Had one of those two steps forward and three steps backwards kinds of days. Back on the antibiotics and had another (wasted) day spent mostly in the doc’s office.
Sheesh.
I’m kind of feeling like this today.
Sigh. Heading to the garden as soon as it cools a bit out there in the fiery inferno that is supposed to be spring.
An excerpt from ECS’ post today:
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us that we should learn to breathe consciously to notice and appreciate the details of life in the present moment so that we can BE happy.
These teachings are summed up nicely in this excerpt from the book: “Flower Insights”
There is a story about a flower which is well known in the Zen circles. One day the Buddha held up a flower in front of an audience of 1,250 monks and nuns. He did not say anything for quite a long time. The audience was perfectly silent. Everyone seemed to be thinking hard, trying to see the meaning behind the Buddha’s gesture.
Then, suddenly, the Buddha smiled. He smiled because someone in the audience smiled at him and at the flower.
The name of that monk was Mahakashyapa. He was the only person who smiled, and the Buddha smiled back and said, “I have a treasure of insight, and I have transmitted it to Mahakashyapa.”
That story has been discussed by many generations of Zen students, and people continue to look for its meaning. To me, the meaning is quite simple. When someone holds up a flower and shows it to you, he wants you to see it. If you keep thinking, you miss the flower. The person who was not thinking, who was just himself, was able to encounter the flower in depth, and he smiled.
That is the problem of life. If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. When a child presents himself to you with his smile, if you are not really there – thinking about the future or the past, or preoccupied with other problems – then the child is not really there for you. The technique of being alive is to go back to yourself in order for the child to appear like a marvelous reality. Then you can see him smile and you can embrace him in your arms.
Sometimes it seems ridiculous to me that I get so much delight out of posting pictures of flowers. It’s so easy, so cliche. But each time I post one I lose myself in that place, I go deeper down into each detail. I am calmer and more relaxed. At peace.
May 1st was BADD (Blogging Against Disablism Day). Here’s my short (and late) contribution…
In the wee hours of May 1st as I was lying in the hospital bed trying to tolerate the noises of my fellow roommates (mostly really bad soap opera TV in foreign languages but also a fair share of random screaming for pain meds, IV pumps beeping, and toilet flushing), an aide came in to take my vital signs.
Let me just tell you, reader, that at this point I was not a happy camper. Though I was in terrible pain, the doc who had admitted me had only authorized small doses of ibuprofen or tylenol and I was told by my night nurse that nothing could be done about that until morning. So I was just aching, trying to just focus on my breath, to not hurt so much. I also felt scared, the kind of scared that only happens at night in the hospital where nights are exponentially long. So this aide comes in to take my vitals and I hold out my arm for the pressure cuff and open my mouth for the thermometer.
Then as she’s finishing she sees my left leg uncovered and propped up on a pillow, in all of its infected ugliness. She shakes her head and says, “I sure hope you don’t lose it.”
I’m sure she meant it as a fairly innocuous remark (and certainly I’d stressed to my doctors how important the health of my one leg is, and this fueled much of their aggressiveness with my various treatments over the past few weeks). But that remark, combined with my own discomfort just put me over the edge. I tried to call John and couldn’t figure out how to work the damn phone. I started crying into my pillow. Wondering if maybe I really was going to lose my left leg and no one had told me yet (I should note that this info was also withheld for a time from me when I lost my right leg due to cancer). I just sobbed and sobbed. When I eventually stopped and reached over for a sip of water I saw one one of my roommates from across the aisle, walking towards me, leaning on her IV pole.
“I have a cookie for you. It’s good and fresh,” she said.
Well, to tell the truth I wasn’t at all interested in a cookie right then. But she was kind and I felt I couldn’t refuse. I took the cookie and started nibbling on it. And it turned out that it was good. After she saw that I’d finished it she brought me two more cookies and chatted with me for a few minutes.
Not too long after that, my other neighbor–the one whose bed was nearly next to mine except for an IV pump and a thin curtain between us–she started singing in Vietnamese. I didn’t recognize the songs, but I found her quiet voice just tuneless enough that I could imagine my own lyrics. In between the songs she would recite some rote prayers and then start singing again. I wondered if she was singing for me, but I’m sure she was singing for herself and for her own long night. That day she’d learned that she had incurable cancer and had just a few weeks left (I’d heard this all through our shared curtain). Her numerous children had spent much of the afternoon debating various treatment options: surgeries, chemo, etc. I’d heard the doctors’ gentle suggestion that she be made as comfortable as possible, and also heard that her children were pushing for more aggressive therapies. Sigh.
So back to Blogging Against Disablism…
I know sometimes when we encounter disability, we don’t know exactly what to do or what to say. Sometimes we can’t tell whether a remark we make might be offensive (as that of my aide was for me right then), sometimes we wonder if our kindnesses will be rebuffed–if the cookies we offer can ever assuage a hurt that’s as dark and deep as the night is long. Sometimes we can only lie in bed and hum a song or say a prayer and not even know if there’s anyone out there to hear it. But somehow, one way or another, we just keep trying, keep doing, keep learning, keep connected. Because we’re all going to have those nights, those ones that seem like they will never end.
When the sun rises (and it will, eventually), what’s left is not the fear or the hurt, but the memories of the people who cared, who generously reached right outside of themselves. And whose courage seemed bigger than their fear.
I can’t reply to all of your emails and well-wishes right now, but I have read every one of them. Thank you! 🙂
I don’t want to tell this story, really, but I will anyways.
On Wednesday afternoon I felt a strange burning on my left calf–in the area where my wound was from 10 days ago. Later that night after being on my feet for a few hours at some meetings, as I got undressed I realized that my lower leg was raw and swollen. I passed the night feverish and in increasing pain. By Thursday morning I realized that I needed to see a doctor, and soon.
It’s hard having just one leg, to have something go awry like this. Ambulation became nearly impossible, I couldn’t drive, I was getting increasingly scared about the hot red swelling spreading up my leg.
Long story short: I am on some antibiotics and I haven’t left the couch since returning home from the doctor. We are watching carefully for signs of further problems but so far all seems okay.
This incident has caused me to consider many things: the problems of antibiotic resistance, my vulnerability to infection, and my dependence on John & the kids. I find myself continuingly grateful for a spouse who keeps a job that he dislikes so I can have good health insurance.
But the overriding emotion for me, in all this, has been fear. I am scared of pain, of being bedridden, and of having my body be out of my control. Even as I write this there’s a big knot in my stomach. Because I remember another time when my leg was red and swollen and I started spending most of my days on the couch. Since then I don’t think there’s ever been a day that I have not felt afraid that it could happen again. To me. Or to one that I love.
Today as I sat in silence, an old song was running through my mind. It’s a ballad by LDS songwriter Michael McLean and each verse portrays a stage of a women’s life and has her perplexed by her role in her various relationships–with friends, spouse, children and spiritual journey. The refrain asks “Which part is mine and which part is yours?”
I thought about this song as I pondered my various relationships. I wondered, for example, about my children’s growing autonomy. At what point do I intervene and help them to solve their problems and when do I let them learn their own lessons? How much do I hover? When it is better to let them strike out on their own? How can I affirm my love without stifling them or breaking their will? And are there moments when I am too aloof, too absorbed in my own projects?
I thought about it in terms of my relationship with John. I considered the significant investment I have in him and how difficult it is for me when, like this last week, he is out of town. And I wonder what the best balance is between absorbing myself in him and pursuing my own goals & desires? I considered those moments when my being self-focused weakens our relationship. Yet I also think that, in many ways, I can only be a good partner when I have a strong self to offer. Which part is mine and which part is his, indeed?
This line of thought also has resonance with my involvement in the larger community of Friends. For the past two years I’ve mostly been a recipient–indulging in the efforts of others’ planning, sharing, and ministry. This has been a necessary time to nourish my wounded soul. Accepting the care of others has allowed me space and time for healing. I wonder, though, if it isn’t my turn to serve? As I sat in Meeting today and acknowledged each person in the circle I realized that I have much to give. I am no longer the girl in corner who is constantly on the verge of tears, who has no voice to speak in Meeting. Perhaps ironically, this brings to mind some words from my patriarchal blessing, an admonishment to “move with confidence because there are many who look to you as an example and who will receive encouragement from you through your example.” I am starting to feel that it is “my part” to become more active in the Meeting community. Perhaps it is time to return some of what I have received.
‘Nuff said….
Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day’s performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant? Pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.
~Margaret Fuller
[Note: this iris is one of the beauties blooming in my garden right now. I love the two-toned purples. Nearly everyone who passes by comments on how spectacular these flowers look.]
I have always been a letter writer. I love the feel of a fresh piece of stationery, and watching my words fill a card or a page. I fell in love with my spouse through the letters we exchanged during the years he was in Japan–long before the days of email.
During my college years I wrote letters every Sunday. Letters to John, letters to my parents and extended family, letters to friends both close and farflung. I kept a thick folder of quotations and poetry that could easily be inserted in letters. When appropriate I enclosed pressed ferns or flowers. I decorated my stationery with pictures in the margins and with stickers. I often sealed them closed with an impression from a favorite rubber stamp.
My Mom recently came across the letters that I wrote to my grandmother–covering a span of two decades. Mom had never known that I’d written so frequently and at such length. I remember thinking, at the time, that my grandma would be delighted to get my missives in the mail and it seemed an important duty to write to her often. And she regularly replied, though more than once she expressed her surprise at how much I liked to write letters. I wonder, now, if I was one of the few who wrote to her during those years. Perhaps it was those many years of letters that led to our closeness when I eventually moved my young family near her home. She came over regularly and offered much help and advice with the children. Though our interests didn’t overlap much, it was a joy to have her participate in our lives and I’d forgotten how important that was to me at the time.
Grandma loved roses and she let me pick from her many rosebushes as much as I wanted to. After visiting her I would craft huge bouquets that brought me much joy during the years that I didn’t have my own garden. I suspect that much of my affection for flowers comes from grandma and her husband, who was also an avid gardener.
Grandma is still alive, but suffers now from advanced Alzheimer’s and resides in an assisted living facility. She doesn’t remember any of her family members–even her own children. But I have heard that she still enjoys receiving cards and letters.
