fresh air

“Smile, breathe and go slowly.”
~Thích Nhat Hanh

For as long as I can remember, I’ve prized fresh air. Trying to figure why that is, a few causes come to mind. Perhaps having been an artist since early childhood explains my abiding reliance upon intuition and impressions. Each of my senses are very sharp. Another is that I began life in the congestion and foulness of inner New York City. This latter aspect drew me to strike the contrast between the everyday asphalt and smog, as compared to occasions amidst mountain air and seabreezes. Even the leafy neighborhoods of both New York and Paris offered contrasts. Another cherished aroma to this day is rainwashed air. Living on the coast of Maine for many years developed my tastes for the different flavors of ocean air- in varying degrees of saltiness, dampness, and depth. Night walks during snowfalls reveal the wonder of reflectant dark blue, especially by moonlight, accompanied by what I call vanilla ice cream air.

While instinctively gravitating to fresh air- as something of a nutrient, a history of enduring oppressive odors has often been parallel. One example relates to my first career, which was in commercial photography and photographic lab work. Through 13 of my 15 years of this livelihood, I toiled 50-hour work-weeks in close, underground darkrooms. Photo chemistry is notably odorous, incorporating such ingredients as acetic acid, fixatives, developing agents, along with hosts of solvents and additives. While some of my coworkers would take cigarette breaks, I would stand on the back loading dock for my fresh-air breaks. As often as possible, I’d walk down to Commercial Street and stand on a stout wooden pier, with the cormorants, drawing in the lifegiving Atlantic air. I came out from beneath the ground level, to aspire skywards. Recent years have placed me in recirculating-air environments; not as pungent, but with notable staleness. Even now, when I find a rocky ocean ledge for a writing perch, or a high balcony in a city, the natural motion is to take deep breaths. It’s synonymous with realizing where I am. Immersing in good air causes me to also exhale as much as possible, thinking of expelling what I dislike from my system.

We tend to extol things ordinarily implied without words, or taken for granted, when they are endangered. Since the middle of May, the air inside my home had been fouled from no less than 3 directions. Though my apartment is in a nonsmoking building, the new downstairs neighbor brought in his chainsmoking habits, and upstairs neighbors added their fumes. Smoke travels through vent shafts and penetrates floors. I also found that second-hand smoke penetrates brick walls: next door, and facing my apartment, is a social club (which I will not name). They have recently installed an exhaust system for their smoke-saturated bar, and the fumes expel directly at my place. Something as simple, yet essential, as the air I breathe became quickly threatened. Right in my home, my sanctuary.

While reporting the infractions to my landlord, as well as to city health officials, there remained the continuing hardship of waiting for results and trying to live with poisoned air. My calls and missives persisted, along with my own measures with fans, salt lamps, and air fresheners. I found myself dreading to come home after work days, looking for places with tolerable air, and sleeping in the kitchen- as far as possible from the worst of the smoke. Instead of writing essays, I continued documenting these conditions. Finally, after about four weeks, all three sources began to dissipate: the downstairs tenant was evicted, the upstairs people were reprimanded, and the city officials came to their senses and addressed the social club that operates the bar (which allows smoking despite Portland’s anti-smoking ordinance in all bars and eateries). They have since dialed their exhaust system back; hopefully permanently.

The change was sudden and immediately noticeable. After weeks of headaches and burning throat, due to the onslaught of second-hand smoke, it took several days for the lingering to leave my senses- not to mention my apartment. Going outside to places of fresh air helped the process. Finally, I began opening my windows. Quite suddenly as a fond and distant memory, my treasured clean air began returning to my living space. The latter spring has manifested within, and has begun to draw me out to its colors and aromas. One evening, about two weeks ago, aperch in a city park and reluctant to go home to yet another sleepless night, I wrote in my journal about my imagining the finest air must exist in whatever heaven must look like. The perfume of rugosa blossoms and Penobscot Bay; savory salty brine and balsam pine. If it turns out to be just like that, I won’t be surprised.

noddfa

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord,
He is my refuge.”

~ Psalm 91

Following a week of exploring, visiting, and joining inherited history with the present in the Bangor region, I enjoyed some reflective time a short distance eastward. Penmaenmawr, a small coastal town, is also in the Snowdonia region of North Wales. Between the high terrain concealing many of the region’s old slate quarries and above the east-west sandy shores of Llanfairfechan, Penmaenmawr, and Dwygyfylchi is the Noddfa community. In permanent residence at Noddfa are the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary. The sisters extend a heartfelt ministry to the public, with their spacious Victorian house and its terraced grounds, for retreats. The word “noddfa” (pronounced nodth-va) is Welsh for “place of refuge,” or “haven.”

The composite experience of living for a week among the community of residents and retreatants, combined with peaceful environs and verdant landscape, provided the setting for a blessed sojourn. To be able to reflect within a larger journey proved to be a great way to consciously savor each day’s offering of moments. It was also an opportunity to simplify my paces before travelling south for the subsequent couple of weeks’ adventures. The repose provided spans for quiet gratitude at the center of an astonishing and dreamlike time.

Over the years, reflective respite time has become a vital ingredient in my life’s progress. Finding time to slow my steps, even from necessary employment, has become increasingly vital. And the striving efforts intertwine with the contemplative stops. Beneath representative résumés recording job responsibilities and service are parallel counterforms narrated in years of my written journals.

Penmaenmawr







Canopied sidewalks provide shelter for rainproof strolls.

For this journey through Wales to be as much exploration as contemplative sojourn, I had planned my stay at Noddfa long in advance. The idea was for the retreat to be somewhere in the middle of these travels. This helped me to leisurely appreciate and retain the many fresh impressions that accompany visiting new places. Viewing the whole of life as pilgrimage, times of unguarded repose allow me to ponder concerns other than the usual survival matters gratefully interrupted. Rather than escapism, retreats are momentary leaps from indefinite conveyors. Healthful contrasts have taught me much over the years about the kinds of solitude that promote creativity and perspective. Employment trials become seasons between the retreats, so that the intermissions seem less occasional as brief seasons punctuated between tribulations. A balance struck among contexts often smoothens the terrain, soothing and spicing the old quotidian. Curiously enough, the respite times often lead to a willingness to return to the fray, similar conversely to the cravings for peaceful solitude during stretches of constant work. Blending together the apparent opposites together is a thirst for holiness, for clarity of mind, and for meaning, is a comprising desire to serve well with my abilities and resources. And such thirst is what sends me out and away to places of tranquility and rejuvenating simplicity. There are landscapes to survey, both exterior and interior. Another motivating factor is my clear memory of previous retreats. Recollections become a cherished library. Aftertastes from a personal history of pilgrimage travels have layered into depths of recollections that in themselves inspire.

The Noddfa experience combines the essentials for a contemplative retreat. The generously proportioned house, which serves both monastic and retreat purposes, had been built in 1860 for Murray Gladstone- a cousin of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. After its life as a family retreat for the Gladstones in the 19th century, the house became a convent- later evolving into a combination of both convent and retreat house. The grounds are on a slope between ocean and mountainous terrain, and the Noddfa house is amidst gardens, trails, and woods. The Sisters’ welcoming warmth is sensed throughout Noddfa, and the mansion-like house has an assuringly cozy, unpretentiously practical, and relaxed ambiance. Fellow retreatants blend into the cordial hushed tones of the place, and two fortunate cats make themselves very much at home on the first floor. All present share meals together in the enormous dining room, and a portion of the house has been made into a chapel for community prayers and Mass.

The amiable and completely undemanding environment is ideal for me. My preferred retreats have always been the “unguided” variety. The Holy Spirit is what ultimately gives life, and this can be really sensed in a peaceful environment that is free of anxiousness. At Noddfa, I found the house and its immediate grounds equally as fascinating as the nearby villages and the mountainous seaside landscape. My neighbors were as encouraging as the beautifully inviting green paths. At numerous perches, both outdoors and indoors (during rain storms), I made many occasions to write- greatly appreciative of such unfettered space and time. My notes came to the subject of refuge- noddfa- of shelter. It may well be that shelter is sought to be away from distracting noise, worries about status, sustenance, past regrets, and future prospects. But it is equally a refuge into times and settings that allow for an enjoyment of sights, tastes, and interactions that are life-giving. And from the sheltering refuge is an entrance into, rather than an exit from, the horizons that call. Indeed, the paths of Noddfa merge with the Conwy Old Road, through Penmaenmawr, and to the wide skied open seas.

In Noddfa.