At the North Carolina college where I teach, the student commons is being renovated. The director of student life recently gave me a tour of the construction. After passing what will be the cafeteria, the wellness center, the student government offices, the computer labs, we came to a room in the basement. It was originally designed to be a storage area, but now the plan was to make it a “meditation space.” “Students,” the director explained, “have complained that there is no place on campus where they can go that’s quiet.”

Two sarcastic comments immediately occurred to me. The first was to point out that there was already a building on campus called a library. Theoretically, it would be quiet. Maybe we should show students where it was located. The second was to remind him that 20 minutes earlier he had explained how a speaker system would pipe music throughout the building and outside as well. Perhaps if we didn’t flood every public space with sound, fewer special quiet rooms would be needed.

I refrained from making either comment because deep down I knew what the students meant. I suspect what they need, however, is not a designated room, but a redwood grove.

As a graduate student at UC Davis, I was lucky enough to have an office in Voorhies. This meant that within minutes, I could walk to the duck pond and the arboretum. There, I could enter the small cluster of redwood trees. It’s a natural oasis. Even during hot summer days, it is cool. Even during loud days, it is quiet. It’s not silent. You can hear people walking by, bikes on the path, cars in a nearby parking lot, but all of these sound far away.

They are distant as if the world has been slowed and moved slightly to one side. The tree trunks curtain off one world and offer another. In the grove, I would sit or sometimes lie on a picnic table, look up at the branches and leaves, and think about nothing in particular.

I didn’t consider it meditation. The few times I’ve consciously tried to meditate, I’ve fallen asleep. If anything, I considered it a type of cigarette break, one without the cancer-causing elements. After 15 minutes or so, I would stand and walk back to Voorhies. I always felt better. More relaxed. More clear-headed.

Although I would go to the redwoods, my officemates went elsewhere for solitude. One liked to walk around the moon garden out by the horse stables. Another would slip away to the department library. A third would sit in the bleachers by the track.

Each of us had found our own place. And perhaps this is the main problem with a “meditation space.” Such an area cannot be designated. It must be discovered. Luckily, once you find such a place, it is always with you.

After touring the concrete and steel construction site, I went back to my office. I closed my eyes and walked past the duck pond and into the redwood grove. I sat on the picnic table. I looked at the leaves. A few minutes later, I returned to North Carolina, refreshed.