Excerpt from upcoming book.... Chapter 6 - "I Don't Think So..."
It’s the ninth day of the vipassana retreat. I have spoken no words, made no eye contact, nor have I so much as touched another living soul. I have sat still with the sensations in this body. I have learned to visit the tightness in my neck and legs and be with it as it is not as I’d like it to be. I take off the generous clothes that have embraced me all day and slip into my favorite pink-and-white flowered nightgown faded and torn. I gather my toothbrush and face wash, stored in my stark, barren single bed room, and I walk across the hallway to the bathroom. There I prepare to retire for the evening. It has been a long journey, worth it none-the-less. I look in the mirror and there she is. The face I have seen reflected back to me for the past 41 years. Ever changing, growing older for sure, but the same eyes staring back at me, the same soul. I am humble and my ego is on sabbatical. I take the rubber band out of my hair and run my fingers down my skull to release t