Nary a Narrative

“Stories have the power to face us with ourselves” —Pádraig Ó Tuama

I inch closer to the airport’s Budget-Avis rental car desk for the better part of an hour, passing the time by people-watching, eavesdropping, swinging my hips for pain relief, humming, and now running out of ideas.

Then I see: this line offers an abundance of time. How would I like to enjoy, to spend it?

The answer comes quickly: figure out what I want to gain from the retreat I’m heading to. It features poet Pádraig Ó Tuama on poetry and spirituality, in the foothills of North Carolina’s Smokey Mountains—a place my spirit comes alive.

Misty day in the Smokeys. © Kelly Lenox. All rights reserved.

Last fall, I learned I have auditory processing disorder (APD), which set me on a path to discovering the many ways this neurodivergent brain has shaped me—like coming to understand why some settings are so exhausting, and in others, I check out. That’s a whole other essay, but it’s the context for how I decided to approach the retreat.

APD makes auditory information hard to comprehend and remember—and in certain settings, impossible to discern, though my hearing is fine. Unknowingly, I’ve adapted, as we all do for the ways we differ from the norm.

In meetings and presentations I usually take intense notes, barely able to listen because I’m so busy transcribing. My plan is to go back later and gain access to the rich material that passed me by. Which rarely happens. So this time, I would try something completely new: Notes would be for capturing my responses to what I hear. Rather than attempt to catch everything in the voice-stream, I would be alert to boulders rising above its current, parting the waters, inviting attention. An approach of acceptance, instead of compensation. It’s hard to express how revolutionary this feels, six decades into a life.

Miraculously, the agenda provides at least as much time to “Go and Be” as it does for sessions. So many rocking chairs on shady porches, trails through the woods, benches and grassy nooks where I could meditate, write and follow associations into new territory.

I only learned about the retreat in April—long after planning the writing residency I did in late May. It had seemed a case of poor timing: taking off again—from work, from home, in an airplane—so soon after returning. But in fact, the sequence was perfect. Dwelling so deeply with my writer-self first set the stage for alighting upon a new way to nurture that self.

One of Pádraig’s themes was narrative and all we can learn by closely reading narratives in literature, scripture, myth, and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. He is a master of close reading (and a lot else, besides).

Close reading finds deeper meanings in simple acts. Yet people with APD are likely to take language literally, missing subtext, symbolism. In fact, I was inspired to pursue testing after a close friend observed that when my husband made a joke, I took it literally. Unrecognized neurodivergence can challenge a relationship, and I’m thankful to know what I’m—we’re—reckoning with.

Borders & Belonging—The Book of Ruth: A Story for Our Times, which Pádraig wrote with Glenn Jordan, describes their discussions with people across Britain and Ireland—as Brexit threatened progress in relations between the two countries—of the story of a Moabite widow, Ruth, who chooses to accompany her Israelite mother-in-law back to Israel, where Ruth would be most unwelcome. The authors were “exploring Brexit, exploring belonging, exploring borders through the lens of the book of Ruth.”

They hoped the story of Ruth “might lead us to say things other than the things we are shouting at each other in the letters section of newspapers, comments sections of websites and social media, shouty parts of shouty programmes on radio and television.” Audacious, perhaps. And an unfamiliar, if ingenious way of using narrative. I bought the book.

“Stories have the power to face us with ourselves,” Pádraig writes in the preface. Back in the mountains, he hands us prompts for writing our own stories of returning, or of change. We disperse and I find a bench by a lake, a bench dedicated to Leila Love Johnson Hill, born in 1899, died in 1989, at 89 years of age. Her descendants share this brief narrative via the plaque. It is a good bench.

A story of returning: This is the first time I’ve come to the Kanuga retreat center, but it feels like returning to a familiar place. Not these precise geographic coordinates perhaps, but a region—the Smokey, Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains—that occupies a profound, powerful space in my life.

I lift my gaze to the landscape, wondering how to tell a story that might describe this feeling. Pink-white lilies ride small rafts of lily pads that undulate in the growing wind. Gray-bellied clouds seem to scrape across the tips of spruce and pine that rim the lake. Higher still, a solid layer of clouds whitens the sky. A startling Crack! as a pinecone hits the ground reminds me of the thunderstorm forecast. As if on cue, thunder resounds.

It turns out to be an airplane. I grapple with whether this is the kind of narrative Pádraig was talking about, then decide it doesn’t matter. I have been still, listened, watched. And that is good.

Now if, for you, the lilies and storm clouds pulse with meaning, do tell! Use the comments feature, or if you’re on email, either click over to the web page or read in the Substack app. Thank you for your attention, your time, your you.