Staying with It
I've been inside most of the day, really all day since the only going outside I did was to walk to the edge of the sidewalk, marvel at the snow and go back inside again. I logged into work and plugged away at a project much of the day, the rest of it was spent completing some online training I had listed as an accomplishment for 2008.
CK decided this morning to drive after finding another person wanting to do the same. The other woman also has experience driving on the snow and using chains. A vehicle was rented, chains were bought and the two of them set off up I-5 from Woodland, California at 11:55 this morning. I've been very relieved to be able to text with her off and on as well as talk with her a couple of times.
Nearly 2 hours ago they passed Eugene and were less than 100 miles from Portland. The would have started hitting the results of the snow and ice storm within the past hour and she sent out a message that they put the chains on about 35 minutes ago (about 8:45PM as I'm writing). I'm not sure if she'll be able to come directly to the flat where Atari and I are waiting for her, she may get dropped into downtown. If the MAX is running, and the Blue Line is, she would have to do the walk from the stop which takes about 15 minutes of brisk walking on a normal day. I may bundled up and meet her partway with more layers.
I worked on things until about 5PM today then decided to wrap it up for the day, my eyes were feeling a bit tired. Felt a little better after some asana practice, some deep forward bends, lots of down dog & twists, and a few sun salutations. I felt so stiff after sitting all day working, the relative cold outside, and an undercurrent of concern for CK. Then sat zazen for a little while, had a difficult time being present today once I tried to settle into stillness with that worry and ache.
Earlier in the day I had started some soup and it had filled the flat with a delicious smell. I finished zazen feeling hungry and impatient. I'd brought my dinner, soup and toast, out and realized that I'd started to check emails, news, road conditions, Twitter... All distraction while I was mindlessly eating dinner. I put the laptop aside and brought myself back to dinner, fully appreciating the very tasty soup I'd made.
I've been online either working or checking personal stuff (email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter) so much today that after eating I put aside my iBook at went back to my journal again. Added the words "NOW" and "HERE" on torn bits of blue paper, plus a red square (an homage to the "you are here" dots on maps) to the cover.
Last night I'd played around with the idea of putting the drawing of myself meditating in the journal. It isn't a realistic style image, it is me because I know it is. It is a drawing I did after explaining to HB what the fear feels like in my body. I had described a dark, heavy, cold blackness at the center of my chest. It felt like tendrils of that blackness snaked out, devouring all the warmth and light around me. Like a black hole consuming the matter around it.
After working on the colors for a while I went back and added just a little definition to show that there was a person there. When I put small lines in the face I decided to give the hint of a smile to the mouth. I wanted to see myself as knowing peace in that effort, despite the crushing, destructive feeling of the fear I still was able to maintain some equanimity. I spent a fair bit of time on carefully cutting out the piece, trying to preserve the tendrils of colors. I mounted it over gold foil, origami paper.
Neither the cover nor the piece inside feel completely finished to me yet. I've set them aside for the night, opting to write some and let my thoughts around them both settle. CK is on the outskirts of Portland now (about 10:24PM as I finish up this entry), making slow but steady progress.
It has been good practice, this past day of being alone. I look forward to waking up with CK tomorrow morning, knowing she is safely back in Portland. Back to the practice we share together.
Until I have something worthy
CK is still in Sacramento. Portland is covered in at least a half inch of ice on top of several inches of snow. At least another half inch of snow has fallen this afternoon. It is cold, windy and totally unlike Portland. Which is why CK is still in Sacramento. And I miss her a lot.
I'm at her flat, my other home is how it feels now. I don't have cable traction devices for the Outback and the ones DW had for her little car were too small so AM drove me over in the truck so I could stay here. Last night I'd noted just how cold the flat was and that Atari hadn't eaten very much. AM and I talked about it and agreed I'd just stay over here if she was still stuck.
Atari was so happy to see me. It took a good three hours to get the flat up to a comfortable temperature. I also turned on the electric blanket and he's now sprawled out on it, a paw outstretched, sleeping comfortably. He's been extra friendly and loving. I'm really glad that AM can be at the house taking care of Zonker & Phoebe and DW so I can be here to make Atari comfortable.
When I first go here I just stayed bundled up, on the bed (on top of the electric blanket), reading. Atari got on my lap after I'd put on some REI fleece pants I had over here and I read Lavinia for a while. It started to snow hard again so I decided to play with the snowshoes, walked up to the end of the street to get a feel for them, and took some pictures. Gratefully came inside, noting how much warmer it felt, and did some chores.
Before leaving the house I did something out of the ordinary. I grabbed some more art supplies. My sketch book and Art Stix had migrated over here, primarily so I could show her something I'd done. I grabbed up the book I'd bought a couple of years ago at Rainbow in San Francisco, my collection of paper (origami, samples from San Francisco, etc.), the pencils and my glue.
I was chatting with CK this evening and told her that I'd started to do a collage on the cover of this sketch book. It is just spiral bound with heavy card stock cover. The inside is filled with high quality, heavy, hemp paper. I bought it for myself on a trip visiting SJ and every time I've opened it I've held myself back. On some level thinking that I needed to save this nice book for really nice work, that anything I'd put in there now wouldn't be any good, unworthy of the book.
So it has been blank all this time. The cover got bent on the front providing a way for me to feel angry at myself for mistreating this special thing (I never use). I just move it around, occasionally open it and appreciate the paper inside, all the blank pages. The book I lug around now is cheap and I judge most of what's in there unworthy. Sometimes I color pieces on it to cut out and use elsewhere.
I love the idea of an artist's journal. I also feel somehow called to honor this desire in me to create this way. I guess it is another place where I get stuck calling myself an 'artist'. I think about journals and never start one, never satisfied with any unifying theme. I made one cool page dedicated to Mondrian in my other book but have never followed on my idea for doing pages around other artists I've enjoyed the work on.
In light of trying to see my creative efforts as worthy in my own eyes I started to cover the bent cover. Adding a collage of papers for creativity as well as reinforcing the bend so it will work better. It doesn't need a theme, I'll just add in things when I am inspired to make them. I already have a couple of ideas to start myself off. It is just the art that is here with me now, which is entirely worthy.
And Dream of Beloit
A strange dream that I actually remember after the usual morning routine...
I was visiting Beloit. Not that I was a student again, although I was there to take an exam, with CK. Or perhaps CK was there taking an exam and I was just tagging along since it was at Beloit. I recall asking her if she felt like she was sufficiently prepared and wanted to explore.
Only I had a plan. I lead us across campus, to the far southern end where the Logan and Wright are. When I came around the old Carnegie library, used for English mostly when I was a student there, I was surprised by the closed up anthropology and art buildings. I felt an anxious at seeing those shuttered spaces.
I found out from someone that both were being renovated and was directed to the temporary offices of the director, still my old advisor (in that amazing way dreams can bend time). I lead us over the the strange space filled with a few desks, books, notes, and random pieces from the collections of both museums.
HM seemed bewildered by me. Although I haven't been back to Beloit since 1990 HM looked exactly the same. In response to his not recognizing me he gave me a stiff hug and then uncomfortably commented on the passage of time, so many students, etc. There was much awkwardness and HM started to tell me about the renovations.
This is about when my pager went off to notify me that some patching had been done on a server at work.
Mostly I'm jotting this all down because I don't always remember my dreams. I tried writing about them first thing in the morning, I should pick that habit up again. My therapist doesn't do a lot with dream analysis, not "one of her main tools" as she likes to say, but we have had interesting discussions about them.
The thing she said she found interesting about them is how often I am not a major character in my dreams. I end up in the background of them, I likened some of my anxiety dreams to feeling like I'm Rosencrantz... An inconsequential bit player to important events. I don't actually have the power to change anything going wrong in my dreams, I just happen to be there when things go wrong and am unaware of the potential danger to myself.
This one was a bit different in that I recall it more clearly and I'm a more major player. I was active and doing things, taking part in the dream. I don't often dream about real places or people, but here was CK and one of my old advisers from college. CK wasn't a non-entity either, I felt her support and interest in being with me.
Snowed In
Last night I was aware of missing CK on a night when I usually don't see her. That somehow her being down the coast, her not being in the city made me miss her more. She was supposed to land at 2:30 this afternoon, but instead there is 6 inches of snow outside and she is in Sacramento at her Mom's.
I had been in a good mood, deciding to go down to Jantzen Beach to do a little holiday gift shopping with my stash of gift cards and practice some snow driving. Found a few things at one shop and was sitting on the floor in Barnes & Nobel looking at books when CK phoned me from the Oakland airport to say that Southwest had just cancelled all their flights into Portland for the day.
I wrapped up my decisions and drove carefully back to the house. As I went over the slough I noticed that I could barely see past the sides of the bridge, the snow was coming down steadily and there was very little visibility. The cancelled flights made a lot of sense then.
So AM, DW and I spent most of the day sitting around the house. I cleaned through my beading supplies (I need another case to sort beads into, have numerous random tubes and bags again) and started some knitting. Around 5PM it was out into the snow to go to CK's to check in on Atari who was cold and lonely. AM & I popped into Whole Foods briefly and picked up a couple of things. I then drove us to get gas then back to the house.
The snow has fallen steadily all day long. As I'm writing this it has started to turn into ice pellets. I miss CK. I'm chatting with her, have talked to her on the phone today, but I miss her being a handful of miles away at most. I miss being with her on a Saturday night, snuggled up in bed together.
Yeah, good practice. I realize I feel a buzzing irritation with the storm, with this whole trip to Sacramento and the stress she has felt around it all. Annoyance at not being with her on one of "our" nights. I'm trying not to judge the feelings, just note them, be compassionate to myself and the ways in which CK helps me find a way to be at peace with myself.
It is the practice of realizing that we do without the people we love. And it makes me realize that I love her. Over the past year I've felt that change, deepen beyond the sharp keen edge of new desire and passion. This is just a profound awareness of the ways in which I feel she completes my life.
In the Body In Fear
This isn't usually a night where I'd be at CK's flat, but somehow her being in Sacramento makes me miss her. I dropped her off at the airport this morning, she'll be back tomorrow, but I don't like her being away. I am sorry to be missing sharing this trip with her. It has been so stressful, the time between this trip and her last.
Yesterday evening I was realizing that on top of feeling kind of out of sorts I felt very anxious about going to sit at the Dharma Center. Talking about the thoughts that had come up last week, reflecting on that event, had created an undercurrent of anxiety was gripping into me as the time ticked towards needing to go.
Part of me knows I'm here, in the present and the worst happened 21 years or more ago. But at the time that happened it wasn't safe for me to be present with the trauma and I was so frightened that my brain stopped me thinking about it at all. Part of me accepts GM's explanation that my mind knows I'm safe in the zendo so these things come up, just like HB noted they do. Then there is the part of me that is terrified of actually getting the memory back, reliving what I was too afraid to experience and process as a child.
As I started to explain this to CK, who was feeling like she needed to miss going in order to prepare for the flight, her mother phoned. This tense conversation had been looming, waiting to descend since Sunday and now it landed with intensity.
I paced back and forth a little, finally going to the kitchen. I'd thought I'd start making us dinner, but instead settled on doing dishes. All of them in the kitchen area. The smallness of the flat and the raised voices, the intense emotions I was already feeling -- all of these combined until I felt like a small child.
I turned the water on and off. Washing, rinsing, drying and cleaning the next round of things. I kept trying to keep feeling my body, the way my diaphragm moves, and trying to put my thoughts only on the washing of the dishes, not on CK's voice around the corner. I felt cold and taut.
CK got off the phone and came into the kitchen. I'm not sure how I looked, but I'm guessing I didn't look alright since she immediately stepped forward to hug me close to her. I felt ill, cold, exhausted, and afraid.
I was finally able to tell her that when things got to raised voices is was bad in my family. When my Mother got to the point she was yelling, she was throwing things or trashing the house, my room. If I ever got to the point of raising my voice I was told I was inappropriate, out-of-control, rude, and disrespectful. I'd be grounded. Once I was slapped, locked in my room another time. It wasn't just my Mother either, but my Aunt J and Gram as well.
CK asked if I could even go to the Dharma Center, we'd need to leave within minutes. I felt a rush of fear and shook. I'd finally sit down on the bed and talk with AM, let him know I wasn't feeling well. In addition to the panic attack I had a very upset stomach and muscle spasms in my back.
I got off the phone and CK brought me some ibuprofen. She then set to making us some dinner and we spent the evening just being close to one another. We managed to get to bed a bit earlier and get some rest before the alarm woke us.
After dropping her off for her flight I came back to the house and worked all day until heading over to the studio for a yoga asana practice class. JW ran exceptionally long so it was 8PM before I got to CK's flat to take care of Atari. We sent messages to one another for a few minutes. I'm so glad she'll be home tomorrow afternoon.
I will plan to talk with HB about the panic attack. How to help myself say settled with insights and memories surface. I stay with the body, but sometimes I can tell it is in a very defensive way. Like doing the dishes last night, I could stay in the body but it was in this pulled in way. I can feel it is significantly different way than when I am meditating and am merely with the sensation of being breathed, open to that feeling.
Centered, but in Molasses
I saw GM today and talked, ranted and let out all the stuff I'd been working on these past couple of weeks. I went back and forth between me and how stuff happening with CK left me feeling. In learning what are OK responses, I worry that sometimes I'm over-reacting to things, being over-protective or reactive.
I finally wound round to talking about what had come up during zazen last week. I noted now it felt different, that I didn't literally feel the world shift. Sometimes when memories slip in or a flashback happens it feels as though I've lost my balance, physically, for real. That the flashbacks can be auditory or even recall a physical sensation adds to the disorientation they cause.
She said it almost sounded like my brain had made a conclusion about things, about what happened after my memories suddenly come to a stop, "the film runs out" is how I describe it. The way my brain my settled, knew, no longer questioned and hypothesized. She called it huge insight and pointed at how way that zazen is a place where my mind knows I am safe so it is free and quiet enough to have these kinds of realizations.
GW thought it very significant that I seem balanced when I've had my yoga schedule going on, work being very busy, the relationship building with CK and the relationship re-shaping with AM, add on top of this processing abuse from my childhood. She said she was relieved in a way that I feel tired, she said it would have been more worrisome if I wasn't tired.
GW said something interesting. She feels that I am doing so much with the yoga on top of my Zen practice. In many cases she would be counseling someone on making a poor choice, but I don't go out 5 nights a week drinking. I have 5 days a week that include deep yoga practice, 1-2 days a week of Zen practice with sangha. I devote this time, and I did note that I find myself exhausted at this third-way point of my yoga training, to things that support me.
I laughed when she said she felt like in spite of it all I was balanced, centered, and making progress still. I responded (ever quick to lessen a compliment) that I was doing so in molasses. Slow progress.
Maybe not as slow I as call it either. I told her about metta practice, about being able to consistently offer it to myself after having the insight moment during zazen. I still haven't talked with HB about this, about being able to stay with myself. It also occurred to me how today I was able to tell GM about the moment in zazen, to talk about the certainty of it. To talk to any degree, even indirectly about the sexual abuse during my early childhood without collapsing into choked silence, muscle spasms and fear is significantly changed from last summer.
Art Thoughts
I woke up having had unsettling dreams, tired and worn out. It was hard to get going. It occurred to me that I should jot down the dream, but didn't get to do it right away so the images drifted away while I showered.
After having lunch with CK today I finally went over to her new office with her. Although it is so near my own office downtown, for some reason I'd not popped in there at all. The building, split up into smaller spaces, is used by several artists and the scent of the place reminds me of the art hall at Beloit.
I can remember having ideas for projects in school as a kid but no one to work on them with me. Anytime I want to create something with my hands feeling at a loss as to how to execute what was in my head with my hands. I never got to take an art class after 7th grade ceramics. Not entirely sure why, maybe it was too expensive to buy supplies.
Like singing, art is a place where I feel resistance, my inner critic pushing me down, patronizing my ideas and efforts. Refusing to actually apply the word 'art' to anything I create. Craft yes, art no.
Winter’s Cold
Outside it was frigid today. The cold felt bright, intense, brittle; reminding me of Wisconsin. As soon as I sat in the car the cold sank into my hips and they ached. Winter's cold is not a friend to my body, it tightens and resists the cold, pulling in on itself to try and keep the hearth going.
After my last meeting wrapped up I quick looked at CK's blog, which is allowed on the network at the office and contains her most recent Twitter posts. I saw that her office was not warming up at all, it was a bit past 11AM so I checked to see if she wanted to get lunch. We met up in the Park Blocks and headed over to Blossoming Lotus for delicious lentil & wild rice soup and a very tasty maple glazed tempeh sandwich (messy, CK laughed at the sight of me with stuff on my chin).
I finally saw her office, walked over with her after lunch. I liked the way the window saw the edge of the Chinatown gate, as seen from across a rooftop. On the way back out I realized what the smell in the building recalled -- being in the Wright Art Hall at Beloit. I worked in the Wright, as a attendant in the museum my freshman year, and ultimately as the assistant to the Wright Registrar.
I spent days going through the records of the collection. One project involved affixing the small images taken from cut up proof sheets onto the actual paper record. While working on this project with the modern art print collection I would often be unable to correctly determine the proper orientation of the image. I'd have to take the record, the tiny photograph and a magnifying lens back into the stacks with me, locate the original piece of artwork, figured the orientation of piece and affixed the photograph to the paper.
It was both a tedious task and an utter delight. I viewed photographs of much of the collection, especially the modern art. Working in the museums, I also worked and researched in the Logan collection, also meant that I had numerous occasions to hold priceless pieces in my hands. Old things, amazing things.
Once I took a spinning a weaving class down in the basement of the Wright. Hours spent bent over a 4-harness loom or setting up a back-strap loom using the banister to tie off to for tension. When I last left Beloit one of the looms was holding a half-finished project of mine. Rose colored cotton, chosen mostly for affordability, done in an simple open-work lace. Then plan was to continue the autumn of what would have been my senior year, only I never went back.
CK's office is in a building that smells like the Wright. A dry smell hinting at plaster, paint, pencils, paper... creation. The building evoked memories, many of them precious.
Pulling on clean, cotton gloves to handle artwork or artifacts. The smoothness with which the huge drawers containing prints slid out. The feel of the ceiling mounted storage, the shift of it as you opened them apart like enormous pages. The chill of the ceramics storage in Logan's basement -- particularly there. Many hours coming in from the cold outside to descend into the dry, chill ceramics room. Bundled up, sitting on the concrete making meticulous notes about the Peruvian pieces I was researching for my thesis.
The scent of the medium of artistic is very rich for me I realize. It feels like yearning sometimes, wanting to create. I want to create artwork for CB & HB when I take Jukai next autumn. I am able to picture it in my head but I feel confused as to where to begin.
I imagine the impression of a gate as the back of the piece, with words from the Flower Sermon running on the edges, "I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvana, the true form of the formless, the subtle Dharma Gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures." A wooden artist's model of a hand holding a flower. Perhaps the flower is made of beads on wire, making the flower easy to twine about the hand. Somewhere there is a smile, just the hint of it, Mahākāśyapa's moment of realization. I've thought about the base being an enso with the hand rising out of it.
Tight
Had a massage from BM today. I told her about nearly falling, how my hips hurt so bad on Friday that I had that emotional response, oh.... and learning to drive CK's truck (have wondered if that's why the left ankle has been so tense). She said, "Well, we're work on that!"
She started checking out my neck and I was surprised at the tension. I could feel that my whole neck was solid, taut, no movement between the vertebrae. The pain shot through my left shoulder, up into my jaw, and down my back.
While she worked on my body I found several places where the tension was so great, the spots she worked little points of intensity. I switched to Ujjayi Pranayama to help breathe through the heaviness of the energy. Pushing the breath through my shoulders, back, and hips, down my legs and out my feet.
Yesterday was beautiful. Woke up at 8AM and looked out of the window to see falling snow. We snoozed a little longer and by 9AM the snow was accumulating. At about 10:30 I got a message from CS that Dishman was closing up for the day so CK and I decided to walk up to her athletic club for a work out.
It was nice to share that practice with her, like so many of the other things we've found to share. We did some stretching and work on our core muscles, abdomen and then moved onto weight machines. After doing some isolation of my leg muscles I walked on a treadmill for half a mile while CK settled into a run next to me. I then headed down to an empty studio to go through some standing yoga poses.
While we were on the treadmills there was an announcement that the club was closing up at 1PM due to the increasingly bad weather. CK and I had a quick soak then bundled up to walk back to her flat for lunch. Her meeting with DTH was cancelled so we bundled up again, walked to MAX and went to Pioneer Square to enjoy the city in the snow.
The experience, Portland covered in a layer of white, was lovely. There was a bump in our day when CK had an unsettling call from her family. She walked with me up to the art museum anyway and I took pictures of the sculpture garden. My hands were freezing so we went and sat in the atrium of the Galleria to warm up a bit. After that we headed home, trying to keep ourselves warm in the truly frigid wind.
The Cat Has Exited the Bag
Having told the close core of friends, sangha, and co-workers this week, AM sent out the message he had I have been working on the past several days. Have only heard back from a few friends -- a couple of emails and a nice voice message from SJ.
It has been tough this week, talking to people. Made me very aware of how difficult I find it to be open with people now. I was reflecting upon how open I could be about myself, my sexuality, when I weighed 290 pounds. Having that extra person surrounding me really made it easy. Now I feel exposed, vulnerable, back to being the scared kid I've been hiding all my life.
I told my teacher training class today that I was mentally, emotionally, and physically. I realized in talking to CK afterward I knew I could even add "spiritually" to that list. I feel just depleted by the whole effort of it even though I feel relieved to have finally gotten the news out. Am trying to stay mindful of having had that bit of experience trigger the other night, those tend to send me a little lower while I process them.
After a long, draining, and physically challenging day of teacher training CK picked me up. Coming into the flat I saw the lights she'd hung up and the small, living tree she had decorated. It was such a sweet moment and helped equalize some of my energy.
The question that comes to my mind for HB is how do I let these emotions come up, be present with them, and move through them. It is reasonable to mourn and feel the pain I experienced as a child but wasn't safe to express at the time the experience itself happened, but at times it feels overwhelming to me. Perhaps he'd just remind me to stop trying to rush through things, there is no timeline for this.