The senses are imperfect, the capacity to fully interpret and categorize information, is limited. Certainly corrupted by less than high fidelity hearing, eyesight and cognitive response. The chair by the Door an example of the highest order.The chair, or the “if it were a dog it would have bit me” ode to the obvious the apparent that sometimes is not noticed or otherwise ignored. Perhaps for good reason, perhaps not.
A simple example, gleaned from the mortal world of a recent retreat that I attended. The good fortune of my existence brings me to Tuscany Italy for a week of Yoga, self-exploration and Vegan cuisine. Before immersion into this wonderful secluded Tuscan getaway I, and my faithful navigator and wife must get from Florence to Borgo Lesolana a vineyard wrapped villa complex somewhere in the Tuscan hills… no easy task for a couple of travelers who have lived most of their lives on a small tropical island where navigation is trued by the existence of a giant mountain and a conspicuous pond known as the pacific ocean…in Hawaiian Mauka and Makai.
Florence Airport, is much what I expected, my first time to Italy, the country that provided all of my DNA. It’s hard to believe that my grandparents would have left this country for NYC that however is another tale to be told.
We scramble through the airport to retrieve our bags, toting the bags and our jet lag to the rental car location requires a short trip on a shuttle bus that curiously has no place on board to store luggage, a very odd seat placement and no luggage racking…I almost feel like I am in India, as the Indians can never be accused of proper civil engineering or shuttle van ergonomics. And evidently neither can the Italians….
The rental car location is practically under a freeway overpass, very chaotic with zero curb appeal, my mounting internal anxiety levels are beginning to surface with symptoms like dry mouth itchy skin and a feigned sprint back to the arrival gate, with an intimate understanding go the familial exit of the family pre WW2.
My wife appears from the open air check in counter with a number pulled from a digital machine that sings a tune of high tech savvy capacity, cloaked in third world trailer park accommodations. I’m scanning the fellow travelers, the trash, the vast array of small cool euro cars and the numbers over each receptionists counter space…my number placement will leave me to contemplate and observe for 20 more minutes.
Fatigue can not be offered as an excuse, as the visit to this place Tuscany is exciting beyond words, the rental agent is well trained also beyond words, she is a mystic tradesman, floating like a butterfly and trying to upgrade me, sell me gas, GPS and of course insurance…. 15 euros per day for the piece of mind all travelers need to navigate Italian roads and avoid Italian drivers.
She cannot believe I pass on all the extras…. she is incredulous that in particular I refuse the additional insurance, I internally battle a flush of paranoia that calls for a quick dose of Librium…however I am devoid of prescription meds…part of a commitment to the semi holistic lifestyle that I adopted some time ago.
Keys in hand we hike with our luggage to our car, of course we can’t find it with out asking someone, much to our relief, even the lot attendants speaks good English. We were given an upgraded vehicle even though she couldn’t get me to pay for it; the car was bigger than the cool little Euro cars I desired. It was a Ford, sort of deflating, I looked it over, popped the back, loaded and jumped in happy that the ford was at least a diesel with a 6 speed manual trani.
Now the fun begins…. My dear wife and I without Active GPS and with a map that would have left a well trained homing pidgin circling Florence for days, were on our way, to a hotel in the city and then refreshed and rested to our retreat center.
I must say, and give my wife some credit here, somehow only getting mildly lost like 3 times we made it through narrow streets, dodging pedestrians, bicyclists and all varieties of cool Euro cars to the curb of our hotel for a one night stay. Not only that, but we were able to check in, get our bags into the room and park the little diesel ford…without incident, I am grateful and ready to eat some pasta.
Spending a night in Florence was a gesture of kindness that leveled the jet lagged leap across the Atlantic into a mild case of fatigue, we were feeling rested, and enthusiastic for the journey ahead to the retreat facility as well as the possibilities of connecting with our true authentic selves…the byline to the retreat agenda.
One very obvious feature of my true authentic self would definitely be the capacity to get lost, and its not just the getting lost it is the odd circumstance and resultant accoutrement that attaches subtly and grossly to ones personage in the process of being lost and then again found.
We flashed absolute navigational brilliance as we flowed from the center of Florence, a semi ancient geometry of cobbled roads, lanes, and goat paths flung along a river straddled by gigantic marble churches and towers, whose significance trumpets long lists of claims to inflated egos and misdirected opulence. Non the less it’s awesome to look at and we somehow found our way out of the city on to a bonafide highway headed in the correct direction…
The diesel ford endeared itself to me, surprisingly nimble, fun to drive and efficient, the kilometers melted away and the freeway ended, flowing into a more rural road that every kilometer or so routed around a circular rotary that directed us toward the town that held our destination, Bucine.
Passing through Bucine we began to look in earnest for the entry point to Borgo… I was beginning to get that similar feeling that I have felt many times that we were about to get lost, my navigator was triangulating with a disabled iPad, maps and a OUIJI board. She was somehow convinced we were approaching the turn off to Borgo. Honestly, I was drinking the kool aide that we were actually finding Borgo with no incident; we came to a road, drive entry, that our electronic map indicated was Borgo.
There was no signage at the entrance; a well maintained narrow gravel road enticed me to venture onward. We twisted and turned up this road for about a mile until we came to a gate, still no signage. On the other side of the gate a typical Tuscan Brick Stone villa, an outstanding property, but not a retreat facility. The narrow road and locked gate left me no choice but to back down the graveled drive. I made it half way down, and ventured off the road slightly into a thicket of bushes, pulled forward corrected my direction and continued backing out to the road, I wasn’t to worried about some scratches to the paint from the thicket of bushes.
We were convinced of the need to now seek some advice as to where the retreat center is actually located. Our cobbled map/Offline GPS system had zero value at this point. Every drive and Italian road sign pointed to an impending directional disaster leading to an unintentional, illegal border crossing?
We pulled off the road onto a picturesque property that turned out to be a Polo club with a restaurant clubhouse. Plenty of cars in the lot, a few horses and polo players trotting the emerald green fields, quite a site in the hills of Tuscany. We parked and jumped out of the ford, to a quick perusal of the rear driver’s side quarter panel and the series of dents and cracking paint!!!! Wha what!!…We were both in disbelief. I was in fact stunned. The damage was substantial, within the thickets must have been a boulder or stump, something to essentially rack up a couple grand worth of dents to the uninsured little ford oil burner.
We received good instructions from the pleasant Italian woman manning the Polo club restaurant. We were happy to find Borgo without any further incident; I pledged to not let the crunch on the car spoil my retreat experience. Easier said than done as the specter of explaining this to rental car Gestapo was not something I felt confident about, none the less we were received with open arms, greeted with smiles love and a Jai tribe goodie bag and directed to our beautiful room in one of the casita’s. I was relieved to be off the road and ready to do a week of Yoga and Self exploration…. possibly to encounter my true authentic self, the battered quarter panel would have to lie in the recesses of my consciousness until we left Borgo.
The entire experience at Borgo was rejuvenating and sweet, with a number of moments of positive excursions pushing me and I believe others, out of our comfort zones. Positive progressions in life are both welcome and stressful as we generally cling to our powers of reasoning holding tight to conceptions and behavior that do not yield forward movement on the path of self-realization.
This story is not really about the retreat content or it’s effect on me. It is about the power of observation and the senses that we depend on to observe, confirm and build life experience from. Imperfect senses yield imperfect realizations? From where do we find defending information that can be trusted to guide us through the thickets of temporal exchanges of good and bad karmic activity?
The dented car conversation was explored over dinner, mid week with my wife and another retreat attendee who had noticed me examining the damage earlier that afternoon. In the course of the conversation I floated a theory that was forming in my thoroughly strained conscious mind. I was not convinced that the damage was done by backing into a bush. My realizations and subsequent claims of innocence were met with mild disbelief, hitched eyebrow and a roll of the eyes from the universal conscious mind that was forming around my interpretation of this relatively inconsequential event.
I shuffled though my reasoning tree even offered evidence of some rust already forming on the dented panel. How could rust so quickly form? I continued, they listened in disbelief, wondering if the car was truly dented why I didn’t see it when we picked it up…..why did I not see it when we picked it up? The dent was pervasive and so noticeable at this point that it seemed to be growing and encompassing the entire rear section of the vehicle, even though the car hadn’t moved for 5 days. Had someone hit the car in the parking lot since our arrival? I did not utter that last speculation, as it would have rendered all of my commentary as being complete fantasy.
My wife and I had a few words more about the vehicle; She was convinced that I was creating a web of illusion around the dents that I caused, into a plausible dishonest foil at the rental car lot to perhaps be let off the hook for the damages. I kept going back to the tiny little voice of reconciliation, tucked away in the recesses of my consciousness that this is why you have insurance an it is not that unusual of an occurrence…of course I didn’t have insurance in Italy and if my USSA insurance covered such a thing the Italians would require at least a 4 hour paper work investigation tribunal in the airport, creating enough turmoil for me to miss my flight, and possibly see my wife travel alone back to the USA.
The retreat was ending, we were packing, I was panicking, all the good work of the week was being dashed upon a craggy shoreline that was being battered by waves of self doubt, inordinate forays of guilt barbed innuendo and an occasional resignation of half hearted resolve that I was going to man up, drive to the airport and deal with the issue, get on the plane and go home all the better for the entire retreat experience.
I carried a bag to the car, and of course took another look at the hellish display of crumpled metal. I breathed deeply minimizing my stress and headed back to the room to secure another bag, still fumbling within my mind with the concept of how this car was so damaged. I approached the entrance to the room, and there it was. The chair by the door. I opened the door to the room and asked my wife who was zipping up our last bag, “Has that chair been by the door the entire time we have been in this room?” Her reply, matter of factly, “Yes the entire time” Again I am hit with disbelief, the chair was so close to the entrance to the room that it was almost blocking the doorway. 10 days numerous passages in and out of the room and only now I am noticing the chair…just now!
Like a thunderbolt, I am struck with a realization, I am standing in the doorway with a slightly dizzied glance and less than stable grip on the cobbled stone floor. The thoughts and words form simultaneously; the facial expression is twisted with disbelief and stress. “ I can’t believe I haven’t seen this chair until now” my wife is over my spaced out routine, “you really haven’t seen the chair till now?” confirmation of my faulty senses.” Undoubtedly it has been there the entire stay.”
I respond without hesitation, “Well if I hadn’t noticed the chair, then it is possible that I never noticed the dents when we picked up the car.” I turned from the doorway and made a beeline for the car, I looked at the dent again closely, the white paint around the dent? Never noticed that either, I opened the door to car and started going through the glove box, looking for the contract, a map and anything else the car company gave us at time of pick up.
I pulled from the paper a form that shows the out line of the vehicle, at the bottom of the form is my signature, and I signed the form in the rental, office. A bit out of sequence as you normally sign such doc after a walk around with a yard attendant. I never did that, a further indictment of my guilt. I keep looking at the document, it becomes a manifesto, the words and images nearly three dimensional and self effulgent. The circular marking around the image of the vehicle in the location of the dents poured off of the page through my eyes and into my brain. I looked again. The mark was real? It had a certain flair to it, something that an Italian from Florence would scribble on such a form? I look at it for several more minutes to make sure the mark that designated that the damage was there did not go away.
I floated back to the room, relieved and joyful, making eye contact with my wife shared the news, she smiled. We were both relieve and confident. We followed some other retreat attendees back to Florence and to the rental return, place, and yes we all got lost, as the Italians evidently expect all visitors to have a psychic capacity to navigate the local roads. I parked the car and handed the paperwork to the lot attendant, he walked around the car, stopping at the dented quarter panel. He glanced back at me as if to say, “ So you thought you could sneak this by…” his glance returned to the papers, it was if he was begrudgingly in his mind accepting the marks on the paper indicating there was a dent on the car. He checked the gas gauge, printed me a receipt and said “buon giorno” I replied and walked to where my wife was waiting with our bags. My relief was so profound, victorious. I was exonerated.
In the case of some individuals and of entire segments of society it is never revealed. An example may be the evaluation of the existence of God or even intelligence behind the universal creation. In todays culture a more prominent revaluation might be the great debate over climate change…. data gathered for and against the theory or non-theory the reality wrought with inconsistency in opinion, which ultimately is the human disclaimer which indicates realization garnered from ones senses.
So What Are You Waiting for???? 