A few years ago, when I first walked into Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, vendors were calling out in English. Tourists were negotiating. The whole beautiful machinery of commerce was running loud and fast. I could track all of it.
So I walked deeper in.
Past the stalls selling Turkish Delight and spices to tourists, past the point where most spoke English and into the back corridors where the chatter was entirely beyond me. No one translated. No announcement made sense.
Unlike earlier, I couldn't take everything in. My husband and I ended up stopping at what we think was a little cafe for the merchants. We had tea. The server recognized we were fish out of water and showed us how to drink the tea the Turkish way โ with the sugar cube resting on our tongues.ย
Through charades and demonstrations, we connected.ย
The conversations happening 2 feet away were as understandable as birdsong.
Still, I can only describe that lack of understanding as a strange relief.
My reaction may require some explanation: I notice things โ conversations at nearby tables, the subtext under what someone is saying out loud or the shift in a room's mood.
In the 1987 film "Broadcast News," Holly Hunter's character is told, "It must be nice to always believe you know better ..."
She looks at him and says, "No. It's awful."
When I first saw that film, I was young but old enough to recognize some of myself in her character. I also saw the ways she got on other people's nerves. For years after that, I tried to dial myself back โ to take up less room and soften my edges.
However, about 15 years ago, a Dominican nun from New Orleans named Sister Mary Ann Culotta helped me change that.
She led a dream workshop. I didn't even know what a dream workshop was when I walked in the room, but by the time I left, the experience had changed my take on life.
Based on a dream I shared with the group, Sister Mary Ann and the other participants in the circle helped me realize that people could handle me or they couldn't โ either way, I would be happier being my fullest self.
I'm still not completely sure how the dream workshop process works, but life has been fuller and more fun since. If I want to wear orange shoes or pink glasses, I do โ sometimes both at the same time.
But living fuller goes beyond my sartorial choices.
The Grand Bazaar gave me one of those discoveries. In the back corridors, surrounded by language I couldn't decode, along with sights and scents I didn't recognize, the peripheral noise fell away.
What remained was whatever I chose to focus on.
I realize now that narrowing can feel like a gift โ different from Sister Mary Ann's, but related.
I've felt it before, in other forms too. For example, the first time I went contra dancing, I had no idea what I was doing. Contra dancing is a folk tradition where every person in the line matters. The caller sets the sequence. One wrong step sends a ripple through everyone.
The pressure was real. I didnโt want to mess things up for everyone else dancing. I had to pay extreme attention. The only thing to do was follow the call โ and the result was a near euphoria for me, the wonder of focusing on one thing.ย
Iโve noticed that the moments when I feel the least certain are often the moments when I feel most awake.
In unfamiliar places and situations, the peripheral falls away on its own. My brain doesn't have room for it โ but the narrowing doesnโt feel like deprivation. It feels like rest and relief.
Sister Mary Ann gave me permission to stop managing myself down. Moments like the one in the back of the Grand Bazaar give me something else โ a place where managing isn't even possible, where I am clearly not the one who knows best โ and the full force of attention has somewhere worthy to land.
Both feel like grace.