Quarantini anyone?

Early last Sunday morning, March 15 (beware?), my wife and I went shopping at Wegmans, a large and eclectically stocked family owned east coast grocery chain.  Normally packed with customers, we were early enough to avoid the heaviest crowds.

But not, as it turned out, early enough to find anywhere close to the usual overabundance of goods. And it wasn't just hand sanitizer, wipes, masks, and the like that were missing.  Most fresh produce, baked goods - fresh and bagged - and pretty much the entire heated and fresh buffet food area were more reminiscent of the depression era, and/or Soviet Block times.  And the customers were frantically dashing through the aisles with stricken looks on their faces.  Motoring along in the power wheelchair shopping cart, I'm not sure how I appeared, but I think I felt okay.  Maybe some contact tense?

Not having had caffein or breakfast yet, I was relieved to find prepared, packaged in little paperboard boxes, hot pastry sandwiches with eggs, cheese, bacon, etc.  And most important, COFFEE!!  And half and half!  Upon exhausting my short list and myself (Dwan managing the long list), I breakfasted on the limited but ample fare.  After finishing up that most excellent café elixir, I asked an employee where I might be able to find a toothpick.  She kindly found one for me, which was offered and accepted in a pre covid, that is to say, a relaxed fashion.  Though she looked a bit tired, and through a mildly continental accent (I have learned how inappropriate the question "where are you from" is, especially in our current dystopia), she seemed rather calm and warmhearted.  Noting the seeming mad rush behind us - before us were only two other people in the normally packed dining area, at least two meters between them.  Perhaps owing to my recent satiety and her calm weary, we chatted for a while and agreed that the avenues perhaps most important in the midst of this crisis might be peace, calm, and love.  Sure, wash those hands, stay home if you can, but most important: smile.  Reach out by phone, text, email.

And just the memory of this exchange still brings a smile to my face.

But what about the blog post title?  My stepdaughter recently invented/shared the recipe for a Quarantini: one to three shots gin or vodka, one teaspoon honey, a twist of lemon, a slice of ginger; serve shaken or on the rocks.  And I would add, follow with a bottle of Corona beer, a boilermaker of sorts for this moment in history!  Remember to drink responsibly...

Cheers!  And most important, smile!

SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: ATTENTION CLASS!

Life lessons.



Just two days ago I had a third attempted surgical procedure on my tri-geminal nerve.  Though it is a minor operation and out-patient, it involved general anesthesia.  Unfortunately it was 'strike three.'  If you have never experienced such pain as the disruption of this nerve can bring, consider yourself very, very fortunate.  It is rightly referred to as the 'suicide illness' by some professionals, and though accurate, methinks this is a rather ill-advised moniker, it doth protest needlessly much, implying that suicide might be a solution.

The picture above, something of a 'red badge of courage' is a fairly pedestrian record of two IV attempts (the third on my other hand - shy of my life record of 5), and two bandages incurred from the day's procedure.  The third, not pictured here, on my cheek.  But I am not blogging this for the sake of pathos, or compassion.

Because I consider myself rather blessed, and full of gratitude to have this powerful sense of awareness, whether God given or naturally arising (is there a difference?), for all of life's vicissitudes.  Though many of these have been quite hair-raising - losing a spouse to cancer, getting diagnosed with MS, having a son attempt suicide four times - looking back on them brings a warm sadness, the likes of which I might never have known.

Life experiences make up a patchwork of infinite love.  Can we embrace it all?

Good Appetite?

This piece, less some edits, first appeared 6 years ago.

Some hard old dry cheese, a small tart apple, a handful of peanuts in their shells, and some stale crackers - these comprised the 'lunch' I brought with me to a non-residential weekend meditation retreat at a yoga center in northern Virginia many years ago.

I had already been to two five-day retreats at the bucolic Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, California.  Nestled among copses of lush green live oak - the surrounding hills golden with ripe wild oats and other prairie grasses - the meditation hall, dormitories, and other buildings are a sight for weary pilgrim eyes.  A large Buddha statue sits near a small stream trickling past, two black lizards play chase around his belly.  A rusted bell stands on the slope near the meditation hall.  It is first sounded at 5:30 a.m.  Then again at noon, signaling lunch time.

The retreat participants and I file silently down the hill to the dining hall, where we are greeted by resplendent vegetarian fare (which may seem an oxymoron to some, but to a vegetarian of several decades, it was truly sumptuous).

The bulk of the retreat is spent in motion, it's not all silent sitting: 'walking meditation,' 'mindful eating,' and 'chore meditation' (whether helping with dishes, sous chefing, cleaning the bathrooms, etc.).  All in silence, except for the occasional murmured interrogative or whispered salutation to a retreat 'friend.'  Both of which are discouraged; the invitation is rather to come fully into the boundless present as it arises each moment, free of interpersonal distraction.  When the retreat is over, the idea is to bring this sense of wonder into our lives in the world, to our families, our places of work, our friendships - and even, perhaps especially, to our difficult relationships.  But until the silent retreat is over, this 'talking meditation' is to be avoided.

Okay, I see I'm drifting a bit from the topic, but bear with me.

At meals, one is invited to focus one's attention on the food, the sensations of chewing, swallowing, etc.  While sitting in the meditation hall, the yogi is instructed to 'follow the breath' or some other 'anchor' to help focus the mind.  At the dining table, by contrast, surrounded by the sound of sliding chairs, clinking utensils, and glasses being set down, the invitation is to open fully to these sense objects, and in particular to those which are front and center:  that is, your plate, the food upon it, the heft of your fork, the cool glass of water in your hand - how it is brought to your lips, and the passage of water into your mouth and down your throat.

This may all sound like pointless navel gazing, and of course it can remain simply that.  (I'm not referring of course to the navel oranges - a particularly sensual experience to peel, to smell the cascading, spritzing, spray and aromas as they emerge while you remove the skin.)  In fact, it was while doing just that - peeling an orange - when I first felt the moment sort of meld with the universe.  Which may sound a bit grandiose, so let me put it in more pedestrian terms:  formerly, peeling an orange had usually felt like a task to get through as quickly as possible before enjoying the fruit inside.  (Which, often as not, would be quickly dispatched while pressing ahead to the pie or cup of tea; or perhaps the next to-do list item.)  But it suddenly felt that the act of peeling was every bit 'there' already.  However, such moments of insight are rare, and as soon as they go from the immediate sense of feeling - the aah-haa experience - to a cognitive awareness, or analysis - the 'okay, x happened, therefore y followed' - the moment is gone like a passing weather system.  Which is not to say it is lost, and that the goal of full enlightenment is once again put off for some distant future.  Nay, even just this passing taste of nirvana (a state beyond clinging and aversion) - is it.  As is the clinging that may follow, if we can bring the same non-judgmental awareness to it.  It just might not feel as special.  The impermanence of all things is an insight to be discovered each moment anew.

By and large, however, the delicious food at Spirit Rock I generally experienced with the usual distractions - worries about my health, and that of my wife's (now late wife's), and all manner of mind states.  But there were also some other distractions, unique to the rarified retreat atmosphere.  To wit:  falling 'in love' with another retreatant, daydreaming of our new and beautiful lives together, etc., based solely upon occasional glimpses of the apparent love object.  Did she sit across from me on purpose?  It's all very Jane Austen.  There is even a term for this, 'vipassana romance.'  (Vipassana means 'insight' in the ancient Pali language spoken in the time of the Buddha, and is the term used to describe retreats such as this.  Pali is similar to Nepali, both languages based on Sanskrit.)  'Vipassana vendettas' on the other hand, or strong aversions one can develop toward another retreatant, are also not uncommon on retreats.

In spite of having been to such retreats, with the redolent meals eaten there, it wasn't until I sat down on the floor to eat the hastily assembled snack 'lunch' described at the beginning of this post, that my sensations became flooded with here and now presence.  And who'd a' thunk?  Northern Virginia?  Stale crackers?  Come on, seriously...?  Of course the moments of clarity - or 'beginner's mind' - passed after some minutes.  But with the nirvana-busting cogitation and analysis also came an appreciation that any moment, no matter how mundane, is but one small step away from the brilliant miracle.  Can we let go of the millions of other breaths we have already breathed, and be with just this one?  Or this peanut, its shell crumbling in my hand, scattering specks of dust in my lap?  Or this person - this son, wife, boss, friend, difficult person - the one who appears here and now like so many times before, but never, no never just as in this impossibly unique and fleeting snowflake moment?

Which leads me at last to posit that which inspired me to sit and blog in the first place.  My niece writes a daily food blog - supertastes.com - with recipes and epicurean tales.  Very nice, sweet, and all to the good, I encourage you to check it out.  However the slow-food, fast-food, gourmet food, modern food (see the recent New Yorker article about the intersection of food and science for a 'taste' of what can be done with liquid nitrogen, or slow cooking vacuum-packed meals at low temperature), while all mildly interesting, I feel kind of miss the point on an existential level.  It's like searching madly about for the next excellent culinary experience - or an ancient one that has recently been brought to light - that will outdo the last.  With obesity at epidemic levels in this country, I'm not sure this is what the 'world needs now.'  (You don't have to tell me that the obesity epidemic has much more to do with high-fructose corn syrup and Doritos than it does with gourmet food.  I know, but I don't think the food crazed mentality - whether gourmet or otherwise - can be a significant part of a healthy food renaissance.  Then again, perhaps it can, or even must, but that is a matter for another blogpost.)  What I believe the 'world could us right now' has everything to do with now, with present moment awareness.

Whether you dumpster dive for dinner (like eating from a rusty metal tray at the Chateau d'If), dine at the Pierre Gagnaire restaurant in France, or like most of us, something in between, there is one thing that will always help:  don't sit down to eat until you are good and hungry, then stop eating when you are full.  Feel the seat beneath you, the air on your cheeks, the love kindness emanating from those around you.  Open to the miracle that put you here in front of a bounty wrought by a vast network of human hands, including your own.  To paraphrase Ram Dass:  eat here now.

It's no wonder the French bless their meals with a simple wish:  bon appétit!

Affirmative racial profiling?

You tell me.

I am not generally a big fan of fast food, but I do every now and than drive through and get some Taco Bell fare.  Clearly not really Mexican - or even as close as Chipotle gets - but as a vegetarian, the options aren't too bad.  For fast food at least.

I mention the drive through as that is generally what I can manage, particularly in these dog days of summer.  So on top of the questionable content of the 'food', there is the added layer of bad karma I might generate for not even going inside, using those extra ounces of petrol idling, etc.  I can be a rather harsh self-judge.

Now, I have always been quite impressed with the person who takes my order, and then at the window fills it.  Admittedly, s/he did not have to prepare all the food items, mainly needing only to fill a cup with water or soda, ask whether I would like any sauce (yes please, 'fire'), fill the bag with my one or two items, napkins, sauce packets, a straw.  Which is all rather prosaic, or mundane, any sorry sack of a teenager could manage it.  Perhaps even I could.

But wait, here is the heroic part:  while they are occupied physically filling my order, they are talking into their headsets to the next customer, saying things like 'welcome to Taco Bell', or 'is it correct on the screen?'  Or, if dealing with difficult customers like me, having to write 'taco: substitute beans for meat', or who knows what kind of other special orders they get.  Then have it ready soon after I drive up to the window, and take my payment, often a credit card, but otherwise count out the change.  It has long fascinated me that a person can do this so seamlessly, and only rarely mess up the order.  And since having to deal now with cognitive loss due to MS (and perhaps MA, middle age), I'm even more impressed.  Meanwhile, these super heroes earn a hunger wage of the minimum or I hope something more.

Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury I wish to present to you my feeble attempts at social engineering to address the apparent (to me at least) injustice of workers earning such a (likely) low wage for such (to me at least) a challenging job.  (Please note the three parenthetic qualifiers in that last sentence.)  I tried offering a tip, but was told they can't take tips.  My response?  I would just hand it to them, saying it a 'gift' or 'a little something for you.'  So far so good, you perhaps might agree.  However, the reality of ethnic, gender, and racial politics will now raise its ugly head.

While I'm engaged in this tiny, possibly laughable, attempt of narrowing the enormous American wealth gap, it occurs to me that some gender and ethnic/racial groups are in even greater need of such intervention.  How about that woman, maybe she is a mother or pregnant?  (In general there is a strong correlation between the two, that is, being female, and...what's that, you got it?)  Or, even if not, she faces an economy which pays her on average 70% of what a man would earn for the same work.   Or, take that African American young man?  He faces far more obstacles in finding gainful employment.  Even a white ex-convict has better chances of getting called back for an interview than he, according to studies cited in my earlier blog post titled 'Dharma Brothers' about my experience teaching meditation at the DC jail.  (I have since begun teaching at the Arlington Co. jail.)  To say nothing of the perils of life in a country that almost criminalizes 'driving while black', or congregating 'menacingly' on street corners while non-white.  Or, while smoking weed at the same rate as white Americans, but getting busted almost four times as often.  (If you find this figure hard to believe, you can check out this article at http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/04/race-marijuana/2389677/
While some may consider USA Today to be an ultra liberal publication, this widely documented and unfair treatment of blacks and other minorities results in prisons hugely over populated by non-whites, earning the criminal justice system's moniker of the 'new Jim Crow.'  And the non-white woman?  I can only imagine the obstacles she faces, particularly if she is a mother.

Or NOT, as my wife - who is African American (which I mention only to give her opinion some wider cred than if she were 'white-privileged' like me) - has pointed out to me as I have described my little 'system' to her.  That is, just by knowing somebody's race or ethnicity or gender can I have the least bit of knowledge what they face?  Their own individual history?  Of course not, I am dealing here in generalities, much as an affirmative action program might attempt to address the legacy of centuries of slavery, terrorism (the KKK, for example), segregation, substandard or so called 'separate but [not]-equal' schools, etc.  Or, on the darker side of things, racial profiling by law enforcement based upon little more than stereotypes - and fear - of 'the other.'  I would put my efforts more in line with the affirmative action, but the message I send might feel a bit more like a benevolent racial profiling.

For a short time I followed the metric of a dollar for the white employee, 2 for the white woman, three for the man of color, and four for the woman of color.  Which usually meant that my 'non-tip' was more than my tab.  After a short while this seemed to possibly send a potentially negative message.  Especially if the employees ever mentioned among themselves the odd fellow who 'tips', and how much.  Such as, 'what, he gave you that much?  That jerk only gave me....'  So now, I tip each employee 2 dollars, regardless of grouping, my short term dalliance with the race/ethnic/gender questions now over.  Bottom line, if you work at Taco Bell, you need it.

But, may I ask the one or two of 'my followers' who have soldiered on all this way, just how far-fetched this exercise has been?  Much ado about very little, to be sure.  But on principle, had it any merit in your opinion?

Lullaby

Remember when we lay together

drifting off to sleep,

you always fell asleep first?

You might share a sleepy thought:

as in, “the flower is dancing,” maybe?

Then, holding your hand,

a twitch, a tug, or a startle,

perhaps one more,

and gently you’d melt into dreamland.

Leaving me, eventually, to follow.

Or now, sometimes, to insomnia,

something I couldn't understand then.

Sleep came easily to me, if not instant, like yours.  

A friend might mention

hours awake from 3 to 5 a.m.

What was that about? I’d wonder glibly.

Just sit up and read, or meditate, 

or even masturbate:  carpe noctem.

But now the metastatic cancer, 

this ‘carcinomatous meningitis:’

you’re so very tired, so sleepy all the time.

I sit here holding your hand while

you doze in the hospital bed,

more twitches, more sleepy thoughts.

This love, this life, this loss,

what is this all about?

Sitting here, I meditate – no, I resist: why here, why now?

Don’t leave me and our three boys

to this insomnia, this carcinomatous sadness,

to linger here in this endless moment.

But, if you go, hear me:

we will always love and cherish you,

you charmed and delicate dancing flower.

You will return to God, back into us;

you may wake up, and find, 

that this bit of stardust

that seemed such an

important and unique and beautiful you;

we all felt it, we all still do. 

You may wake from this dream dust,

for breathing you back in God must,

and come back home.

Just as these tears,

falling from these eyes,

will return to the clouds they fell from.

Dharma brothers

"Have a nice Friday at school son."  "Thanks."  "When you get home I'll probably be in jail."  "Oh, that's right."

Okay, let me back up a sec.

The past three weeks I'd been completing the paperwork and training to be allowed to volunteer in the DC jail as a teacher of insight meditation.  For several months I've been meeting with the group IOI, or 'Insight on the Inside,' whose mission is to lead such classes.  These are volunteers who meet with inmates on a regular basis - usually incarcerated folks who have some interest in the concept.  I say usually, because some classes have been made mandatory - presumably because they have proven somewhat popular.  Or perhaps for other more practical reasons - e.g., the jail administrators might have wondered 'what do we do with the inmates who don't go to the class?'  Don't know.

Anyway, before I go any further, I feel the need to speak to the issue of appellation, that is, what do you call the people who are incarcerated by the criminal justice system?  Historically, they've been called convicts, detainees, prisoners, offenders.  And even a few more pejorative terms.  In recent times, the somewhat less judgmental term inmate is commonly used.  IOI volunteers will often say residents, which some might consider a euphemism, as the term is usually associated with voluntary habitation.  Regardless, for the purposes of the mission of IOI (as opposed to political correctitude), the question is relevant to determine which nomenclature would best foster that mission.  That is, what term might help in pursuing the goal of teaching a set of practices which have helped us volunteers find some freedom from suffering in our own lives?  Not a freedom from loss, pain, sorrow, grief, etc.  Or freedom from incarceration.  These are sadly facts of life.  Rather, it is freedom from what Buddha called the 'second arrow' of suffering.  How can we learn to stop inflicting on ourselves seemingly tireless and creative attempts to cogitate, replay scenarios, anguish and lament, etc.?  Isn't the 'first arrow' quite enough?

As to the question of naming, my friend and mentor that first day, Carolyn, uses the term student.  Of course, I thought:  no need for euphemisms - after all, that's who they are in our relationship.

Students, which of course we all can be in all of our endeavors - and me obviously on this day of my first class with Carolyn.  First we go to the Residential Substance Abuse and Treatment facility (RSAT), where jail residents who need it, get help with recovery.  (Actually I was not allowed to bring my cane into other higher security facilities - without which, of course, I can't get too far.  Won't go into this topic here, but the ADA does come to mind. . .).  After putting my wallet, keys, coins, and other pocket litter in a locker, we passed through something like what you are familiar with at the airport, with a pat down at the end.  Cleared to go, we follow a bit of a Get Smart maze to the 83rd floor.  Actually it's the fourth floor according to the elevator readout, but apparently they make things a bit Orwellian or Kafkaesque to help thwart any potential jailbreaks.  Or something like this.  (Note to any nefarious plotters reading this:  some of these descriptions, especially the numbers, have probably been changed in this post.)

We arrived in what appeared to be a common area, off of which we entered a room with five or so plastic chairs.  We managed to get help from a couple students who'd already arrived, to round up a few other participants, and some more chairs.  Our class of 9 was made up of eight African Americans and one white student.

This aside will take more than a parenthetic line, so I will boldly begin a new paragraph (or more). From what I've heard and read, this ethnic breakdown is more or less consistent with national incarceration rates in the U.S.  Some regions have more Hispanics than others, but in general, people of color, especially blacks, are overwhelmingly overrepresented behind bars, resulting in whites being by far in the minority status.  I don't say in correctional facilities, as for me - and for many others - the jury is still out on whether these places do much at all to 'correct' as opposed to simply punish.  (Which opens up a whole new area for discussion and debate, which I won't pursue here.)  Suffice it to say that, with stunning rates of recidivism (there are many variables, but some are approaching or well in excess of 50%), something really isn't working.  Of course, it is our belief and hope that IOI can be a small part of the solution to such a giant problem.

The biggest issue at work, I believe, is the racially biased criminal justice system.  Whether it's at the policy level - such as recent cases in Arizona or 'stop and frisk' in New York - or just the nature of 'color blind racism' which results in a much larger percentage of people of color getting arrested for drug use or possession, for example, even though their rate of drug use is the same as it is for whites.  By the same token, ex-offenders seeking jobs are greatly disadvantaged according to many studies (including the one in this article - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/nyregion/17felons.html?_r=0).  The article says, "White men with prison records receive far more offers for entry-level jobs in New York City than black men with identical records, and are offered jobs just as often - if not more so - than black men who have never been arrested."  Italics mine.  Did you catch that?  A white ex-convict is more likely to get job offers than blacks who have no such criminal background.  I find this stunning - and deeply shameful in our theoretically post racial 'land of the free.' 

All of this and more adds up to what some have called the 'new Jim Crow.'  This of course refers to the system of laws and statutes which codified racism and apartheid in much of our country, particularly the south, prior to the adoption of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  Is the modern criminal injustice system the new Jim Crow?  Looking at the shameful statistics, I'm inclined to agree.  Though the man titularly at the helm of this great nation is African American, I think most of us know that racism is alive and well here.  Recent Supreme Court cases have showcased how this struggle is far from over, and if anything is being actively pushed back toward a much darker time.  Anyway, enough soap box for now.

So, the 11 of us sat in a room together.  I was a tad nervous, but Carolyn assured me beforehand she'd do most of the talking, which she did - and quite well I will add.  She's been doing this for four years already, and her composure, sense of ease, and self-effacing humor were infectious for all of us.  Talk about a role model!  There were a couple of short meditations, some easy stretching, and some discussion about what the students were experiencing - in the moment.

I'm not sure what I was expecting - hardened psycho-killers? - but I was blown away by the warmth, sincerity, intelligence, and interest of these guys.  Not unlike my time in the Peace Corps, I walked away from our class with the feeling that I had learned far more than I could ever teach.

Outside again.  I took the metro down to the Stadium/Armory station, where Carolyn had picked me up.  Our class over, she now indicates the way back (she had another class to go teach).  I saunter and hobble my way over the pavement and sidewalks asking occasionally for directions (every 150 paces or so, or some seemingly interminable distance).  I call to a man as he climbs into his car, Friday after work, but he couldn't quite hear me over his radio, so gets out and comes over to me, and points, "there, right there, just to the left of that building."  He reminds me of Ray Charles, short hair, Ray-Bans, a smile to melt any iceberg.  I'm hearing him, believing him, and nodding, but not actually seeing what he's pointing at, as I am rather near sighted - fine up close, even reading, just have to wear glasses to drive - so keep them in my car, not in my shirt pocket.  I thank him, bid him adieu and hobble on my way.  By now I'm going really quite slow - even for me.  Thirteen years into this hobbling meditation, and still it's rather challenging to avoid the second arrow.  Ray, who went over to speak with a colleague, seeing now how excruciatingly slowly I'm moving across a wide grassy area, calls and offers me a ride.  Knowing the long metro ride to come, walking through stations, etc., I am quite happy to accept.  He offers to take me to the next metro station, or even all the way to metro center (where I would have to change trains).  I disabuse him of such generosity, assuring him I'm fine from here.  And besides, it's Friday, "you need to get on with your weekend, man!"  He wishes me a blest day, and drives off.

And it is a rather long trip, the final 'insult' of which greets me after coming up the elevator at the Friendship Heights station (hallelujah, home at last!), only to see that I am at the far end and have a very long block to go to catch the bus that would take me the rest of the way home.  I slump against the building to my left, and am hit with a sweet redolence wafting from the windows open for spring - 'Frozen Yo!'  I'd never been there before, but just like Garrison Keillor's rhubarb pie, I consider whether this might be just the time for it.

And it is.

Who's steering this boat?

There is a parable I've heard in various Buddhish traditions called something like 'the empty rowboat.'  In case it is new to you, let me tell it, now with my own small embellishments:

Imagine I climb into a fishing boat on a very early, cool, dark, and foggy morning, and untether from the dock.  It is very quiet out, though some small chirping of crickets, and the murmur of the paddles dipping in the water are just enough noise to call attention to this deep silence, the earth not yet ready to awaken.  Pushing off and rowing into the gentle stream, I'm thinking ahead to the morning's catch, scanning - with some difficulty in the darkness - to the lake some thousand yards downstream.  Suddenly another craft coming from upstream rams into my starboard!  I drop my oars and turn to face. . .what? An empty boat!  Just as suddenly as my righteous indignation had formed, it vanishes.

Where did it go?  While this scenario seldom if ever plays out in just this way, the story is told, in didactic fashion, to illuminate just how ready and willing we can be to put somebody in the boat, whenever something unfortunate might happen to us.  Which is perhaps part of our human nature, our genetic inheritance, a stress response to get our blood pressure up, our pulse and breath quickened, in case we need to deal with the jaguar or rocky precipice we were just about to bump into.  Perhaps.

But is there a way in such a moment to find the Buddha nature some believe stirs within every one of us?  Perhaps even when there actually appears to be somebody in the boat?  Can we just in the moment manage to step out of the instantaneous urge to take it personally?  To blame someone else?  Or even to blame oneself?  In the case of blaming oneself, have we made ourselves the oarsman of the boat?

Before considering that last question (itself quite worthy of at least another blog post. . .), a question which may strike some as arcane, or even pointless - as in 'of course it's my boat (i.e. my fault),' whose else could it be?  Let's look at a possible understanding of what an empty boat could mean.  In the case of a random stranger, somebody who may have cut you off at a traffic signal, say, or darted ahead into your lane during rush hour.  Whatever the specific detail, doesn't matter, point is, you felt harmed - or at least threatened - by an action.  Perhaps you look at the yuppily-clad jerk in his BMW, see his Ray-Bans and Rolex, notice his tapping and fidgeting hands on the steering wheel, and instantly know his story - or imagine you do.  We do not so readily guess that he is rushing across town to be with his wife in the ER having gone into emergency pre-term labor.  Or a million other possible - if not probable - causes for his reckless driving.  Doesn't matter, what we seem really adept at is instantly assuming malevolent intent, and quickly finding the 'evidence' to support it.

But, what would the Buddha do?  Other than walk slowly, or ride a bike (judging mind, judging mind. . .), I imagine a response with compassion might wonder what could be eating that other driver?  Not to say this is anything remotely relevant (he writes, oh so self-effacingly), but I recall once driving Miller to school one morning.  After coming to a four way stop, from the street on our right, instead of waiting her turn (which would have allowed mine), the SUV driver just plowed right on through the intersection without stopping.  After feeling the surge of reaction in my veins, I said aloud 'may you be free of suffering' as we watched her speed off.  I recall a stressed and tortured look to her profile as she steadfastly glared straight ahead.  To a certain extent, it was not empty words, I think there was some feeling of compassion.  Miller expressed shock at my statement, and so we discussed some of the issues raised in this post.  Do I normally do that?  No, normally I would feel judgment arise, and just as often give voice to that, or just remain silent.  These knee-jerk reactions are also in my comfort zone.  Is it better to say the compassionate thing?  I think it depends.  If I'm feeling judgmental and speaking words of compassion, I think perhaps over the long term would not be very mentally healthy.  Perhaps by simply noticing the surge in physiological stress response, and also the rising judgments and an urge to voice harsh words might be a start.  Moment by moment, noticing the reaction unfold, and even commenting as it happens to a passenger or child.  'My goodness, that scared me, I wonder what's going on with her?'  Is that any less true than 'what a stupid f-ing bitch'?  Seems more relevant to me.

Just read a really long article my wife showed me about the fundamental differences that various cultures have in shaping what social scientists have considered 'normal' for the human brain, and what we come to accept as human nature:  http://www.psmag.com/magazines/magazine-feature-story-magazines/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/  It's a great article, but quite long.  Suffice it to say that what we consider to be human nature is very culturally specific and varied - even perhaps the physiological stress response, though the article didn't go there.  I recall once as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal witnessing a villager working at a bridge project smash his thumb between a large hammer and the head of a sixteen penny nail.  He calmly set the hammer down, looked at his hand held up in the air - there was a quarter inch split in the flesh and thumbnail - folded his thumb into his fingers, and set back to work, using his knuckles to hold the nails.  Do I know of any Westerner who would not drop a massive F-bomb if this happened to them?  Or instantly faint?  I don't know, but this seems evidence to support the idea that, created equal or not, we surely don't all end up the same.

I think there are many other empty boats (possibly nothing but empty boats in this big lake, our world), but the closer they are to us - friend, co-worker, spouse, etc. - the more difficult it is to see their possible 'empty' nature.  Next time your boss is spouting inanities at you, imagine instead a toddler standing behind a baby gate with a droopy diaper, having a tantrum, and perhaps you can come to see that he is a kind of empty rowboat after all, full up with a life of conditioning - and maybe you can take his diatribe just a little bit less personally.  Might it be worth some inquiry?

The Guesthouse

It now seems clear that the lower back pain that every so often visits me is now headed out the door - that is, without me.  Oddly, though I'm relieved to no longer have to carry the pain around, I am not entirely happy to see it leave. . . .

Let me explain:

About two decades ago I found myself frequently bending over and picking up wobbly and rapidly growing 20 to 50 pound objects.  Twisting, turning, carrying the parcel for hours at a time on my hip or in some kind of rucksack; or in a bike pannier type conveyance or trailer for many miles.  It seemed my strong young back was inure to any amount of cavalier hoisting such bundles - bending at the hip solely with the back, twisting while reaching to the side, lifting off of high shelves one-handed, you name it - and even on occasion I might accidentally bend 'properly' at the knees.  All was going quite well.

Until - you prolly saw this coming - one day an excruciating lower back cried out, UNCLE!  Or more precisely, DAD!  (Actually, it was more like @#$%&!!!)  Days of careful walking followed, and much more careful picking up of big baby(ies) and/or toddler(s).  Learning about back exercises, proper movement, heating pads, cold packs, ointments, chiropractor offices, special pillows and chairs, etc.  The whole nine yards.  (Yard number ten being back surgery, but I didn't even consider that, thankfully.)

Then one night while having a stressful dream the torturous pain hit me harder than ever and I was forced awake to find the pain follow me into consciousness.  I immediately limped my way downstairs to recline on the living room futon couch with alternating ice and heat, and visions of a crippled life which would surely be mine if this continued.  But the vaguest seed of doubt had been planted - how could my back be taken to such a throbbing agony by just lying in a comfy bed?  Particularly as I was lying 'properly' on my side?  Might something other than muscles and tendons, that is, other than just the physical, be involved in this conspiracy?

Soon after this pain infected nightmare, my mom sent me a book.  Having heard about my vertebral issues, and having read the small paperback she received in some kind of monthly book subscription, she'd read it (having a history of back issues herself), and thought I might appreciate a look.  Its rather ill-advised title was Mind Over Back Pain, by Dr. John Sarno.  (Right, I thought, as if a person could simply think his way out of such a horrible affliction - or worse, that it might somehow by my fault. . . .)

Ready for just about anything, though, I quickly got over the judgmental title, and would read it while lying in a hot bath, or later in bed on ice packs.  A professor of rehabilitative medicine at New York University and an MD who also headed a back clinic, this fellow seemed to have plenty of bona fides and experience.  Perhaps not likely to be some quack anyway.  As I read the book, it seemed my experience was described spot on, even the transitory nature of the excruciating pain which would rise independent of - but often correlated with - movement, or physical position, or other physical stresses.  However, the anticipation of the pain - the fear of it - was highly correlated with the pain to follow, arising even as the fear arose.  Which was a key to understanding.

He noted that in his clinic he would encounter patients with crippling back pain whose CT scans or MRI's looked very healthy.  On the other hand, there were some patients whose discs and other tissues clearly appeared quite damaged and mangled in their scans but who experienced no pain whatsoever, perhaps only difficulty with range of motion, say, or something unrelated entirely to the back.  These experiences and more led him to the theory that something other than just the physical was at work with respect to pain, and that very something was emotional tension and stress.

A typical patient was 30 to 50 years old, generally in very good physical condition - even sometimes bordering on obsessively so, running five times a week for instance.  The condition needed a scientific sounding name, so he called it tension myositis syndrome, or TMS.  What he fortunately did not call it, at least not at the clinic, was psychosomatic.  However the book did tease apart this Greek derived word (coming from psyche, 'mind', 'breath,' or 'spirit,' and soma, 'body').  We have somehow developed an aversion to this word, erroneously thinking it basically means that some malady or other is just imaginary, or 'all in our head.'  Actually what the word is meant to describe is the simple fact that the mind and body are interwoven and influence each other enormously.  Such a concept of the 'mind-body continuum' now has a much wider acceptance.  In any event, he came out some years later with a much better title for a similar book:  Healing Back Pain.  If you or a loved one suffer from such pain, I highly recommend it.

In terms of back pain, what the tension we suffer from 'learns' to do, is create a tightening of the muscles and tendons at a very focused level that ends up cutting off oxygen supply to the area - similar to a cramp, just much more focused - which results in intense physical pain.  Yes, it is real pain, no doubt about it.  You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.  But at its source is the mind, not improper movement or poor conditioning (these might be there, and probably need some attention, but they are rarely the cause of the pain).  And with practiced attention the pain can come to be viewed as a reminder to slow down, open up, breathe, be mindful, and eventually, as I point out in the lead paragraph of this post, after having resolved and dissipated for years or more, it will occasionally come back for a brief visit.  Sometimes it will return 'masquerading' as pains in other areas of the body, and once it is revealed to be the psyche at work, it again will gradually lose its hold.

Why the desire to have it stick around?  The thing is, it is a very powerful and immediate reminder of what fruits can be savored by opening up to the truth of a moment.  It's just more straightforward - once its bluff has been called - than the usual and frequent mental stresses and tensions we often carry moment by moment.  Can we eventually see these also as helpful reminders to open up, slow down, and if not 'let them go,' at least let them be?  And other challenges we may face, like MS?

Or, as a great poet once put it:


THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,

A Fatuous Concept?

I have heard it postulated that a person can only think, or imagine, or entertain ideas as far as his or her language mastery will allow.

For me the jury is still out on such a view, namely that even imagination could be limited by language.  And to use language for any reason other than the obvious - to understand and to be understood - that is, to communicate or even sometimes to obfuscate, I'm not so sure that one's imagination would be at all circumscribed.  And yet. . . it occurs to me just now (particularly as an introvert) that I - and I can imagine others, possibly even extraverts - usually have a running monologue going in my head, and therefore I suppose these thoughts parading past my awareness would be 'limited' by my language abilities.  However, the suggestion that all imagination and creativity would be limited in this way seems to preclude the possibility of ideas, emotions, memories, images, and so on, that are beyond words - visual, tactile, aromatic, musical, culinary, etc.

Furthermore, I think we all, even the young among us have had the 'tip of the tongue' experience:  you are talking along when all of a sudden you stop and try to search for the word that would come next.  You may end up making a poor substitution, or defining it, then your partner supplies it for you.  My point:  is this not a moment of knowing something - like really feeling it in your bones - but literally not having the word for it?  Even if you once did, and may soon find it again?  This strikes me as an experience that supports the idea that imagination and ideas might actually precede language and words.  Or that at least sometimes they do.

How about this:  do you need to know what 'synesthesia' means in order to have the literal sensation of the color blue when listening to Miles Davis's music?  Or Joni Mitchell's?  Or Muddy Waters's?  Or, in my case, knowing what synesthesia means, how come I never experience it?  Short answer, it is a rare person who can be called a synesthete.  (For more information about this interesting phenomenon, including a definition, go here:  http://www.bu.edu/synesthesia/faq/#q4)

And, even if a language does not have a specific name for the color yellow, couldn't a person say, or imagine, 'like the color of a lemon?'  If you think it unlikely that such a language might exist - or did in the past - I recall learning of just such cultures and languages in anthropology class in 'antediluvian' times (a word from Latin, meaning 'before the Biblical flood'), a word I use to further illustrate my point.  That is, that there was a time (not too long ago. . .) when I would not have known what this word meant.  I would have understood 'back in the day,' or 'back before you were born,' or, 'in my college days.'  My point is that I could imagine the concept of 'a long time ago' without knowing such a 'ten dollar word.'

But more fundamentally, what if I didn't understand the words in the phrase A LONG TIME AGO?  Perhaps I was a feral child, raised by a pack of wolves.  In other words without language, or without a culture that most of us would recognize.  I think the very concepts buried in such 'basic' words - that is, their meanings - would elude me.  Concepts such as the passage of time, time gone by, a small amount of time versus a long amount, present vs. past, etc.  The concept of time is not so obvious at all.  Even some modern physicists do not allow that such a thing as time even exists.  (Seems to me that any 'proof' would necessitate the assumption that a duration of time had elapsed.  A circular argument summarized by the statement 'time exists because it does.'  E.g: yes, last night you put your reading glasses on the bedside table, and now they are missing.  Just where is this thing you call 'last night?'  This thing you call yesterday?  These are leaps of faith we take.  Anyway, this digression is, by definition, beside the point.)  Yet, the feral child thought experiment does lead me to accept the premise that language and culture could indeed be limiting factors in not only our understanding, but also our very imagination, to some extent anyway.  Or in more positive phrasing, that they further empower these human capabilities.  Give them voice, as it were.

This post title has a word that I only fairly recently learned:  fatuous, meaning foolish or silly.  I knew the words foolish and silly, so learning the word I don't think did anything to expand my imagination - even as fatuous as I may have been.  (When I explained the word to my son, he said, 'yeah, like infatuation maybe?'  This can happen when your kids learn Latin in school.  And sure enough, both words derive from the Latin 'fatuus'.)

Some words are so refined or arcane, or are just plain foreign, that when they are used in conversation they come across as an affront or reproach, as in 'look at me, I'm so clever.'  (Which I fear this very blogpost may be sounding like. . . for which I beg your pardon, I honestly do not harbor any such illusion.  However, it is true that I enjoy reading, learning new words, their etymologies, languages, and so on.  I even make flash cards to practice them - how nerdy is that?)

Some words I've only learned in recent years like quotidian (from the French meaning daily, or ordinary like prosaic - think of the restaurant Le Pain Quotidien); nonpareil (from Latin via French, meaning unrivaled); sui generis (Latin, meaning unique, or literally 'of its own kind').  Not words I would normally use, but when I read or hear them, I will now know what they mean.  Which might allow learning, or insight, even mirth on occasion.  There are of course many words more commonly used from Latin, French, and other languages:  détente, avant-garde, ad hoc, status quo, Gesundheit (German, meaning health), angst (G., fear), namaste (Sanskrit), pandit (S., same as pundit). . . ad infinitum, it seems.  We may not use these often - or ever - but we probably understand basically what they mean when we hear or read them in context.

But again, does such vocabulary comprehension - hence, language - enhance our imagination?  As I engage in these thought experiments, going from the feral child extreme to another extreme of üb-erudition (to coin a dorky word), I am coming to allow that to some degree it might.

What says the choir?  The soloist, either alto or baritone (words from Italian)?

SAVANNOLA!™

AKA, grain-free granola.

So, let me explain.  For many years I have enjoyed a breakfast of granola with plain yoghurt - any kind of granola, with traditional, goat, greek, or some other plainly sour yoghurt, sometimes even buttermilk.  The combination of sweet and tangy was sublime.

A couple years back a friend sent me a link to a TED talk given by a woman with a very debilitating and rapid case of multiple sclerosis, who was able to reverse her symptoms in a matter of months, first with over the counter vitamins and supplements, but then with what she called a savannah based diet.  Fresh vegetables and fruits, some organic or wild-caught meats and fish, but nothing made with flour or grains.  If you haven't seen it (I think I covered it in a blog post maybe a year ago?) you can click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc

Generally my veggie diet was in line with this - except for the meat - but my morning bowl of granola seemed to stick out with its oats and other grains.  So I tried experimenting with various nuts and seeds, such as chia and pine nut, and different dried fruits like currants and goji berries.  Of course also the more traditional walnut, cashew, raisin, banana, blueberries, etc.  But nothing too bizarre or unavailable, or expensive for that matter.  The idea was to use the nuts and fruits more in season - at least in the time zone or geographical boundary that would be reflected in price/availability.

I've toyed with the idea of crowd-sourcing this concept, or patenting it, but have concluded, based on extensive research, that the potential niche market for such a relatively bland (bland sounding, that is, though it is far from bland, just not overly sweetened) and nutritious breakfast/snack food would probably be smaller than the vast readership of this blog.  In addition, the complexities of marketing something that is always changing, and specific to various bioregional seasons across the country, or world, seem pretty foreboding.  More importantly, I find that the process of making this part of what is so good about it.  You can't put that in a box.  And in the unlikely event that somebody else were to produce and market such a thing, bravo, I would be happy to buy it!

The 'recipe' has evolved to mixing the nuts and seeds with a little honey, hemp oil, and molasses then baking for about a half hour at 250/275 degrees, then blending with the dried fruits.  Let me know if you want the detailed recipe, though it may sound kind of vague with items like 'two cups of large nuts.'  This is to accommodate the fluctuations in what is available.  For this reason, each batch is unique - which I find one of its best features.  Because I use very little honey and molasses (mainly as a kind of binder) the result is not too sweet, which most granolas are.  In fact, you can taste the sweetness inherent in, say, a plain pecan.

If you have a difficult time imaging this, I recommend you try a 'nut meditation:'  find a quiet place to sit.  Pick up a whole pecan, shake and hear it rattle, notice the smooth slippery shell - then open it with a nutcracker, picking off the big pieces and small shards, feeling how hard this protective container is, maybe even biting it gently.  Feel the retrieved 'meat' between your fingers, tracing the lines and valleys on the surface with you fingernails, peering down as if taking a heavenly gaze at the grand canyon, or a scientific inquiry into the undulations - or sulci - on the cortex of a brain.  Bring it to your nose and smell its subtle redolence of earth, autumn, and life.  Notice the breath enter and exit your lungs.  Do feelings of hunger arise, even if just a hint?  When ready, place the nut on your tongue, close your mouth, and 'roll' it around.  Does the skin taste bitter?  What do the textures of the 'valleys' feel like to your tongue compared to how they appeared to your eyes?  Allow the feelings of anticipation and slight hunger consummate in a slow and deliberate chew, stopping occasionally to notice the changing textures and subtle flavors as they are released.  Are there olfactory sensations?  Notice as your trachea and esophagus deftly alternate - even when you don't pay attention - so that you do not choke while breathing and swallowing.  What miracle is this body?  Back to the nut, notice as it gets finer and smoother, then flows down your throat.  Follow with some water, and notice with the same caring interest all the similar bodily movements and functions involved in drinking.

Now, you are ready to explore life, all of it, with a reverence and awe for the divinity inherent in your very being...

A closer look at Savannola!™ 

Homeopathic insecticide!

Way back a lifetime and a half ago, picture me with a plastic tank on my back with several gallons of fluid in it - a 'backpack sprayer.'  With my left hand I'd pump pressure into the tank, and my right hand would wave a wand from side to side spraying some form of synthetic herbicide, or very occasionally an insecticide on my parents' Christmas tree farm in Oregon.  Round-up, malathion, 2-4-D - yes one of the ingredients used in 'agent orange' in this nation's war against Vietnam.  The wind would blow it all 'away,' and I'd wear a filter mask . . . usually.  Good times.  Any connection to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis two and a half decades later?  Honestly I doubt it - not to say I think it was a good thing to expose my body to this, to say nothing of the very earth that sustains all life, song, dance, and poetry.

I certainly feel that such synthetic '-cides' (herbi, pesti, insecti, etceteri . . .) have no proper place in our human ecology.  The flora and fauna on which these toxins are doused - not to mention the streams, rivers, air, land, and ground water - are precious gifts from the good earth.  And if we are to have any 'relationship' with them at all - at least in so far as gaining material and spiritual sustenance from them, or from the rich tilth under our feet or in our spades - then it should be a relationship based on stewardship.

Now, let go of that image of teenage Pete spraying weed-killer in the summer heat, and fast forward to September of 2001, when I was diagnosed with MS.  (I think of this as my own private 911.)  For about ten years I jabbed myself with various hypodermic needles, or sat receiving intravenous elixirs for a few hours, chemo-therapy style.  These chemicals tinkered in various ways with the workings of this body's immune system.  There is a chance that these meds helped to slow the progression of the autoimmune process of MS.  And my doctors have said that the MRI scans I get every so often look 'stable.'  But what I never experienced were any improvements in my 'clinical,' that is, boots on the ground symptom management.  Until about three months ago that is.

As I have mentioned once or twice in these blog pages in the past, I take daily 'metrics' of just how my various symptoms are doing.  Some of these numbers are subjective - like 'mood' or 'energy level' - but some are objective.  For instance, how many steps does it take me - without my cane! - to walk from our door down the hall to the elevator each morning?  (You might imagine, this is not such a graceful picture . . . .  I've even fallen a couple times - two 'penalty strokes' per fall, or one stroke for bumping into the wall!  No worries, the hall is carpeted, no breaks, maybe mild bruising, and the opportunity to practice falling safely.)

So, in February, just about ten days into a new oral medication named 'Aubagio' (pronounced oh-bajio, like in aubergine), some of these metrics actually got better - specifically the counted steps.  Not pre-MS better, I'm not quite jogging down the hall, but my goodness, any improvement had never happened since my diagnosis.  (I must also add that my subjective gait numbers have not changed much, either positively or negatively, that is, my hobbling with the cane, particularly throughout the day, feels more or less unchanged - which means that if not for taking these daily metrics, I might not have caught this.)  Am I going to take an ad out in the newspaper, shout from every rooftop how potentially wonderful this is?  Don't think so.  Am I even going to post this blog entry?  We shall see.  Have I allowed myself to feel any hope that this might be the one?  Ever so cautious optimism, and a few grains of hope.  Am I concerned that this might just be a 'placebo effect?'  Perhaps a little - however, given the very scientific approach I've taken with the metrics all these years, I'm relatively confident that it's not.  Or at least it's not just placebo at work.  Partly because it was a week and a half before any improvement was noted.  And for full disclosure, I've had some side effects to deal with.  But, like I said, this seems to be the very first time I've felt any main effects, which so far definitely outweigh the side ones.  Even if this med should gradually run out of steam, or stop having any positive effect, I have experienced something new:  a medicine that actually had a good result - if this one doesn't continue helping, at least I've seen that something actually can.

But, the careful reader may be wondering, what on earth do the herbicides and insecticides described above have to do with any of this?  And while the sixties' adage that 'everything is everything' is by definition always germane, the relationship I actually intended bears a closer look.  In the 1980s the Hoechst AG chemical company looked at several compounds for potential use as pesticides.  Lo and behold, one of the chemicals was found to 'defend against inflammation.'  (I suppose I could research this further, maybe find out how in the heck they discovered it did such a thing. . . were they spraying it on MS patients?)  At any rate, the compound was eventually developed into a drug to treat rheumatoid arthritis (another autoimmune condition), then eventually to treat MS.  (Which may or may not tie up that loose end for you.  I know, some may find my logic ranging from oblique to opaque.  However, obtuse it most definitely is not!)

However, it is clearer to me than ever that the regular exercise and physical therapy I have been doing all these years is paramount - any improvement in gait or balance ultimately rests on these keeping my muscle tone at a feasibly maximum readiness.  Which is something no drug can provide.  Reminds me, time to go to the gym!

Handicap prophesy

Several months ago the doors in our garage access to the elevators were newly equipped with motors and buttons for ADA compliance.  What I find odd is that the majority of non-handicapped people I see will push the button, even if doing so is no faster, even sometimes slower, than using a few extra calories to turn the handle and push the door open.  When I don't have a bag of groceries for instance - which with my cane in the other hand makes the handicap entrance a definite and useful help - I will normally open the door the 'old-fashioned' way, thankful for the extra tiny bit of exercise, physical therapy, and moment to wake up and be mindful - am I in a hurry, am I stressed about that email?  Or that phone call?

Similarly, back in my 'young and healthy' days, I would often walk the stairs instead of riding the elevator or escalator.  Actually, come to think of it, I would do that as often as not in our old apartment where we lived on the second floor:  cane held under my arm, steadying myself with the handrail.  Again, if I didn't have a bag of groceries.  But now on the 15th floor, the only time I walk it is during a fire alarm, of which we've had two so far.

The stock photo above came with the caption 'only in America,' which sounds like a German or Dutchman, more unctuous and smarmy even, perhaps, than this blog poster.  And though the escalator riding individuals in the picture don't necessarily look headed to the gym - no spandex or sweatpants - they don't look very handicapped either.  Or encumbered with shopping bags.  Perhaps they will go to the gym later.  What is it that keeps us using these labor saving technologies, when obesity is on the rise, and fossil fuel consumption endangers the ability of this planet to sustain life?  Instead, can we revel in the natural wonder and miracle of the movements of our bodies - even a human body afflicted with MS?  As I type, I am sitting on my butt, of course, and thinking about how this week 'got away from me' and I only made it to the gym once.  And perhaps it is a challenging progressive neurological condition that has allowed me to see the beauty of movement, even as my own mobility seems to be gradually diminishing.  You don't know what you've got till it's gone...

I encourage us all to hear the music of our prosaic motions - even at times when they may sound discordant or off-key - and take the stairs or turn the handle and open the door.

Nickel and Dimed

This book was written by Barbara Ehrenreich, and published in 2000.  Her inspiration to try to live off low-wage earnings - waitressing, housekeeping, nursing home help - was the so-called 'welfare reform' that was debated and approved in the 1990s.  One of the talking points for the new 'Temporary Assistance to Needy Families' was the 'uplifting' value that paid labor can bring, even menial tasks for minimum wage.  Ehrenreich put this assertion to the test, working for several months at various locations in the country.

At the end of chapter two, there was quite a rich soliloquy of sorts about the odd need for Ted's (the supervisor's) approbation felt by her coworkers at 'The Maids', a franchised national house cleaning service she worked at.  I will copy it here verbatim, and recommend that you check out the whole book if you get the chance:

"The big question is why Ted's approval means so much.  As far as I can figure, my coworkers' neediness - because that's what it is - stems from chronic deprivation.  The home owners aren't going to thank us for a job ell done, and God knows, people on the street aren't going to hail us as heroines of proletarian labor.  No one will know that the counter on which he slices the evening's baguette only recently supported a fainting woman [who was malnourished and pregnant, and abused by her husband we learn in the story] - and decide to reward her with a medal for bravery.  No one is going to say, after I vacuum ten rooms and still have time to scrub a kitchen floor, 'Godddamn, Barb, you're good!'  Work is supposed to save you from being an 'outcast,' as Pete [a colleague at the nursing home] puts it, but what we do is an outcast's work, invisible and even disgusting [at least the way the are told to do the work].  Janitors, cleaning ladies, ditch diggers, changers of adult diapers - these are the untouchables of a supposedly cast-free and democratic society.  Hence the undeserved charisma of a man like Ted.  He may be greedy and offhandedly cruel, but at The Maids he is the only living representative of that better world where people go to college and wear civilian clothes to work and shop on the weekends for fun.  If for some reason there's a shortage of houses to clean, he'll keep a team busy by sending them out to clean his own home, which, I am told, is 'real nice.'

"Or maybe it's low-age work in general that has the effect of making you feel like a pariah.  When I watch TV over my dinner at night, I see a world in which almost everyone makes $15 an hour or more, and I'm not just thinking of the [news] anchor folks.  The sitcoms and dramas are about fashion designers or schoolteachers or lawyers, so it's easy for a fast-food worker or nurse's aide to conclude that she is an anomaly - the only one, or almost the only one, who hasn't been invited to the party.  And in a sense she would be right:  the poor have disappeared from the culture at large, from its political rhetoric and intellectual endeavors as well as from its daily entertainment.  Even religion seems to have little to say about the plight of the poor, if that tent revival was a fair sample [she'd stepped in on early in her stay in Maine].  The moneylenders have finally gotten Jesus out of the temple.

"On my last afternoon, I try to explain who I am and why I've been working here to the women on my team for the day, a much more spirited group than Holly's usual crew.  My announcement attracts so little attention that I have to repeat it:  'Will you listen to me?  I'm a writer and I'm going to write a book about this place.'  At last Lori leans around from the front seat and hushes the others with 'Hey, this is interesting,' and to me:  'are you like, investigating?'

"Well, not just this place and not exactly 'investigating,' but Lori has latched on to that concept.  She hoots with laughter.  'This place could use some investigating!'  Now everyone seems to get it - not who I am or what I do - but that whatever I'm up to, the joke is on Ted.

"At least now that I'm 'out' I get to ask the question I've wanted to ask all this time:  How do they feel, not about Ted but about the owners, who have so much while others, like themselves, barely get by?  This is the answer from Lori who at twenty-four has a serious [back] problem and an $8,000 credit card debt:  "All I can think of is like, wow, I'd like to have this stuff someday.  It motivates me and I don't feel the slightest resentment because, you know, it's my goal to get to where they are.'

And this is the answer from Colleen, a single mother of two who is usually direct and vivacious but now looks at some spot straight ahead of her, where perhaps the ancestor who escaped from the Great Potato Famine is staring back at her, as intent as I am on what she will say:  'I don't mind, really, because I guess I'm a simple person, and I don't want what they have.  I mean, it's nothing to me.  But what I would like is to be able to take a day off now and then . . . if I had to . . . and still be able to buy groceries the next day.'"

I want to assure the one or two of my legions of followers who might have read this far, that the author is very caring and compassionate in her relations with coworkers, to the extent that her harried and exhausting work schedules - sometimes working two or more jobs - afford her.  The facts of the matter dictate that some jobs will be menial, and difficult.  But they do not have to be compensated with hunger wages, which the author finds is what she is paid, barely to manage rent.  Healthcare and episodic expenses can devastate.  It is high time to raise the federal minimum wage!  And empower unions whenever we can - at a minimum vote out of office charlatans like Wisconsin governor Scott Walker who actively (or should I say reactively?) attempts to undermine teachers' and other public employees' unions.

However, as I believe that labor, the sweat of one's brow, is indeed inherently sacred, I want to end this post with the wise words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  “If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.”

Spa Treatment

In the past few years I have grown less and less interested in massages - at least the ones you have to pay for, and spend 30 to 60 minutes receiving.  Like a gourmet dessert, it's the first bite that is really all you need.  Spontaneous neck or foot massages from a loving spouse or child, however, these are of course still priceless.  But last week I had an experience that seemed just about as rejuvenating.  Maybe more.  Any guesses?  Nope, wrong.

Wednesday morning I went in for an MRI.  After signing in, I was met at the door by a cheery Nigerian man, 'Utibe', with a mustache thin enough to have been painted on in vaudeville style, just not shiny like Groucho's.  Seeing me amble forward with my cane, he asked whether I needed a wheelchair.  "Not unless you're in a hurry," I said, hobbling along.  He chuckled and led me to the men's dressing area, showed me the locker to put my clothes in, and handed me the smocks.  As I got into the toga-like garments, and slippers, it felt somehow new and different - refined even - though I had done this at least a dozen times before.

Apparently in a hurry now, he met me at the dressing room door with a wheelchair.  I took a seat - no, I'm not proud - and remarked that it was quite comfortable.  And I have known a few wheelchairs in my time, I've sat in some real pieces of work.  Upon entering the room with the massive tubular machine, I mentioned that it looked new, and he confirmed it was less than a year old.  I climbed aboard, handed him my cane, and lay back.  "Just one more centimetre," he indicated with his fingers holding an imaginary pencil.  I wiggled northward, as I noticed that it was not just new, but also actually comfortable.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of such an experience, you have to lie with your head in a narrow compartment, and then earplug/spacer thingies (I doubt there is a better word for these) are placed either side of your head between the ears and the side of the opening.  Then like a cavalier's helmet, a rigid plastic cover is placed over your head, with a small tilted mirror positioned so that if you wish, you can observe Utibe where he sits monitoring the control board to make sure the scan is proceeding as it should.  And I am a model patient, with much experience, both in MRI's and stillness, not moving my wedged-in head - which still could be moved if I needed it to - not even a hair's breadth for the entire forty or so minutes.  Unless it moved during one of the two times I fell asleep - but I'm getting ahead of this compelling narrative.

He asks whether I would like to hear music.  The aforementioned and auspiciously named earplug/spacer thingies also seem to have audio speakers in them, further complicating the naming issue.  I answered that today I'd just like to hear, "hammer music."  Another chuckle - this fellow was generous.

In addition to MRI machines getting gradually more comfortable over the past many years, the loud hammering noises they emit - right there next to your head - have gotten more subdued.  Sometimes even sounding like a loud hum, or 'white noise.'  Not that I have needed such white noise to catch up on my z's.  Even back in the day (ten long years ago) I would often fall asleep in the midst of the Hammerklingen Konzert.

Next, as if at a musical bridge, I was awakened by a voice emanating from the twice-aforementioned ear-thingies, as Utibe said it's time for 'the contrast.'  This means that gadolinium, a silver-white rare earth element, in an emulsified form, must be injected into the bloodstream.  The pre-contrast, and post-contrast images show more clearly the areas of active lesions, where the immune system is busily doing its enigmatic chore of eating away at my nerve casing, or myelin.  These active lesions are not what are called 'black holes.'  I'm not kidding, that's actually what some doctors call spots that are 'finished,' or inactive scar tissue.  But unlike black holes in space, nerve impulses don't fall careening at the speed of light into the ones in your brain - they either have to find a way around, or just take the day off, sittin' by the dock of the bay...  Which not coincidentally means that an MS patient will often prefer to just sit by that very same dock...way-ay stin' time.  My doctor, a tall, heavy set, and very sweet natured Columbian, does not use this term, he finds it misleading.  I'd first heard it used eight years ago by a doctor scanning my images, and the hole which subsequently pierced my self-image did indeed feel as dark and scary as the celestial kind.  Some doctors, sheesh...  I suppose, without the chaff, it would be harder to appreciate the wheat.

Anyway, back to the 'bridge,' gadolinium.  Placing my arm on a platform slid out for just such a purpose, Utibe started to prep the area inside my right elbow.  Gloves, alcohol pad, he told me to make a fist.  A prick, some mild pain, but no go.  He tried again on the back of my hand - a bit more pain, but again no luck.  So he went to fetch the guy who would get it first try, definitely, no problem.  I assured him it's no big deal, "my personal 'record' is five tries."  And I have a friend suffering from metastasized ovarian cancer for over ten years.  She's had more than 70 chemotherapy infusions, and her record of failed attempts to hook up the IV - in one sitting, mind you - is eleven!  I've got work to do... at this rate I may never catch up.  (Gallows humor, in part, but perhaps also a way to make it seem less unseemly... which I guess is the whole point of gallows humor?)  So the expert arrived and struck oil first try, as promised, but it was probably the most painful attempt.  A pain that sometimes happens, and sometimes doesn't.  Back in the day when I was giving myself daily injections - not my time on skid row, no, much later than that, injecting boring old MS medicine - I learned that every place on the skin does not necessarily have a nerve ending.  And that by placing the tip of the needle softly on the skin, I could tell whether there was:  if I felt nothing, then it was fair game to penetrate.  Which worked most of the time.  Occasionally there would be a nearby nerve ending that would register only after the pressure of the needle going in affected it.  This is the reason that some nurses seem to be 'good' and some 'bad' at giving shots.  It's a matter of luck, whether they miss the nerve ending.  In my next life, as a nurse, I will ask the patient 'can you feel this?' until they answer no, then I will give the pain-free shot.

But this tangent has drawn out a bit too far by now, time to return to topic, no?  Which was...wait, let me guess, the spa?  Right, remember that?  I'll leave to your own imaginations the process of getting back out of the MRI machine, toga, hospital, etc., though I can imagine you are likely feeling short-changed by this omission.  I used to really dislike having to go to the doctor, clinic, or hospital.  But more and more, I feel the love and care of these medical professionals, and perhaps with a mindful aspect, am able to take it in as if it were all set up for my very own benefit, which of course it is, just like a spa.

One might call my growing disdain for massage 'anhedonia.'  And I don't know what this other stuff about the MRI might be called.  But perhaps it's a sign that slowly I'm opening to the miracle of life in all its splendor - whether a mani/pedi/jacuzzi/massage, or an MRI.  It inspires me to coin a new word: panhedonia...

The Cave

I'm trying to find the exact wording of a Zen - or another spiritual tradition's - parable, but I can't find it, and I have spent over a minute searching the web.  That's my limit.  But what I can do, is make it up, fill in the details that either weren't there to begin with, or that I have forgotten.


So one day the master, sitting where he likes in the afternoon by the pond, receives the recently arrived American novice Jerry-chan.  The novice says, "master-san, each day as I wake, I am overcome by disgust that my day-trading career, once so successful, and yet now in tatters, was a complete waste.  And that I should have listened to my father's advice to 'pursue a career that gives, for this is the only source of true happiness.'  But what did he know, he sold vacuum cleaners for god's sake!  And then there is my ex-wife who constantly harangues me for child support, when I can barely make my condo and boat payments.  And the Beemer.  But the bitc - excuse me - my ex, she got the friggin' house.  It's that brat Gerald, sucking the life-blood out of me at that preppie boarding school, scheiße!"  Jerry-chan is in his early forties, has some gray in an otherwise stylishly coiffed jet-black hairdo. A two-day beard stubble highlights his angular features, and he is greatly admired for his handsome appearance.  Save for the scowl lines that seem to be slowly marking their way down the sides of his mouth.  When he isn't forcing his usual game face smile that is, like just now at the monastery.  He looks down at the still water beneath them, and says, "and look at this," he gestures with his right hand moving in a circle around his face, "I'm starting to go gray - and look at these," he squints and points at the crow's feet either side of his eyes.

Master Jikan, whose name means 'silent one' looks at Jerry-chan with compassion, and the slightest hint of mirth in the curl of his lips.  From his features, he looks like he could be fifty, or a hundred and fifty.  He points up the hillside to where the cave is located, and holds up two fingers.  Jerry-chan begins guessing, "two hours, days, weeks?  What do you mean?"  The master's helpers explain that Jerry-chan would need to spend as long as it takes to receive at least two insights that the cave holds.

Having packed his bundle of provisions for what he thought would be an afternoon - tops - he enters the cave.  As he proceeds into the increasing darkness, holding a small lantern, by turns he beholds and recoils at the gruesome paintings on the walls.  Wild animals, in poses of attack, also take his breath away.

After wandering for many hours, in one large chamber he finds a platform that could serve as a bed.  He sits down to meditate in the fashion of the monastery, but soon finds distractions, and all of his worries come to him in relentless waves.  Repeating a mantra, or 'following the breath' seem to bring no relief.  Within an hour he falls asleep.  He dreams of being gored by the ferocious animals, surrounded by other victims in their agony as they had been depicted on the cave walls.  He wakes in a cold sweat.

The lamp beside him has gone out, and once he manages to find matches he relights it.  Lying on his back, he opens his eyes to behold a mirror on the ceiling of the cave above him.  It is just large enough to make out his general form, illuminated as it casts flickering shadows.  He does not know how long he has slept, but he feels an overwhelming hunger.  He eats a bowl of cold rice with tamari, sips some cool spring water, and packs his satchel.  He retraces his steps to the entrance of the cave, where it is morning.


What insight might he have reached?  If it isn't too obvious (even Jerry-chan got it), his worries and troubles were every bit as 'real' as these paintings - that is to say, they were inventions from a hypersensitive imagination, not happening now in this moment - and he would go back to them over and over, feeling the same emotions of dread and self-loathing.  The insight that took longer to find, was that he alone is responsible for painting these inside the cave of his mind, that there was no source outside his own psyche that tormented him.  This second insight was to take him many subsequent visits to the cave, and years of practice.  And a further insight, namely how to find refuge from the pain these images and ideas and opinions cause, would take him a decade more.

In the case of Peter-chan - though I heard a much shorter (and hence more powerful) version of the parable some years ago - it only recently made any sense to me.  Actually, in the version I heard, the insight - or insights - were not spelled out, but one was left to ponder the idea of a monk, or novice, painting and being frightened by such images, over and over again.

So to further spoil the tale, I'll elaborate:  I have come to see how I will continually cast scary images on the walls of the 'cave' in my mind.  What could she possibly have meant by that?  What if he actually does it, how could I go on living?  What will happen if I lose my sight?  My ability to walk?  To drive?

We can be such masterful painters it seems, scaring ourselves so many many times.



[Bonus question:  in my depiction of Jerry-chan (a completely added-on conceit for this telling of the tale), the typical stereotype of what I might consider an antithesis of myself - or at least of my aspirations - have I painted with too broad a brush?  Thereby denying the fact the he, like all of us, deserves and wishes to be free of suffering?]