Grinding Gears
After my massage today I feel more tired, the pain across the lower back is less intense, and the raw emotional energy right at the top has settled a little. Not enough, I still feel tired out and a bit thin on resources, but a little better. While Beth worked I could feel some of the intensity rushing up to the top, pain and energy moving around. Reached the point where I was no longer talking so much as I was just breathing. Sending the energy of the breath through my body, drawing in renewing energy and moving it through the areas clamoring from Beth's attention.
Made sambar in the pressure cooker! Comes out very tasty and very quick. I've really wanted to make it for a while, it has been several months since the last time I made it. CK met me at Beth's and we rode back to the house together. We all hung out and played a round of Magic.
Everyone is tired today. Tired from lack of sleep, an excess of emotional energy, and too much to do. It was interesting to see how communication degrades when reserves are lower. Almost as if our gears are turning at different speeds and the teeth no longer connect up as neatly. Trying to be mindful of this, not reading anything further into the evening.
Tomorrow will be very busy, rather long. Going to try to bicycle into work. Ride home, teach yoga, then go to Tuesday zazen, discussion and service. A person is needed for Ino duties and I said I could come. AM will bring me something to eat quickly in the car and we will just get there on time for sitting. I'm glad to be going to a Tuesday evening gathering, but it will be a very long day!
Don’t Listen to Instinct
In the early morning hours I had dreams of being lost in some airport in the desert. Separated from both AM and CK, phone not working correctly, not fluent in the language spoken around me, and entirely disoriented, lost. "Crisis dreams" are what AM calls them. I have all kinds of variations on them, often related to travel.
It had been such a rush of a day yesterday, my anxious feelings still present making it hard to communicate with either AM or CK well. Going hiking in the Gorge, having lunch out, going to a movie (found it pretty lame... glad I saw it at a second run brew pub), dropping off the visiting friend, getting CK's bike, going back to my house just to grab stuff and bicycle to CK's flat. I was missing being at home, missing my cats, and still utterly thrown off by trying to work with the anxiety CK was experiencing.
We'd hit one of those bumps last night; where we freeze up and fear rushes into the place where our connection resides. It becomes excruciatingly difficult for me, own fears that I've hurt her, that I've screwed up fundamentally, from rushing to the forefront. Certainly one of those areas where I have to fight the instincts that clamor. Easy to link that directly to dreams of being lost and disconnected from the people I love. And so I woke up with tears already welling up in my eyes.
Just barely time enough to get the tears calmed down, hiding just below the surface again. Time to reconnect then rush off to teach class. So grateful for 3 students only, one of them CK. Having to rush off to teach was frustrating because CK had just told me that she loved me and we were able to be close with less fear. Once I got into the rhythm of class I found it welcome in that it connected me back to the calming of my mind that comes from teaching.
I rode over to New Seasons from the community center to pick up some DLPA, the Arbor Lodge store specially stocks what seems to be the only vegan variety available in the U.S. Once I got home AM and I decided to run over to India-4-U to see how Kumar and Alka were doing as well as pick up a few things we've run out of. We had some very tasty lunch at Red & Black and picked up a "Bake in Black" t-shirt from Sweet Pea Baking Company.
The rest of the day AM and I have just hung out, talking, reading, and watching things on the Science channel. I feel just worn down, absolutely exhausted on so many levels. I'm so incredibly grateful I have a massage scheduled with Beth tomorrow, I really feel the need to have her help with the muscle spasms in my back and the energy of emotion that is so hot right now.
Just sitting with it I'm starting to get a feel for the subtle, nearly voiceless ways in which my PTSD manifests. Sometimes it is so obvious, so silly that it is easy to laugh at it and know it is wrong (like this morning having the thought that it is so hard for CK to have space to cry because I'm so busying crying all the time).
Children who are abused cannot comprehend that something is wrong about the adults around them and therefore assume they are at fault, to blame for the situation and/or deserving of the punishment. No matter how many times my rational mind may understand that something is in no way caused by me, a part of me reacts in shame for having done wrong. It becomes another practice to resist the initial instinct that signals I've done wrong and/or am in danger. I know that these past couple of weeks I've been trying to practice this but it doesn't come easily yet and I feel as though I tire easily.
Absolute Beginner
I feel really resistant to the practice of writing tonight. I really don't want to write and am relying upon the "practice" part of this to get me going. I'm tired physically and mentally. My emotions still feel right up at the surface, unsettled. Maybe not as bad as last July, so some progress, but like my going up hills on bicycle, it feels slow.
AM and I, as well as CK and I, have been talking about going to the NVC (non-violent communication) class being offered by our Zen community next month. Learning how to more compassionately express our needs and emotions to one another. I am looking forward to this chance to learn really useful skills together although it is tough since right now my emotional stuff feels so present and big.
I'm listening to Absolute Beginners right now and there's a sweet irony to it. My feeling so inadequate these past few days, all the emotions and challenges that my family relationships bring up, fits with the idea of a beginner in one view. I don't feel very comfortable being a beginner for the most part. In most everything I do there's some level of anticipatory-anxiety, dread.
There's the other side of being a beginner, the state in Zen described as Shoshin. Shunryu Suzuki was known for saying that in the beginners mind there are many possibilities, in the experts mind there are few. My mind in the state of beginner sees endless possibilities for humiliation, retribution, anger, shame, and utter failure. My inner critic summons up wild waves of fear and blinds me to any other outcomes. The work in retraining my mind is to see the possibilities for joy, for success & accomplishment, pride, happiness, and peace. Not to try and eradicate the thoughts based in fear, just to achieve parity in vision so I perceive the thoughts based in peace equally.
Downtime
Woke up still tired and wishing I could stay in bed. AM asked if I wanted him to drive me down instead of biking from CK's and part of me wanted to do that. Instead I got up, took a hot shower, we went over to CK's so I could get my bike.
When I got in there I found her looking unrested and hectic, rushing around picking up socks and things, asking me if some socks were mine as I walked in. She revealed that she not slept well again; unsettling dreams cascading into one another all night. Instead of hopping on the bike and rushing off to the morning keynote presentations I sat down and listened to her talk. After a little while and time for many hugs I rode the rest of the way down to the convention center.
CK had told me that she'd been researching jobs for me, not to try and "solve" everything, just to give me ideas. I felt a momentary rush of surprise that she would do that for me, followed by the understanding that of course she'd do this for me, then just gratitude that she wants to be a part of my life all the time, for real. Both things stayed with me all morning. The idea that I really should look at the job market again and the gratitude for the amazing relationships I'm blessed with.
Talks this morning ranged from amusing, to interesting, to rather dry. I logged into
work and exchanged messages about training. I felt less of the feelings of inadequacy that had swelled up in me yesterday and even managed to chat with some people during the morning break. I mentioned the idea of doing a presentation next year on change management and the people I talked with said it was a topic they were interested in.
I was happy to get an email back from CK during the final series of talks letting me know she was feeling better than she had this morning, less exhausted. Shortly after that she popped onto the IRC channel set up for OSCON, we chatted for the last bit I was there. Then I was back on the bicycle to home, I thought it would be a good test since it would be about the same as coming home from downtown.
After I made it home AM and I got some pizza at Hot Lips then picked up a couple of things at
TJ's. Checked into work, let myself look at some job listings on Craigslist just to get an idea, and talked with AM for a while then rode over Prananda for a class. Just myself and another student but Joy held the class anyway. It was a nice class and a good way to transition from OSCON to "normal" again.
Nice having downtime tonight. AM made tortilla soup for dinner and we sat on the deck having some as the sun set. CK is spending time with a friend who is up from San Francisco. We've kept close over messages. It helps to have the easy, immediacy of communication when we're not together. Little reminders of love and desire.
Thrashed on by the Inner Critic
Well, this has been a long day. CK and I even slept in some so we'd have more rest and more quiet time together before heading off to OSCON for the day. We felt we were doing a bit better, reconnecting together again. It had been tough yesterday as the sheer pressure of being at the conference together had taken a toll on the somewhat emotional place we'd been in on Sunday. There is just so much mental input, constant noise of people talking, and countless screens to watch.
After having trying to be present through days of feeling a real disconnect from CK, trying to connect, then dumping ourselves into the mass of people that is OSCON, we were really feeling the intensity of the lack connection was producing irritation, anxiety, and just draining us both utterly. I took a bath, we ate a little, and felt somewhat better.
Laying down to cuddle and rest I felt a rush of anxiety come back. The unreasonable flash of panic earlier that the stress of a conference full of geeks would be the end of us was echoed back to me. I finally thought that the anxiety that I'd been experiencing when we'd been together earlier was being recalled too. All of it just flashing through me again. We ended up drifting into sleep.
Sleeping in, waking up without rushing out the door helped as well. And then we were off to the conference. At some point during a series of talks about Perl I just felt the anxiety hit me. I felt so inadequate. I felt utterly outclassed and a poser of a programmer. It felt like I shouldn't be there at all. I didn't like diving back into the boys' club that is technology.
AM and I had dinner together and talked about the just drained, anxious way I was feeling. He was able to note how he just feels lonely without me around. Our friendship is so close that he really feels my absence. In talking to him, in being reassured again that he wasn't angry, wasn't going to treat me to snide comments and coldness like my ex-husband had done so often, I was able to see my fears are too big. He is OK even if his loneliness brings up irritation. He isn't angry at me. He truly wants to help foster the happiness that CK & I have in our relationship. When I'm feeling so anxious it is hard to relax into trusting this, hard practice.
Talking to AM this evening I had a realization about some of the anxiety about feeling inadequate professionally, intellectually at OSCON. The last time I did a conference like this I still weighed at least 80 pounds more than I do now. I still had the body armor of my weight, my long hair, anger, and a carefully constructed persona that included an intense bravado, a "fuck you" attitude.
Because of my practice I don't have any of that anymore. I'm present with all of the feelings of inadequacy that I was distracting myself from. I wasn't expecting to have a run in with my inner critic this week and it hurts. I practically begged to get to come to OSCON, I've been so excited about it.
I ended up not going to the Dharma center tonight. Showing up, leaving the merit list for the week, and pleading illness. Hogen asked if I could sit with all of this and I told him I couldn't there, not in zazen. I was too nauseated and my hips and back hurt so much. Once I'd had some tea and some real food that nausea passed, suggesting blood sugar contributing to some of the feelings of illness.
I'm trying to refocus on the encouraging people I've met. Suggestions of else I could be doing besides programming have occurred to me. There has been things that felt like what I wanted, more community to learn from. Trying to work on that inner critic.
CK had it pegged perfectly, how the inner critic was speaking through me today. In talking about what I want to do, I focused on everything I think I don't do well. I had noted that I'm having a difficult time articulating what I think I'm really good at.
My not being able to articulate my true ability, that is the inner critic with hands over my eyes and blinding me. The ability to clearly detail everything that is not a strength, that's very obviously that critic.
mad crush of geeks
Today at OSCON was the craziness of the expo floor opening. T-shirts, Mac Air prize give-aways, flying toys, headhunters...
And relationship stuff that feels hard to navigate and that always leaves me feeling a little stressed. Hard to feel connected to either CK (stress and lack of quiet) or AM (because I'm not there).
My back and legs really ache. The combination of biking, tiredness, stress, sitting in conference chairs, standing talking... not so great. I'll be happy for my massage therapy appointment with Beth on Monday.
I'll be happier next week to return to something even slightly resembling "normal" schedule.
Irritation
I am so tired, exhausted really. My head aches from the effort of attention, sinus pain, and just an ache from having a headache all day. My eyes are tired from processing data on screens large and small. Today I have awoken at 6:15, had a shower, got dressed, bicycled to CK's, discovered a sweaty back from bicycle & a cotton shirt don't mix, changed to a t-shirt of CK's, had toast, bicycled to OSCON, sat in on a very good workshop on PHP, had nearly the exact same lunch as yesterday (not worth elaborating upon... salads), went to what I feel was a terrible workshop on PHP, left early, got gvim working on my Mac, ate some soup, changed clothes, bicycled to Dishman, taught a yoga class, rode back to CK's flat, changed yet again, bicycled back to OSCON, and listened to various presentations & awards (geeky, inspiring, mind-boggling, funny...) until 10PM, and finally CK & I rode back to her flat! I promptly put on my pyjamas and sat down with a thump on the bed.
CK heated up more soup for us, which helps as has the water. Seeing the day up there in a list gives me perspective on why I'm so tired and hurt so much. It is a day that really presses on my resources rather hard. Although there are evening events at OSCON for two more nights, tomorrow won't be so long as CK & I already plan to leave a bit earlier, rest a little, then go to a yoga class. Thursday will be zazen and by then the sheer crush of so many people, so much talk, countless slides projected on screens will make settling into silence such a blessed gift.
The workshop we went to in the afternoon was very disappointing to me. Not only did I find it to not be very professional, even accounting for cultural differences (presenter is from France), but on a level where I felt that economically it wasn't worth the time spent, especially for someone like her who doesn't have a big company footing the bill to attend (which should be her choice to be irritated about, I didn't need to take it on to be annoyed on her behalf). CK finally propelled us towards going home early to rest a bit before I had to teach, plus I'd have time to eat a little. I hadn't wanted to go, wanting to stay and salvage the 90 minutes that weren't useful. She finally noted that I was having a hard time letting it go. And I was. The ride home helped burn off some of it as did fixing something on my Mac that was making it hard for me to work on code projects.
The irritation feels pretty far away now. I can look at the afternoon and spot it, but it lacks the immediacy that was making it hard to let go of. With that time shift I wonder how one irritation in the day might rile up other feelings of irritation that lurk below the surface. It is a slippery slope to follow irritation down into anger.
I used to have the mistaken impression that in Buddhism anger isn't allowed, better yet we somehow transcend it. I asked Hogen about it and he made sure to reinforce to me that it isn't that we never feel anger, that's unreasonable because we will feel anger. It is that we don't give rise to the anger. We don't let it manifest into unkind words spoken out of that heat that is just a few degrees hotter than irritation.
So CK became my important Sanga of one today. A fellow traveller upon the Way who merely noted that I wasn't letting go. Had she not brought me back, giving me perspective, I may have easily let the irritation rise into anger.
OSCON08 by Bicycle
At OSCON today I was telling CK how much I enjoy sharing the experience of being at the conference, learning with her, that it feels very organic and collaborative. So often in the past it felt very competitive, having to prove myself as a woman in unix systems administration. Now at work I more of a coach so there isn't that feeling of collaboration in the same way. Plus this is another way in which she teaches me, we share learning, and that is very precious. I am enjoying sharing the challenge of learning to bicycle again with CK and how I'm able to actually just relax into her taking care of me.
Back at the house after what felt like a long, but possible bicycle ride to the house AM had experienced an unsettled day. We talked about one thing that kept at him was that despite of how Love has been written about but that some people just will not know that kind of connection. I especially liked his comment that we don't find love, we are conduits for the energy of Love in the universe. It reminded me of the idea that we are growing, cultivated by our relationships with one another.
Revisting the Genjo Koan by Bicycle
Oh I slept so poorly last night even having taken some melatonin. I tossed and turned from some combination of pain and travel dreams. That busyness of rushing to a destination, unsettled. I could not help but whimper a little when my alarm went off at 6AM. I hauled myself out of bed and got myself together, onto the bicycle and off to CK's.
I made it a little more quickly to her flat this time and had some breakfast while she finished getting ready. It took us only 10 more minutes to bicycle over to the Convention Center for OSCON. We locked up and watched all the guys walking by with badges on. We laughed at how relieved we were to be there together. She's not been to an event like this before as an attendee and I've not been since 2000.
We got through registration, through the Starbuck's line, and onto our respective sessions. I had all Perl workshops today while she did one on PHP and another on A/B testing. We were fed salads topped with grilled veg and tofu, which was pretty good. Tomorrow she and I both will be in PHP workshops together. I'm looking forward to it a lot.
The ride home was hard since the wind was blowing right down N Williams making the hill climb up to Alberta challenging. Other bicyclists passed me in a parade of faster rides powered by legs more trained than mine currently are. I just kept pressing my feet into the peddles and trying to breathe through my nose, control my breath.
CK asked me later if a year ago I would have thought I'd be commuting on a bicycle. I'm so thrilled that I can do this, very surprised too. I didn't really think it would be possible to find something that I felt both comfortable and safe on. It is intimidating to be out in traffic again, I found the big trucks loud and close as they rushed past me on Russell. As tough as I find the hill up to Alberta, I'm still so grateful to be huffing & puffing my way up it.
In answering her I found myself stumbling over one of Chozen's Dharma talks from last winter. The sangha had been studying Genjo Koan for several weeks. One evening Chozen focused on the image of a boat that reappears in Dogen's lines. She talked about how we feel when on that boat, with nothing but ocean in four directions. How would we see the ocean at that point, how is the boat viewed.
In that kind of situation we tend to cling to the boat, the idea that the ocean is enemy at that point. If we loose the boat, we are consumed by the ocean. We don't see the limitless, boundless, teeming depths of the ocean as our element, we cannot sink into the idea of merging with it, abandoning our little boat and our wish to see land soon.
Chozen taught that our mind is that boat floating upon the boundless ocean of the BuddhaDharma, but our tendency as we age is to close our mind which shrinks that boat. We start telling ourselves that we're too old to learn something, no longer willing to try new things, and believing we're not capable of something. Chozen found herself, at 60 learning how to play piano for the first time.
And I find myself riding a bicycle. My shoulders, mid-back, side ribs and chest ache. We realized that it is most likely because I'm gripping the handlebars with such tension as I learn this skill all over again. Still, I'm making my way through trucks and the whoosh of cars.
The Soil in Which I Grow
I'm in a spot where I'm winding down, between laundry loads -- last two are folded & put away, the last for the night is in the dryer. In what I find to be the meditative space of folding laundry I was thinking about the weekend I'd had. The bicycling on Saturday and a day of shared chores & dinner today. The time talking in between to CK and with AM. The feelings that come up around being cared for.
I got back to my laptop after getting the laundry done for the moment, the leftovers put away, and sat down to most lovely message from CK. She commented to me how she used to think of relationships as plants, things to be tended. She said that now she saw each of us as a plant, the relationship is the soil in which we all grow.
My eyes closed to just let the words settle. It is so lovely, so apt.
Hogen has told me that all the terrible things that I have survived can become potent medicine. Something so powerful and healing is able to be distilled of awfulness. I had shared this with CK earlier while lying on the bed upstairs feeling the breeze from off the river move over us. I was very mindful in repeating this to her how hard this is to me, how often I observe myself trying to hide or push away the the parts of my history that arouse shame, fear, deep grieving, and worry.
I thought of our compost pile. The things which make a plant grow big, healthy, and in the case of vegetables, most nourishing. Our vegan house sends that majority of all food waste and scraps into the compost. Quite often things go into a very large container at the side of the sink, the mostly clear plastic presents a view of decomposing plant matter. This stuff that looks rather nasty to my eyes will go out into the pile, be broken down further, mixed with clippings, and existing compost. The stuff will get hot, chemical reactions happening all the time, beneficial stuff culturing & growing until the whole of it steams with energy.
In the end it is a beautiful nourishing thing. The compost builds up the hard, clay soil here, slowing helping what wasn't nurturing much of anything into something that will grow the plants that in turn will nourish us. The growing of food is such a direct and intimate relationship with what we eat; all made more productive by having rich soil, compost.
The somewhat overdone plant analogy is a lotus. Out of the nasty, black muck of a pond's bottom a lotus grows. From the deep darkness it reaches upwards to produce the most radiant of blossoms. The lotus represents purity, renewal, creation -- all because it grows out of the nourishing slime.
So is my history. Damned awful stuff I went through, but out of that nastiness I have not only managed to grow, but now find myself thriving. Like the compost pile, it is all thrown in, stirred around, and in the steaming heat all is distilled into goodness, potent medicine.When I allow myself to feel the range of things, even the nasty stuff, I grow. I grow in the rotting, steaming compost of my past and I grow in love.