When I arrived home in Ireland, as the pandemic enveloped, I needed a meditation practice in my time zone so I joined a meditation class at Black Mountain Zen Centre in Belfast. The warmth of the happening felt restorative in a world that was particularly cold to those who had any kind of underlying illness or disability.
I told myself that once Covid was better – which seems to be taking longer every time I check – I would go to Cathedral Buildings in the city, home to the Zendo. Last week I saw in horror that the building, a refuge of calm equilibrium, was destroyed by a fire. In my mind I had seen myself ascending the stairs to the first floor above the cafe to practise and meet those who had become my friends over the months of isolation. Although the space was closed during lockdown, it felt in my heart like a physical space I had been to.
After meditation sessions sometimes spectacular things would happen.
One day my father was rolling out a large blue tarp across the lawn. We had bought it in Woodie’s earlier and he was prepping it to cover and protect the turf from the unpredictable Irish weather. As we settled the fabric on the grass, a little brown shape flashed in front of me, a silent wave in the sea of blue. Whether it was preternatural superpowers or the meditation classes, we spotted the tiny snail clinging for life to the tarp. My father, a muscular man who works the land with passion and consistency, bent down with an outstretched palm that seemed like it belonged to the BFG. The snail crawled on to the limb of this man who could crush him in seconds. My father walked to the edge of the field, crouched down slowly and the snail slid safely to the earth.
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It was peak pandemic times, so the moment stayed on my mind afterwards. It seemed at once to exemplify the deep ways people have supported each other during this time and the exact feeling I experienced when people chose not to care.
I’m talking not just about casual ableism but also about the calculated kind, the instance where, if I were the snail and they were the hand, they would close their fist and squeeze.
Last week, on my way to treatment, I was reminded of this when the taxi driver did not have a mask. He said he was told he didn’t need one. I can feel, at this point in my life, the difference between those who would wear a mask if they had it and those who just will not. The company, which I phoned immediately, could not tell me if this was a new policy. Some people like masks and some do not is what the person said. This happened a lot when I first started treatment, so I was lucky when a driver kindly told me that everyone who took the hospital jobs got a text reminding them to wear a mask – it was mandatory. My stomach felt sick for days after I heard that this was policy: why, then, did I have to ask so often? There is a repeated trauma unique to those who are immunosuppressed, chronically ill or disabled throughout the past three years.
No matter how far we get, there are always those out there who are happy to project their unchecked ableism on to us with real-life consequences.
The pandemic has waged so long that some of us have forgotten patience, tenderness and community, yet there are many of us who have leaned deeper into this. The Zendo was a place for me to do this – it is somewhere to hold space. I wonder do many people who are actively ableist understand that they are and that just as we must be actively anti-racist in every moment, we must also be actively anti-ableist. The society in which we live tilts towards ableism in every instance and the only way to change this is to resist. We must hold space for change and commit deeply to inclusivity. We must all individually sit with our inner ableist conditioning and work to untangle and obliterate it to create an equal and equitable Ireland.
During this Invisible Disabilities Week, which runs until October 22nd, consider that the person beside you in the shop, in work, in the gym or in church may be dealing with anything from cancer to posttransplant care to mental-health issues to MS. We must find spaces in which to do this work, especially as the world opens up. We must remember one another. The Black Mountain Zen Center in Belfast, a space of connection, is working to rebuild through a GoFundMe Campaign.
I wrote to a Zen priest once and asked: How do you meditate? Some days later, below a photo my father took on Riverside Drive, I wrote: “The need to pause and perch is positive because the very act compels us into stillness, reflection and gratitude. That day it was for the sunshine, the view across the Hudson and the presence of my father.” I posted it online.
A message came through that said: “Pause and perch equals meditation practice.” It was from the Rev Myogan Djinn Gallagher, who wrote all those years ago from San Francisco. They held space there before moving to Belfast to run Black Mountain Zen. Because of meditation, the way I move through the world has changed. I am more attentive to gratitude, and on days when I wrestle the kinetic ghost of anxiety from my shoulders, like most people, I am ready to label it, and get on with my day.