will not.

What is certain, I think, is that this change in my circumstance—coming as it does through no volition of my own—has got to be a gift. This has been a comfortable home; I have loved living here. Yet, truly, nothing is forever. There must be something else that I’m supposed to do, to experience, to learn…

After looking at the rental postings, I closed my eyes, invoked my beloved guru, and asked Where am I to live? Immediately, an image came to my mind: I was standing on a busy street in Oakland, California, looking at the creamy edifice of an ashram. I wouldn’t be living in the ashram itself, I knew, but perhaps I could find some modest place in the neighborhood. There is a thriving spiritual community around that ashram.

The funny thing is that when I left the ashram in upstate New York, I didn’t want to move to Oakland. The Golden Gate neighborhood is not what I would call scenic; in fact, parts of it are quite rough. I remember houses surrounded by barb wire fences and guarded by attack dogs. However, I was present at the founding of this ashram in Oakland fifty years ago in April. There has been chanting and meditation there all that time. I have known some of the people who have been living in the neighborhood all that time.

Now, I think that maybe instead of making my own home someplace that’s exquisitely beautiful, I need to return to family. This is what several of my friends on Whidbey have done over the years; they have moved from the island to places like Idaho, Texas, Minnesota, so that they can spend their final years close to their family. Perhaps now, on the eve of my eightieth birthday, it’s time for me to do that for myself. My family of birth has passed on—even my younger brother is gone—and I never had children of my own. But I must say that this sangham has been like a family for me.

Perhaps it’s time for me to be with my family.