Fear, Pain, and Absence
Today was a busy day. I was tired out and slept until 9:30, which was a nice indulgence since I haven't felt like I've had enough sleep all week. It was interesting to compare notes with my co-classmates in the teacher training on Saturday; many of us have not slept at all well this week. JW, who also had slept poorly this week, told us that over the years she's noted that for the few days before and after a full moon people seem to have their sleep disrupted. Of course I find myself writing this past 11PM tonight so I'm not exactly getting back on track!
AM made us coffee and toasted an English muffin for me for breakfast. It was nice to sit with him and share breakfast together. Then it was a rush to take a hot shower, which was worth it as it helped the ache I was feeling after the yoga workshop yesterday. I got ready and went to taught my regular Sunday beginning yoga class at the community center.
Z waited until all the other students left to speak with me. She told me that she once again enjoyed the class, that she enjoys every class. The ability to enjoy my classes comes from the space I create; she said that it is because I continually remind everyone to have compassion for their bodies and selves. To move to the point of intensity, stay with it, breathe into it, but to resist pushing past it. Z let me know that this allowed her to let go of judging her body & its ability and just do yoga.
Once again I found myself humbled by a student, by their complimentary words. Compassion is the foundation for my practice and the thing I hope students learn. I know how judging I am of myself, how difficult this practice is for me to apply to myself. It is so common to struggle with the Inner Critic that my teachers offer a weekend retreat on the topic at least twice each year. In order to help me learn more about this for myself, I try to encourage my students to cultivate compassion. To have a student tell me this exact thing is what helps her is really very special.
After this I hung out with DW and AM at the house until it was time to head out again. I popped by CK's to gave Atari some food and love. Mostly he ignored me. Then off to the Dharma Center to co-teach the last class combining a physical asana practice with the contemplation of the last three Paramitas (perfections). Tonight MB and I read passages to call the students' minds to the Paramitas Sila (ethical, skillful way), Dhyana (meditation, concentration), and Prajna (wisdom).
Then sitting zazen in the chilly zendo; 61 degrees, Fahrenheit and falling tonight. I'd forgotten my dinner and wrap at the house. AM surprised me by bringing my dinner during asana practice, but my wrap was something I missed all evening. When it was my turn for sanzen I went downstairs and talked with HB about my fear around my pain during sesshin.
He gave me several suggestions, like trying seiza (kneeling, I've avoided because of the surgery in my right knee when I was 19), drawing my mind to all the places in my body that felt fine, and when all else fails just standing on my zabuton. Beyond that, if all those things didn't help during sesshin we'd just address it then. He did comment upon my fear over something so many months away. I noted in response that this fear has been eating away with me for two years and is truly the root of my resistance to sesshin.
I felt better after talking to him, less helpless. I went back upstairs to my cushion and began to inspect my body for what did not ache. I found it very easy to settle into the area of my digestive system and notice that my stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys, small & large intestines and bladder all felt absolutely fine, good really. The next kinhin period I spotted a passed seiza bench on the shelf, snagged it the next time I went past, and set it on my zabuton. For the last two zazen periods I sat seiza and found that my knee was OK. Even through the padding I felt the hardness of the bench on my left sitbone, however, I was able to get through the sitting period. On Thursday I'll try using the bench with the gel pad I have.
Picked up DW after sitting was over and drove by CK's to take care of Atari. He was happy to see me and rolled around on the carpet until I rubbed his belly for a while. I gave him some kibble and his pill, right as I was leaving CK sent me a message. At the house I phoned her and told her about the day.
I miss her. I wish I were there with her or that we were just in our usual routine. I don't miss her like this, even when we're not together, when she's just a few miles away.
It isn't that I don't enjoy the time I've spent with AM and DW, time I'd usually be with CK, at her flat. I've really been glad to have the time with them. The time with them isn't a replacement for time with CK, it is just good time with them. There isn't some comparison or measurement. I just miss her. I feel the absence of her place in the humming and drumming of my daily life.
Resistance, Movement
Yesterday I was all excited to tell KH about planning to attend the loving-kindness sesshin. Then she told me that to take Jukai I have to have attended two sesshin! I really felt my heart sink. It has been so difficult to get to where I feel up to even trying one, but two in the space between April and October seems overwhelming. KH said not to worry, I could always take it the next year.
Sideways
The morning started with my not feeling entirely rested and grateful that AM was driving me into the office. While getting ready I checked into to work email and found that the contract had not been ratified by the union. We're back under the threat of work stoppage and everything that entails. I've asked for a waiver for Saturdays since I have teacher training. Not working a contingency schedule yet, but just trying to plan for it.
In the still moments before sleep
At times the still moments before sleep are a difficult ones, when I slip into barely remembered trauma, flashbacks surface and I don't sleep much the rest of the night. Sometimes it is the most productive analysis and programming I do for work. Other times some kind of ah-ha type of moment settles into the stillness.
Recognizing Anxiety
Woke up with a bit of a start when CK's alarm went off. Not being used to her setting one, much less one that made intermittent buzzing noise, I was disoriented at first. Then fell back asleep for a while longer. Yes, of course I know I should have leaped from the bed and gotten on with my day, but I felt so tired.
Mornings are like that. I really like the idea of getting up an hour earlier to do zazen and yoga practice before showing and heading into the office. It is rare that I have enough resources to get up some mornings, much less earlier. This is where my therapist would point out that I need to, once again, cut myself some slack since most people don't do all the things I do and manage chronic pain as well.
I have to admit that I am nervous about the teacher training starting tomorrow. I'm also feeling the hard work I've been putting in around my own intimacy issues, which is just draining and at times leaves me feeling emotionally raw and exposed. I can tell I've been anxious these past few weeks, my hands look a little bit up here and here. My dentist was also reminding me yesterday that that unless I'm chewing or talking my teeth shouldn't be touching.
On the positive side I made some progress at work today. Got MySQL up and running in my dev/test environment. Tomorrow I may even get to play at setting up a database and tables. I'll have a quick Denver trip next month -- they're getting together a team I was part of to celebrate our completing a project. Dinner out, the whole things. I feel a little small saying this, but I kind of wish we'd get recognized without a trip to Denver needed!
Hard Tension, Inconvenient Love
I am feeling compressed, compacted down. I ache physically all over and feel emotionally depleted. I am so tired of the tidal waves of grief and sorrow that is left over when I manage to talk myself out of the places of shame, fear, and anger. All that is left is absolute sorrow and I feel utterly flayed by it.
On the drive out to the monastery CK tried to get me to talk a little about what I'd been really struggling with these past several days and I stammered my way through some if it. The ugly shame pushed onto me at such a young age and seething below the surface, popping up to paralyze me in traumatic incidents. The fear the accompanies it all, that I'll be punished and/or humiliated.
We never made it inside once we arrived. Instead sneaking around the building into the gardens we went. Tension dodged our every step, biting at our heels whenever we would stop. I sat, sobbing, in the leaves by what I think of as my Jizo statue, the one that holds my messages to myself and is near to the plaques for Spalding and Buzz. The past several weeks and the stumbling on intimacy I was feeling, combined with the choking shame I had talked about in the car, the immense grief, and the consuming fear all flooded through me.
We tried to come around the kitchen side and go, but there were people there with lanterns. Nearly ran into others by the zendo. Finally we got to the gym side and I felt stricken when JH called out my name from where she stood by the greenhouse doors. I was anxious at her offering concern, compassion at seeing my face covered in tears. I feel guilty somehow for sneaking around a place so special to me, leaving the cookies I brought on the bench to be found.
The drive home was filled with tension so loud it seemed like a thing you could touch, burn your skin against. With it, for me was horrible, hopeless awful sorrow -- rushes of guilt, shame, fear streaking through it. It lessened when we talked briefly, the horrible roaring wind noise in my head let off a little, but I still felt taut with misery. I tried to just breath and feel my way towards something more real.
Once we got to the house she came in and we laid down in the relative cool of the bedroom. We picked our way through the terrible weight of the emotions that had be bearing down upon us the whole day. Finding the way back to one another through the mental noise and breathing together. Eventually, when we both felt reconnected to the present, to love, CK headed home.
And here I sit in the basement. Checking the hot line by phone and URL for news of the negotiation. I dislike these nights, the summers where August is up in the air until after an agreement is settled. More than anything, that uncertainty every two years out of three is the thing that most motivates me to want to do something else with me life.
CK is at her flat, taking care of Atari in the high heat of today. I sent her a message a little while ago that I'm still waiting. AM has gone up to bed. The room is filled with the sounds of my fingers on the keyboard and the fans stirring the air. Occasionally Bodhi moves in his sleep.
I feel still but in a tight way, not spacious. It is amazingly difficult and the timing is so bad. I found myself thinking tonight that I hadn't wanted to meet anyone at the time I was introduced to CK. I had just had an awful experience at having been triggered at work which spanned over two days and got so bad as to include an auditory flashback. Up until last October I'd felt safe at work, at least safe from my past triggering me emotionally. When I met her I was feeling so destabilized and unsure of myself. Regardless of any inconvenient timing I love her, it is just so undeniably true that I can only work from the point of that truth.
I would rather be sorting through all of this shit in my past alone, preferably in a cave somewhere so it wouldn't affect anyone around me. I wish I could either get good at this grieving stuff or just get over it. I feel like it pulls me away from the present and I resent this much additional pain in my life, having to incorporate it into the whole person I am. Sometimes, like tonight, there is no amount of reminding myself that I'm experiencing it in the present because in the past there was no safe way to express it leaves me feeling OK about it in any way.
command line metta
The impending rain was the last straw in my deciding not to bicycle to the office today. I'd woken up sometime before 4AM with a start (AM had crashed into the nightstand), then needed to go to the bathroom, then Phoebe waking me up to pet her. I dozed fitfully after that until the alarm sounded at 6:30. The thing that needed to give was my desire to bicycle in today.
I phoned CK to let her know, feeling a bit bad for doing so. The route to use had seemed a contentious topic, so calling to say I wasn't up for it regardless felt a bit silly. She was understanding, of course, agreeing that I am not equipped at all to deal with rain (either on my person or my stuff).
Work was filled with the usual work stuff, including an inability to access the documents I keep on Google. Some new measurements of the corporate IT and/or security folks. One more reason to give thought to looking to be somewhere smaller. Made some progress on some things, little on others. My head ached by the end of the day.
Quick snack at home, AM had made samosas and I had one with a little sambar. Then off to teach yoga. Tonight I rushed off to the dharma center afterward because they needed someone to chant and do bells. I volunteered because no one else had and somehow my mind things this is somehow a "make up" for bailing out on them last Thursday.
Tuesdays are seated meditation (zazen) followed by walking meditation (kinhin) then discussion, a bit more zazen, and ending with chanting service. I like the idea of this a lot, but since I finish teaching a little past 7PM each Tuesday it means to go I must wolf something down in the car on the way over to sitting at 7:30PM. Now having done it I can confirm that it really makes for a long day, even if I hadn't started out short on sleep.
We discussed the wrap up, well for me first discussion about the Bhramaviharas ("Divine Abodes") and I mentioned how difficult it is for me to apply these to myself. That I find it far easier to cultivate these things when I deal with others. Yes, things are still challenging when I interact with people closely, but it is far less effort to practice these states of being with others.
I especially mentioned how doing metta practice for myself is such a challenge, that is the time when I am most distracted. So distracted I don't even notice I'm no longer attending my meditation; I don't consciously distract myself so much as mentally shift to other activities. HB has suggested practicing in a mirror, but that really is difficult and even upsetting at times. GR offered the idea of doing it a different way, perhaps writing it out.
When we had our second sitting period I tried this. Not literally, no pen and paper. I envisioned the feel of my fingers on a keyboard, typing out the words. My mind saw the letters appearing on my monitor, in a terminal window. This variation helped, my mind stayed more focused on the metta practice and aware of the potential to wander off. After chanting service I made sure to share that the "writing" suggestion was very helpful.
And I'm finally in bed again. My right side especially hurts. From the side of the tail bone down the entire leg, lighting up the hip and knee particularly. I felt so drained from work today, not energized by it at all. I am trying to not lose track of how tired I am and how the down shift in the weather to mist, drizzle and rain leaves me feeling chilled and slow. These things and the rush of anxiety last week have left me feeling thin again. Some of the irritation at work is truly magnified by these things and not just work itself.
Bleh
I wanted to write about the ways in which I find being cared for by another person to be both wonderful and a bit scary at times. How sometimes it feels easier when AM cares for me, sometimes it feels easier when CK is doing it. Sometimes it just feels like a struggle regardless of who is trying to do it. Almost as if allowing myself to be cared for is creating a kind of vulnerability I am uncomfortable and lack trust in.
But I feel exhausted and lousy. My first monthly cycle in months and I've felt chills, flushed & feverish, and overall an increase in the muscle spasms in my legs, hips and around my tailbone. I take birth control pills continuously in order to suppress my cycles precisely because I'm so miserable and my existing condition in my back is exacerbated so much. I'm even having a much lighter cycle than I used to and I'm still feeling lousy.
CK gave me that look since yesterday -- noting at times I've looked gray and also look just exhausted. AM came to pick me up at CK's this morning when I let him know I wasn't able to go downtown and sit at my desk; having my legs down like that is very painful some days. My therapist noted how she's so used to seeing me with so much energy that it almost seemed like I was depressed today. At the Dharma center people were noting that I didn't look myself.
And I don't think I look myself. I look ill and unhappy. This change in my system, the way all of the nerves, muscles, tendons and other tissue around the reproductive organs are so affected by the cycle just amazes me. Similar to my back; that such a small change in the back causes such significant problems. We're so incredibly complex and delicate in so many ways.
In a way it ends tonight back reflecting on the bird I saw yesterday; sharing a moment with a creature even more delicate and also highly complex. To me it did not highlight my power compared to so tiny a creature so much as it reminded me that all beings are, in their own ways, equally fragile and terribly precious.
I hope I feel better tomorrow. I want to ride my bicycle. I especially want to ride it Saturday morning downtown to my office and the farmers market.