Health Matters
I've gained some weight over the past four busy, stressful, joyful, hard years. The "why" is easy, I know myself and it isn't hard to figure out. Stress makes me crave carbohydrates, preferably in the form of cake, and fat, in the form of fried potatoes. Portland has a number of awesome bakeries and numerous places to get very tasty potatoes fried in oil. I've been able to mostly look at this weight gain with compassion and try not to let my self-criticism over it get the best of me. It is a good time to practice Metta for myself, but then again it is always a good time for me to practice Metta for myself!
Mindful of the weight gain, and my desire to do my very best to be here in good health for those who love me, in the past couple of weeks I've committed to being very mindful about food, eating very healthfully, and making a point to exercise some every day, at least 25 minutes. I'm taking inspiration, particularly in regards to food from Eat to Live
When I was losing a much more serious amount of weight I found tracking calories and exercise really helped me understand more about what I was eating. I used a site called FitDay for quite some time to do this. It worked pretty well, but was less than ideal.
The thing I found the most difficult with FitDay was a limited food database, at least for a vegan. I spent so much time meticulously entering nutrition details and trying to deconstruct what was in my food in order to add it. Doing so was worth it and taught me a lot, but it was tedious and took up a lot of my time.
Fast forward to now and I have a smart phone to add to the mix, so I set out to find out what else was out there for both a web site and an Android application for my phone. I started using a site called MyFitnessPal and am finding the site very easy to use and the Android application is very quick. What's even better is the database of food!
I stumbled across several brand-name products, like Soy Curls in the food database. Then I started searching and found several recipes from favorite cookbooks and websites I use a lot. What I realized is that each time someone goes to the effort to manually input all these details, it is added to the database for everyone to use! There's also a community access and I've connected to other vegans working on weight loss, fitness and generally focusing on a healthier lifestyle.
And it is working, of course. Since I started tracking things on October 12 I've already lost 6.8 pounds. In fact I want to be mindful of not losing too quickly, but things might slow down after this initial kick-start of energy.
When people ask me how I've lost 130 (at this point) pounds and I tell them that being vegan in and of itself it is a huge help, but aside from that I watch what I eat and exercise more. That's it. No magic formula. No pill. No miracle.
Calories in/Calories out
I'm focusing on the type of calories quite a bit, that's the influence of Eat to Live, so even more veggies and more beans. I love tofu and tempeh, but am using a little less of it to keep calories down. Even with trying to keep to a fairly specific low-fat diet, it has been easy to mindfully include occasional indulges like a biscuits & gravy brunch, a pint of beer, tofu salad rolls with peanut sauce, and even a few kettle-style potato chips with my lunch today with CK.
Even Ground
As of yesterday my Mom is speaking to me again. We chatted on the phone for a little while so I could get an update on the bleeding ulcers she's suffering from again. She brought up the blog to say that she felt overwhelmed reading it and just hopes that I can forgive her.
I avoided talking about her choice to live out in Corbett. I'm still so sad and angry about this choice, but I'm trying to at least interact from a place of non-judging. As much as it hurts to watch her make a choice that hurts her health, she is going to make those choices regardless of what I want or need. It is hard, but worthy Practice.
The thing she's missing is that I don't hate her, don't hold a grudge against her. I just ache to see her suffer and know that she was so hurt in her own childhood. I'm reminded of a talk Chozen Bays Roshi recorded on forgiveness of the abusers she interviews after examining hurt children -- that often these people are just abused children who grew up without ever having their abuse acknowledged, never treated, never healed.
That's my Mom - an adult who inside is an abused child who was never held in compassion. It helps me when trying to stay on even ground with her, stay in non-judgement. It also helps me be resolved to keep going to therapy even when some of those sessions are profoundly triggering and painful.
I have been so deeply touched by the thoughtful, sharing, compassionate and supportive messages I've received here and in person. Even today at Vida Vegan Con someone made a point to come up to ask me how my Mom was doing and how I was. Here was this lovely woman and she took a moment to tell me she's been reading this blog and thinking kind thoughts toward us. I feel so much gratitude that my fears around opening up have been meet with such loving-kindness.
I started talking openly and honestly about my recovery from trauma because there is a chance another person might be helped by it. Often I post stuff and I almost forget that people are out there reading it. When people reach out to me because of something I've written I am continually touched to learn that someone felt better for reading something I write. I'm also just humbled by the people that come to me to share their own experiences and offer their support.
Tomorrow will be my birthday, I will be 42, and on some level it feels odd to not be planning some party. I'd intended to, but with all the upset around Mom, my busy schedule at work, and getting ready to speak at Vida Vegan Con, there just wasn't time. I unfortunately forgot that DW made extra effort to take tomorrow off of work to go to the event I'd intended to plan, but we're going to make a point to spend some time together tomorrow afternoon. That bit of forgetfulness aside, it feels good to be speaking to Mom again and spending the weekend surrounded by people who are writing and working toward a more compassionate world.
Of Tubes and Toothpaste
The phrase, "The cat's out of the bag.", is often used to describe what happens when some event, bit of news, or a secret gets out.
Being a companion of cats I've often felt this phrase is rather incorrect. Yes, a cat recently sprung from a bag will very likely crash wildly about the place. It is also likely that the cat will saunter sedately away from the bag and go have a good lick somewhere. It is also pretty easy to get a cat back into a bag.
To Get Cat Back into Bag:
- Put bag on floor.
- Walk away.
*With Obie, pictured, the bag only needs to be unattended.
The phrase I prefer to use when acknowledging that you can't put something back the way it was is this, "You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube."
That's more apt. The news is out. The time is now. You cannot return to a time when that particular bit of toothpaste was already in the tube.
The "toothpaste" that's outta the tube right now is this blog. It would seem in recent weeks my Mom has stumbled upon it. Not sure how, but that really doesn't matter much anyway. This is a public blog and it has my real and legal name on it. It even says where I live. There's always been a chance my mostly non-internet-using Mother would find it.
And so she has. This apparently is the cause of the silent treatment.
I have a queasy hunch it might even be partly related to the sudden about-face on the apartment. I could see her deciding to whole-heartedly move into an environment that isn't healthy for her physically because she'd decided I was not to be relied upon. I've become another in a long line of betrayals.
Here's the scoop, as provided to me by her deeply concerned husband who had just left her bedside at the hospital (yes, again).
Mom interpreted somewhere along the way in reading my blog that I wished she would die.
Yeah. Seriously.
Her husband, WD, had asked her to show him what I'd written, but she wouldn't. He really didn't think I'd ever say such a thing. At the hospital this past Sunday she informed him that I was not to be called. He went home, called me and told me what's been going on. I've since talked with his son as well. WD and his kids all have my phone numbers, CK's mobile number, and my email. They also have the link to this blog.
What I told them, without knowing what it was that set Mom off, was that it was possible that I've written about the relief her death would bring. Not because I wish she would die, only that it will be a tremendous relief to know that she won't be suffering in this life any longer. No more procedures. No more hospital stays. No more anxiety. No more bitterness. True and final rest.
I dread the day my Mom's death comes. I will be profoundly sad and deeply grieve the loss of my only living parent. I will mourn her unassuaged life that only knew such fleeting joy. Knowing that she will never be in pain again will bring me relief.
I've resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to compulsively read through every single thing I've written about my Mom on my blog to find it. CK also insisted. I think I've got it though. It came to me when I was cross-referencing an older post for the bit I put up recently, 'Stumbling on Joy'.
If my Mom had been reading chronologically, likely starting at the post about my trip to Denver for Jen's memorial, she'd have hit the post called 'A Bitterness'. In it I note the struggle I was having at acknowledging that her death would bring me relief.
Right there. Boom. I'm pretty certain that's it.
And she totally missed the point of it. Missed the struggle, the guilt, the pain in that post. The profound sorrow for her unhappy life.
She also missed that it was written in the Summer of 2010 when we all thought Mom had Stage 4 stomach cancer and didn't want to go through surgery or chemo for it. A time when I was really struggling and agonizing about my Mom's imminent death. We were all certain we were just ticking down the days until we would lose her.
I think my Mom tends to look for the worst. She really wants the best, but she doesn't believe it is possible. Maybe she doesn't believe she's worth the best, I can see her having got that message during her own childhood full of abuse. I don't know the reason, we've never really talked about it, but I'm pretty sure she expects and looks for the worst.
I think she ran across what was for me a moment of real agony and profound sadness for her life. She looked for the worst in me and decided she'd found it. Then she disconnected her phone number and told WD she was moving out to Corbett. That's why I can see her deciding that I was of no help or use to her in making the move into the apartment she'd fallen in love with.
There was a time in my life I practiced Mom's habit of expecting the worst out of life. I was miserable, obese, depressed, and in an unhappy marriage. It wasn't how I was as a child, but I grew into this habit almost like it was just part of "growing up".
It has been hard work, but I think I'm coming back to expect the best, particularly out of people. I'm shaky at this relearned skill. It is pretty easy to fall back into the trap of feeling like I don't deserve the best, something I learned in my childhood. I practice though. I acknowledge my brain coming up with all the worst-case scenarios and try to meet a person or a moment without expecting that the worst will happen. Most of the time I am relieved to find that instead of the worst, people reveal their best to me.
Sometimes we learn by watching and seeing what not to do. I watched my family and I've generally applied myself to doing exactly the opposite of them. Some people rebel by making destructive choices. My life of compassion, yoga, meditation, art, laughter, friends, and community is one big act of rebellion against the example my family set for me.
Stumbling on Joy
It is 9 days before my birthday and my Mom's avoiding/shunning me. She knows I disapprove of a choice she's made recently and since she can no longer exile me to my bedroom for weeks on end, she just doesn't call. And it sucks. A lot.
My Mom's health has been fragile my whole life. A couple months ago she started talking about finally moving to an apartment much closer into town. We were really relieved to hear this from her. CK and I would be able to check in on her, take her shopping, and drop food off for her regularly. She'd also be able to access public transit and have some sense of independence, something she's felt very depressed about since she remarried.
There we were, finally looking seriously at meeting her needs and doing things to improve her quality of life, quite likely increasing the time she does have left. I did a lot of searching and out of the blue she suggested a retirement community. I hadn't hoped for anything that good and was really excited about her choice. We'd even found a wonderful place in SE Portland. She put a deposit down on it and talked excitedly about her new apartment as I drove her back to Gresham.
Then she didn't talk to me for 2+ weeks. I tried to call and the number had been disconnected. Her mobile phone went directly to voicemail. After a few days of that I finally called her husband's business line and after a moment of saying hello to me he asked if I wanted to speak with my Mom.
She was sick, coughing and had laryngitis so bad I could barely understand her. She'd been out at her husband's for a few days and was really ill again. She managed to tell me that she wasn't going to move to the apartment in town, she was moving back out to her husband's home in Corbett.
My Mom has been told by two different doctors that she cannot live out at her husband's house . There are too many things that could cause her to fall (and have) and there is so much mold and dust there that it compromises her lungs. Every time she is out there for more than a couple of days she gets sick, sometimes to the point of hospitalization.
My Mom has been in the hospital over 13 times in the past few years since marrying her husband and moving out there. She has also told me over and over and over that there are far too many painful memories in Corbett, where she was raised, and she doesn't want to live there. She really loves her husband, but living with him endangers her health and he refuses to move into "town" to be with her. Even the small suburb my Mom has been living in is too much town for him and he hates the idea of leaving Corbett unless his health makes him. His health is failing too, he has ALS, and she isn't capable of caring for him.
After my initial shocked, "What." I managed to calmly ask her to please phone me when she was well enough to talk to me about it.
That was at the beginning of the month and she hasn't called. There is a part of me that is worried that her health has worsened and no one has remembered to contact me. It is possible, but it is equally likely that she doesn't want to talk to me because it will make her feel bad and ashamed, which makes her angry with me.
I'm not calling. It grates on me daily, as does the lack of voicemails on the phone, but I resist the nagging urge to call her and make her feel better. At this point it isn't just anger and stubbornness on my part (which she'd accuse me of), but both of my therapists have advised me not to call while I'm feeling so hurt and angry.
I feel like a terrible daughter. I feel furious. I feel deeply ashamed of myself. I feel terribly hurt. I feel abandoned. I feel betrayed.
I am also profoundly sad that she has given up on the excitement and happiness I witnessed in her so briefly. It has had me recalling a line from A Bitterness by Mary Oliver, a poem I've mentioned in relationship to my Mom once before.
I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.
My Mom choosing to live in an environment that physically endangers her, choosing to reject the possibility of happiness and comfort, and finding ways to sabotage it, is my Mom stumbling on joy again. Regardless of how much I wanted her to make the right choice for herself, no matter how it made me feel so much relief and like my needs around her were being met because she made a healthy choice for herself, she stumbled. She had joy in front of her and she stumbled, just like she always has, my whole life.
Last night my EMDR therapist, PB, leaned in close to me, her hands on my knees, and said emphatically, "Your Mother is mentally ill. She can't change."
I'm still letting these words settle.
PB told me that it was time for me to write a letter to my Mom. I don't have to send it, but she thinks it is important for me to express the depth of betrayal and hurt I feel over all the times in my life my Mom stumbled and made choices that didn't take my needs into account. Giving voice to my anger and hurt in this way will let me return to the place where I can love my Mom without judgement. PB also suggested drumming and spending some time in a batting cage.
I do love my Mom. I do believe she was cheated by this life. I deeply want to see her comforted after all the pain I've watched her suffer my whole life. As a Buddhist I know we suffer when we cling to anything, but it is exceedingly difficult to not cling to the desire to see my Mom content and at ease.
So that I may not stumble upon the considerable joy in my life I am going to learn to give back the shame my family gave me, over and over. I will acknowledge that it is not unnatural for me to be angry about my childhood and angry that my Mom's abdicated the role of a parent, forcing it upon me for nearly all of my life. I will continue to try and make the right choices in my life; learning from my Mother's mistakes and breaking these toxic patterns in my family.
As painful as it is to take in, I hold close the knowledge that my Mom is mentally ill. I will hold this carefully so that I may love her without any hope that she'll ever grow up and make the right choices.
Mom Finds a Sand Dollar
I really treasure this picture I took of my Mom this spring. It is incredibly rare to capture of picture of her smiling and experiencing joy. My Mom has only experienced joy as a fleeting moment in her life, not a real presence.
Remembering Jennifer
I did go to Denver for Jen's memorial. There was never really any question in my mind that I wanted to be there, but it was a hard decision in many ways. Difficult in large part because CK was co-chairing an event in Portland the same weekend and wouldn't be able to travel with me. A good friend offered to travel with me and I lucked out in being able to get her on the same flights that I was booked on, particularly for the flight home to Portland out of Denver International Airport, which has the "advanced imaging systems" well in place.
I haven't wanted to fly anywhere at all since TSA began their policy of doing invasive pat-downs if you opt-out of the full body scans. As someone who had at least one set of chest x-rays a year throughout my entire childhood and well into my 20s and 30s, I am mindful of how many times I get exposed to those kinds of radiation levels. Being asked to submit to a full-body x-ray type blast in order than some person in a dark room somewhere and peruse my nearly-naked image really kind of bothers me. It bothers me more to have a complete stranger, regardless of gender, touch me in my genital area and my breasts. It bothers me a great deal that to travel I must submit to being seen by a stranger nearly naked or submit to a level of touching that would be considered felony sexual assault if someone not in a TSA uniform attempted it.
So I felt I was faced with two choices that were not good for my physically or mentally. Given that I have a very small number of very private, but very meaningful, piercings, I worried that these appearing either on a full-body scan or during an invasive pat-down would be cause for even more invasive, triggering, traumatic treatment. By biggest concern was clearing security to come home and I was very worried that if things were traumatizing that I wouldn't be mentally capable of getting myself onto my plane. Having a friend travel with me helped alleviate these worries to the point that thinking of the travel didn't make me feel nauseous with anxiety.
As it was, I was on full-alert mode by the time we passed through security at PDX to board our plane to Denver. It was the way a TSA agent was telling a man in the security line behind me that he was going to give him a pat down. The agent carefully and clearly explained to the man traveling that he'd be running his hands over and around the buttocks, groin and genital area.
My travel companion hadn't even noticed. I had noticed and it made me shiver with anxiety despite my own uneventful trip through the security line. We made it to DIA without any problems, got our rental car, some amusement ensued around using the map function on my phone to try to get to a Whole Foods; we ended up at the distribution center near the airport.
We found the house and it swiftly filled up with college friends who had all come to Denver to honor Jen's life. I was so grateful for the simple lentil-based spaghetti sauce BD & VD had put together upon arriving to the house first. It was a huge relief to get there and have tasty, vegan food waiting for me.
It was on my third gin & tonic that I realized that my hyper-vigilance, which almost never turns all the way off, was out-of-control. I don't make ridiculously strong drinks, but under "normal" circumstances I'd certainly have noticed the affect of 3 drinks. I wouldn't have been so foolish as to get in the car and drive to prove to myself that I wasn't affected, but I know that if some emergency had arisen I would have been perfectly focused.
Even much later, after taking Xanax to help me sleep and give my muscles some relief from the tightness and muscle spasms, I was still completely wired. I was pretty much that way all weekend long and didn't manage to drop off into fitful, troubled sleep any earlier than 4AM. The first real sleep I managed to get was on the plane back to Portland.
The trip itself, seeing many friends from college, was bittersweet. I really enjoyed connecting with folks again, and it seemed right to share our sorrow about losing Jen. However, I felt I never left a state of hurt and shame. Many times I found myself feeling like I was not really a part, having not returned for my senior year.
Seeing my EMDR therapist a couple of days following we started to look at why talking about college just leaves me stuck in so much suffering. There is just so much shame for me around not finishing, feeling like I let myself down, my family down and my friends. Jen went through so much hell during what would have been our senior year. I feel like she'd tried to help me during my big crash our junior year, and my not being there for our senior year let her down.
I often felt like I kept monopolizing the conversation while in Denver. I just felt so awkward. I felt a lot of anger too at the advisers I had who utterly failed me. In hearing about how the school psychologist made some demands upon Jennifer her senior year I was angry for how she was treated, but even angrier that I never even know our college had any kind of mental health office at all. I was never told about one, referred to one... I don't know if it would have kept me from having a nervous breakdown, but it sure has hell would have been nice to know then that there was any kind of option.
VD, my other college best friend, reminded me that my two academic advisers were known assholes. While it was good to be reminded, it was also a reminder of just how little they did to help me. If I wasn't giving it my all, they didn't have much time for me. If I was floundering after being raped... they never asked. Not once. Instead I was told by both of them to get my shit together and get my grades back up.
Everything about college brings me around and around to being hurt, betrayed, and having my faith in men destroyed. From the fiance who raped me to my advisers who never tried to help in anyway. With that there's this constant feeling that all of that was my fault. My bad choices, my not saying "No" loudly or forcefully enough, my not standing up to my advisers.
Seeing my college friends kept me in a constant state of shame, hurt, and anger. On top of that the profound grief around Jen's death and terrible guilt that I should have done more to go see her while she was living. Stir in a good dose of awkwardness and the feeling like I was talking way, way too much.... Yeah, no wonder I didn't really sleep at all there.
Ultimately I am glad I went despite the deep discomfort I felt while there. Also despite the EMDR appointment afterward that left me totally unhinged in looking at all the stuff that's wrapped up in not finishing school. Reliving and pulling this stuff out into the light of day is contrary to everything I was taught (via intimidation, isolation and shame) as a child, but I do really see the correlation between the chronic pain I've had for over 11 years as well as a lifetime of insomnia.
I'm also glad I went for the time shared in the afternoon before Jen's memorial. We hung out in the morning and chatted. I made a paper memorial and MK told us about letterboxing. We set out to find a couple of letterboxes, only finding one. We gathered and did a small memorial of our own alongside a stream. We hung tokens we'd all brought and/or made into the tree above the stream. We hid a letterbox as a memorial for Jen. Then we all rushed back to change and go to the "official" memorial. These moments were the small window during which I felt a little more myself, and not emotionally raw and wired.
Stupa-inspired, ribbon & paper memorial with verse from the Diamond Sutra
Political Words
I never thought of the words "wife", "wedding" or "marriage" as terribly political or radical until CK and I celebrated our wedding and met our lack of marriage rights head on.
Since our marriage last September I've been using the word "wife" to refer to CK. I mean, she is the woman I'm married to, so it doesn't seem really far-fetched at all. There's a part of me that doesn't think much about it at all.
Why should I think twice about referring to the woman I married as my wife?
Then there's the rest of the time when I'm aware of just how political using the word "wife" to describe my female partner is. It is in the reaction I get from people, ranging from delight to confusion to disapproval, that I'm reminded that we've done something that is still considered very political.
I bridle at the suggestion that we had a "commitment ceremony". That phrase strikes me as just as dismissive of our relationship as "domestic partnership". Really all marriages are ceremonies of commitment, but we don't call them that. We call them wedding ceremonies and currently people have a tendency to categorize a wedding as something only heterosexual couples have.
When I refer to our wedding ceremony and our marriage I am often asked where we went. Our home state voted in a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being something only allowed to heterosexual couples. Invariably I will be asked about marriage being legal in Oregon when I say that we held our wedding in the bandstand in a park near our home, "But I thought you couldn't marry legally in Oregon?"
And that is sadly correct. We cannot be legally married in Oregon, however, that doesn't mean that to us and to the gathered witnesses there that day, that what we celebrated was any else but our wedding. We often clarify that we were lovingly wed since we cannot currently be legally wed. Eventually the legality of the situation will catch up with what we know we celebrated with 70+ of our close friends and family.
We didn't invite our loved ones to our "Registration", we invited them to our wedding. We've never said happily that we were "Just Registered", we have instead told people we are newly wed. Quite honestly, I don't even recall the actual day we officially registered as domestic partners. It is easy to track down, I know we both made comments on Twitter about it. It isn't as important as the day we were wed, that's the anniversary we will celebrate.
To Have and to Hold
I love thinking of CK as my wife, using that word to describe both myself and her. Each time I use that word I am reminded of the vows we made to one another, of our beautiful wedding day, and of our love for one another. I imagine this isn't so very different from a heterosexual couple referring to their spouse as "wife" or "husband".
I reject words like "partner" and "commitment ceremony". Those words do not apply to the marriage shared by my wife and I. If I say "wife" to someone and they respond back in calling CK my "partner", I will compassionately, but firmly correct that person. I find myself having to remind people that what CK and I have is a marriage, regardless of it being legally recognized by our state or country.
In rejecting those words I seek to normalize the idea that words like "wife", "spouse", and "marriage" should not be restricted to heterosexuals. When someone calls our marriage a "registered domestic partnership", calls my wife my "partner", or refers to our wedding as a "commitment ceremony", it hurts, it is disrespectful, and feels as though the speaker seeks to diminish the importance of our union.
As a further reminder about how same-sex couples feel about having their marriages legally recognized, check out some photos from recent marriages taking place in New York.
A Flickering Lamp
Last night I got some sad news, mostly unexpected. Although when I saw two words, "Call me." posted hastily to my Facebook page I already knew the worst news was about to hit.
On one hand, we're constantly surrounded by the worst news. Dictators inflicting violence upon people. Heads of state trying to legalese their way out of having sex with minors. Nuclear reactors on the brink of catastrophic meltdown. Thousands of Japanese lost in the earthquake and tsunami. Children being raped by gangs and then blamed for it. Children being tortured to death by the very people who should cherish and protect them.
Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.
Just go sip the daily news and be prepared for the worst. In fact we get such a steady stream of the worst that we're partially numb to it all the time.
On the other hand, it is the personal worst that still gets us.
It got me last night in the form of a phone call with one of my two closest friends from college. She asked me to phone so she could tell me that my other closest friend had lost her fight with cancer.
These two women were the ones that really helped me keep limping along my junior year. They were the ones I went to with the terrible letter from JM saying how sorry he was for raping me. The letter that stripped off every bit of disassociation my brain had put into that horrifying weekend and left me utterly shattered and suicidal.
Jen had been fighting cancer for months and months. The lack of clear understanding of where exactly it had started and how to most effectively treat it led her to refer to it as her "Special Snowflake" cancer. From the very beginning she's tried to keep positive and focused on kicking this cancer's butt. She'd even just posted an update to Facebook about her excitement about having tickets to see Duran Duran.
Front of shrine I made for Jen
And now? Now she's gone.
Yes, of course she lives on in our precious memories. Yes, I do believe that her indomnitable spirit, humor, creativity, and outspoken nature will most certainly move onward to her next incarnation. Yes, I know we'll all keep on humming and drumming through today, the next day, and so on. Until each of us is gone.
At the same time I am filled with anger for not going to see her. All those months I wasn't working. Flights to Denver are cheap. Jen's husband certainly would have come and fetched me from the airport. Heck, I could have even rented a car. Had I asked, CK would have helped me make it happen. But I didn't do any of those things. Instead I stayed home with my fear and dread.
Right now I'm still cycling between profound grief and being entirely awash in all the anger I've felt for letting connections falter and fade away. I am angry for all the missed good-byes. Angry for all the unfinished conversations. Angry for the good-byes that ended in recriminations that were never resolved and never can be resolved.
And I miss her. I miss every single conversation. Every single crazy idea, especially the ones we went through with. I miss the late night insanity. I miss the silly books, the music, the cooking, the sarcasm, the compassion. I miss her laughter.
Goodbye Jen
**My reference to our lives going on "humming and drumming" is inspired from a poem by Northwest poet David Wagoner. Although Jen wasn't killed by violence her cancer surely killed her, so it seems fitting to include the whole of the poem to honor both Jen and the poet.
Jen would have approved of honoring the poet.
Plainsong For Everyone Who Was Killed Yesterday
You haven't missed anything yet:
One dawn, one breakfast, and a little weather,
The clamor of birds whose names
You didn't know, perhaps some housework,
Homework, or a quick sale.
The trees are still the same color
And the Mayor is still the same mayor, and we're not
Having unusual for lunch.
No one has kissed her yet
Or slept with him. Our humdrum lives
Have gone on humming and drumming
Through one more morning.But for a while, we must consider
What you might have wished for
To do or look like. So far,
Thinking of you, no one has forgotten
Anything he wanted to remember.
Your death is fresh as a prize
Vegetable- familiar but amazing,
Admirable but not yet useful-
And your in class
By yourself. We don't know
Quite what to make of you.You've noticed you don't die
All at once. Some people, like me,
Still offer you our songs
Because we don't know any better
And because you might believe
At last whatever we sing
About you, since no one else is dreaming
Of singing: Remember that time
When you were wrong? Well, you were right.
And here's more comfort: all fires burn out
As quickly as they burn. They're over
Before we know it, like accidents.You may feel you were interrupted
Rudely, cut off in the middle
Of something crucial,
And you may even be right
Today, but tomorrow
No one will think so.
Today consists of millions
Of newsless current events
Like the million of sticks and stones
From here to the horizon. What are you
Going to miss? The calendar
Is our only program.Next week or next year
Is soon enough to consider
Those brief occasions you might rather
Not have lost- the strange ones
You might go so far
As to say you could die for:
Love, for example, or all
The other inflammations of the cerebral
Cortex, the astounding, irreversible
Moments you kept promising yourself
To honor, which are as far away
Now as they ever were.
I Miss the Disassociation
I learned the art of "checking out" early. I would shift my attention from my body to some small detail of the moment. The vivid colors of cartoons on the television. The quality of the morning sunlight coming in through the north facing windows of my Mother's bedroom. The pattern of the paint and plaster on a ceiling. Code. Work. Writing ideas.
You get the idea. Something I could make so deeply engrossing that I was no longer connected to my body. I was outside of what was happening to my body. It is a pretty useful defensive tool and it has got me through abuse, doctor's exams, and dental work.
As a Zen practitioner we work toward being present to the moment. Fully conscious of the whole moment. The sensations of the body. The speeding of the mind. The sounds, textures and entirety of the present moment.
When I first was given the practice of Metta from my teachers it was profoundly difficult for a long time. I could send Metta all the live-long day to people I knew, people I was neutral toward, and even became more comfortable cultivating loving-kindness toward people I found difficult.
Where I got stuck was cultivating loving-kindness toward myself. The idea with Metta is that you start with yourself, filling yourself with so much loving-kindness that it very naturally extends outwards to benefit all living beings. I was right there with the benefits to all living beings, but not myself.
I realized with some shame that when I tried to focus on myself I'd "check out". Many people have a struggle with their inner critic who finds any number of reasons why they don't deserve loving-kindness, but I didn't get that. I just left the scene.
My teachers gave me all kinds of ideas on how to stick with myself. After many months, well over a year, of working with Metta practice, I can finally stick with myself. I built up slowly through the phrases, getting stuck on wishing myself happy for quite some time. Now though I can even find myself truly wishing that I be free from fear and anxiety, may I be peaceful and happy. I also sometimes add an additional loving wish that I be free from shame.
In this case it has felt like a victory to not "check out" (such a gentle way of saying "disassociate"). However, I've noticed in the past few months that I don't really check out anymore. I'm going through a period right now where it doesn't feel like progress or healing at all. It feels like I've lost one of my best allies.
I find myself fully, wholly present to what is happening to my body and mind. While at times it is great and other times tedious (chronic pain is, above all things, tedious), there are other times when it is truly horrifying and awful. I feel utterly defenseless against memories both mental and somatic. At those times I really grieve the loss of my ability to disassociate.
Don't know when or how it happened, but I feel bereft. I'm sure there's some combination of Yoga, Zen and EMDR therapy at work in this.
I am assured by both therapists that it is very certainly progress even though it feels like a terrible loss. They've also pointed out the progress I've made in being my own advocate and asking for what I need. My cognitive therapist even noted that I've been able to more clearly articulate events that have happened.
At this point I'm just going to accept that it is progress and stick with things. But I miss it.
A Love Like That
An Artist Trading Card I made recently reminded me of the sun. It was for a trade around a theme of a word chosen by the recipient to inspire them in 2011. My recipient asked for a zentangle with the word "Cherish". When I completed it, it reminded me of the sun.
Cherished Heart (watercolor & ink)
And then I was reminded of a poem by Hafiz that I just love:
The Sun Never Says
Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,"You
Owe me."Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.
Breath. Metta. Rumi.
The past several months has been an interesting journey. This time last year I was making the decision to leave my job of 7-and-a-half years and leap out into uncertainty. The leap was made far easier due in part to a generous severance package and in larger part because my wife was such a huge support.
When I began that journey a Dharma sister encouraged me to think of it as a sabbatical. She'd gone through a somewhat similar period of joblessness and it was how she approached that time. During her sabbatical she dove deeply into Zen practice, attending sesshin monthly.
Given such a powerful example I too used the time to dive deeply into practice, but in a profoundly different way. To the appearance of my community I've withdrawn from practice, at least from regularly showing up as part of a community of practitioners. I've also been doing a whole lot more therapy around the underlying events and present-day triggers of my PTSD -- which is a pretty profound practice to stick with.
The question I came back to again and again these past months is this: what is left when I strip away all the striving?
My profound drive to be A Good Student has really been revealed to me. What I've learned about this motivation requires a dedicated post, but it has been very interesting. What I know now is that this powerful urge is helpful, when used wisely, it is also not my practice and shouldn't drive my practice any longer.
I didn't last much longer than 2 months into my sabbatical when the reality of no longer having an active title attached to my name, and the potential monetary possibility such a title implies, hit me. I was unemployed. That's when the big whoosh of uncertainty hit me.
What if I couldn't find a job? This consumed me. All of the worry around it ending with being left alone, homeless. Real terror at being groundless in many ways.
I was just Sherri. Not Sherri, the Systems Analyst. And not Sherri, the yoga teacher (at least not actively being paid to teach, really I will never stop embodying a yoga teacher). Although I was still striving to be The Good Student.
What is practice now? What is left? Seeing my driving urge to be approved so clearly I stepped back from practice, rather than dive more deeply in.
What is practice? Is it the teacher? Is it zazen (maybe)? Is it sitting in silence for hours on end? Is it sitting and being stripped down to nothing but absolute desolation and terror? Is it the lessons? Is it a place? Is it the cushion or bench you sit on?
What if you can't find your incense and your Buddha statue is in a box? Mine were for weeks, still are to, as a vast home improvement project began in October. I did make sure I knew where my seiza bench was, but the rest? The important Stuff I associate with my practice? Well, that's in boxes.
What's left? What is left away from teachers, places, rituals, schedules, chants, lessons... What is my practice when I strip it all away, pack it up in boxes, and stop trying to attain something.
That was it. I'd chanted *it nearly weekly for over a year.
...no cause, no cessation, no path; no knowledge and no attainment. With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajna paramita, and thus the mind is without hindrance.
There I was alone with my striving and what was my practice? What was left when I sat with my desire to be considered The Good Student? What was practice when I haltingly, painfully stopped trying to attain?
It was then I fell back into Yoga, as I learned to do during a truly ghastly night in my life during my first sesshin. Before Zen, before anything, there is Yoga for me. Even when I do not have an active class I am still fully connected to the Lineage of Yoga.
Unlike previous times times in my life I didn't immerse myself in a demanding course of yoga study, spending most days each week in rigorous practice (and injuring myself). What I fell back into was is for me the absolute foundation of my yoga practice.
Breath is left. Breath is always here and now. Well, until Breath isn't and then we're really involved with something aside from The Present Moment.
On my leg is tattooed the first three of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The tattoo takes up my lower right leg and culminates in a lotus on my right foot. It is the constant reminder of the path I walk.
Taken last year by my friend @spinnerin
The first sutra reminds us, "Now begins the practice of Yoga."
It is very specifically NOW. Now we practice. Now. Now. NOW!
Practice is always now. It is always here, always present. We carry the breath. Really, our breath carries us and we always have it as the guide of practice.
Now is the breath. It is always now, so we are always beginning the practice of Yoga.
The second sutra teaches that, "Yoga is the settling of the fluctuations of the mind."
Or, as I liked to poetically say to students, "Yoga is the settling of the mind into Silence."
When I follow the breath, feel it fully in my body, my mind settles. Yes, it is a constant practice because as soon as my mind settles, the thoughts still, and there is just breath... well, soon enough comes along another thought, worry, plan, song, regret, desire... And then Now begins my practice, again and again and again.
The third sutra: "With a settled mind we rest in the essential self."
I like that the third sutra reminds us that we rest. To me in points back to that words of the Heart Sutra, "...no path, no knowledge, and no attainment." We drop all of those things and rest. Still, present, breathing and resting.
So the breath, the foundation of Yoga is there. That is very certainly my practice.
What else? Metta is there. Only now it has become a looser, less rigid practice. I do still sit sometimes and mindfully do Metta practice for myself, for others, for all beings. But now I also find that opening my heart and mindfully sending loving energy that another being, or myself, be free of anxiety, fear, and shame. Wanting peacefulness, contentment and happiness in a open and loving way.
My Metta practice now flows in and out. It arises spontaneously as I wait in lines, am stuck in traffic, or find frustration arising. Out of Metta flows deep compassion, deeper connection, and more joy. Like my fixed ideas about how my zazen should look, I stopped trying to attain some idea of the "perfect Metta practice."
I find that the same small piece of Rumi's writing that I've written about several times here stays lodged in there. A few weeks ago one of my teachers even referred to it as a koan. It just persists, becomes part of my breath and hums along amidst it all. It informs me, when I let it.
It is such a short piece:
Ask!
Step off
proudly into sunlight,
not looking back.
Take sips of this pure wine being poured.
Don’t mind that you’ve been given a dirty cup.
Yet how it informs my life, my practice, can be summed up in even fewer words.
Ask.
Step off proudly.
Don't mind.
These are all hard lessons for me to learn, but vital: The ability to request what I need in life. The confidence to start new things and take pride in my accomplishments. Not seeing myself as stained by the trauma and abuse I survived.
When I stop trying to attain, stop trying to fit some ideal I have in my head, stop trying to define my practice by who I sit with, where, when and for how long... When there is no path, no knowledge and no attainment there is still practice.
It ebbs and flows for each of us. It changes, it grows, it shrinks, it transforms, and it is part of us. Practice is nothing outside, and is all inside.
I'm not saying I won't have teachers in my life, but I've been able to soften up around the urgency of having a teacher. I often tell my own students that DVDs and books are great, but a real and present teacher will spot subtle, but important points to work on. However, I would consider it equally valuable to know that a student is practicing without me. I guess what I've been able to let go of, like the idea that my identity is somehow tied to the job title I have or the income I make, is that I'm defined by the name of my teacher.
What is left behind is my practice. My breath. The flow of Metta. The reminders from Rumi.
These things, aligned with my commitment to the Yamas, Niyamas, and the Buddhist Precepts, are what remain and ultimately what inform and guide my practice.
*The "It" I refer to a couple of times is the Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra. As the Ino, or chant-leader, for my Zen community, I would chant this as part of service once a week at our Zen temple.