Home

My cats watch me carefully and stick close;  do they wonder whether I will disappear suddenly again, or is that my own anthropomorphizing this early in the morning?  I woke very early to soft grey skies and now listen to Gregorian chants as I sip dark tea.  I am home, sleeping on the sitting room couch surrounded by pillows, a Buddha or two in the window, beautiful greenery climbing the fence outside and brilliant purple hydrangeas emerging from a giant pot....  It has been a few days and I am beginning to feel as though it is real.  Yesterday I sat at the dining room table drinking tea and talking with a good friend about what I would do with my stepfather's ashes that have rested on a shelf for several years now, and all of a sudden life felt normal.   Yes, the body is still hurt, and the weight of the boot still chafes and pulls on my left leg, but I have re-entered my life.  Why not plan to cast R's ashes out to sea at Bodega?  And to participate once again in creating an elegant website for my fading jewelry business?  I've been unable to launch a new knitting project, but I have been able to dive into another meaty novel -- John Irving's Widow for a Year.  It carries me along the way Verghese's book did, allowing me to inhabit the fictional world, and to admire the bravery and perseverance of writers who work in their lonely spaces to craft stories...  Watched a great movie the other night:  Of Gods and Men, about these loving French monks surrounded by violence in Algeria, who respond to terror with compassion, and ultimately are martyred.   You are taken into monastery life with its candles and chanting, and later you feel the dust of that barren world in your nose, where beautiful women seek medical attention for their children and young terrorists temporarily put away their guns to get help from their Christian brothers.   Very moving story.
Today I will meet a young health care worker who may become my regular helper at home, a woman recommended as "soft," and very capable.  I will be in the position of structuring this woman's job day by day .... hopefully we will become close in the way that happens between the grateful (and needy) "employer" and the person delivering the services.  At least with her I will be asking freely and without hesitation, and I will also have the space to complain or - god forbid - whine about my unfortunate and painful circumstances.  There is freedom in the business arrangement that there isn't with family.  Not so much editing of my words and shielding my cranky heart.
So, on this Friday morning at the end of July I am an extremely grateful human being who sees a great array of possibilities before me:  music to listen to, books to read, maybe a knitting project, or a dinner out from time to time, and lying on my couch watched over by the regal Jackson, my Maine Coon boy who seems always grateful to be living with me on White St.   Each day will bring new awareness of how very fortunate I am and how fragile and precious this quicksilver journey of life is.

Aging Buddha in my daughter's house

I need to remember to take pleasure in the sight of a tiny hummingbird dipping into the lavender, the sight of the distant ocean, or sleek beauty of Alberta the cat as she walks from room to room.  Much of the time I feel at the center of some swirling energy pool of children and grandchildren, where I'm continually trying to find a safe place to land....   Eventually I do, and then I feel as though I'm not a part of it all, locked in this angry body of mine, trying to return in my mind to my own universe.
I have been a guest in various universes, and as a guest I must tread carefully and considerately.  While this is good practice, it wears me out just a little.  The constant state of fatigue that I feel seems to come from this fitting in process, as well as the residual effects of trauma...
Fatigue, sadness, anger, frustration, fatigue, anxiety, loneliness .... these are my visitors.  Do I invite them in as Rumi suggested, or do I try to turn away, to find something beautiful to contemplate?
It occurs to me that even in the company of loving family an acute loneliness and sense of separateness can occur.  As I look back on the last four or five years of my solitary existence, it would seem that I have felt more of that aloneness when in the midst of others, out in the world....  Out in the world we have our anonymity, and in the midst of family we have our essential separateness which rises to the surface as we force ourselves to cooperate and tend one another.
When I return home to White Street I believe my life will be simpler.  Or will it?  I will have to get to know someone who will work for me, and I will have to learn to live with my loneliness.   And my infirmities...
When I tried to defend getting older to my daughter last night I didn't have my heart in it really.  It's not the wrinkles in the face or hands that seem to bother me but the deeper sense of a whole body being old(er), more fragile.  I'd trade a thoroughly wrinkled face for physical strength, I think.  But, then, I could call to mind Suzuki Roshi's words when he was dying, and his monks were despairing all around him, and he said, "It's alright.  It's just suffering Buddha, that's all..."  Yes, this is just aging Buddha -- that's all.

Variations on a "theme" ...

One quiet day leading to another, and before you know it you're making plans again.  Looking ahead.  Thanks to the generosity and good nature of a man who tends my urban garden, I'm getting railings made for my back stairs to help with my passage in and out of White Street.  And with that in mind, I can entertain this idea of going home. Yes! 

"Going home" carries a lot of emotion as I say it to myself.  Being close to my beloved cats, gazing at my Buddhas, listening to music and staring out at the birds, playing at my computer, and watching endless old movies  .... behaving in any spontaneous fashion without a thought of being observed or critiqued .... yes, that freedom that my mother was so obsessed about at the end of her life.  And, on the other side, the sense of aloneness that is both a gift and and reminder of our final, irrevocable state.  Will I long for company once I find myself at home alone?  Or, will I be happy being tended by a delightful sounding woman from Kenya who will do home care-taking of me for a while? 

From here I go to daughter #2's house for about a week, where the challenges will be greater:  the children, the lack of downstairs bathroom, the humility I'll be forced to experience as I use a portable toilet, etc., etc.  Wanting to be around family some more, I will go there, but I am sure it will have its trials.  I seem to carry those trials with me wherever I go because of the inherent helplessness of my body.  Will the three ring circus be a sufficient distraction from the profound restlessness and discomfort I feel, or will it just underscore and magnify that physical condition?  I have only to move toward this opportunity to find out.  And take everything one day at a time....  

Was relieved to finish Cutting for Stone, a 600 page epic that is both beautifully written and in some cases predictable and repetitious.  I learned more about surgical practices than I ever imagined I would, and was reminded of the impassioned life of many who practice medicine.  Gave me a deep sense of gratitude for all those who are impassioned and dedicated to healing.  It is interesting the part that the ego plays in medical practice;  it has to be firmly rooted and vital, and yet when it comes to trauma care, I think it must have to step out of the way, as the doctor follows his internalized knowledge straight through to the resolution of an extraordinary problem.  I bring that up because I wonder a great deal about the balancing act of ego and that wonderful concept of "no self" that the Buddhists teach.  The ego helps us move forward on life's path (sort of like the engine driving the bus), and no self allows us to let go and embrace all that is, and therefore avoid suffering.   Looking back again to the incident on the street when I was hit by the car, I know that ego was in full force from the very moment of the impact -- all that screaming out in pain and distress, my ego crying out to be noticed -- and that the letting go part wasn't able to manifest until I became safely tucked on a gurney, or a bed, and could see that some form of order would prevail.  Verghese's book also reminded me of how very vulnerable our human bodies are - vulnerable and resilient at the same time.  I (we) must trust that those about us will give the best care they can, and at the same time I (we) must accept that life (health, longevity, safety, happiness, etc) is uncertain.   The more we see and live with uncertainty, the more precious every moment, every piece of our life becomes.

As I keep returning to this blog, convinced of the importance of entering my thoughts, I also feel as though I'm dragging myself there,  so tired of the meanderings of my mind.  I yearn to discover fresh new thoughts, and instead encounter the same old questions and doubts, much as my body keeps returning again and again to similar disturbing physical sensations.   Variations on the theme(s) of reflection, insight, and pain....  Here's hoping that those of you who are reading can follow this spiraling tune that is playing out!

You Don't Have to Go Down the Rabbit Hole

As little tics of pain and discomfort pop up here and there in my arm or leg, I think about the miraculousness of the body's healing process.  These little blips of physical sensation remind me that while I eat, talk, read, do my exercises, even take a shower,  the cells of my body are knitting themselves together, growing and stretching as nature dictates.  An amazing unfolding that we cannot see, a cause for joy, really.  There is so little we control....  and no cause for dismay.
It is a grey day in the family room here at K's, the soft black and white dog stretches out on one couch, T reads on another, and I pull myself up from reclining to create an illusion of elongating my body.  This restlessness that I feel reminds me of our residents in hospice who are in the throes of dying, and at the same time trying to escape their physical bodies.  Is this a mental or physical phenomenon, I wonder?  I don't sense a message from brain to body exactly, but more an internal movement, as though pure energy needs to push from the very inside out, stretching, trying to find more space and repose.
We dined out last night at a local restaurant, and for a few hours I almost forgot that I was disabled.  Shows you what a good meal - sand-dabs no less - and a couple of glasses of wine will do!  And already in that comfortable state I had forgotten an earlier moment of frustration and dismay, where I felt treated in an unexpected and dismissive way.   My "story" about that earlier moment placed me front and center in the role of victim, and there I sat licking my imaginary wounds.  Displaced anger seems to be arising in me, along with a bottomless neediness. Yes, I am really angry at that woman who mowed me down on June 15.  Having admitted this, then what?   Where to go with it?  As for the neediness, it looks like the rabbit hole that Alice fell into -- all too familiar...  Unfortunately that normal anger at the heedless driver is compounded by my own nasty feelings about myself and all my inadequacies.  And there I am back in self-loathing, that dark realm I thought I had escaped after a month of sitting at Spirit Rock!  There is no escape, is there?  Does the fact of being a human being inevitably include being that unkind- to -self human who can't progress fast enough, who can't always say the politic thing, who can't stop whining to herself about her unpleasant state?
I think I will do some exercises for my arm, and approach my body with some kindness.  That ought to help with some of this emotional mire I've been traveling through.   Staying in this moment, with this arm, just now.  Breathe, and let the heart slowly open.
   

Refuge in Atherton -- Sunday morning

There is an abiding peacefulness in K's house here in Atherton, the sounds of birds outside reminding me I'm just steps away from the beauty of the natural world, the world that knows nothing of institutions and Alzheimers....   Looking out her expansive picture windows to her much loved garden gives me a huge sense of freedom.  Happiness at how remarkable everything in life is.   Each evening we sit outside and eat on the porch and listen for the doves, the quail, catching sight occasionally of a deer marching along the back fence.
I am being tended well by my dear friend and older daughter, and still rankle with my helplessness and pain.  But I do it quietly and subtly.  I wake up hurting, having contorted my body during sleep so as not to ever put weight on my damaged left arm, and my entire left side pulses with discomfort until I start to move about more.  Just pain, I tell myself, nothing more.... no stories .... just unpleasant sensation, impermanent.  I have found a good book to read - Cutting for Stone - and reading fortunately takes my mind on a journey away from my physical trials.   And yesterday I sat at K's piano and hammered out the Bach Goldberg variation I've spent so long in learning.  It was still in my fingers and memory!   I feel I need to keep using my hands and fingers so they don't atrophy.  Have bags of multicolored yarn around and am trying to locate a project that will be simple that I can sink into.   More exercise for the fingers.

Yesterday went out with Tara into Menlo Park to buy coffee, hair-clips, and a pile of groceries.  I marched through all of it, crutch in hand, and it didn't seem to be a bad thing for my body.  Was so satisfying to be out there in the world amongst functioning people.  Gives you the illusion you too are high functioning!    This of course is dispelled once you return home and remember you will need assistance in order to perform the simple task of showering.  The other day I let very hot water pour over me while trying unsuccessfully to adjust it and I didn't ask for help, even when it came to the awkward move from shower back into my black boot and the seat where I could dry off and dress myself.  It was laborious and I stubbornly wouldn't ask for assistance.  I was scolded for not asking for help, and all of that made me feel all the more despairing of helplessness.  Where is my kindness toward myself, I wonder?  Momentarily forgotten....

Right now the house is extra quiet.  Annie the dog and I are here in the family room, and the rest are out and about to church and golf.  I am going to use this time to look for equanimity and peace inside.  I am not my body, and so must hold the body's difficulties with compassion.  Maybe knitting myself some socks, or creating yet another beautiful scarf, stitching in love and not crankiness, would help me arrive there....

Waiting

Awake since early, early ... 5:45 or so when the sun's light was still a soft blue-yellow through all the greenery outside my window.   I was unable to return to sleep, so eager am I to move on, to go to my friend's house and begin my journey back to a normal life "out" in the world.  This is the morning of my release, therapists having agreed I am capable of managing outside this institutional setting.  And because it is the morning of my release, I am eager, impatient even for all to go smoothly.  Perhaps there is a lingering fear that at the last minute they'll say to me I can't go, I don't know...  I just want to hear it verified, and so I sit in my room waiting.
Waiting - now there's a familiar experience!  As much time as we spend in these rooms alone, stuck in our own heads with the ten top tunes and the 15 favorite anxieties, we have a lot of time to understand "waiting."  Don't think that the Buddha would think that waiting was a constructive way to spend one's days, for what is waiting but leaning forward into the non-existent "future"?  I have to confess that I AM leaning forward into that future (and I'll forgive myself here for being yet again an imperfect Buddhist!).  I feel complete with my present, and ready to take the next steps.
Before I move on I guess I should pause to acknowledge the kindness and care of this place.  The entirely non-white nursing staff has been generous, sweet, good humored at times, even understated as they do their work moment to moment.  Because I have set myself apart here, they have never hovered, and at times have walked on by instead of checking in.  My own fault perhaps, for acting as though I didn't need much help at all.  Or, for acting as though I just preferred my own company.  Another example of our actions having consequences!   Then, of course, there are times when I want the attention and conversation, or just plain information, and feel I have to push for it, and then try to find patience. Things don't happen quickly here, I've found, much as is the case in hospice....   This is a good thing.  Where do we need to rush to after all?
I have had so many thoughts and feelings about death since being here, surrounded by so many who appear to be closer.  When I look at these white haired old men and women, I try to picture myself in their spot, truly helpless in the wheelchair, slumped over from sheer weakness, waving at phantom images, or moaning from that feeling of being lost in the dark.....I so want to be at ease with this enormous, mysterious event in my life, and still feel myself shrinking away.  No, no, not yet, I repeat to myself, I'm not ready.  The pain I have endured from these injuries has made me reflect on how NOT in control of things we all are, and in sitting with that awareness there's that understanding that my death is similarly out of my control.

There's awareness, and then there are feelings and emotions.   Awareness feels so calm, cool, collected, focused, and right.  And then the feelings come rushing in, all jagged and turbulent, speaking my fears as though through an echo chamber, sounds ever cycling back on themselves.  Every new strange physical sensation in my leg or arm sets off a stream of feelings colored by anxiety.  Will this beat up body ever return to its former pre-accident state, I often wonder.  That question surely needs to be relegated to the "don't know" or "out of my control" file!    It's just pain - no story attached.  Remember impermanence.

So, here I sit waiting, as the sun becomes more yellow and brilliant on the leaves outside, leaning forward toward the unknown stretching out in front of me.  Better I should pull myself upright rather than lean, and move more steadily and securely through the coming hours and days and .... That would be safer not only for body but for mind and heart as well.

May all those who labor here in service of the frail, sick, and dying, be safe, happy, and free from suffering.    May they (we) know their (our) true nature.

"On Retreat" at the Terraces

There are ways that being in a nursing home (even using that phrase used to give me the "willies") is a little like being on a meditation retreat.  How, one might ask?  It is the moment to moment experiencing of your life that links them.  Here, sitting in a bed by the window, you have the opportunity to note the particular-ness of the passage of time, from first waking to the very early morning light in the sky beyond your little compound, to the warm sensation when you have swallowed a pain pill and the deep ache in your shoulder begins to recede, to the arrival of your breakfast tray, the arrival of the CNA to announce that it's "shower day," and so on .... You are a captive audience, no longer in active mode pursuing any number of your desires.  You are frozen in place.  And the parade of nursing home life goes on outside your door.  As you try to read a good book - Krasny's Spiritual Envy - you hear the distressed patient down the hall calling for help, or the beeping of a call button asking for help from somewhere else, or the vacuuming of the rug in the hallway.  Which of the sensations will hold you now?  The minutiae of existence are there for you to witness, and there is a hypnotic repetitiveness about it.  Nicely dressed residents of the nearby retirement community walk by outside, with canes and straw hats, having their constitutional, and for a second you envy their freedom.  Then you remember to feel grateful for your health, the wellbeing of your mind, and the love you know surrounds you out there....You are mindful of the body both inside and out, and you know that you are strong enough to stroll again, on the city streets, or the beach at Bodega.
In the middle of the night I had trouble sleeping again, and put my attention on my breath and body, breathing evenly, trying not to listen to the patient who was protesting down the hall.... the more I returned to the body this way the farther away the disturbance felt.  I debated whether or not to listen to some beautiful music on my phone (Bach's St. Matthew, for instance), and then decided to return to  sleep some more, though the sky was becoming beautifully pearly and  light - a Vermeer early morning.
It is early Sunday morning on a 4th of July weekend, and I have another long day of noticing phenomena.  No activities to distract, as the therapy staff is off (deservedly).  It will be hot outside today, as it was yesterday, but inside this place it is cool and comfortable, without air conditioning, and the voices of the Philippina nurses and CNAs will softly travel the hallways, gently lilting.  Again I will feel enormously alone, but I will have my mindfulness as companion, and my deep gratitude that I am really fine now.  Alone, yes ... fine, yes.  This I can handle.