I Still Exist

Written quite some time ago:

A couple of nights ago, Marvin began to shred the mini-blinds for the millionth time. It was the end of a long day, and I snatched him out of the blinds with dispatch, plus uttered a discouraging word or two. I was slightly surprised then to see both cats walk out of the room shoulder to shoulder, not to be seen again until the following morning. At the door, they paused and one of them directed a withering glance at me over his shoulder.  (“I’m surprised he didn’t give you the finger,” said my new therapist, Dr. T. I’m sure he would have if he could get that finger to work independently.) (Not my therapist any more.) (Not for more than two and a half years.)

It genuinely has been difficult with these cats. I assumed that I would automatically love them, because who doesn’t love a cute little kitten? I was dismayed to find that my strongest feeling was irritation, which blossomed into rage. I yelled and screamed and swore. I brusquely pushed them off counters. No little bones were broken and no blood was shed, other than Marvin’s blood the day of his solo accident behind the stove, but this was not good and I felt like the world’s worst person. I knew my neighbors were hearing all of this—hearing the Buddhist curse at her cats—and I was also afraid I was going to have a stroke. Swearing at home became so common that I found myself doing it at work, seemingly shocking at least one co-worker. (Her reaction was in jest, I realized months later, when she used the same word.)

I discussed all this ongoingly with my father, who is the person I’ve talked to the most over the past year and a half, and also with whomever I happened to be talking to, including my new Zen teacher, J., who asked if there was a way I could find the dharma in this behavior. All I could come up with initially was that I was certainly noticing what the cats were doing. I was not tuned out, though I’m not sure a very different behavior, enraged constant reactivity, is therefore automatically a virtue.

I consoled myself with the fact that maybe the global pandemic has caused stress I’m not consciously aware of, making everything harder, and certainly there are difficult things going on closer to home that affect me. I realized that one gift of this period is that I now, alas, really understand how someone comes to hit a beloved spouse or defenseless child—how rage ignites and explodes. If a patient at the hospital were to tell me about engaging in domestic violence, it’s not that I would now approve of it, but I would get it.

Of course I have tried a million things to adjust this dynamic, one vow of better behavior after the other. I don’t want Marvin and Duckworth to be scared of me. I don’t want my neighbors to think I’m an ogre. I don’t want to be the foul-mouthed chaplain. I don’t want to have a stroke. I don’t want to be awash in guilt and remorse.

I couldn’t bore you with the details if I wanted to, as I don’t have notes on all that, there was so much of it, but a few things stand out as having been helpful. Things are much, much better at this point.

It was clear that counting to ten was entirely out of reach, as it seemed that I could go from perfect calm to blind rage in less than one second. It was seemingly completely uncontrollable, but I discovered that I could, sometimes, count to one, which is enough to re-engage the rational brain: The lizard brain cannot conceive of numbers. Counting to one didn’t make a huge difference, but it made a little difference.

When I began doing Dr. Weil’s 4-7-8 breathing, under the auspices of Dr. T., I began to spend more moments each day with my parasympathetic nervous system engaged, even if 4-7-8 breathing didn’t seem to bring immediately wonderful results, and that was a good feeling.

I worked with pausing and calming myself, and then realized that this, while certainly preferable to losing my temper, was actually an attempt to force the anger to go away. I was careening between both extremes, of spewing the anger outward and trying to squelch it—everything but the middle way of fully experiencing it and choosing my actions. I began to try to notice how it really felt inside when I got so angry, and saw that it was largely a sad feeling, actually. From the outside, this practice looked just the same as trying to bury the anger, but the purpose and experience were different.

I have continued with the 4-7-8 breathing, as it does seem to be increasing a general sense of calm, and am doing alternate nostril breathing, as well. My nervous system is in need of repair after this Angry Cat Owner Year (or So), and so is Marvin’s. Sometimes I hold him while I do breathing exercises. (4-7-8 breathing has also fallen by the wayside, as indeed has my whole entire father. It never really did that much for me, but I am finding alternate nostril breathing genuinely calming.)

I began to ponder how I might forgive myself for all of this horrible behavior on my part. People do all kinds of dreadful things and still must live on. There are people who do kill animals, or human beings. Is self-forgiveness really possible? Is it desirable? Is there something wholesome in not forgiving oneself?

I’m reading a cat book in which the author says most cats don’t like to have their bellies stroked and that if a cat presents his belly, it may be pursuant to clawing and bunny kicking she who tries to touch his stomach. The author says that if a cat really does want his belly petted, that is a high compliment, and one that both Marvin and Duckworth offer me nearly every day. They still love me. (They still love me!) In fact, it lately crossed my mind that they may be way ahead of me, enlightened teachers waiting for their idiot housemate to catch up.

One morning I reached down to pet Marvin and it crossed my mind that because he doesn’t have a conceptual notion of the past (I don’t think), he isn’t angry about what happened before. He has, in effect, forgiven and so is happy in this moment, as he waits for my hand to stroke his dark fur. He is giving the world the gift of his own happiness, and that is why she who has yelled at her cats or he who took a human life should indeed practice self-forgiveness: to give the world the gift of a happy person, mostly free from remorse and guilt, and who has learned at least a little something from her actions.

Light

(Click photo to enlarge.)

You Can’t Keep Them Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree

I seem not to have made any notes about visiting my parents in June of this year, for the first time since COVID. Well, I did do that and it was wonderful to be with them, as always. I saw Ginny and Amy, as always. I had lunch with Uncle Rick. Sally and I took a walk in the peony garden at the foot of the Nichols Arboretum. The arboretum and peony garden were designed by the person, an Italian count, Aubrey Tealdi, who was the first chair of the landscape architecture department at the University of Michigan. He lived in my childhood home and designed its stunning gardens, which featured pathways filled with gravel imported from Italy. Our lilacs were originally planted by Count Tealdi.

Last week at my flute lesson, my teacher asked if I like sushi, which I do, and asked me to imagine I’d eaten too much wasabi, as one can from time to time. He said imagining that explosive feeling is helpful for playing the flute, and for the rest of the lesson, he called it the too-much-wasabi feeling. The following day at work, a patient told me that someone had brought him sushi from outside the hospital the day before (the day of my flute lesson) and he had ingested too much wasabi and become acutely ill.

Marvin has lately been trying to get out the front door of our apartment, so finally I let him run free. He immediately went everywhere, and was wild and wailing after being carried back indoors. I’ve had to go back to putting him in the bathroom every time I exit my apartment or have to bring my bike in, as I did for several months after adopting him and Duckworth. There is no such problem with Duckworth currently. I can throw the front door open and leave it that way indefinitely (with Marvin in the bathroom) and he will not venture out.

Yesterday I had a sewing lesson in Berkeley, where it was a lovely autumn afternoon. Afterward, I took a walk with a friend up and down the Ohlone Greenway.

At my flute lesson today, my teacher reminded me to blow to the back of the nasal cavity. He said it takes most people twenty years to learn to do this, but that I’ll be able to do it in five. Shamelessly fishing for a compliment, I asked why that was. He said it’s because I’m smart, and added, “Most people don’t have question like you have question.”

I’m obviously never going to be a fantastic shakuhachi player, and so it often seems like a waste of time, though lately it occurred to me that, besides the very detailed awareness of the body it requires, maybe it’s mainly about my relationship with my teacher. Once a week, I spend an hour on Zoom with this very congenial person; the flute is what connects us.

I also have this idea that maybe all this work will translate to amazing trumpet playing some day. I thought my teacher might get a kick out of hearing me play one of the little shakuhachi tunes on the trumpet, so I dug the trumpet out of the closet after my lesson today and discovered that the main thing that is true about the trumpet right now is that I’m very, very rusty. (My chops are way, way down.) I’d have to practice for a while to see if there is anything I can apply from the Japanese wooden flute. For now, I reburied it in the closet.

Another good reason to persist with the shakuhachi is that any kind of creative endeavor is excellent self-care, which my work requires. Making things. I make soup, I make sentences, I (soon will) make shirts (and then a simpler work top, and a tablecloth, and a housedress), I make sounds.

Also, the shakuhachi could not be more low-tech.

And that is what happened today, as in today today. I’m caught up!

The Duckter

(Click photo to enlarge. That is the name of the toy.)

Untoward Cat-Related Event #7814

While practicing the flute (this being late in June of this year), I decided to try to toss the cats’ more luridly colored tunnel (the “Mewnicorn,” which they love) into the closet, where I put all their toys each evening, instead of waiting until the official portion of the evening program that pertains to this, which involves a flashlight and knee pads. Of course they heard the sound of this prized item being handled, possibly even mishandled, and rushed into the living room. While I was trying to kick the tunnel into the closet, my foot got stuck in it. Somewhere along in there, while shrieking obscenities, trying to kick the tunnel off my foot, and flailing around with my left hand, wherein was my flute, I bumped the little sharp edge of the mouthpiece that one is supposed to carefully protect, or else perhaps it happened when I used the flute to deny Marvin entry to the closet.

Also, my music stand fell and scraped and bruised my face, though if I was practicing, my music stand would still have been in the living room rather than in the closet, so maybe this was two different incidents. As the music stand fell, I remember thinking, “My eye!” and feeling very grateful afterward for the bone that surrounds the eye.

I ended up deciding that I had better try to make the spring deadline for board certification, after all, and in a frenzied burst of energy, finished everything up and sent it in not a few weeks before the deadline, but by the deadline. In mid-July, I met with a new committee and I passed! After they gave me the good news, they asked if I had any questions. I asked if they would mind if I did one screen shot of their smiling faces. It’s a really nice thing to have: a photograph of a very joyful moment indeed. Two of the committee members (there were four) said that they would want me to be their chaplain if they needed one, and they said they could feel my calm presence from their respective locations. They also offered some thoughts on where I could seek to improve. They could have just failed me on those particular competencies, meaning I’d have had to make a third committee appearance. I really appreciate that they did not do that.

In August of this year, it was wonderful to hear a Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me program that was taped in front of a live audience for the first time in about a year and a half. One of the guests was a hydroponic lettuce farmer, who spoke about how fun his work is. Trying not to sound condescending, Peter Sagal asked what’s so fun about growing lettuce. The farmer said something like, “What I like about lettuce is it doesn’t talk back when you’re trying to do your thing.” That’s what I like about lettuce!

Both of my jobs offer a limited number of free counseling sessions each year. I decided to avail myself of this benefit, and began seeing a therapist in September of this year. At our first or second session, Dr. T. taught me Dr. Weil’s 4-7-8 breathing. There’s a video online of Dr. Weil doing this and saying afterward that he can hardly talk, he feels so great. I didn’t notice any immediate benefit, but it is true that you can’t simultaneously do this and scream at your cat, so I guess it is helpful to that extent. I have kept at it, and do often notice that the 7 part is pretty pleasant, and, more generally, it has oriented me toward calming myself: activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

A huge spider appeared on my living room ceiling and remained there for weeks. Don’t they need to eat? My father said he was having a similar question about a small spider in his bathroom. Finally, I decided to try to relocate it. My father texted to wish me well in my “spidetarian endeavor.”

In late September, which is almost now, I had my first sewing lesson, with a very nice teacher in Berkeley who has a large, wonderful basement workroom. We are working on making a pattern from one of the button shirts I wear to work, so that I can make my own with any cotton fabric I want.

That same day, I met my flute teacher in person for the first time, when he met me at North Berkeley BART to hand over the bamboo flute made for me by Monty of shakuhachi.com. My teacher was quite shy in person, very different from how he is on Zoom. He drove us a block or so away from BART, and I got out and gave my new flute a preliminary try. My teacher lent me a hard case for taking it home on BART. I also bought a soft case for everyday use, and a little cover for the mouthpiece end.

At work, I visited a man whose cancer has recurred, who speaks in a very roundabout way about his predicament, often referring to himself as “one.” “One does not like to think one is hugging one’s wife for the last time.”

At our second or third visit, he kept saying something about my having such conversations with many people. I finally figured out that he was saying I must therefore have some basis for judging whether someone is good or bad, and whether their life has been worthwhile. I asked him, “Are you asking if I think you’re a good person and if your life has been worthwhile?” He confirmed that’s what he was getting at.

I paused and said with strong emphasis, “I think you’re a good person and I think your life has been worthwhile.” I very nearly burst into tears after I left his room.

Green and Yellow

(Click photo to enlarge. This photo was taken three and a half hours before I fetched Marvin and Duckworth from the SPCA. Since then, this window has never been opened except under close supervision.)

Flexible and Enjoying

In February, 2021, I was working away on my written materials for my board certification second committee appearance. By early March, it became clear that my essays were not going to be ready to send in for the April deadline, as it is best to send them in at least a few weeks before the actual date. In any event, I decided that I wanted to allow myself a period of observing my clinical practice with a particular focus on the things my mentor had pointed out. I thought it would be good to deepen my understanding of what my growing edges truly are and see what happened when I tried new things, which seemed like something that should not be rushed. My mentor agreed, and a welcome sense of ease set in.

While preparing my application, I had planned to read all the chaplaincy books I own that I have not yet read, plus reread the ones I thought might be particularly helpful, but in the course of three months, I managed to read just one slender volume, so I abandoned that idea. With no deadline looming, I picked up one of the many Sue Grafton murder mysteries sitting on my shelf, and my life suddenly seemed significantly improved.

Similarly, rather than having a flute lesson every week and aiming to practice 30 minutes a day—there is only so much lousy shakuhachi playing a person can be expected to listen to—meaning myself—I decided to have a lesson every two weeks, and practice just 15 or 20 minutes a day, which would also save money.

My flute teacher sent out an email to several of his students in which he used Dr. before my last name. I wrote to the group:

Dear Sensei,

Thank you so much for the upgrade, but I’m afraid I am not a physician. (I am a hospital chaplain at [this hospital] and [that hospital].)

You probably figured that since I can get a sound out of the shakuhachi only intermittently, I must excel in some other area. Alas not. :-)

I look forward to meeting your community one of these days.

Best,
Bugwalk

Practicing the shakuhachi, I found myself more often thinking about where air could fill a real or imaginary area rather than how to make a sound, and it was more relaxing, a form of meditation. At one lesson, my teacher said, “We are flexible and enjoying.”

In mid-May, there was a thrilling breakthrough. I had been practicing two little songs with twelve notes apiece for weeks and weeks. I had two horrible lessons in a row, especially the second, where I never produced any sort of sound. I began to think I would have to find a teacher in San Francisco I could meet with in person—I just was not getting this over Zoom. Or maybe I should just give up. I consulted Tom, who said, “No, it’s coming along. Keep at it.”

And then, during a lesson one day, I suddenly and immediately produced a clear, beautiful, round sound. I played songs one and two with ease. My teacher asked me to play songs three and four, which I easily did. He said, “You can skip five through seven. Play song eight.” I sight-read it, and then he said, “You’re done with this page.” Very encouraging.

In April, 2021, I saw Carol-Joy in person for the first time in more than a year! We had lunch at Toast, sitting outside, and then played cards at her place.

Around that time, I was the co-teacher for a class on the brahma viharas, which in Pali means the Divine Abodes: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. (“Sympathetic joy” means to feel happy for the good fortune of others and is said to be the most challenging of these practices.) I worked with two different CPE students to teach metta (loving-kindness) and upekkha (equanimity). The students were delightful to collaborate with, and writing and delivering short talks on those topics was very helpful to me. Since then, I do at least a bit of metta practice every time I meditate.

In May, 2021, Tom and I went to visit his family in Sacramento for the first time since COVID.

At work, I often see the abbreviation OLT for a liver transplant or OHT for a heart transplant, but never OKT for a kidney transplant—why not? Well, it’s because the O stands for orthotopic: “straight place,” meaning that the new organ is put in the same place where the previous such organ resided. This is typical for heart and liver transplants, but not for kidneys, because the old kidneys are not removed; the new kidneys go on top of old ones. (A person might get one new kidney, or two, or get two aging kidneys in hopes they will take the place of one robust kidney.)

I did ask J. to be my Zen teacher, with some trepidation that it might be a big time commitment, but he said he thinks of it more as a spiritual friend relationship, rather than a teacher-student relationship, and he said he would be happy for us to have that kind of relationship. He said he would like for us to talk at least every six or eight weeks, which sounded perfect.

I told him a bit about what was happening in my life, including challenges that are not mine to share here, but affect me, and he had some very helpful words: to keep opening to what is here and to allow it to teach us. “Don’t squander even this!”

Together

(Click photos to enlarge. Yes, I know there is an extra line after the top photo. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to get rid of it. In the HTML, there is no sign of a line break, and I cannot get at it in the non-HTML view at all.)

God's Job

In January, 2021, we were advised to double mask. (This era did not last long. My second job sent out a notice saying that we were disinvited to use cloth masks at work, and that two surgical masks were not more effective than one surgical mask, so just use one.) At the time, I was trying to order some face shields, such as we have at work, to use at home and that was quite frustrating. There were several items on Amazon that appeared identical to the hospital PPE but proved not to be. There were also a lot of details to keep track of, as PPE procedures and requirements for patient visits differed slightly between the two hospitals where I work.

That month also found me still trying to get a decent sound out of the shakuhachi. Learning over Zoom is far from ideal.

On February first, 2021, I got my second COVID vaccine and had lunch with a friend at Publico.

When I began to work with my board certification mentor, one of the first things she did was to ask to see the report from my first committee. This is a document my next committee would never see, so I felt a bit reluctant: why? Let’s just move on. Then I took a look at the report and remembered how minimal it is. It basically says nothing, so there didn’t seem to be any harm in sending it to my mentor, so I did.

Then we connected on the phone and I could not believe how helpful she was. We spoke for nearly an hour, leaving me with a completely new view of how to proceed with my written materials. She has an exceedingly clear and holistic view of our enterprise and how our stuff manifests and might be worked with.

I got an email from her in which she mentioned her Zen teacher. I of course have a teacher: Howie. He will always be my teacher, and I hear his words in my head often, but I didn’t have a true, ongoing conversation with a teacher, and this I wanted.

I now and then had thought of asking J., the teacher who co-led the street retreat I went on in September, 2019, to be my teacher. Traditionally, in Zen, you have to ask the teacher three times before he or she says yes. I called a friend who is a student of J. to see what the time commitment is, because I had and have none. She said it can potentially be very little. She said J. likes to connect every month or couple of months, and he likes you to come to certain monthly ceremonies (via Zoom) if you can, and he likes you to undertake a course of study of some sort, and he likes you to have a creative outlet.

Speaking of the latter, for a while, I was faithfully practicing the shakuhachi about 30 minutes a day, but it had fallen by the wayside several days before I had this conversation with my friend, and I had been thinking of not scheduling another lesson, but this would be certainly a creative outlet, even if I just practiced 15 minutes a day and had a lesson only once a month.

After I spoke with my friend, I emailed J. to ask if I might speak with him on the phone, and that same afternoon, I had a shakuhachi lesson. I was still working on that same one note: open D, though in my case, it’s more like D sharp. (As it turns out, intonation is not an important value when it comes to the Japanese bamboo flute. My teacher said there’s not really such a thing as a shakuhachi orchestra because the intonation varies from person to person.)

When my teacher and I got on the Zoom call for that lesson, I said, “I haven’t been practicing.”

“Good, good,” he smiled. I really like this fellow.

I made a few attempts to get D to come out, with little success.

“Are you trying to make a sound?” asked my teacher.

“Yes!” I said. (Of course I’m trying to make a sound! What else would I be doing?)

“God’s job,” he reminded me.

I barely got any clear sound out of the flute that whole entire hour. A typical piece of advice from my teacher is to feel the right side of my forehead, and then the left. Which sort of thing often works!

Breakfast

 
(Click photo to enlarge.)