“Sorry!” I say.
“For what?”
I shrug, then point. “My husband. He wasn’t supposed to be here but we had kind of a travel emergency.” Then I whisper, by way of explanation: “He’s not even really a struggling blocked artist.”
She tilts her face at me, bird-on-the-head style. “But he told us on the way in that he’s a musician who doesn’t play anymore,” she says gently. “Being here could be a really transformative thing for him.”
A complete stranger—part of the group of women who taught him how to correctly pronounce a natural sweetener this morning—sees him for who he is: the creative person he once was but stopped being. But making such an obvious connection hadn’t occurred to me. I stare down at my empty pad, blinding in its whiteness from the tiny halogen spotlights high up along the exposed ceiling beams. I pull out a red crayon. What. Is. Wrong. With. Me? Though I hadn’t planned on it, this creativity retreat has suddenly turned into a private hellish marriage workshop, one I’m not quite ready to surrender to. I rip out the page from the sketchbook and fold it up. Then I sit on it.
The first hour is spent doing various ten-minute exercises—using writing and drawing prompts that Sari delivers (“Draw your earliest memory.” “Write ten five-word plotlines for the directions your life has taken.” “What color is your mood right now?”). Then we return to the floor for a longer guided meditation on creativity, and a thirty-minute mini yoga class. While Sari leads us through each activity, Gregory prepares the necessary props and tools: setting out and putting away pillows and mats; replenishing art materials; refilling water bottles and tea mugs with cold and hot water. While I’m coloring or writing, and later when we break for lunch—helping ourselves to plates of vegetarian salads and stews—I can’t help but watch how the two move around the room, silently doing what needs to be done with barely any words. Their communication seems effortless, nonverbal, entirely spiritual. I am both full of disdain for and deeply jealous of their apparent connection. The only person who would understand my feelings is Gary. I long to catch his eye, but he is fully absorbed by the latest activity: creating something—a drawing, a poem, a story, anything—to express one of our biggest frustrations.
I’m still struggling with what I’m working on—a combo-prose-poem-cartoon of me struggling, and failing, to write—what else?—when Sari reappears, calling us all together on the pillows on the floor.
“It’s time to share.”
At first there is nothing but silence. Then shy giggling. Then Gary’s hand shoots up. “I’ll go first.”
“That’s superbrave of you, Gary,” Sari says. “What will you be sharing with us?”
“I wrote a song. Well, part of a song.”
Sari nods, impressed, then puts her hands together under her chin, bows her head slightly, and whispers, “Namaste.” I roll my eyes at Gary—What does namaste have to do with creating and sharing something? (I would later learn, and write about for Well/er, that “ICYMI: namaste directly translates to ‘The divine in me bows to the divine in you.’”) But he is struggling to stand up in the tight space on the floor without losing his balance. The women from his table who are still sitting around him give him a little boosting push on his arm and back, then laugh—but not unkindly. “Go, Gary!” one says, and the others repeat, “Go, Gary!”
Gary—taller than almost everyone anyway—now towers over the room because he’s the only one standing. Looking beyond Sari, he points to a ukulele on a shelf. “May I borrow that?”
“Of course,” Sari says. “Anything for art!”
We all watch as he steps around pillows and people to reach it and tune it before sitting back down to play. But after strumming a few goofy chords, he stops.
“I think I’m feeling kind of shy,” he whispers, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “It’s been a really long time since I wrote or performed anything. Years, actually. My anxiety has robbed me of what I love for a very long time.”
“Sharing one’s art is a courageous act. We are all here to support you, fellow brave-warrior-soul.” She bows her head again. “We are so grateful to receive the gift of your sharing.”
Every time Sari says something ridiculous, which is essentially every time she opens her mouth, I want to catch Gary’s eye—want him to validate the extremely high bullshit quotient going on here, the way we normally do at home. This is not who we are. We are not joiners. We are not suckers for this kind of emotional group-think manipulation. We don’t belong here. But something is happening. Gary is absorbing whatever it is that the group is offering him—beyond just the “empathic solidarity of the artist’s spirit,” as described on Sari’s website. They are supporting him, shoring him up, seeing him for who he is. He closes his eyes, then picks up the ukulele again.
I’m sad with you.
You’re sad with me.
You’re distant, and quiet, until you see the dog.
Suddenly you coo, you kiss, you’ve found your bliss.
The way you are with her is how you used to be with us.
Why do you love the dog more than me?
I’ll be frank: I’ll tell you why I pout and what this is all about:
I feel left out.
How sad it is to have to admit
That I’m deeply jealous of our pet!
Again, I’m blindsided. It never occurred to me that Gary would be jealous of the dog, though it’s completely understandable, since I show the dog way more love and affection than I show him. I’m also mortified, but at least I left the dog at home so no one knows about the sling. I barely breathe as I glance around the room—the women convulsing in laughter, delighted by his song. Several of them nod, recognizing themselves in his lyrics.
“I spoon with our dog every night and my husband gets so pissed!” one of the women says, before falling over facedown into a pillow, her poncho spread out all around her. Another covers her mouth guiltily: “My husband calls our dog ‘the boyfriend.’”
Gary rests the ukulele in his lap. He seems relieved by the positive reception to his song, but I can tell that he’s also surprised and confused by the lightheartedness of their reaction: here he was, baring his soul about the deep pain he feels because of the loneliness of our relationship—how he’s competing with, and losing to, a dog, which his wife now wears. But the pathos of what he wanted to communicate got lost in translation, stripped away in favor of the adorableness of his performance and the fact that so many women can relate to the topic of preferring dogs to husbands. He wanted that pain to be acknowledged, seen, felt. Instead, it’s being eclipsed by relatable marriage-humor.
Gary stares at me as the compliments flow around him. I know he wants more than anything for me to acknowledge what he just put into words—everyone else may have missed the point, but he knows I didn’t. He waits for me to throw him some kind of bone—a word of understanding, a promise of improvement, a sign of love. Immobilized by the public awkwardness of the situation, and truly impressed by his impromptu performance, I give him two thumbs-up and a big smile. “Great job!”