It was then, in the midst of the racket and rough, that I first saw her. She sat unmoving in the far corner by a wide picture window, her thick black hair like a calligrapher’s mark, swiped straight down her back, nearly to the floor. Next to her was a tall blonde, perched and pretty as a bow, and on the other side, a smaller girl with messy purple hair and something that looked like a crown painted on her cheek. But my eyes kept sliding to the girl in the middle. She wore a faded floral sundress in a room full of girls out to prove their grit; her brown shoulders shone. She was calm, expressionless: the small black eye of the storm. I felt a pulse of something as I looked at her, the same feeling you get when you turn a corner and are confronted with something unexpected: a magnificent mountain range, maybe, or the slick, fresh corpse of a deer. Direct experience, my father would have called it. When what you see bypasses language entirely. A slap to the face, for instance. A sudden fall. Don’t be fooled by the language I’m using now, that simply can’t be helped. She was beyond it, yes—but only for a moment.

A warm ringing filled the room. There was a woman sitting cross-legged next to the shrine. She wore a loose blue dress and a jade necklace so large and heavy-looking I couldn’t help but imagine the indents it must have been making on her breasts, which were large and heavy-looking themselves. This was Shastri Dominique, the Center’s program director, who would lead us in our meditation practice for the summer. She was probably in her early thirties, I think now, though the girlish braids she wore, thrown casually over her shoulders, made her appear far younger. “The basics of meditation are simple,” she said. “You sit, you follow the breath. Keep your eyes open, but soft, resting gently on the floorboards in front of you. You are trying to gain control of your mind.” She spread her hands for a moment before letting them fall back to her knees. “Do not force your thoughts away: simply watch them as they arise, note them, then let them fall away. If you notice yourself drifting off, say to yourself thinking and come back to the breath. That’s all you need to do, for now.” She struck the singing bowl again.