{"id":64024,"date":"2017-07-01T11:00:20","date_gmt":"2017-07-01T15:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/upstater.com\/?p=64024"},"modified":"2017-06-28T12:50:44","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T16:50:44","slug":"leaving-baby-chloe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upstater.com\/leaving-baby-chloe\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaving Baby Chloe"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the thick of winter, after sitting, lethargic, on my couch for a week, low-key depressed, eating bread, I signed up for a silent meditation retreat at the Won Dharma Center<\/a> in Claverack, a tiny village about 15 minutes from the city of Hudson.<\/p>\n

The retreat people were mindful and minimal in their emails. When they wrote that my check hadn\u2019t arrived, I wrote back, worried, \u201cBut I sent it last Friday!\u201d They responded, \u201cIt will arrive,\u201d which was curiously calming.<\/p>\n

Meditation retreats are impulsively doable. I don\u2019t like activities that require using more than my body. I\u2019m happy to go swimming any day
\nof the week, but I don\u2019t like kayaking. Retreats are easy, like getting a tattoo. You just show up.<\/p>\n

My drive to Claverack felt profound; there\u2019d been a blizzard, but now the sun was shining hard as fuck. Thawing.<\/p>\n

A Buddhist nun gave me a lanyard with my name on it, which I didn\u2019t wear, just like I never wore the lanyards given to me at past jobs, as they make me feel corporate.<\/p>\n

Lanyard-less, I walked up the hill to a building called Placeless Zen to find my room. On the door, my name was written on a sign, hanging beneath another sign with another name. The first names matched. Chloe and Chloe.<\/p>\n

There were twin beds with polka-dotted comforters. On the nightstand was Chloe\u2019s book, The Red Tent<\/em>. I flipped it over to read the back. Chloe\u2019s deep, I thought, deeper than me.<\/p>\n

I placed my book next to Chloe\u2019s. I\u2019d brought Pema Chodron\u2019s When Things Fall Apart<\/em>, just to be cliche\u0301d.<\/p>\n

Dinner was kimchi, roasted yellow beets, asparagus\u2014so healthy that the next day I felt sick. While I ate, I looked around, wondering which person was Chloe.<\/p>\n

The silent part of the retreat would start in the morning. After dinner we sat in a circle and gave our names. I saw Chloe for the first time. She\u2019d driven from North Carolina with the boy next to her.<\/p>\n

Back in our room, there she was. Lush brown hair in a bun. Silver nose ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chloe changed her shirt with her back to me and I changed my shirt with my back to her.<\/p>\n

Chloe got into bed with her book. I did my skin-care routine, trying to heal the harm done in my 20s from days spent not wearing sunscreen and nights spent snorting and not sleeping. I wondered if Chloe thought I was vain. She didn\u2019t put anything on her face.<\/p>\n

After a few minutes I glanced over. Chloe smiled at me sweetly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the same name,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was meant to be,\u201d she said in a mocking way that reminded me of the way my cousins and I talk to each other. \u201cYou drove here from North Carolina?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWas that your boyfriend with you?\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s just my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

I liked her even more now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should probably go to sleep,\u201d she said, \u201cso getting up tomorrow isn\u2019t horrible.\u201d Chloe was responsible.<\/p>\n

At 5:40am Chloe and I got dressed and brushed our teeth. Then Chloe left without me. I tried not to take it personally, but I definitely noticed it.<\/p>\n

In morning meditation, I couldn\u2019t relax until I found Chloe. I stole glances at her.<\/p>\n

\n

All day I ran into her. There were 65 people there\u2014few enough to see her everywhere, but many enough for that to seem coincidental. I decided Chloe was my rock. I was going to hold Chloe in unconditional positive regard. I began touching her shoulder whenever I saw her.<\/p>\n

I wondered if she\u2019d describe me to her friends as \u201colder.\u201d I wondered if she thought, judging by When Things Fall Apart<\/em>, my skin-care routine, my being there alone, that I was just another broken woman in her 30s. Which, come to think of it, I guess I am.<\/p>\n

But Chloe was too kind to have thoughts like the ones I was projecting onto her.<\/p>\n

When I was 20 I made friends with a bartender who was 26 and would illegally serve me. She called me Baby Chloe. At the end of her shifts, she\u2019d snort coke and blast \u201cThe Edge of Seventeen.\u201d She\u2019d point at me while singing the line: \u201cI\u2019m a few years older than you!\u201d I\u2019d feel young and loved and special.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you mind,\u201d Chloe said, \u201cif I don\u2019t wear pants?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was our final night together. I was touched by the question. We weren\u2019t sharing a bed\u2014why would I care if she didn\u2019t wear pants? She was in a T-shirt and underwear. I was in sweatpants, socks, and a hoodie.<\/p>\n

We lay in our respective beds and chatted. Chloe discovered I was a writer; I learned she was 19. \u201cNineteen!\u201d I exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a baby,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

At breakfast on Sunday, I set my coat and gloves down and lined up for oatmeal. Returning to my seat, I saw Chloe\u2019s sweater and scarf next to my belongings. My heart fluttered. Her sweater\u2014I couldn\u2019t decipher what color it was. Cream? Gray? Brown?<\/p>\n

The silence ceased at noon. People\u2019s faces look different when they speak. They form expressions with their eyes. You can see their teeth. As we put away our meditation pillows, Chloe approached me. \u201cYour hair,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have the most beautiful waves.\u201d<\/p>\n

She reached up to touch it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have curly hair, too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI noticed that.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was sad leaving Chloe, like when I say goodbye to my cousins. I don\u2019t know when I\u2019ll see them again, and I\u2019m sad I don\u2019t know them in a deeper sense, hoping they\u2019ll be okay, knowing they won\u2019t always be.<\/p>\n

Chloe gave me her slow smile. I touched her shoulder for the umpteenth time, then walked outside with two other women closer to my age, though I was older than them, too. When did I start being the older woman?<\/p>\n

There was nothing to do but get into my car\u2014and leave Baby Chloe behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeaving Baby Chloe\u201d is excerpted from an essay in the second edition of Chloe Caldwell\u2019s essay collection, Legs Get Led Astray, published in July 2017 by Short Flight\/Long Drive Books.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the thick of winter, after sitting, lethargic, on my couch for a week, low-key depressed, eating bread, I signed up for a silent meditation retreat at the Won Dharma Center in Claverack, a tiny village about 15 minutes from the city of Hudson. The retreat people were mindful and minimal in their emails. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":376,"featured_media":64015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1539],"tags":[2312,2311,2305,2306,2309,2313,2307,2308,2314,2310],"yoast_head":"\nLeaving Baby Chloe - Upstater<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/leaving-baby-chloe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Leaving Baby Chloe - Upstater\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the thick of winter, after sitting, lethargic, on my couch for a week, low-key depressed, eating bread, I signed up for a silent meditation retreat at the Won Dharma Center in Claverack, a tiny village about 15 minutes from the city of Hudson. 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