“Did you drive it?”
He shakes his head, lowers his voice. “We got high before we left the house and I didn’t want to be responsible, so he took their Prius.”
“So the trip hasn’t been a total loss for you.”
“Some free shitty pot notwithstanding, Judy, it has been a total loss. No visit with my mother, which always yields some highly entertaining gossip about my sisters. No opportunity to meet chicks.” We both laugh. “Seriously. What are we doing here?”
“I have no idea. It’s all my fault.”
“Yes! It is!” He stops, in delayed shock. “That was so truthful! You’re never that truthful! What happened?”
“I don’t know! It’s just—I shouldn’t have spent all that money on this stupid weekend.” I don’t want to admit that I think he was right. That this whole thing feels phony. That Sari Epstein’s creativity retreat is just a slick way for her to make money off vulnerable people who think they need her help. Which I do, but still.
He looks around the store and signals to me: they’re heading back our way, slowly threading a careful route through farm tables laden with foods marked as WEEKEND PROVISIONS. “At least my exposure to them will end tomorrow.”
I ask him what he’ll be doing while I’m busy.
“Taking a tour of the glassblowing mill and visiting the local lutherie—the guitar-building school,” he says. “My own personal creativity retreat.”
* * *
Back at Sari’s house, we wait in the living room for dinner, looking at their books, mostly of the health and wellness variety, and at their photos—some little, some big, some hanging on the walls and some lining bookshelves and in silver frames adorning side tables. We see Sari and Gregory through the years: her hair morphing from long to short to long again; Gregory from bearded, to clean-shaven, and back to bearded; together and apart; with students and without. We walk around the room as if we’re in a gallery that’s showing art we’re not sure we like—we look, move along, look again. We see their marriage, vacations, work, evolve, in pictures; and yet who knows what happened in between the seconds caught on film. How it all wove together to make the whole of who they are. I think of our house, how we have only a few family pictures on the walls downstairs or on the bookshelves. Most are upstairs in my bedroom, photos of Teddy when he was two, and three, and five; asleep in his bed in plaid pajamas; pushing a toy plastic shopping cart in Gary’s mother’s yard; sitting on Gary’s lap on a bench by the Charles River with his hand inside a bag of Goldfish. If strangers came in one day and tried to figure us out from the photos on the walls, what would they learn? Would they be able to see the holes in our cloth? Would they be able to tell that we’re not at all who we seem to be?
Sari and Gregory go out to the barn. We watch them through the big windows, setting up the chairs and creativity stations—drawing pads, writing pads, little metal buckets full of crayons and markers and colored pencils. It looks like the setup for a big birthday party or an after-school daycare center—but instead of readying the room for hyper six-year-olds, they’re prepping for expressive adults in desperate need of artistic guidance. While I watch them drag cushions and mats and heavy woven blankets out of storage closets, then arrange them masterfully in a pile that looks inviting but not messy, I’m uncomfortably conflicted: drawn to the possibility of being helped; embarrassed by the props and tools to be used in that effort. Instead of naps and sippy cups, it will be guided meditations and Noble Journey–branded reusable water bottles.
Eventually we’ll sit down in the dining room, where Andy will lay out dinner—a big green salad, a platter of grilled fish, a bowl of ancient grains, along with the weekend provisions we’d gathered. In spite of ourselves, Gary and I will get through the meal without incident. At one point I think it’s even possible that we’re almost enjoying ourselves. As we help clear the dishes, Sari will get a text on her phone—a cancellation for a spot in the weekend workshop—and she’ll turn to Gary and invite him to take it, for free, a gift from them to us to celebrate our new friendship.
“Sometimes things happen to make the impossible suddenly possible,” she’ll say, with a heavy sigh of mysticism. “Clearly it’s a sign that Gary is meant to be here tomorrow, too.” And that is how Gary and I will end up attending the seminar together.
Before we can think of a way to say no, she and Gregory will turn to each other and kiss on it. As we watch their lips touch, Gary and I will smile awkwardly, then look away. We never like being reminded that other couples still feel and do what we don’t anymore.
Noble Journey
Before we sit down at the tables Sari and Gregory arranged last night, we—the attendees—approach a low teak credenza in the barn, in search of our place cards. They are arranged on wooden slabs, like cutting boards, formally but casually, as if we’re about to be seated for a wedding reception or luncheon. Each of the off-white cards has a raw edge and is written in Sari’s perfect script, which I recognize from her calligraphy posts on her Instagram feed. They are like little tiny individual works of art, and I wonder how long it took her to make them.
“Nice font,” I say under my breath, to Gary, who I realize too late is not the one behind me.
“It’s called Noble Journey,” Gregory says. “Sari designed it herself. She takes great care with every aspect of the workshop. Nothing is an accident.”
“Wow,” I say, my voice full of wonder.
“People want a completely curated experience when they come here.” He drones on like a press release. “That’s what they pay for and that’s what they get. It’s her brand.”
“That’s why Judy’s here!” Gary says, rescuing me finally. “She loves curated experiences.” We look for our cards, and when we find them, we realize that we’ve been separated, seated at opposite tables.
“You’re at table two and I’m at table one,” I say.
“It’s probably a mistake,” Gary says. “I’m just the last-minute add-on.”
Gregory, who has remained within earshot of us to my great annoyance, shakes his head. “No mistake. We always separate couples. They need to learn how to disconnect from each other and form bonds with other people. To achieve their own noble journey. It’s all part of the creative process,” he says, drawing out the alllll. “Learning to trust others and to trust ourselves instead of always leaning on our spouses.”
We both laugh.
“What’s so funny about self-differentiation?”
Gary fills a heavy earthen mug with coffee from a thermal pitcher and grabs a sticky bun from a platter that no one else has touched. There are small bowls of brown sugar and honey and what I think is agave, and I pray that he doesn’t accessorize his bun with condiments clearly meant for the beverages, something he often does either accidentally or on purpose because he loves sugar so much.
“It’s just a private joke, my dude,” Gary says humorlessly, his voice edgy, then reaches to grab a napkin. “Judy and I aren’t like other couples. We’re actually quite disconnected from each other already.” It sounds like a joke, and Gregory’s face softens just enough to assure me that we’re not going to be asked to leave. “In fact,” Gary continues, his tone slightly warmer, “we’re experts in ‘self-differentiation.’ We’re officially separated but we can’t afford to live separately, so we just live in opposites parts of the house so that we can continue to co-parent our son as if nothing’s wrong. So if you guys get tired later we could probably run things for a while.”