Time out with a teen
Suzy Bernstein finds a place to spend time with her son where the silences aren’t sulky but divine
W OULD you like to go away with me for a few days? I asked my noncommunicative son. In response, I got the usual noncommittal “I’ll see”. As any good parent does, I kept on. “What’s great about this place is that the rooms have noble silence and we won’t be able to talk to one another.” That did it.
And so we set off on our journey to the Buddhist Retreat in Ixopo. It is located at the head of a valley in the Umkomaas River system in KwaZulu-Natal.
We left at about 6.30am and arrived six hours later, just in time for the first of several delicious vegetarian meals. Having all the meals prepared for us was a huge plus as there were no discussions around what and where to eat. Gone were the endless negotiations, me wanting healthy food and him wanting junk.
At the retreat, the food is good, plentiful and nutritious.
Our accommodation was two beds in a small but adequate space. It is far from plush, but the bedding is clean and comfortable, and when you’re tired you sleep. Ablution facilities are shared.
But it was the noble silence that had been the drawcard. Every time I tried to communicate by way of a whisper, he lifted his finger to his mouth and signalled, “Shhh.” I considered texting him, but he was having none of it. So, I got onto my bed with my book and read. He slept, as he was exhausted from the long drive. Teenagers need a lot of sleep.
The next morning, at breakfast, we were met with the sound of lots of spoons scraping on emptying plates and teeth grinding food. Subtract conversation from mealtimes and there is a kind of hush that falls over the scene.
After breakfast, we made our way to the library. He found a book about meditation and we went back to the lodge, where we both read our books in real peace and quiet.
In the afternoon, we went for a walk in the valley. Cows, ploughs, fields, green rolling hills. In the silence, I could hear him spreading himself out into his body, that body that seems to have taken on a life of its own, the way teenage bodies do.
Remembering his absolute love of mazes as a child, I showed him the labyrinth and explained that one could clear any emotional refuse by walking to the centre, and then walking out again, good and clean and fresh. I was careful not to suggest that he needed to do it, but left it as an option.
That evening we went to the meditation room. He intently set about the ritual of lighting the candles and the incense, and then we sat in silence. I chased my thoughts around my head, aiming to get them to sit on one side and let myself be. I remembered how cool I had thought I was at 17. As the meditation master Jon Kabat-Zinn says: “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Because we were there in the middle of the week, outside of an arranged retreat, it was just him and me in the meditation room. It was perfect, calm and enveloping. All we could hear was the rustle of the leaves as all came to rest. And I entered the now.
We arranged to do some guided chi kung together. The lady carefully took us through the steps, interspersing her instruction with life lessons. Breathe in and out through the nose. Put your left hand over your right hand. We massaged our kidneys. Soft face, she reminded us, as she showed us how to “draw the bow and let the arrow fly” and “separate Heaven and Earth”. At the end of the session, we extracted ourselves from the space feeling rooted and grounded.
Slowly, we entered a rhythm. Grabbing torches for the evening walks back from the dining room. Running through the rain without our left-at-home umbrellas over fallen leaves. Checking out the cheeky monkeys who sat at the kitchen window, staring at us and at the food on the table.
Sitting in the zen garden, feeling the repetitions of the raked gravel resonate inside me. I spent time in the small meditation space, candles lit, hearing the birds rustling among the fallen leaves as they searched for worms one could almost hear them swallowing. Going on walks separately and together. Watching the varied visitors come and go. And a sense of peace and tranquility set in. The silence that always seemed so fraught between us now became noble and was taken up a notch, in an unspoken, notto-be-mentioned kind of way.
And on the way home, there was a different teenager sitting alongside me. Or perhaps it was me who was different. I listened to his silence. I let him buy his burger. I did not put up a fight. I just let him be. And I got home feeling like I had spent some really good time with my son.