I feel scratched up like chicken dirt. It’s the disparity between the way I’m living and the way I want to live. I’m living halfway the way I want to live; the other half is predicated on choices I’ve made and the responsibilities they entail. Well, there’s only one choice really: to have a child – which means to take hold of one end of a ball of string and keep holding on as it unravels and unravels, as one thing after another ensues. I’ve never regretted that choice. Nevertheless, it’s becoming harder and harder to remain present and invested in mothering in the face of the desire to practise, just practise. And I don’t feel I’m doing well by Rowan, not well at all. He’s so much a person who thrives on company and fun, whereas I live best in silence and reflection. Sometimes I feel as if I’m wearing him down, just by dint of who I am, and who he is. I don’t know what I can do about this. Neither of us is going to change our nature.

I understand why the ngondro is traditionally done in three-year retreat. These practices want to absorb you. It’s how they work. They get into your veins. I’m doing them in a very different situation, and I feel torn up and flying in the wind, like little pieces of scrap paper.