it was the last day at the seminar and it was time for sharing our thoughts and experiences for the entire week. but of course the stories do not merely entail the just-concluded week but the bigger stories of what brought us to the gathering.

as a good majority of the participants were employees of the hotel where the seminar was held, echoed over and over was the reluctance to attend, mainly due to the overwhelming workload they'd leave behind. there would also be the jadedness towards previous stress management workshops, yoga sessions, what-have-you.

as the microphone was passed along the participants, starting from those at the front to those tucked by the pillars in the middle of the room, the story of the hotel people slowly emerged. it became all-too-clear that they, more than us non-hotel people who happened to have the luck of not having 9-5 schedules, needed the seminar more.

theirs was a story of an internal struggle that was only recently concluded and it was clear from the breaking voices, the pointed remarks and the urgency in their tone of speaking that they're only recovering from the aftermath of this unspoken crisis. as the hotel people were speaking one by one, amyna and i couldn't resist asking one of them - so nice of him to share his sumptuous lunch box with our trio which included babes near the mountain of pillows - for a backgrounder. at the same time, we kept pestering him to pinpoint the people being thanked by the participants: 'who is he?' 'oh, he's the general manager.' 'and how about her?' oh, she's the head of human resources.' bosses and staff were all in the same room, something unthinkable if it were on an ordinary work day.

then it was my turn. it wasn't a sob story, to begin with because i was very comfortable reconciling where i was coming from and how the course is helping me so far. i gave a rough sketch of the last ten years culminating to what i've come to call my 'sabbatical from everything.'

a little comment first: i'm pretty sure many of the people around couldn't figure out the point of taking off from everything in the middle of the school year. i know, i know, i just started in a new school, i just got readmitted to grad school, the whole deal. and so when i resigned from teaching and went awol from grad school, there were the usual slew of questions. how will you fend for yourself? what will you do? is it vacation? surely you can take a vacation during christmas break. one person related to me how she asked a common acquaintance what i'll be doing for the time being. the response she got was, 'oh, amy will be doing nothing.' 'nothing? there is still something from and out of that nothing.' i just let out a laugh when i heard the story.

me, i know myself and how i tick. i just had to take off and felt no explaining to do. (of course it helped that i had the financial means to take off.) it was my decision anyway. but there were times when the incredulity people exhibited on my current status ruffles my feathers at times, as if i really had to explain. yes, i'm finishing a freelance job, so it's not like i'm not doing anything.

funny this business of doing. yes, that's it, doing. one would immediately think of action. true, there must be action in the doing but i really have to beg to disagree at times when this idea of doing crudely translates to physical, tangible, visible action.

i think my problem with the conventional definition of doing is my suspicion that most of the doing i see is but an empty shell. more than anything else, i want to see heart and goodness at the center of every specific action. i'm afraid i've been quite jaded to have witnessed many instances of doing in the past done not out of the noblest of possible intentions.

so, there's them and then there's me. what would be my contribution to this discussion?

the doing and the nothing (let me phrase it that way for now) are part of the equation. i had to stop what i was doing - i.e. teaching and grad school - in order for me to put into action what i want to do and should do. at times it is difficult to make that stance heard because there are conventional expectations (being such-and-such by the age of x, knowing so-and-so people, etc.) and unfortunately for me, my ideas don't neatly land within that range. so there would be times when i feel a little shook up about what i've done.

and then dona, one of the participants, went up to me after the gift-giving and gave me a great hug. now she is one of us non-hotel people who really went there on our own initiative and was truly open-minded about the whole thing. she then proceeded to relate her story of how in her early 20's she gave up what is by most appearances to be a promising career at a major multinational corporation to pursue her love of dancing. she then wished me well in all my future endeavors, and that i get to do what i love.

it was a relief to hear a story that is close to mine, that out of the sea of 'do this, do that' our stories intersected somehow. it was a pleasant surprise and at the same time it sets my resolve so firmly on the ground.

like i always say, i just keep on walking - and now breathing as well. but more importantly, it's not just about what everything has to do with me but what everything has to do with everybody else.