Preserves
After my positive experience last autumn making apple preserves and applesauce I'm excited to try out more home preserving this year. I'm really happy that CK is just as excited as I am.
Which is good since our fridge still had over 7 pounds of strawberries in it from the U-pick on Sunday. This evening she made ginger cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance
So the 7+ pounds of berries are now in our freezer. I won't have time to experiment with doing low or no-sugar jam. The berries are so sweet that to add all the sugar called for in my Ball Blue Book of Preserving
My back aches from standing there cleaning the berries, but I'm excited to try this out. I really have been enjoying learning how to do more of these types of things at home. It feels good that our evenings are spent on making the house and yard better, cooking together, and growing together.
Distraction
I am feeling distracted today which is no help at all to writing test plans, project plans, or new code. I decided to write down some of what’s distracting me in hopes it will help clear things up for me. I’m also going to make myself go for a walk over to Powell’s to pick out a book to give to one of my SMART readers, who “graduated” from the program this year.
More bad news at work today. In addition to my director’s mother dying last week a co-worker’s brother, who has been battling brain cancer, is in the last stages of his life. He’d gone into remission for a while and things were looking incredibly positive for him. They found another cyst in his brain yesterday. Today he had a few lucid moments and in them asked to have his breathing tube removed, to not replace it should he stop breathing. After receiving this news I sat for a few minutes doing loving-kindness practice for my co-worker and her family.
I think the biggest part of the distracting disquiet is that I believe AM is angry at me and feeling like I’m ignoring him, “pushing” him out of my life. That I was sick for two weeks probably doesn’t measure in much to his feelings. Aside from being sick, I do admit that I have been keeping communication with him down a bit. I’ve been angry with him and rather than confront him about old decisions that cannot be fixed now, I’ve just been trying to work on being present to how things are now. Some distance has helped me from falling into venting that anger at him, merely complaining about the past.
I told Hogen that when I try and pull away the anger and the many times I felt deeply disappointed, I’m just sad. Putting in the garden was bittersweet in many ways, bringing up a lot of that sadness. Sweet because it felt really good to make some progress and the yard, having it look nicer. Bitter because I kept running into tangible evidence of projects, ideas, tools all just set aside to rust and decay. So many instances where an investment of time, if not money, was made only to be abandoned after the initial enthusiasm wore off.
It hurts to remember the many times I questioned this approach, said that I think things should be done in a different order, or at least continued. Most times I was given a list of reasons as to why it was OK that things weren’t progressing how I’d hoped they would or assurances that things would be different, but then weren’t. A lot of times it felt as though my priorities didn’t really matter in the overall scheme of things and that either his priorities were more important or that he had put the priorities of other people ahead of mine, of us.
For some reason it hurts more when I’m holding some rusted tool in my hands that had meant so much to have the year before that spending money on it couldn’t wait until there was actually money to be spent. However, it apparently didn’t mean enough to be put away for the winter so it would be in good shape this spring. I’m not sure why I feel the hurt and anger so keenly when there’s some material reminder around, but there it is.
Broken stuff, broken dreams, broken hopes, broken promises… And the overwhelming feeling that I should have done something differently earlier. At times it feels like every rusted and/or broken thing I find around the house and yard is just further evidence of my complicity, my fault. I feel tremendous shame around all of it.
It isn’t useful at all to dwell on decisions I made then and it is even less useful to direct anger at AM for the decisions he’s made over the years. It doesn’t actually fix anything at all in the present and in the long run only hurts our chances for maintaining some kind of friendship. Nor would any of it change that a fundamental instability in my relationship with AM was my trying to force my sexuality to go the direction I, we, wanted it to go.
Right now I’m finding it challenging to reach out and foster our friendship, although I am trying. It hurts really letting myself feel the deep sense of disappointment I tried hard to ignore, feeling that I didn’t matter enough & that other priorities were more important, and recognizing, mourning the loss. It has been incredibly painful deciding to direct the movement of my life towards my priorities without him, to agree with him that it was time for us to end our marriage.
During my sessions with GM she and I have talked about how we would have eventually hit this point, the need to end my marriage. Last autumn I was still trying to find a way to “figure it all out”, feeling that if I just worked harder at the problem I could fix it. When AM responded to my distress by saying he thought we should end things I was surprised, it was not the direction I was going. After talking with him about it I agreed he was right.
I’ve wondered a lot if he’d be less angry with me if CK wasn’t in my life right now. If he saw that I was without a relationship and struggling more would it be just as easy to be angry with me?
It isn't that I begrudge him his own hurt and anger. I can only assume that just as I am feeling the full impact of the loss and the pain around examining that loss, he is going through the same process in his own way. It would be entirely unreasonable for me to expect him not to feel hurt and angry as well. I guess it just hurts a lot that he’s angry at me.
Checking Out Beer and Blog
Really tried out the Air today. I intentionally left my work laptop, an HP, logged in and locked up on my desk downtown. I spent some time using the option to remotely access my work laptop and ran several things. Worked on the login scripts some more, making some progress. It was great getting to use the laptop this way, it was so much faster.
CK asked me this afternoon if I was getting used to the idea that it was my laptop. I smiled at her and agreed that I was settling into enjoying it. It is really nice to be able to do this for myself. I also have really enjoyed the "oohs" and "ahhs" I get when I take it out of my bag!
Which I had a lot of opportunity to do this evening, finally checking out Beer and Blog at the Green Dragon. I liked hearing about how BnB got started, had a porter, got some buttons and was introduced to a pile of cool people by my friend YW. I'm always grateful to run into him at events since he seems to be able to introduce me to just about everyone. In fact, I only seem to manage to remember a handful of the people each time because there are so many new people!
I spent some time chatting with ML from The Movement Center. We talked briefly about approaches to yoga. It was great hearing someone talk about the importance of keeping yoga accessible! She was very interested in my ideas about workshops around trauma recovery and compassion fatigue. Looking forward to connecting with her more later.
FW also introduced me to a woman who is running a site for people coming out as queer later in life, QueerL.Net. Interesting to read so far, more interesting to know how another person went down such a similar path.
I also got to see MS, who I missed last week now that we're not all gathering at the Bagdad to watch BSG! Fun chatting about cats with her and about programming with her and SB. All very cool people met tonight, I was really glad I went.
After that aw AM's flat this evening. It is cozy and nicely located with a great view of the sun setting over the city. We had dinner at Fujin's. I found everything to be saltier than I imagined, but still really tasty. We ordered a tofu soup to start that I ended up finishing. Soft tofu and veggies in a clear, veggie broth. I added some chili paste and it made the most of my dinner which is probably for the best since the Crispy Eggplant is deep friend, the veggie pot stickers were deep fried, and the tofu in the General Tso's Tofu was also freshly deep fried!
All that and I miss CK. She left this afternoon to attend the Inner Critic workshop at Great Vow. She's let me know she's glad she's there, which I was really happy to receive. She also said she wants to try to find a way for us to attend the Walking Together workshop for couples in May.
Seeing AM getting settled into and happy with his flat was good tonight. I also got to hear how DW is moving forward with grace towards getting a place with her friend. Although I know part of me is working on just taking my hands off of both of those lives it was reassuring to listen to the positive news. On top of that having such good connections tonight, more positive experiences getting involved with new community, was helpful. Once I get talking with people it is easier to be open.
But it was getting CK's messages as I was headed to the flat to take care of Atari that were so special. I cannot help but return to my gratitude in sharing our practices of Zen and yoga together. I miss her a lot tonight, things have been so busy and unsettled for so long I really wish she was here. However, I feel comfortable and good about her being at this workshop. I feel even better knowing that she really wants us to attend the workshop on relationship as spiritual practice. To feel not only that she supports my practices, but that our sharing of them is this powerful synergy is really something I'm profoundly grateful for.
Alone
CK is down in Northern California with family, attending to her uncle who is very ill. I dropped her off at the airport a little past noon. I start to miss her by the time I drive away.
My mind does all the reminders about how important it is that she see her family. How I admire her for spending this kind of time with her family. How it is only a short trip. How I'll email, chat, text message, and talk on the phone with her.
Blah, blah, blah... I miss her.
I cannot even be distracted by talking to AM, hanging out watching TV together. He's out at Great Vow doing his Beginner's Mind retreat. He was very anxious when he left this afternoon. He's also needing to rethink again on what he's going to do come June 1. I so want him to be well, be happy, to know some measure of pride in what he's done.
I don't think I mindfully filled this weekend alone with as much as possible, but it has worked out that way. Tomorrow is the first of 4 very long days at Prananda. I'll assist in the 9:30AM gentle class, then a break for a bite to eat, then a full afternoon of teacher training, teaching a class at 4:30... Whew! Sunday I'll teach, spend several hours with Mom, then go to the M. Ward show at the Aladdin. CK and I were supposed to go together, but when the need to be with her family came up we decided I'd still go with my friend EB.
Monday CK will be back, I'll run out to the airport to pick her up around 2:30. Until then I'll have the silence to appreciate the way she just clicked into my life. Having the quiet to look at this I can see the empty spot I just kept trying to bridge, work around, do anything but really honestly look at what was needed to complete it.
Which brings me to a poem for Day 6 (technically this is 7, but I haven't been to bed yet so it counts).
Missing Piece
It is in the time
That fills with
Silence when
You are gone
That I can see
How you fit into
A space in my
Life I didn't want
To admit needed
Completion.
Money
All my dragging of feet over talking to CK about how much debt I have right now came to an end when AM wrote a blog entry (public), not considering how I would feel about people knowing that fact. Suddenly it is out there and I felt anxious, ashamed. Finances are an area where I never have felt quite like I really get it. I get that I need to pay people certain amounts by certain dates and through painful error learned I must do this.
That I bought a house in 2006 is astounding and a little frightening to me, still. I never lived in an owned home growing up and within a few years of my parents finally buying a manufactured home my Dad was dying and my Mom ended giving the house back to the bank after all the planned upon pension payments dried up. When I was young my Mom and I lived in early Section 8 apartments, the first Christmas there we were one of the families "adopted" by the local fire department. I believe I got a tea set for present.
Cash was always short when I was a kid and the resulting tension was a constant companion, even while playing in the apartments of other kids I was friends with there. It got better when there was some more money, but I've come to have the perspective to see how poorly finances were managed. How sometimes decisions were made to spend money not because it was the right time, but because something was wanted. It was an environment impossible to learn good skills in.
Enter my first husband who ended up putting all the effort of household finances on me, not helping out when things were tight if it impacted his bills, quick to suggest that my bills be short changed, and even quicker to anger when things got messed up. I would try so hard, but even he provided the example of impulse spending to be made up for later (only later never arrived). When a roommate (his idea to have move in) began forging checks, stealing from us, once causing a short-fall and bounced check that then caused a utility to be turned off he was livid with me. After the truth came out, why there was a short-fall, that it wasn't my fault, he never went back and apologized for yelling at me. I still feel like at any moment I'm going to be screamed at for doing things wrong.
And into another relationship where immediacy was more important, impulse and gratification. During a time when there were two good incomes I managed to just stay ahead of the debt and what money I did save paid for a wedding. We would talk and talk about budgeting, getting better at staying within our means, and it wouldn't happen. Decisions would be made, effort wasn't made int he right place, and a couple of major feelings of disappointment over the fallout. So here I am hugely in debt, embarrassed about it.
CK has been calm, loving, supportive and positive. So much so I am unnerved by it. Here I am looking at things to cut out of my life, telling myself "no" to purchase after purchase, and feeling deeply ashamed of not being good with finances. Like I'm a very poor sort of grown up.
And instead she's talking about going to Hawaii for my 40th birthday in August. And she means it, if finances go well, which she thinks they will.
I've gone on very few big trips in my life. My parents sent me to one with my older step-sister when I was 13. An "American Heritage" tour of the D.C. area. It was probably debt they couldn't afford but did anyway. We took several car trips and would go camping, but most often my summers were spent partly with my Aunt J or, after she married my step-dad, with my Aunt D and Uncle J in Bremerton.
AP and I talked about a trip. I even got a map and hung it on a wall, pinpointing the journey. After a while I came to see that it would never happen, would never be a priority. I saw it at first with AM, but then he stopped working, wasn't really able to find anything and we adjusted. I knew we weren't going to make a lot of trips after that.
I felt unsettled by the discussion. At once excited, hopeful, and yet still feeling like I couldn't trust it. My mind was equally certain that something wasn't right and thinking, "after all I've messed up, why am being rewarded? Why isn't she yelling at me?"
Maybe just all along I've needed someone who is willing to share knowledge with me. Show an example of another way to approach things. Like so many things in my life I feel like I've had good ideas, but with no support or guidance they have never come to be what I imagined they might. From school projects, to artistic endeavors, to saving money.
Speed and Slowness
I wanted to write a proposal for OSCON. Since it has been moved to San Jose I thought the best way to convince work to let me go again would be to be an invited speaker. I've talked about it since last year, giving a presentation either on change control or yoga. But the deadline is tomorrow and for the past couple of week's I've felt just entirely uninspired to come up with anything at all.
Tonight I feel burned out and exhausted. We went to have all the dissolution (divorce) paperwork reviewed and discovered we'd done such a good job it was pretty much ready to file, minus a couple of check boxes and final signatures. Suddenly the clerk was saying to us, "and you can go around the corner to the cashiers and pay the filing fee..."
There we were. So we shrugged and nodded, stepped over and paid to file all the paperwork. I'd been so stressed just going to have it reviewed, I figured there would be things missing and we'd have to take care of them first. In fact I hadn't listed the complete legal description of the house, but the clerk just had me phone over to the County Assessors office to get the information. Done. He commented on how quick this would be, the job we'd done was very thorough . I felt a little tight with shock at the unexpected speed.
Finally talked with my Mom some more today. Nothing but waiting -- she doesn't see the specialist at the eye institute until the 20th and won't see the Kaiser oncologist for her right lung until the beginning of March. I feel impatient for her to be seen, to have confirmation or perhaps the knowledge she doesn't have cancer (wild optimism).
It was a lousy day too. I am so keenly feeling the pressure from all of this already and today was yet another day that started with a panicked jolt at 5AM followed by dozing off for another two hours. I just don't feel like I'm resting, my brain is back to busy, anxious dreams so I wake up feeling just as tired as when I went to bed. On top of it I'm taken aback by both the quickness of something and slowness of others -- in quite the opposite arrangement than I'm comfortable with.
I am just going to give up the idea. I'm enjoying the ideas I'm sharing with someone from Dharma Rain Zen Center to offer teaching on yoga and meditation to the Portland tech community. I like the idea of it, but I think just letting it go this year is for the best for me. Maybe I'll work on something for the local conference and next year propose for OSCON, maybe there will even be a travel budget again by then.
JW told all of the teacher training students on Saturday that our homework this week was to do something nice for ourselves. She said it especially applied to me, that I am the worst of everyone. Practicing self-compassion is not my strong suit. The past several days have been an on-going reminder about it. Maybe letting go of some of the things I want to do, like submitting a proposal for OSCON, are part of practicing doing something for myself. Not sure JW would think it counts, but cutting myself some slack without judgement is so contrary for my usual behavior I feel how it counts.
What Good is Revisiting
I woke up feeling heavy, cold and anxious this morning. I got out of bed early thinking I'd take a hot shower, sit zazen a little, and then I'd be up to going to work. Instead I felt worse in the shower, no amount of heat seeming to help the cold grief I felt. After drying off, feeling small, I crawled back into bed, crying.
I'd gone through yesterday feeling tight with the tension of the news I'd received in the morning. A close friend's marriage, which has taken her into isolation in Kentucky, has turned abusive. My mother's received tentative diagnosis of retinal carcinoma and a suspicious shadow on her right lung. She'll be seeing a Kaiser oncologist for the right lung and arrangements are being made for her to be seen at the eye institute at OHSU. I just felt a kind of shock at it all. On top of getting ready to sign the divorce papers it is a lot to take in.
Visiting with my therapist yesterday we talked about my ability to compromise myself out of something I really need. How I'd felt really shut down when AM wasn't able to share my practice with me. How I have a weakness for being talked out of my needs, for being convinced that something else is just fine. She pointed out that I was going to compromise my sexuality, not experience a fulfilling relationship with a woman because I was able to not look at my needs.
In part it is conditioning for often being told that something else was good enough and I was being selfish for not seeing it. I grew very adept at knowing the good in situations, trying to focus on that because the times I didn't my Mother could be very angry with me, even striking me across the face once.
I can feel that part of my brain, immediately upon noting how she once hit me. Instantly going to re-frame, make that sound better. I note how it only happened once, minimizing the damage. It is the part of my mind that will insist that I was never injured by any of my family members, never had to seek medical help for anything. Like somehow the the lack of greater trauma made it all OK.
I asked CK to come to my physical/craniosacral therapy appointment with IW, trying to listen to the voice that needs. It was good to have her there and IW taught her a few releases for some of my recurring trigger points in my back and left hip. I decided not to write at all last night nor did I end up sitting.
This morning, crying in bed I decided to take the day off. Well, CK helped me to decide, helped me listen to the ways in which I just needed to cry, to rest, rather than listen to my inner critic who kept telling me to get up, get dressed, and go to work, be a grown up. Even suggesting that I was selfish and stupid for being so upset, that I was going to waste a potentially happy vacation day in the future I could spend with CK. An endless stream of reasons as to why I shouldn't just tell work I was taking a day off.
After logging in and seeing I had no meetings, I sent out a message that I wasn't feeling well. CK made me some toast and tea. After finishing those I slept for quite some time, utterly exhausted. I've resisted the urge to do more work beyond logging into my email a couple of times. I have knit a little and we're going to go for a walk out in the sunshine soon. I may even take another nap.
GM noted yesterday that she still thinks I'm expressing grief I've felt and held back for a very long time. I asked her, especially from my Zen perspective, what good is this to go back and look at this, to revisit these things. She said that in going back an feeling the grief I didn't, couldn't allow myself to express I can also look at why I felt that way. In the case of not getting to share a practice with Andy I can look at my need to share a spiritual practice with someone is important and use that experience to remember why I must express my actual needs, rather than rationalize myself, or be rationalize out of them.
Delayed and Present Pain
Today kind of sucked, well the two and a half hours of asana, the same asana over and over again, really had my hips and my emotions hurting. I was just utterly spent by the time I got to the flat and found CK waiting with ibuprofen, practically at the door, and dinner well under way. I felt so entirely happy, relieved and grateful to see her tonight.
I talked to her about the hurt I've been struggling with around AM resurgence of commitment to practice. I felt it keenly last night during savasana when I had said I was grateful for my practice. What I had fully in my heart was how sweet it was to be laying in savasana next to CK, how fulfilling it feels to share my practice with someone so deeply. I feel this way at times when we are sitting zazen next to each other. Just feeling profoundly grateful to share a very vital part of myself with someone and have it by nurtured by their own practice.
She asked if what I felt wasn't new hurt so much as delayed hurt. That I dove into three years of zen practice and never really felt like I truly shared it with AM. I appreciated that we each had a separate practice, but I noted at times that I'd like to deepen our relationship by sharing being part of our Zen community. I hadn't looked at it quite like that, it feels a kind of newness, but it makes sense.
Rather like the issues dividing showing up and growing several years ago, but neither of us wanted to the be the one to point them out, I never wanted to acknowledge that I was sad my spouse didn't want to share my spiritual path with me. How I deeply wanted to feel like these things that have become such a vital part of who I am are really shared, supported and mutually appreciated.
I hold onto the fact that had AM done all those things we would have eventually come to this same place. That it doesn't change anything. I suppose I'm merely mourning what I wished could have been. Not terribly productive and I try not to get wrapped up in this, staying in past regrets and wishes. Especially not when the future holds the very thing I didn't choose to recognize I was missing.
Grateful
Tonight in yoga class JW had questions for us. After reading a quote from Thich Naht Hahn noting the relationship between a rose and compost, asked each of us if that brought anything to mind. I said that there were lots of things going on right now in my life, things decaying and things blooming. I didn't want to elaborate but thought of how I'd been reflecting yesterday about the sadness of endings and how I also have these wonderful beginnings, this blooming in my life.
AM have nearly finished getting the paperwork together for the divorce. We are settling into the ways in which we are separate. In doing this there is the stickiness of acknowledging the disconnect that has been there, how deep it has grown we were just both not wanting to see it. It is akin to look at my childhood and facing how painful it had been. It is the compost of my life, the decay that I have set my roots in and grown.
During savasana JW asked anyone who felt comfortable to share what they were grateful for. I had offered that I was grateful for my practice. In my heart I expressed my gratitude for CK for the flowering in my life she has brought. I made sure to tell her afterwards, whispering it into her ear with a kiss as we put away the props.
Looking Back
The first sounds I heard as the year began where fireworks off in the distance. In the silence of the zendo at Great Vow Zen Monastery we knew it was 2008. When zazen ended we rung the bell, 4 times each for each woman attending the retreat adding up to 108. The morning, the first day of the new year, I had offered a vow to not hate it when I cry the next morning, in the company of my Dharma sisters.
The year has given me many opportunities to not hate my tears, not feel like the world is going to end when I cry. Given me many chances to evaluate who I am, greet myself with compassion and truth, and move forward on my way.
AM and CK were the first two people I saw after the retreat ended. I remember feeling my heart skip a beat when I saw them, feeling an important shift. Later I would dismiss it as my being overly-optimistic because I found CK attractive and I was excited that she'd come.
I'd known her just a few weeks at that point. We'd not spent a whole lot of time together in person yet and had exchanged a handful of emails. I did know that I felt a tight, high, nervous feeling in my heart when I was around her. I'd suggested to her that she come out and have lunch at the monastery since she'd be arriving back to Portland while I was in retreat.
I hadn't really expected her to come. I really wanted her to come, but I was trying to keep myself in check and not get my hopes up. The retreat had been very intense, so seeing her felt like this marvelous surprise.
I've been looking back at posts, I haven't looked at my hand-written journals yet. But I can see where the energy started to really shift. I felt it a little at a time, the feeling inside me that I wanted to protect my relationship with CK. The move towards keeping it safe, sheltered until AM and finally decided we really needed to move on from one another.
I am writing before going to the Dharma Center tonight, joining my Sangha and that of Dharma Rain for a potluck, sacred circle dances led by CB, Fusatsu and zazen through the new year. I am really looking forward to be with my community this year, sharing this celebration with them, they have become an important part of my life. I would like to do the Joy in Mindfulness retreat another time, but this year with teacher training it doesn't really make sense from a time or finance perspective.
As the year ends I'm writing while CK folds laundry. An African stew is cooking for us to take to the Dharma Center for the potluck. I made matcha cupcakes just a little earlier. We are settled into these little domesticities with appreciation.
AM is sitting with his Dharma Punx community and will come to the Portland Dharma Center later to join for Fusatsu and zazen. We have hung out the past couple of nights, just watching things like Top Gear and Dr. Who. Have also been joined by DW and many episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I still feel close to him, to them both really, but we all feel the shift in our lives.
The year has worked towards and ending and a beginning. I suppose all years are like that when you look at them, this just feels dramatic because it is my life and it is a rather big change. It feels like the right direction. Not that a relationship doesn't have compromises, but I said to someone this afternoon that in this new way I didn't feel like I compromise in what I needed to be fulfilled, to be my authentic self.
Over and over this year I've learned the practice of the precepts in each moment. There is no way of knowing if I'm making the right choices for 10 years from now. I can only make the best possible choice in accordance with the precepts in each moment. The moments of 2008, looked back at from New Year's Eve, have been joyful and painful, hard and easy, letting go and opening up; I feel in each of them I tried to be mindful of making the best possible choice in each moment.