Category Archives: Health

Failing Again and Again (48)

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In one week in October I cause seven scenes. I rant in a public email in my new job, take an exasperated stand against a colleague I never liked in a public email at my old job. The first turns out to be a mistake—I jumped the gun. The second makes me feel mean, even though I think she had it coming, even though people are glad I said what I said. I end up having to send another public email to apologize. I should have sent a private note, I say. In the real world, I storm out of a mail center after trying to get a form notarized. “I’ve never had a good experience here,” I say in a loud voice as I push my way out the door. The city bus I’m on pulls up at the bus stop directly behind my transfer bus, and I hurry toward it. The driver pulls away as I approach. “No!” I yell. And then, “Fuck! Fuck!” I can’t believe this is happening. No one says a word, and I hate that I am spewing this ugliness out into the world. I now have six blocks to walk with my heavy bags to catch my Amtrak bus downtown. At Mami’s, the universe gives me lots of practice, endless chances to respond with composure and grace. I fail again and again and again. As the weeks unfold this pairing of opportunity and shocking failure presents itself so often there is no time to dwell on my shortcomings. I can only exclaim, only keep trying. A friend at sangha tells me his zen teacher says we do this until we wear ourselves out, until we are exhausted. I wonder when that will happen to me. And what might happen next?

Washed Clean (44)

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I wake to a world washed clean in the night, dark patches of wet in the road, fleeting evidence. I sweep while water heats for my tea and for the hummingbird’s sugar water to replace the rain-diluted batch hanging in the courtyard. I squeeze grapefruits my friend Bob brings me from his tree, four halves with the yellow plastic hand juicer I bought when I lived in Ajijic. I phone Mami, and we talk about the rain. I tell her how my friend Richard wanted it to rain at night. (I am a fan of daytime rain though I think drifting in and out of sleep to the sounds of falling rain is one of the best things in the world.) “He got what he wanted,” I say. My words echo another’s earlier this month and make me wince. I shy away from that memory, but for one flicker I wonder if my comment holds that same resentment. I hope not. But now I am alert to the phrase, curious to know if it always evokes the other one who did not get what she wanted, if it is always stained in that way by a little bit of ugly.

Bread and Butter, or More Balm? (41)

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I take the peeled red onion in its glass bowl out of the fridge to bring it to room temperature, the cucumber, my favorite rye Manna bread, the vegan butter. I remind myself I’m thinking of not defrosting the last loaf of the bread in the freezer, just doing without it for the next few days before I leave for L.A., but almost before I’m done forming the thought it makes me cry. I don’t berate myself for crying. I just take the last loaf of bread and the last pound of vegan butter from the freezer. (No argument with myself at all, only this instinctive response, this immediate decision to not deny myself this treat right now if it’s making me cry.) It’s disturbing that such a funny little thing is eliciting tears. But I don’t try to unravel it, just sit on the bed with my hand on my heart and let myself cry. In between I remind myself it’s okay. I get to keep eating the bread and butter. “You can always just get more exercise,” I say. And then I laugh, tears still wet on my cheeks. I’m glad I didn’t chastise myself for crying over this small looming deprivation. I decide that regardless of what worrisome state or precarious balance the crying might speak to, I feel good and sure and right about my response. I feel lighter for the release of tears, comforted by my kindness to myself. “Bread and butter,” I whisper, “for as long as you need it.” I’m grinning now.

Bird Recovery (39)

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I dream I am in a small covered patio at the back of a house I don’t recognize. There is stuff piled everywhere, stacks of cardboard boxes, a rickety folding table, bicycle parts, old tires. In a small clear space at the edge of the table near a rusted waffle iron and several stacks of old hardcover books a bird is ruffling his feathers. He’s about the size of a phoebe only rounder and fluffier, mostly gray with a pale, pale yellow chest and belly. He’s been traumatized by the presence of a coyote. I treated him in some way (an herbal mist?), and now he is settling again. I stand nearby, watch him as he preens. He seems happy. I feel a kind of quiet awe and deep gratitude knowing I was able to help.

The Man with Two Faces (38)

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I dream of a man with a huge head. He has dark skin and black hair, maybe Italian or Mexican or even of Middle Eastern heritage. His features seem familiar, but I can’t place them. His mouth is frozen open as though he’s in mid-scream, his eyes wide and crazed. But he is talking, animated, somewhere below his face. It’s as if his animated features are semi-transparent and floating beneath his frozen face, his neck and shoulder and upper chest visible behind them. It takes me a while to understand what is happening. At first I think his head is huge and ugly, but then I grow accustomed to it and begin to see what’s going on. I see him standing beside his wife. He is very tall, and his frozen head no longer seems out of proportion. I have the sense that if he continues with his emotional work he’ll be able to unlock his face. It must have frozen in a moment of terror. But I know he can free it up again by thawing, feeling, releasing. Later, I think about how I have my own terrors frozen inside me, and I feel comforted by my certainty that thawing is possible.

Weaver Be Praised (25)

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He was getting cold, but he wasn’t ready to leave. The winter sun abandoned his usual spot in the mid-afternoon, and he’d left his blanket outside the walls, folded with care and tucked up in the fork of his favorite tree. He wasn’t yet used to the sun being so far south in the sky, and these narrow streets blocked so much of the light in all seasons. He sighed and got to all fours, managed to stand up without groaning out loud. No one wanted to hear him groan, he knew. No one wanted to think he might be truly suffering, and he didn’t want people to think he was faking it to play on their sympathy, a ploy for more coins in his copper cup. The truth was he was getting old and creaky. Getting up off the cobblestones wasn’t as easy as it used to be, and the dampness in the stones, the cold that never left them for long this time of year, made it harder. But he didn’t want people to feel sorry for him. He liked his life for the most part. He wouldn’t have chosen to go blind like this, slow and steady, but if something had to give, he thanked the Weaver every day that she hadn’t taken his hearing. Then he would have had to struggle not to feel sorry for himself. He might have become the pitiful sight some people already thought he was. But the Weaver had left him his hearing and his voice, so every day he got to lift himself up to the sky, carry himself across the tops of the eastern forest, sail across the southern sea. Weaver be praised.

[Editor’s note: written from a prompt from Creative Writing Prompts. Plus, I have borrowed the Weaver from my favorite writer, Guy Gavriel Kay, and his wonderful Fionavar Tapestry.]

Stones Inside Me (21)

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In another August dream after I come home from the mountains, after the recurring dreams of moving on the river, I dream of swallowing stones. Not in an ordinary way, not like eating dirt, not gravel. Nothing hard on the teeth, the throat, the belly. But smooth round river rocks are inside me. I sit cross legged, upright, my spine erect, like sitting meditation. The rocks move in me, slow, silent travels up and down my spine. Then I am laughing, and on the uptake of breath I know I am being fed, inhaling goodness, being healed.