The Age of Uncertainty

Masks, social distancing, distance learning, quarantines--we thought we were done with all that. We flung down our face coverings, hugged our friends, breathed sighs of relief. Now mask mandates, booster shots, and those obnoxious limitations loom once more on the horizon. Will the uncertainty ever end? 

The answer is, no. Covid may fade; the dreaded Delta variant may disappear; and we may return to some version of normalcy, if we can remember what that was like. But one thing is certain: something else is going to happen. In 1918, after the “war to end all wars,” people thought that they could get back to business as usual. But the war was followed by the influenza pandemic, then by the Great Depression, and by the Spanish Civil War, which was the dress rehearsal for the Second World War…. 

No matter how often we are proven wrong, we humans persist in our longing for certainty and stability, for things to stop happening so we can rest. I can’t imagine that this desire has any evolutionary value. Wouldn’t it have been better if as a species we had evolved to take change in our stride--to expect it, accept it, even enjoy it? Instead, we are forever waiting for the crisis of the moment to end, for the project to be completed, for exams to be over--and then, what? Then, and not before then, we will relax, take a deep breath, and be happy. 

Here is how it is for me right now: for a year, I have been waiting for a hip replacement, which is scheduled for next week. As I hobble around preparing for surgery--making one last trip to the market, taking Bisou for her check-up, doing the laundry--my mind, my heart, and my very bones are suffused with the conviction that after that magic date all will be normal, all will be well, and I will finally rest and be at peace. 

I feel this despite the fact that the many years I have lived and the many Buddhist books I have read should have taught me that, even if the surgery goes well (which it will!), when I return from the hospital some problem/dilemma/unexpected shift in the axis of my world will greet me at the door. It’s reasonable for me to anticipate hurting less after the surgery, but foolish to expect to take a deep breath and sink into blessed permanence.

That deep breath signaling the end of change would, if I were to take it, be my last one. Up until that moment, as long as I am alive, everything is bound to continue shifting in maddeningly uncertain ways. So if I want to relax and be happy, I need to figure out a way to do it right now, with chaos swirling all around. 

I often find Pema Chodron, the Buddhist nun and teacher, hard to take. But that’s not her fault. She’s a tough woman, and she writes unvarnished truths that, in my heart of hearts, I know are accurate. Such as: “We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that.” 

Who wants to hear this kind of thing? And yet, we all know that she’s right. 

She also says, “Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.” This reminds me of the Aesop fable that I read as a child, in which a sturdy oak tree, standing mighty against the wind, mocks the lowly reeds that bend and sway with each gust. But then a big storm comes and knocks down the oak, while the bending, swaying reeds survive unscathed. 

The weather of our lives is as changeable as the weather of the planet. It’s human nature to identify with the oak tree, wanting certainty and permanence no matter what. I am working on becoming more reed-like, swaying and bending in harmony with whatever comes, and maybe even learning to take pleasure in the dance. 

Not Yet

It may be my Catholic upbringing--suffer first on this earth, then get your reward in heaven--but I believe that only those who have endured a northern winter can truly enjoy spring. It's not that I hate Vermont winters. I would never chosen to move here if I did, and I confess to looking a few millimeters down my nose at those who flee to warmer places at the first sign of snow. 

Vermont winters are beautiful in so many ways--the muted shades of the landscape after the visual brouhaha of autumn, the frigid morning air that wakes up the very  marrow of your bones, the roads empty of tourists. When the days grow short I retreat indoors, along with the wild creatures. Book in hand, the cat blinking on my lap, the dog dreaming by the (gas) fireplace, I am as contented as a chipmunk in her hole.  But by mid-February all this hygge begins to pall. I have been stoic for months. I have not lapsed into bitterness or self-pity. I have sat before my light therapy box every morning, and poured extra vinegar into the washing machine to minimize static cling. Now I deserve--no, the universe owes me--spring.

I'm not asking for those clichés of the full-blown season, lilacs and daffodils. I'd be grateful just to be able to go outside with only a coat on, instead of coat, hat, scarf, gloves, mittens, heavy socks, and yaktracks strapped to my boots. I'd be thrilled to rediscover the humble pleasure of walking while looking at the trees and the sky, instead of looking at the ground, on the watch for black ice. And, after months of hearing only the cawing of crows (which I nevertheless appreciate as a sign of life in the otherwise dead landscape), it would cheer my soul to hear a little brown bird singing at the top of a tall, bare tree.

What makes a northern spring so magical is not out there in the physical world, but rather inside us, in our human nature. As the troubadours, the Victorians, and the Church knew, we humans mostly hanker after what we can't have: the princess in the tower, the ankle beneath the petticoat, truffles during Lent. The grass-is-greener principle is ingrained in our neurons, alas: after prolonged exposure to a pleasurable stimulus the delight begins to fade, and we look around for something different.

Therefore, thank heaven for the four seasons, Nature's built-in mechanism to keep us happy and on our toes. Grateful as I am for every glimpse of green--and there aren't many around here at the moment--I know full well how tired I will be of the omnipresent greenery (not for nothing is this state named after les verts monts), the heat, and the humidity, and how I will crave the golds and reds and chill of autumn. And when the leaves are gone, and "stick season" is upon us, I will wait for the first snow, feel disappointed when it melts, and long for the time when the landscape is entirely covered in white. 

And then when the days start to get longer, I will look outside in the morning, frowning and tapping my foot, muttering about the blasted weather and wondering when I can put away the humidifier that hums in our living room from October through March and has to be refilled, it seems, every five minutes (not yet). Wondering when I can throw my parka in the washing machine and hang it in the closet until next fall (not yet).Wondering when I can take the three geraniums that I have watered and misted and kept under a light out to the porch (not yet!).  

This is so not-Zen, I know. Maybe it explains why Buddhism is popular in places without seasons, like India and California. Here, practically next door to the pole, Nature herself gives us permission to desire, at certain times of the year, what is still in the future. As soon as spring arrives for good, I'll gladly go back to being fully in the present. But not yet.

Round and Round the Bodhi Tree

To reach enlightenment, the Buddha sat and meditated for forty-nine days under a fig tree, later called the bodhi tree. My meditation group now has its own version of the bodhi, a big, scaly-barked, winter-bare sycamore. And instead of sitting under it, we walk around it.

For the last five years, the group met in one of the buildings in our retirement community. We would gather there two mornings a week for meditation stripped to its bare essentials: other than the chime that I rang to signal the beginning and the end of twenty-five minutes of sitting, there was no ritual: no reading, chanting, or even a candle. Just a silence that felt full rather than empty.

The corona virus put an end to that, at a time when we needed meditation more than ever. But since we’re still allowed to go outdoors, we decided to give walking meditation a try.  

Yesterday morning, we met by the sycamore. The weather was brisk, but my fellow meditators are hardy Vermonters, and they showed up booted, coated, gloved and hatted. We spread out around the tree, at six –foot intervals. Feeling slightly foolish, I rang my chime and started walking. How, I wondered, would we find the right pace, not too fast but not too slow? Obviously we couldn’t shut our eyes, but where should we look? And what about the breath?

Somehow, by the time we’d gone around once, all these questions had answered themselves. There is something self-regulating about the rhythm that walking imposes on the legs, the arms, the breath. Without thinking about it we managed to keep our distance from each other. Nobody tripped or got dizzy, and we spontaneously matched each other’s pace.

I kept my eyes on the ground, put one foot in front of the other, and felt more focused than I do during sitting meditation. Also: I have never in my life either talked to a tree or been addressed by one. But this time, circling the sycamore like a planet, I became subtly aware of its presence. Was it saying something? Probably not. But I was feeling something, and that is what matters.

I kept the walk to fifteen minutes, and when it was over people thought that we should increase it to twenty minutes and add a third day, because it felt good and we are all in such need to be in each other’s presence.

We dispersed until the next time, but before leaving I went to the sycamore and , disobeying the six-foot rule, put my hand on its scaly bark.

Always on the Moon

I am folding laundry when a quote by William Morris comes wafting out of my subconscious, "The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life." Morris was ahead of his time. These days everybody, from mental health  professionals to Buddhist monks, tells you that staying in the present is the key to health and happiness, peace and sanity. Unfortunately, I find staying in the present almost impossible to do.

Even as a child--and children are supposed to have a special talent for being "in the now"--I couldn't do it. "Es lenta," (she's slow) the nuns at my school used to complain to my mother. But that was because it took me a while to come back from the edge of the universe to whatever I was supposed to be doing. 

One example: I am marching single file with my class after recess when suddenly I perceive a strange silence around me. I return to earth to find my classmates gone and the yard deserted except for a single nun. Her hands hidden inside the sleeves of her long white habit, she is watching me and shaking her head: "Benejam--siempre en la luna" (always on the moon).

More than half a century has passed since that day, however, during which I have read a lot of books by Buddhist monks and psychiatrists and logged quite a few hours on my meditation cushion, so I should be able to be present and genuinely interested in folding the laundry, right here, right now. 

I pick up one of my husband's undershirts. Feel the cotton, I tell myself. Feel its softness. Notice the Fruit of the Loom tag, and how it has curled. Look at the color of the shirt--it is slightly yellow. It is not terribly yellow, but it would be less yellow if I didn't do my laundry in cold water. But it's the least I can do, in this era when the environment is going to hell in a hand basket, to save a bit of energy. There really should be a law against washing clothes in hot water...And I'm off to the moon again, or rather to the halls of Congress, lobbying for environmental legislation.

When I land back in the present, the underwear is in its drawer. 

Next, I attempt to take a genuine interest in the socks, of which there are many. Some are brown, some black, others navy blue. Some are thick, some are thin--who cares? 

Why am I having so much trouble with this?

It's not that I can never focus on what I'm doing. There are a couple of things that force me to pay attention--one is writing, and the other is playing the recorder (and even during the latter sometimes my mind wanders in the easy passages). But with almost all the other "details of daily life"--taking Bisou for a walk, brushing my teeth, cleaning Telemann's litter box--I am, as that long-ago nun used to say, always on the moon.

Sorting socks, I fantasize what it would be like to be in the moment all day, every day, taking a genuine interest in whatever was in front of my nose. I would probably be a more relaxed person, a nicer one for sure. Maybe if I were more like William Morris I would be able to draw like him... How unfortunate that I've been cursed with this drive to inhabit the moon.

My mind grinds on laboriously, ruminating on what-ifs and might-have-beens, until I realize with a jolt that time has passed and all the socks have been united with their mates, like the beasts in Noah's ark. Not only that, but I have written this entire blog post in my head.

Like A Tree Shedding Leaves

Soon the time will come when I can no longer play the recorder.  Well, maybe not soon, but the time will surely come, if I keep on living.  And it seems unfair and sad that, having finally found a way to enjoy playing music, away from the tensions and compulsions of my early experience with the violin, I have only another ten or at most fifteen years in which to do it.  

I went to a memorial the other day for a woman who had lived a life brimming with gardening,  dancing, and art.  She had excelled at all these things, but one by one she had had to give them up--first the gardening, then the dancing, then the art.  By the time I met her she could barely hold a conversation.  She kept shaking her head, apologizing, wanting me to know that she knew what was happening to her.   

How the old apologize!  For a while, in college, I played violin/piano sonatas with an old colleague of my father's.  After a lifetime spent in some exalted music circles, he was losing his grip.  He would forget our appointments, couldn't remember which piece we were playing, lost his place over and over.  And he apologized, and lamented, and insisted on telling me that he knew what was happening to him.  All his pride was focused on his awareness of his decline, on the one thing in the core of his being that was not affected by dementia, not diminished by his inability to find his place on the score or to remember what he had said two minutes ago.  He may have been losing his mind, but he clung fiercely to the awareness that he was losing it—and that was both his torment, and his only consolation.

On my therapy dog visits with Bisou, I watch the various ways in which my fellow Wake Robin residents deal with the myriad losses that age brings, and I feel an urgent need to build a large reserve of humility to see me through the coming years.  I had better make peace with the idea that I am not my writing, or my music, or my hair, or my ability to walk the dog or use the bathroom by myself.  Like a tree shedding leaves in the fall, I will probably live to see each of these abilities leave me, one by one.  How, I wonder, to find a way to do this well, to submit with grace, and to say, with deep acceptance:  yes, this is who I am now?

Iris On Happiness

The British novelist and philosopher, Iris Murdoch, wrote, "One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats."  At first this sounds like hedonism with a small "h," possibly resulting in enormous weight gain.  But what Iris is really telling us is to pay attention, and when we do, we discover that most ordinary days are in fact a long succession of small, sometimes tiny but nevertheless pleasurable, treats.

When I was young, I had nothing but disdain for small treats.  I was focused on big ones:  a degree, a job, a mate, a child, a house.  But once those treats are in place, what is left?  One could start all over again:  get another degree, find a new mate, have another child.  But those treats are problematic, and require a lot of energy.

It used to be that people got the big treats and then they died.  Now for most of us there are years and years to fill after the big treats have been bagged. What is left, to ease the string of decades between the age of the big treats and the end of life, is the small stuff.   So it's important to become adept at inventing and identifying small treats for ourselves. 

Sometimes the treats are so tiny as to be invisible to the naked eye, and it's a good idea to carry a magnifying lens so as not to miss any that might go unnoticed.  And we need to train ourselves to look forward to our small treats, and then to remember and be grateful for them afterwards.

I stumbled upon this practice all by myself--or perhaps it was divine inspiration--in the darkest times of my CFS.  When the day from dawn to dusk had held nothing but misery and malaise, I would lie in bed in a tangle of frustration, unable to sleep and endlessly rehearsing all the things I hadn't been able to do.  Then one night, to calm myself, I began to go over the last sixteen hours with a mental magnifying glass, starting with getting out of bed in the morning, and noting every single good thing that had happened to me, no matter how small.

It turned out that even a particularly bad day was a succession of continuous small treats.  There were so many, and counting them was so relaxing, that before I knew it I fell asleep.  But while I was going through the process I was amazed at how studded with good things those miserable hours had actually been.

What kind of things? There was the comfort of waking up in a warm house on a cold day, the jade plant blooming next to the sunny window, the spouse's offer to fetch pizza for dinner, the freedom to lie down when I absolutely had to, the dog at my side...these were all, when I focused on them, reasons for happiness and deep gratitude.

In Catholic school we were taught to every night, before going to sleep, make an examination of conscience, reviewing any faults we had committed during the day.  I have since replaced the examination of conscience with the counting of small treats.  The practice of gratitude, because it leads to happiness and contentment and thence to generosity, is just as likely to make me a better person as the awareness of my failings.

So now that the era of big treats is mostly over for me, I lie in bed at night, fingering my day bead by bead, a rosary of continuous small treats.  And long before the end, I always fall asleep.

Zen Master Dog

He still wags his tail hard enough to knock wine glasses off the coffee table and small children off their feet.  He still gets excited at the prospect of going for a walk, and rushes barking into the woods when I let him out at night.

But he's not the dog he used to be.

He has lost his stamina, that turbo-charged oomph that he seemed to never run out of.  Part of it is age--Wolfie is six now, and for a German Shepherd that is no longer young.  But neither is it old.

A couple of years ago, when he had so much energy that I thought he could win the Iditarod all by himself, on one of our walks in the woods or in the field a tick bit him and gave him anaplasmosis.

Despite tick meds, tick collars and scrupulous owners, most of the Vermont dogs I know have Lyme disease.  But they get a course of antibiotics and, though they may continue to test positive, they get better.  Antibiotics are also used against anaplasmosis, but despite repeated treatments, Wolfie has never fully recovered.

His coat is shiny, and his appetite is excellent.  When his anaplamosis limp shows up, I give him an aspirin or two and he's soon back to normal.  The new normal, that is, of not going after balls for more than a few throws;  of trotting rather than running down the steep driveway;  of walking rather than trotting on the way up.  I used to take him to herding lessons, for which he had a certain talent, but we've had to give those up.  And I wouldn't dream of taking up agility again with him, much though he enjoyed it when he was a puppy.

In many ways he reminds me of myself, bitten by CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) in my prime, back when I was running my own Iditarod equivalents.  I too have healthy-looking hair and an excellent appetite.  But I am not who I used to be, and it's not because of the passing years.

But here is where Wolfie and I are different:  he is not a depressed or a worried dog.  When he's tired, he rests.  When his leg hurts, he takes the aspirin I give him in a dollop of peanut butter and waits for it to get better.  And when it does, he runs in the grass and chases Bisou without wondering how long this relief is going to last, or when the next relapse might hit.
He lives in and for the moment.

Of course he does--he's a dog.  I am not, more's the pity, and since living in the moment is the only possible approach to surviving CFS--because you never know how you are going to feel the next day, or even the next hour--I have to work hard at doing what Wolfie does so naturally.

Right now, as I write, I'm o.k.  My brain does not feel like it's wrapped in cheesecloth;  my arms and legs don't have that floaty, twitchy feeling that heralds a relapse;  my shoulders do not feel that familiar mantle of lead.  Nothing hurts.  But in the back of my mind there's a list of the things I'd like to get done today:  pick blueberries, freeze chard, make pesto, clean the fish bowls, clip the dogs' nails, fold the laundry--small tasks, as you can see--and I'm already weighing and prioritizing and wondering how long my energy will hold out.

While I fret, Wolfie chills, his long body stretched at my feet.  Inside his big head I doubt that there is much more than a pleasant anticipation of dinner, and the hope of a walk.  Otherwise, he is all here, on the floor, in his body, relishing the miracle of a cool dry day.

Me too, Wolfie, me too.

A Message From The Universe, Via Facebook

Does it ever happen to you that a message arrives from the outer galaxies just when you really need it?

I won't speculate about who sends these messages, but today mine came through Facebook by way of Bridgett (http://south-city-musings.blogspot.com/).  It's a quote from Thomas Merton:

(Here is the quote if you can't read it in the illustration:  "You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going.  What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.")

Is this not the ultimate prescription for sanity and happiness?

I think it's even a prescription for productivity, and here's why.  We've all been hammered by success gurus with the need to focus constantly on our desired outcomes, to ask of even the most mundane act, how does this relate to my goal?  With the result that we are always thinking about that other thing, the thing that we want and do not yet have, instead of concentrating on the water on our face or the soup in our bowl.

And if one does too much of this, as I am prone to, first anxiety and then paralysis set in, followed by the loss of courage, faith and hope.

On the other hand,  how relaxing, how energizing and inspiring and ultimately productive to embrace the possibilities of the present moment with courage, faith and hope.  And to just do what needs to be done, right now.

For me, the hard part is faith and hope.  I read Sartre at an impressionable age, and I can imagine his Gallic pout at those words.  But the time has come to adopt a more pragmatic stance.  Is existential anguish, the nausea caused by the absurdity of the human condition, going to make me a kinder, happier, more useful person?  It hasn't so far...

But with a bit of faith and hope--both of which take courage--I could sink into the embrace of the present moment, get stuff done, and have some peace.

Thank you, Unknown Sender of Messages,Thomas Merton, and Bridgett...and you too, Facebook.

Sundays At The Church Of The Internet

For the first quarter century of my life, I went to church every Sunday.  I didn't mind the Mass so much, but the sermon did me in.  As a child I fidgeted in the pew, but as soon as I became capable of critical thinking, I fidgeted inside my head.  Proud of my book learning, I passed the time identifying logical fallacies and deploring the oratorical style, or lack thereof, of the man in the pulpit.

After the Ite, missa est released us, I would tear the chapel veil off my head and complain to my mother about yet another ridiculous sermon.  She, who probably had the same objections as I, would counsel humility, the suspension of judgment.  "But," I would counter in full adolescent preen, "if God didn't want me to use it, why did He give me a brain?"

Then for many years I didn't go to church at all.  But when life got difficult and my sense of invulnerability faded, I became aware of an annoying longing for spiritual guidance.  This led me to join crowds of lapsed Catholics and Jews at the local Unitarian church, but my old critical habit soon reared up its wizened head, and I stopped showing up.

After we moved to Vermont I started listening to On Being because it came on NPR while we were eating Sunday breakfast.  And because I usually missed part of it while I was out feeding the chickens I would later, when I thought of it, go to the website.

And I was off.  With the wind of the Holy Ghost in my sails, I discovered Viktor Frankl,  Richard Rohr, Pema Chodron, Sylvia Boorstein.  Eckart Tolle, who looks like a Dark Forest elf, reminds me of the German nuns who were my first teachers.  Also, he owns a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  Do these sound like frivolous reasons to listen to a spiritual teacher?  If those priests of my childhood had owned a dog--or had a wife and children--I might have understood them better.

The vagaries of links led me to someone I would never have looked up, Geneen Roth, who lost all her money to Bernie Madoff and wrote beautifully about it, and to the illustrator Jennifer Orkin Lewis, whose works make me want to draw, or write, or something...

I know all too well the orthodox rebuttal to my digital spiritual wanderings.  I am picking and choosing what feels right--as opposed to what IS right--which is utterly non-Catholic.  But I'm not so sure about that.  No Sunday sermon on the dangers of mortal sin was as stark as Pema Chodron's message about the need to accept the impermanence of all things, to give up hope for good.

These digital homilies are hardly touchy-feely--at least the ones I read.  They deal with the inevitability of suffering and the need to be present, because the present is all we have.  And if an internet sermon makes me want to write or draw or stop thinking for a minute and just look into the green woods, isn't that all God's work?

Needlepoint With Thich Nhat Hanh

A friend lent me a CD of one of Thich Nhat Hanh's talks and I put it on the player and sat down to work on my needlepoint of big, red Art Nouveau poppies.  I was multitasking, a really bad Western habit.  But at least I wasn't watching TV at the same time.

TNH's English is very good--he studied at Princeton and taught at Columbia in the 1960s.  But his intonation is still a bit disconcerting, and that, combined with the quality of the recording, made him difficult to understand.  His voice, though, is lovely, soft but deep and just a little raspy and absolutely even in volume.  If there is such a thing as an equanimous delivery, TNH has it.  Listening to him is the polar opposite of listening to Italian opera.

After some initial frustration I let go of attachment and just let his voice wash over me. At the same time, I was acutely aware of the aural aspects of needlepoint, which in case you'd never noticed are as follows:  thwack!, the needle goes in;  swishhh..., the thread goes through;  pop! the needle comes up.  And so on.

Beyond all the thwacking and swishing, TNH kept up his murmur.  Every once in a while, like a deep-red leaf dropping to the ground in autumn, a sentence would reach me:  "Stop thinking;  start feeling;  enjoy brushing your teeth."  "How wonderful to have a paradise at any time, because you have eyes."  "Breathing in, I calm body and mind.  Breathing out, I smile."

Thwack, swish, pop...

And the kicker:  "I think, therefore I am not here."  Take that, Descartes!
 

Compost And The Monk

A friend sent me a link to an interview with Thich Nhat Hanh (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/zen-master-thich-nhat-hanh-love-climate-change#skiplinks ).  In it the 86-year-old Buddhist monk, one of the world's foremost spiritual leaders, talks, among other things, about his own mortality:

"It is like the tea. When you pour the hot water in the tea, you drink it for the first time, and then you pour again some hot water and you drink, and after that the tea leaves are there in the pot but the flavour has gone into the tea and if you say they die it is not correct because they continue to live on in the tea, so this body is just a residue.  It still can provide some tea flavour but one day there will be no tea flavour left and that is not death. And even the tea leaves, you can put them in the flower pot and they continue to serve, so we have to look at birth and death like that."

And even the tea leaves, you can put them in the flower pot and they continue to serve... I could just see TNH using and reusing the tea leaves, then carefully dumping the residue into his African violet pot.  And it's true, tea leaves are the nectar of the gods to a houseplant.  I'm sure that TNH has champion African violets, what with all the tea leaves and his equanimous presence.

What I'm wondering is, where did this angelic figure learn about the benefits of tea leaves for houseplants--or do angelic beings automatically know such things?

Apparently this angelic being is deeply into compost.  When he learned that a temple in his native Vietnam was planning to build him a memorial, this was his reaction:

"I said don't waste the land of the temple in order to build me a stupha. Do not put me in a small pot and put me in there. I don't want to continue like that. It is better to put the ash outside to help the trees to grow."

Such a cheering thought:  compost as the means to resurrection.  What better afterlife could any of us aspire to, than to to continue to serve by helping the trees to grow?

Bluebird Emergency!

If I really prized my peace of mind, I would lower the blinds on all my windows in the spring and keep them that way until the fall.  There's only so much drama I can deal with, and every time I look outside I find some reason for concern:  the phoebes in the front porch building their nest too early;  the frogs  coming out of hibernation ditto;  the apples blooming in a rainstorm;  and worst of all, the bluebirds.

Initial elation (could it really be...yes, yes, it's a bluebird!) was followed by doubt (are they serious about this nest thing?) and then worry (why are they away so much?).  As I wrote in my last post, after consultation with my bluebird guru I looked in the box and almost fainted at the sight of those bright blue eggs.  After worry, ecstasy!

But feelings, the Buddha tells us, change, and sure enough, today my ecstasy was quickly followed by worry tinged with panic.

This afternoon the sun was out, the breeze brisk, the air like wine.  I saw the male bluebird bringing take-out (in the form of a fat white butterfly) to the nest.  I hoped that meant that the female had finally decided to settle down and keep those poor eggs warm.  Since checking the nest box involves my dragging a chair into the flower bed and standing on it, I asked my taller, more colorful mate to see if anybody was sitting on the eggs.  He said there was.

My bird experience being largely confined to chickens, I know that there is a big difference between a hen laying eggs, and her "setting" on them.  Even if the eggs have been fertilized by a rooster, if she doesn't set, doesn't "go broody," all they're good for is omelettes.  So I was pleased to know that the female bluebird was on the job.  And it was touching to see the male being uxorious, bringing her tidbits like a young husband going out at midnight to fetch the traditional ice cream and pickles.

I was basking in the glow of bluebird domesticity, reading a New Yorker article about the degradation of the English language, when something blue flashed in the direction of the nest box.  But it wasn't a soft, bluebird kind of blue.  It was an electric, iridescent blue.  It wasn't a plump and cuddly bluebird shape either, but smaller, sharper, and extremely fast.

A while later, it came back--fast and metallic and piercing to the eye--and fluttered around the nest box.  The third pass sent me to the bird book.  It is as I feared:  the prospecting stranger is a tree swallow, the bluebird's worst nightmare.  As I stared at the book, the recent conversation with my bluebird guru came back to me.  "Tree swallows," she said, "compete so fiercely with bluebirds for nesting places, that the only solution is to set out nest boxes in pairs, so that each bird can have his own." 

The tree swallow was clearly just scouting this afternoon, whereas my bluebird couple are clearly settled in.  But I wonder, are tree swallows capable of ousting bluebird pairs after the nest has been made and the eggs have been laid?  What if my bluebirds are young and inexperienced and/or frivolous and irresponsible enough to go off in search of better housing--perhaps one of those pileated woodpecker holes that dot our woods--and abandon their babies-to-be?

I'm also wondering what has made for the sudden popularity of this nest box.  It was already in place when we moved in, and in the past only wrens have been attracted to it.  But since the bluebirds came, not just tree swallows, but starlings also have shown interest.  Real estate always was a fickle business.

The sun is starting to go down now, and while I've been writing the swallow hasn't returned, which is a good thing.  But neither has the male bluebird.  What does he think he's doing?  Has he forgotten his wife?  Doesn't he know it's supper time? 

When My Mind Is Elsewhere, Where Am I?

It's been happening a lot lately.  I'll have fifteen minutes before I have to leave the house to go somewhere and I think, "I'll just write a couple of sentences to start my next blog post."  I'm a great believer in jotting something down as a pump primer and returning to it later.  But inevitably, even though I firmly intend to stop writing and leave punctually for my appointment, I lose track of time, then come to with a start and have to rush out of the house like a bat out of hell.

The same thing happens every morning when I sit on the floor to meditate.  I set the 30-minute timer, close my eyes, and focus on the breath.  Next thing I know, I've planned what I'm going to cook for dinner and had exciting imaginary conversations with a couple of people I haven't seen in years.  I return to the breath, and suddenly I'm writing the day's blog post.  And so on. 

I am prepared for this:  meditation gurus warn against the tendency of "monkey mind" to jump all over the place.  But I don't want to jump all over the place.  I want to focus on the breath and achieve serenity.  I want to write for fifteen minutes, hit Save, and leave the house.  Who is this monkey in my head?

It's the same monkey that, every night, puts me to sleep.  The difference is that, at night, she has my permission.  I get in bed, close my eyes, take a few deep breaths, and invoke the monkey.  I ask her to take me out of time and reality until morning, and she usually obliges.  My mind grows dim, wanders a bit, and next thing I know, the dogs are whining for their breakfast.  If you've ever had trouble falling asleep, you know that the monkey cannot be summoned at will.  But neither, at least in my experience, can she be kept away.

I don't, of course, believe that I am inhabited by a monkey any more than I believe that I am possessed by a devil.  But then who is it that, despite my best intentions, makes me forget the time while I'm writing, or plan menus while I'm meditating?  Is the real me the one that sets the intention, or the one that seduces me into wayward avenues of thought?  And just who is in charge here?

Please tell me I'm not the only one with this problem.

Forgiving Our Mothers

Went to a meeting of women of a certain age yesterday to talk about mothers and daughters.  The room was crowded, and  I couldn't help wondering what an equivalent meeting for men would have been like.  Would guys have showed up in such numbers on a Sunday afternoon?  Would they have told intimate stories about their fathers?

In this meeting, the stories came pouring out. There was the woman who, the night before her mother died, dreamed that she was carrying her mother down a path towards a bridge whose other side was obscured by clouds;  the woman whose mother could not attend her daughter's college graduation because she was giving birth to her fourteenth child;  the woman (several women) who felt abandoned by her mother.  Finally, there was the woman who, try as she might, could not bring herself to forgive her mother. The room had lots of advice for her, basically having to do with letting go of her feelings so she could get on with her life.  Then, as the meeting was about to end, one woman spoke up "You can't just think about forgiveness."  She clasped her hands to her bosom, "Forgiveness has to come from the heart."

What?

Talk about a perpetual guilt machine.  I can imagine the unforgiving woman beating herself up for the rest of her life, saying "But I don't feel forgiveness towards my mother."  Paradoxically, my often guilt-inducing Catholic education could have come to the rescue, had I had a chance to speak.  "Feelings don't have anything to do with it," I would have told her.  "All you need is the intention to forgive.  Make an act of the will.  Act as though you have forgiven, and things will take care of themselves."

There's nothing we can do about our feelings.  Resentment, hatred, gluttony, envy, lust keep endlessly erupting out of that hidden volcano we all carry inside.  They appear uninvited, sometimes a trickle,  sometimes a torrent.  And sometimes they vanish for good.

The only thing we can control is our actions. The practice of acting as though one has forgiven reminds me of the loving-kindness practice in Buddhism.  You keep repeating "may all beings be safe, may all beings be happy..." and eventually you may end up feeling kindly towards your worst enemy.  But it's o.k. if the feeling doesn't come, as long as the intention is there.

This approach to morality has helped in my own dealings with my mother.  I can recall things my mother did or said that still arouse less-than-loving feelings in me.  But in my mind and with my will I have forgiven her, and thus am spared the burden of guilt.

The process of forgiving my mother has been assisted by my being the mother of adult children--daughters at that.  How can anybody who has bumbled and improvised her way through motherhood, armed with nothing but luck and good intentions, see herself through the eyes of her grown daughters and not cast a newly indulgent eye on her own mother?  In other words, let her who is without guilt cast the first stone...

Despite my refusal to cast stones, I'm sorry to say, the resentment volcano still erupts.  "Why  did she...?   How on earth could she...?  Didn't she see that I...?"  On and on, ad infinite nauseam.  Isn't it time I got over this, I wonder?  Will it ever go away? 

I am beginning to suspect that this particular volcano will never go completely dormant.  But after yesterday's meeting, hearing all those stories, at least I know that mine is not the only volcano that's still sputtering away.

A Golden Mean

This is another post about CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).   You should know that it is a good sign when I write about this illness, since when I am in relapse I will do anything to take my mind off it.

I've been thinking lately about how strongly contact with people--or the lack of it--affects my symptoms.  On the one hand, when I am not feeling well, nothing tires me more than the human presence.  And not all human presences affect me in the same way.  I have learned through experience that, regardless of the degree of affection I may feel for them, certain people wear me out, while others don't.

I cannot say that all high-energy people fatigue me, since I find some of them stimulating and revitalizing.  Other intense individuals, however, make me feel as if the very marrow is being sucked out of my bones.  Nor are all quiet people restful and salutary.  I can enjoy quiet/interesting for hours, but the most exhausting encounters are those with quiet/boring, probably because I feel obligated to provide all the fuel for the conversation.

When I am at my worst, the only presences I can tolerate are my spouse--and my dogs.

On the other hand, nothing is more crucial to my mental (and likely also my physical) health than contact with people.  Isolation has a depressing effect even on those in the pink of condition.  How much more so, then, on people whose illness features depression as one of its foremost symptoms.  So I find myself in the curious position of simultaneously desiring human contact, and avoiding it.

The trick is to achieve a balance between social activity and solitude.  Sometimes I perform amazing feats of calibration--say, lunch out, then a nap, and a phone conversation in the evening.  But both lunch and dinner out on the same day usually spells disaster the next morning.

It would be easier if the planet's inhabitants existed solely to attend to my needs.  That not being the case, my friends' schedules and obligations as well as their feelings and preferences complicate my attempts to calibrate my exposure to society.

For the most part, however, I manage pretty well.  For one thing, I am now in the fortunate position not to have to confront co-workers on a daily basis.  For another, I am comfortable with a degree of solitude that many would find intolerable (that's why I live in Vermont).  And I have understanding and flexible friends.

I am just coming out of a period of extraordinary (for me) levels of human contact:  a week in the midst of my descendants followed by an explosion of year-end celebrations.  And yet here I am, sitting by the fire, writing about it, seemingly none the worse for all the fun.  Does it--could it--mean I'm getting better?

I have learned, over the last fifteen years, not to attach to these resurgences.  I have read my Buddhist books, and know that I should enjoy these good periods, while at the same time accepting that, like everything else in life, they are transitory.

This is one of the reasons I write about this otherwise boring, disgusting illness:  because it distills the conflicts and dilemmas that all humans have to face.  The need to balance social life and contemplation, activity and rest.  The need to accept that we are more than the sum of our accomplishments.  The need to realize that nothing--not the good times nor the bad--lasts forever.   And that, while suffering is inescapable, happiness is not out of the question.

Y Is For Yoga, And For Young

Some people believe that running marathons will keep them young.  Others think that abstaining from eating animal products will do the trick.  Others join societies whose members eat almost nothing at all, in the hopes that this will enable them to live forever.

Me, I believe in yoga.  Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, my gut tells me that as long as I can do a forward bend and place my hands flat on the floor, I will not be truly old.  As long as I can sit in a half lotus, lean forward and touch my face to the mat, there is still hope.  As long as I can pick up one foot and touch my nose with my toe, I'm o.k.  If I could stand on my head--which I can't--that would guarantee immortality, but I'm not aiming for that.

I don't want to climb mountains or swim across straits or lift huge weights.  All I want is for my arms and legs and hips and neck to continue making most of the gestures they made when they were three years old.  All I want is to be able to control my limbs within the space of my yoga mat.  This strikes me as a self-contained, reasonable, even humble goal.*

The fact that I have CFS imposes certain limits on my yoga practice--which is o.k., because if it didn't I'd be doing nothing but yoga all the time.  The disease lets me do just about anything I want in class, but takes its revenge afterwards.  If I indulge in one sun salutation too many, I can be nailed to the bed for a week.

Yoga has done some very good things for me.  It was my flexibility going into hip-replacement surgery that allowed me to recover in record time and regain complete range of motion in the new hip (having a great surgeon helped, too).  When I developed severe neck pains that traveled down my arm, doctors took x-rays and mumbled about pinched nerves, NSAIDs and physical therapy.  But I remembered the yoga dictum to hold your head as if you were hanging from a golden chain attached to the top of your skull, chin tucked in and back of the neck extended, and behold, the pain went away. 

Best of all, yoga has enabled me to have a conversation with my body, every part of it.  Before yoga my feet were vague appendages flapping at the end of my legs.  With yoga I have gotten to know them personally--heel and arch and all ten toes.  After several years of practice, the weird things my teachers said about the breath finally began to make sense.  Now if I'm told to breathe into my hip, I know exactly what to do.  And I have learned, both literally and metaphorically, to listen to my gut, whose small, quiet voice had gone unheeded for my entire life.

*Buddhist Note:  I realize that this wanting to control my body within the space of my yoga mat, etc. is a sign of attachment to outcomes, but I can't help it.