My failed attempt to order our family a helping of bagels from St. Viateur had meant that we were already thirty minutes late to our appointment. The nasty, relentless torrent of rain pelting us in the head AND the lack of parking in the Montreal neighborhood weren’t making matters any better. And it felt like all my fault.
Why did I do this every time we went on vacation? Why did I have to move us at a breakneck pace for the sake of getting the best photos, the top experiences, the most interesting tours? And why did I cram so much into a day and start an argument when we had to settle on a restaurant instead of going to the one that I really wanted?
I continued to beat myself up as I hoisted our son’s stroller up the stairs into an apartment building. With each step, its bulky weight smashed against my thigh. “This will leave bruises,” I thought to myself through gritted teeth and ragged breath.
With soaked hair and forced smiles, we reached the entrance to the apartment. And then…we both crinkled our nose. It was the unmistakable smell of a big, stinky, poop explosion from our little cherub.
It Felt Like The Universe Conspired Against Us in Montreal.
After all, the next two hours were mean to be full of tranquility and mindfulness.
I had signed us up for a Persian Meditation and Creativity class on our family road trip to Montreal. We were meant to meet in the park nearby where we would sit on Persian rugs and drink orange blossom tea, but the rain had ruined that. Now, we were meeting at the host couple’s personal apartment and our very first words would be, “Hi! Thanks so much for having us! Our son just pooped, do you mind if we change his diaper?”
In their studio apartment, before we even exchanged names, we frantically changed and cleaned him. An awkward conversation about where to put the diaper followed. My husband and I insisted on throwing it out in the communal garbage room down the hall. Our gracious hosts begged us “not to be silly” and to just put it in their trash.
I had heard many times about Iranian hospitality, but from the get-go, our hosts, Sahar and Ehsan (originally from Iran), really made us feel welcome. I don’t know that they’ll ever know how much their immediate acts of kindness and nonchalance restored the dignity I felt I lost somewhere between the diaper explosion and arriving late to our session in Montreal.
Our Class Begins.
After introductions, we were given a glass of water infused with orange blossom and topped with chia seeds. I had become obsessed with anything orange blossom flavored since a trip to Seville. Something about the floral yet sweet taste makes you feel as though you’re beneath the hot sun surrounded by the bustling of a souk and the smell of incense. It was delicious. It took everything in me not to ask for the entire jug.
Following our welcome drink, we learned about the ancient Persian poet named Rumi. If you weren’t aware, he’s an 11th Century Sufi mystic and he’s kind of a HUGE deal to Iranians and many folks in the Middle East. He has a poem for every moment of life, every ailment, every woe felt through the journey of human existence. I was so intrigued and moved by his words and the impact that he’s had on others, that I began studying his work on my own. Rumi’s translated poems and mantras have become a large part of my own mindfulness practice and I attribute that directly to Sahar and Ehsan and my experience in Montreal.
Sometime in the midst of studying some of Rumi’s poems, our son thankfully fell asleep. We then took ten or fifteen minutes to meditate in silence and to clear our minds.
Here’s Where The Montreal Mysticism Kicks In.
Following all of that, I was much more in the right headspace to begin the next part of our workshop — finding our inner purpose and living creatively.
We first examined what a ‘purpose’ in life actually meant. Our hosts, who developed this course, determined that purpose means:
- your purpose is something that you enjoy
- your purpose is something that you’re inherently good at
- the world would be missing something if you didn’t pursue your purpose
With that in mind, there were several prompts within the workshop. For each one, we wrote down our honest responses, shared them out, and tried to make connections.
For an open book like me, I was in my element. But, for someone who is more reserved or shy, I can see why perhaps this might be uncomfortable. In this Montreal class, we went deep into our childhoods to find a pattern of clues toward our purpose, answering questions like what did we like to play, who were our friends, and what type of activities did we engage in.
I Took A Deep Dive Into My Childhood.
My childhood was wonderful, but I don’t think about it often, so this was truly an exercise. I remember that I hated drawing, but I enjoyed making to-do lists, like, from a freakishly young age. I remember that I had dozens of Barbie dolls and I’d given all of them specific identities, roles, and families. In fact, I lost friends because of my rigidity and refusal to alter the identities I’d already created for each doll. I remember that I imitated what I witnessed a lot. I’d pretend I was our neighborhood fish monger, or my teacher, or our priest, or my mom’s hair stylist. I would tell my friends about a mundane experience that I had (going food shopping) and we’d use our imaginations to re-create a grocery store in my playroom.
We discussed how certain interests (such as favorite subject in school) can hold a lot of meaning regarding one’s purpose in life. For instance, someone who enjoys math doesn’t just like numbers. He or she enjoys predictable outcomes and finding solutions to problems. I always hated math. I’m sometimes not even good at adding numbers together. I prefer history and English.
In addition to typical questions which had us assess our strengths and weaknesses, we also thought about some outside-the-box prompts such as, “What do I notice when I go out in the world?”
This was another curious prompt. I realized that I notice odd things: a sign that looks old, a crack in the wall, an abandoned building. Then I start to think about how much history each of those things has seen. I imagine what the world looked like when that building was constructed and how the women dressed when they walked under that sign years ago.
All in all, I believe the session was close to two or three hours.
Cathartic is how I would best explain this Montreal workshop, and possibly even mystical. I was able to see that so many memories, moments, or just pieces from my life that I had deemed insignificant, or been apathetic towards, were indicators of the path that I was meant to be on.
The recurring themes of my life were my love for stories, my obsession with details and planning and scheduling, and always looking toward the future.
Our host tapped his pencil against his notepad rapidly and scratched his head as he examined the notes he took about my responses. Finally, a grin spread softly across his face like butter on hot bread.
“You’re meant to tell stories. You want to tell stories that move people and you want to share stories with the world. That’s why you obsess over the details of having wonderful experiences, because you know that they’ll make good materials for your stories if everything goes well.”
The Floodgates Opened.
I have no doubt that this workshop in Montreal gave me the confidence to publish my writing. Hours of thinking, planning, and retracing all of my life’s moments and steps had pointed in one direction…I was meant to write and share stories. Without even telling him that I wrote for fun, at a time when I had nothing published on the internet, a complete stranger was able to deduce that I was meant to be a writer. That day I was beating myself up for being excited to see as much as possible. But, he assured me that this was an important component of who I was meant to be. It was part of my life path.
In a foreign country within a foreign city that mostly speaks a language foreign to me, two strangers who started their life miles and miles away from where I began mine were able to articulate a sense of my soul, future, and dreams far better than even I could before I met them. And perhaps more so than the meditation, or reading of Rumi’s poetry, that is the real mystical element of the experience.
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