I Might Be Moving?

I went to bed at around 5 a.m. instead of the planned midnight. The reasonable thing to do in that case is to sleep all day, but the cats need their Prozac by noon or so, so I reframed it as being a nice six-hour nap instead of a night of sleep.

I felt horrendous when I got up, and so reminded myself that this is not a good day to decide anything and that I should take it easy and focus on the absolute essentials, including dropping off an Amazon return, because I plan to fly to Ypsilanti on Monday and have much to do before that. I also sternly instructed myself not to spend all day texting people about my every fleeting thought and most definitely not to sit in front of the computer doing things that don’t need to be done today.

I had told my sister that the cat transport people were no longer speaking to me. She said to give them a chance to process and maybe they’d respond. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t, because we had been going back and forth pretty steadily, and then nothing, but my sister, as always, proved to be correct: This morning I received a genuinely reassuring email laying out in detail how they would proceed if Marvin threatened to escape his temporary lodgings, and so then I had to hop on the computer, after all, to correct the record. I was wrong to think ill of them.

However, that really is a big expense for a person who is retiring who didn’t make that much money to begin with, so in my email thanking the husband profusely for setting my mind at ease, I put forth the idea that I could travel with just one of them, that person escorting Marvin (in part because he is one pound heavier) and I Duckworth. I’m sure they will be amenable to that.

It was also essential to text my cat friend to ask for a pep talk on flying with Marvin, which I did before seeing the email from the professionals, because I must be driving our realtor crazy, though maybe she is very used to this exact kind of thing. 

Since I did happen to be sitting at my desk, I decided to give my former employer a call to see if I need to link to an external bank in advance of making a modest withdrawal from my 401(k), in the event that I did decide to buy the house. This caused me to identify yet another annoying aspect of having to talk to a machine about every dad-blasted thing these days. I’m so glad this whole A.I. thing will be over in a week or two, because I’m already sick of it.

Besides it never understanding anything I say (“I’m sorry; I could not understand”) and offering one ridiculous idea after the next, it is annoying having to listen to long-winded recorded instructions: “If you’re ready to proceed, enter the six-digit number we sent to your phone number with last four digits such-and-such.” Right after the word “number,” that is my precious seconds going right down the drain. It is certainly possible to speak over the thing, but it is not then a serene exchange, and it sometimes gets what you interrupted it to say and sometimes not.

The New York Times on my phone is doing a very weird thing where it continually flips back to June 26. If you want to know what happened that day, let me know. Yesterday, it began to do this every several seconds. I called them. I will let you imagine the conversation I had with the A.I. about this. I am going to have to live with it. Here is the kicker: Soon it will not be any better to discuss the matter with an actual human being because they will not have learned anything about the topic in the first place or will have forgotten it, so if the A.I. cannot fix it, it cannot be fixed, and my experience is that it does an astonishingly poor job with just about everything. Really, we are doomed, just to mention it. 

I cannot afford to have an A.I. raising my blood pressure, either, because the higher number was 25 somethings higher than usual yesterday. Twenty-five units? Slices? Heaps? Whatever they’re called, there were 25 more of them than usual. I checked my records and saw that it had been 13 years since I had an upper number that high. Objectively speaking, it was just four inches (?) over normal, but my blood pressure as a rule is very low. However, I think I have this figured out already. I think it’s the tablespoon of tamari I put in my garlic-permeated dinners. This I can adjust.

So, anyway, the 401(k) person said I did need to establish the link to the external bank before making a withdrawal. I was only calling to get the answer to that question, but once I found out that I did need to do that and that it could take up to 15 days, I sprang into action, since there could also be a wait associated with the withdrawal itself. It turned out my account was locked due to fraudulent activity five years ago, but that was easily and quickly straightened out. 

I initiated the link to the other bank which was established immediately, so it certainly seemed to make sense to go right ahead with the withdrawal. I am now all about my taxes, and was delighted to hear that the withdrawal would be subject to withholding, with mandatory percentages for federal and state that I could choose to make higher.

At this point, it started to seem like I might be moving to Ypsilanti again, but I think I should still give it a bit of time before asking our realtor to restart the process. But then, is it fair to leave the poor woman to stew about this all weekend? 

This can’t possibly be the way to end up retired and living 2500 miles away, all these random little things leading to other little random things, or is this the only way anything at all ever happens?

It is also essential, on this day of great haggardness, to mention what remarkable and precious friends and family members I have. I wasn’t exactly expecting anyone (outside my own family) to say, “I always knew you were a self-pitying jerk—glad you’re finally seeing it,” but I was nonetheless very touched by Lisa Morin Carcia’s kind comment here.

When my father fell ill, I made the acquaintance of a high school classmate of his, a devout Catholic who has become a wonderful friend. After I told her that I couldn’t move to Michigan because there was no possible way whatsoever to get Marvin there, she emailed: “It is difficult to assess if this is an omen, a road block, or just a hurdle.” Very nicely put indeed. That is the whole trouble, to be sure.

She had some ideas about cat transport, and she said that while she was not equipped to assess the emotional aspects, the economics of getting into real estate are highly favorable: "If there be any virtue, or if there be any praise, think on these things". (Phil 4:8) 

I Might Be Moving!

Before I forget, a hard-sided carrier for air travel has to be even smaller than a soft-sided carrier; the latter mashes down but the hard one doesn’t, so it has to be 17” x 12” x 8”.

I am getting a fine tour of some of my very worst qualities; at least, according to my own understanding. My relatives can probably tell you others. I once came upon a note I had written a friend when I was five or six years old which announced that I might be moving! I was not moving. I just wanted someone to care and preferably to be distraught that I might be moving.

Odd that that was also about moving. I am now watching myself firmly seize the victim role, insist on being easily and immediately defeated, think well within the confines of a tiny box, be relentlessly negative and hopeless, be a drama queen (hoping and pining for attention), and finally, if necessary, just a little bit disingenuous if that is what is needed to convince someone of whatever I’m trying to convince them of; my mother once observed that I could be equally persuasive on either side of a topic. (She said I would have made a good lawyer.)

Oh, and self-pitying.

In the wee hours of yesterday morning, I emailed my realtor and told her I would not be moving to Ypsilanti after all, because I had realized I cannot move Marvin. She asked if I had spoken with a mutual friend who is a cat expert. It had crossed my mind, but her notifications were off last night, so I hadn’t, and I still haven’t, because it was a busy day and now it’s the middle of the night.

I woke up this morning to yet another gorgeous sunny day, while the lead story in The New York Times was about the thick Canadian wildfire smoke blanketing the upper Midwest. The photos included one taken in Ann Arbor.

In my kitchen, a clear, fresh breeze was blowing in from the Pacific. I pictured myself just staying here, enjoying that breeze, which is very frequent, and the year-round perfect weather; I could work just one day a week and, by starting to use the money I have saved up, not have to scrimp.

I can stand the neighbor who does this and the neighbor who does that. It would be a very agreeable life.

I began to tell other people I would not be moving after all. While there is no doubt that this is a nice place, that it would be cheaper in the short term to stay here, and that doing so is a perfectly plausible plan, I wanted someone to talk me out of it, to come to my rescue and restore my faith in the thing that sounded equally reasonable and even wonderful just a couple of days ago.

And people did try to do exactly that. Someone even offered to help me financially, even to co-sign a loan. No, no, no, I explained left and right, in a very persuasive manner: I can’t get a loan for this reason. I can’t do that for some other reason. I can’t do the other thing because I just can’t. 

Another aspect of this is that if someone offers support with something, my interpretation is that they think I should do that thing, and that I will be letting them down if I don’t do it.

Soon my other sister said she could see I’d made up my mind. I agreed I had, though I really hadn’t. (In other words, I lied to my sister; I suspect I told ten such lies today.) She said she was bummed out and that she had already picked out the housewarming gift she was going to send me. I told her that was very kind of her, and then I wept.

It’s a little bit murky, because when I say, “My life in San Francisco is great! I’ve decided to stay here,” it’s perfectly true and also absolutely false, a ploy to get my well-meaning friend or relative to feel sorry for me because I am being prevented from moving to Michigan by forces well, well beyond my control.

It has certainly become obvious that any given thought has rather little to do with what ends up happening. It is almost entertaining to watch the mental pronouncements flit past and to realize how insubstantial each is. And yet, of course it is a thought that inspires someone to do a magnificent thing or a dreadful one, so they are at once like a fleeting wisp of smoke and frighteningly powerful.

In the afternoon, I went to see my doctor at Kaiser, partly about a manifestation on my ankle but mainly about vestibular symptoms: dizziness, brain fog, vertigo, the floor tilting, nausea. I asked if she could refer me for vestibular testing, but she said that is “nonexistent” at Kaiser, and explained that they care for a lot of people, so they can’t offer everyone every little thing. Nothing against her; Kaiser always takes that tone.

Since my deductible is so high, this was only the second time I’d seen her in two and a half years. I message her now and then about some symptom, and she tells me what to do and then I don’t do it, or she tells me to come in, and then I don’t (because of the high deductible), so I took the opportunity today to apologize for being her worst patient, but she claimed I’m not and was very nice about it. I know from working in hospitals that it does not take much at all for a doctor to label a patient “noncompliant.” Like if a patient asks if they can take a medication after lunch rather than before, the doctor runs to the nearest computer and enters in the patient’s chart that they are “noncompliant with meds.”

My doctor said that calcium and magnesium can cause vestibular symptoms. (As can the lack of these, according to the internet.) I said I’ve been taking calcium and magnesium for forty years, but she said our ability to process and metabolize things can change, so she said to try discontinuing all supplements for two weeks and if the symptoms haven’t cleared up, she will order a brain scan. Besides the symptoms listed above, there is often a weird feeling behind my right eye; that’s probably where the brain tumor is. (However, that eye sees considerably less well than the other one, so maybe it’s something to do with that.)

I got a vaccine I was due for and went to have blood drawn. I was shocked when I got home and saw how soaked with blood the gauze was, maybe due to regular consumption of garlic.

After dinner, I walked over to Valencia Street for a knife sharpening class using Japanese whetstones. I brought along my honing steel to see if it has a continued place in my kitchen and was assured that it does, and that it is of good quality. The class was very interesting. There were five students. Afterward, I decided just to drop my knives off at that same place for sharpening, even though the last time I did that, about a quarter-inch of metal was removed from a knife with great sentimental value to me. 

Doing it myself, as per the class, would require a fairly large metal bin to soak whetstones in, at least two whetstones, a clamp to hold the whetstone, a leather strop, a diamond flattening stone for maintaining the whetstones, and some compound to put on the leather strop, at the least. I don’t have space for all that, and it’s not like I’m going to spend a lot of time doing this. Though, hmm, I can think of a place where I do have space for all that.

When I got home, it was a bit before 9 p.m. and my plan was to do my evening exercises, perform my ablutions, and meditate, allowing an hour for each and then bedtime at midnight. It is now nearly 4:00 a.m. and I have done few of those things. Instead I found myself online reading about cat carriers, cat harnesses, how to use Excel to figure out how long your money will last if you get this much interest and withdraw this amount each month, what whetstones to buy if you’re only going to buy two, how to figure out what number less twenty-five percent is another number of pressing interest, and so forth.

Another thing I was reflecting on earlier today, along with noticing various thoughts passing by, was that I don’t have to recommence struggling with whether to move or not: It is going to happen the way it’s going to happen.

One thing I’m pretty sure I’m not going to do is pay $8000 for professional cat transport. I had a long email exchange with the professional cat mover fellow, who kept telling me not to worry about Marvin getting out of his carrier on the plane. He said this has never happened (which tells me they don’t exactly have a protocol for it), and he kept saying, almost in these words, “Trust us! We’re professionals.” As soon as I hear someone say that, my trust in them immediately plummets by twenty-five percent and I have heard that approximately six times from the same person in the past couple of days, so we are now in the red as far as trust. 

He assured me that they travel with zip ties! I asked how they fix shredded mesh with zip ties and that was the end of the conversation.

I almost felt a little sorry for him; he clearly did not know what to do other than to doggedly repeat his talking points. I liked him when we met.

In sum: If they can move a cat, I can move a cat. Or, at any rate, I can make a list of teeny-tiny steps and start doing them.

I was thinking I was going to have to liquidate twice as much money as my financial advisor said would be perfectly fine, but it’s really not twice as much, and now it’s $8000 less. 

As for sharpening my own knives, I also rethought that and ordered two whetstones, a diamond sharpening stone, a leather strop and some compound to put on the leather strop. These stones don’t have to be soaked. You can just splash water on them. I didn’t invest in a clamp to hold the stone because at least one reviewer said the plastic holder the stone comes in is working just fine for him. I just spent probably ten times as much on knife sharpening equipment as I would have spent in the entire rest of my life to have someone else sharpen my knives, since that occurs only about every 20 years.

I saw that my favorite dental floss, Dr. Tung’s, also comes in mint! I ordered several packets of that, and yes, I ordered a cat carrier, after extensive research. Certainly not the one the professional cat transport people use. The carrier I ordered did not have one single review saying the reviewer’s cat had been able to escape from it, whereas every single other cat carrier I looked at did have at least one review like that.

I almost emailed my realtor to say we can go ahead with closing on the house on the day I picked, after all, but decided I’d better proceed with caution there.

Thank You, Marvin

For saving me quite a lot of money, it appears.

I just looked at the link the pet transport people sent to the carrier they favor, and it is nearly identical, if not exactly identical, to the one Marvin liberated himself from with ease by just clawing right through the mesh.

This will not work. Some of one-star reviews for this carrier mention shoddy construction and their pet escaping from it.

I just spent some time looking for other options, but I think any soft-sided carrier is going to have the same problem. They all have mesh somewhere.

What we need here is a hard-sided carrier that is 18” x 11” x 11”, but this so far does not seem to exist.

By the way, the pet transport service would have cost $7500-8000 for the two cats.

And buying the house would have cost this much, and the car that much, and so forth, but I can’t do it if I can’t get the cats there, so it’s a good thing I had not actually quit my job.

I guess I will stay in San Francisco and work one day a week, or be retired here, and walk around and enjoy the foliage. 

Torniquet, Please

Okay, get this: I will need a checking account in Michigan and called the credit union where my sister banks, or credit unions; she likes them. I mentioned her name when the fellow asked how I had heard about them, and he said, “I think I’ve talked to her.” (!)

Forbes says it’s one of the best credit unions in the state (granted, I don’t know how many there are); they have a savings account that gets 2.9 percent interest. I got one of those, and basic checking, and enrolled in online banking. 

Today I had lunch at Plain Jane at 22nd Street and Guerrero, my favorite restaurant in San Francisco. A fellow came in with an older man and woman—his parents?—and spoke in a voice loud enough that it drowned out everyone else in the restaurant put together. If his companions spoke even a single word, I couldn’t make it out, but I heard every last thing the man said, including his efforts to persuade the elderly couple to go to Burning Man and how he advised someone to “Ask for what you want!” I very nearly went over to ask for what I wanted, but remembered Sayadaw U Tejaniya’s advice about not trying to make things happen nor not happen. I also remembered Howie saying something like, “If your mind is full of aversion and you’re aware of that, you’re doing the work.” That is a comforting thought. How persistent the idea is that we are somehow supposed to force our minds to be some other way, and how liberating to know that our main task is just to consciously notice what is happening.

Next I walked to Noe Valley to get a nice bald fade with a two on top. It was a gorgeous day, every lush plant and colorful flower blossom reminding me of how hard it will be to leave this beautiful place. My wonderful and meticulous barber and I discussed the upcoming life change. She said she thinks it’s not good for us to do the same thing over and over and that we benefit from doing challenging new things.

Proceeding to my next engagement, I ran into a friend on 24th Street. We got caught up for a bit, and I asked her if she'd like to take a road trip with me across the country in a van that has all my stuff in the back. (Due to the cost of professional cat transport, I am going to have to economize in other sectors.) She is potentially amenable to that, though she pointed out in a text message later that there are professionals who will pack up your stuff and drive it across the country for you. She added that one benefit of hiring professionals is that things won’t shift in the van, causing it to roll over and involve us in a fiery crash. I agreed that that could be a plus.

I received a couple of photographs today from a colleague who is on vacation in Montana, a timely reminder that there are lovely vistas everywhere.

While I was waiting for my dental appointment to start, I got a text from one of our Clinical Pastoral Education students asking if I would consider writing him a letter of recommendation for his application for board certification as a chaplain. As soon as I got home, I drafted the letter and texted him to say he’d asked the right person. I wrote, “The Enneagram One likes to get it done,” unintentionally coining a rhyming slogan.

I am deep into the mind-numbing details of figuring out what to sell of the things I’ve been saving up for so long, and linking this financial institution to that. Reeling from adding up the money for my sisters for the house, for fixing up the house, for moving the cats, for moving the rest of my stuff (which, if I hire professional movers, will literally cost less than moving the cats) and for my sisters for the car, then remembering I forgot to account for taxes. Ah! The refreshing feeling of hemorrhaging cash in all directions. 

Embark

I can still feel a little of the back and forth energy sloshing around in my head (“You can change your might right up until closing day”), but I think this is indeed and actually underway. No more suicidal thoughts; I think I had just worked myself, through my own dedicated efforts, into a really horrible state.

I am getting nice “Welcome home” messages from my relatives in Michigan. I often thought about moving back—I came to San Francisco in 1982 and began to think about moving back to the Midwest in 1989, probably not unrelated to the Loma Prieta earthquake—but always concluded that I did not have a second giant move in me. Pretty much the entire reason I wanted to move back was to see more of my parents, so it is bittersweet to finally be doing it after they have gone. Odd that they will never know.

As closing day, I chose the birthday in August of my late aunt, which I think her daughter and husband (my only remaining uncle) appreciated. Also, my realtor had said that you can put a house on the market in that area in any month other than August, so now she can claim to have brisk sales even in August. She emailed today that the title company has agreed to accept me as both the seller and the buyer of the house.

I met today with the cat transport people. They are a husband and wife plus a third person who is a vet tech in a feline-only clinic. The wife is a “nationally recognized leader in animal welfare” who has been doing this work for more than thirty years. I spoke with the husband and he explained that they had long helped friends with pet transport as a favor and then realized a couple of years ago that there was a need for this kind of service. They fly all over the world with people’s pets; they specialize in cats but transport dogs, as well.

The husband said he has spoken with people who are moving to a completely different country, a huge logistical undertaking, who say their very biggest fear pertains to moving their pets. I can easily believe that.

I explained a little bit about Marvin, including his proven ability to liberate himself in seconds from a soft-sided carrier (“I’m not in here”), and the husband said he is not worried and that he is sure he and Marvin will get along great. Marvin is not mean. He’s lovely, just implacably determined for things to go his way. I am not going to interview any other cat transport people. These are my folks. The idea is that two of their team and I will fly together, seated next to each other, the other two each with a cat in a carrier and me quietly minding my own business in the third seat. After our meeting, I received a link to a list of their recommended carriers. He wrote, “I look so forward to helping you return home to our beautiful state!” They themselves are based in Detroit. 

I asked what he thought about my bringing along enough aluminum screen and cable ties to wrap Marvin’s entire carrier in, just in case—would that cause problems at security? The husband told an anecdote about someone who was prevented from boarding a flight because they had cat litter with them. This triggered a full-on uniformed-officer response and investigation, which eventually determined that the suspicious substance was cat litter. So maybe I won’t fly with aluminum screen and cable ties, but we agreed that a roll of duct tape is never a bad thing to have on hand.

I’m continuing to feel a little mournful about the beautiful weather—leaving it—but in an odd way, the weather can actually be superior in Michigan because the air conditioning makes the inside of the house comfortable, including not too humid, whereas my apartment in San Francisco is so porous that the weather outside and the weather inside are pretty much identical. It is in fact a bit muggy today in San Francisco, with gorgeous sunshine. (In Ypsilanti, it’s 96 degrees and climbing, with a “real feel” of 112 degrees and the air obscured by wildfire smoke. Sounds nice!)

Another thing about the weather is that in Michigan, I can often eat outside. It was probably having breakfast on the deck and watching the leaves flutter in the caressing breeze and the chipmunks gamboling about that first made me think I might not be able to give up the house. I can eat outside in San Francisco, too: I could set up a folding chair next to the trash chute and look at the peeling paint and toilet plunger next door, while listening to the abusive father shriek threats at his children. (Yes, we have called the police and CPS many, many times at this point. Just hoping something really horrible doesn’t happen.)

I loved being a hospital chaplain. I had not meant to stop for another six years, but the universe seems to have sent me a house which will be a nice place to retire and do a little weeding. I am already thinking about volunteering at a hospital in Detroit. I was putting away the clothing delivered by the laundry service and it struck me that I had never felt entirely like myself in my work clothes. Looking forward to feeling exactly like myself all the time. Also looking forward to being with the cats all the time and flying only occasionally.

I am also thinking about being a hospice volunteer again. That was the first step toward being a hospital chaplain and it was tremendously rewarding.

Also thinking about getting a bike rack for the car so I can go take bike rides near where my friend lives west of Ann Arbor.  I’m thinking about going to Cabela’s and getting some work boots to prevent my feet from being crushed in case I drop a weed on them. I’m even thinking about seeing if it’s possible to put the car inside the garage—nah, never mind that one. I don’t want to (again) demonstrate a loss of touch with reality.

Decision. Finally!

I have decided to buy, and live in, the house formerly occupied by my parents in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

In the end, despite the giant hassle of moving and doing all the things the house needs for Marvin to live there and my anxiety about moving the cats, and despite the things I will miss so much about San Francisco, particularly the sun and being able to have the windows open nearly 365 days a year, I can’t pass up the opportunity to own a house (despite having actively wished until about six months ago never to own a house): to have my own place, my own car (for the first time since 1985 or 1986), and my own expanse of weeds.

My conversation with our student a week ago was so helpful in shifting my mindset about leaving my job, and then last night, when I was having my weekly conversation with Lisa M., she asked about the house—how many bedrooms it has and so forth. At some point, she said that buying it “sounds like a no brainer.” I think maybe that was the final little bit of encouragement or permission I needed. I also realize that, amid all the back and forth and pros and cons and what if this and what if that, the greater clinging has been in regard to my job and San Francisco (of course, possibly because those are both highly desirable things), and therefore (I guess) the invitation is to let go of those things and step into the unknown. To have an adventure!

I emailed my other sister to confirm that she was still amenable to selling me her share of the house. We had discussed this in the past, but with more details in hand, I wanted to make sure it still sounded fine to her. I received a thumbs-up almost immediately.

Next I emailed our realtor to tell her I have decided to buy the house and to ask her to start the various procedures for the transfer of ownership, and after that, I emailed our attorney to let him know.

Then I attempted to go to sleep but kept thinking of a few little things I could just take care of right now; I kept leaping out of bed and firing up the computer, and finally resigned myself to it being a night of very little sleep.

I have been receiving congratulations and expressions of pleasure via text as I let people know, which makes me feel that I am on the right track. Today has been full of texts and emails and phone calls with our realtor, my sisters, the attorney, the cat transport people, and tradespeople of all sorts, now that I do have to do all the modifications to the house necessary for Marvin to become a Michigander. I have a meeting with the cat transport people tomorrow.

Our real estate transaction is unorthodox in that Bugwalk the trustee of her parents’ trust is going to sign a document confirming that she has agreed to sell a house to Bugwalk the home buyer: I am going to both sell and buy the house. I had been thinking about how to get my sisters their cash, but it turns out that it normally comes from the title company, so there are some details to work out. 

Accordingly, the closing is tentatively scheduled for a few weeks from now.

Fully five of the things I have to do for Marvin involve doors: Installing two where there currently is empty space, fixing two that don't latch properly, and installing an entire screen porch with a door in it outside the front door. 

I am sure I will have moments of regret and panic, but finally it feels like this thing is underway. I can do this. Just this moment, just this detail, just this phone call. 

OMG: Everything Is so Great!

I contemplated after posting yesterday: Is it wise to mention one’s suicidal thoughts on the internet? It’s partly just a matter of logic: I have tied myself into such a horrible tangled knot over this stupid decision that, at the moment, I can’t picture myself in either place, and if a person isn’t in this place or that place, then aren’t they in no place? Now I’m chuckling: I ought to be able to picture myself sitting in front of my computer in San Francisco since that is where I actually am.

I had a wonderful friend in Alcoholics Anonymous when I was in my late teens and early twenties. His name was Chet. In his early forties, he had two little girls with his ex-wife and was a father figure to me, as well. He once told me that if I were any smarter, I’d commit suicide. He didn’t mean I was too stupid to think of such a great idea and carry it out; he meant that a speedily processing brain is not always a good friend, and that if mine processed any faster, it would be an outright enemy. That’s what’s happening now: Too much thinking.

So returning to sitting meditation does seem to be a positive step. As Howie mentions very often indeed, in these or other words, when we are attending to the “raw data of cognition,” we can’t be lost in a story about the past or future. Listening to the fan whir, knowing I am hearing this: In this exact moment, is anything missing or broken or not enough?

Also, if James Hetfield can mention suicide in his songs, I can mention it in my blog. He’s still here and so am I.

I was recalling another time I saw this kind of debilitating indecision: After my mother had started to have dementia. Her phone died and she went back and forth and back and forth about replacing it, anxious about spending the money, among other things, though that was far from an issue. Earlier on, she would have had a lot of fun with a new iPhone. She would have tried out every app, every wallpaper, every setting, every color, every possible thing that phone could do. We would have been deluged with text messages and videos full of special effects. By the time she finally did get a new iPhone, it was impossible even to teach her how to make a phone call or to answer one.

We went through the same thing over medication for her Parkinson’s disease. She was initially worried about side effects and decided not to take it, but later thought maybe she should give it a whirl. Back and forth, back and forth. Every several months, she said maybe she should try the medication. She never did end up taking it, or any other substantial medication. In memory care and on hospice, she was given a small amount of Ativan daily and also CBD daily, the latter per me and my sister, which did seem to help with her mood and with sound sleep. In her final months, when her breathing was too fast, she got a bit of morphine, and steady morphine in her final few days.

A minor note about oatmeal: I decided it had better feature toasted walnuts or nut butter (walnut or cashew) and not both. After yesterday’s oatmeal with both, I was not hungry again for 24 hours.

If thinking “I can’t stand it” leads swiftly to a dire state of mind, wouldn’t it be the case that thinking, “Oh, my god, everything is so great!” would lead to the opposite? I don’t know why it doesn’t seem to work that way, but it doesn’t. The latter seems artificial, like an attempt to force things to be some other way, whereas the former just seems like sound and accurate reporting. 

Bulging Right Eye Tumor

I felt almost a little panicked before breakfast today: Am I on a diet if I have to have oatmeal instead of the wonderful toast I have on work days? (Because there is not time to have the salad I have on non-work days.) I know there is gluten-free bread and maybe I’ll bump into a great one, but I would generally rather eat something simpler than something highly processed with lots of ingredients. The good news is that today’s oatmeal very closely approximated the toast.

In pot: Half a cup of gluten-free organic rolled oats, a cup of water, about half a cup of toasted walnuts, half a teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon. In bowl: A cup or so of thawed frozen blueberries, and a chopped-up apple. Add the former to the latter. On top: A big dollop of walnut or cashew butter and a tablespoon or so of walnut oil. Delicious! Oh! I forgot the fresh minced ginger. I’ll add that from now on.

Several months ago, a close associate mentioned that she does not have a to do list. I haven’t thought of that consciously every moment since then, but I think it’s been nagging at me subconsciously around the clock: Without a to-do list, how does she know what to do?!?

My father was Mr. To Do List, and I am Mrs. To Do List. (While the person who claims not to have a to do list is as closely related to my father as I am.) As I have mentioned here more than once, the only thing that terminated my father’s to do list was getting pancreatic cancer and finding himself suddenly living in a retirement community where most of the objects associated with the tasks on his list were no longer available. He said some of the items dated back 50 years.

Today I was working on this and that, and found myself stressed out and with the same nagging headache I have now had for days, which I hope is a vestibular migraine but which I secretly suspect is a brain tumor; my right eye feels weird. I’m pretty sure there’s a bulging tumor behind my right eye.

My strategy lately has been to eliminate various components of my life in hopes that I will find myself having what I read about what some guy who lives on a desert island all by himself claims to have: a serene relationship with time. I want that so much.

I have given up my whole entire job, which you would think would help a lot, but today, as I stressed out about whatever, it was suddenly obvious that it does not matter how much stuff I X out: I will often be stressed out because my mode of living, governed as it is by my to do list and by compulsive schedule making, reliably generates stress. It is very similar to what they call in Alcoholics Anonymous the “geographic cure”: Maybe if I lived in Colorado, I wouldn’t drink as much.

I will never get to the end of my to do list. It produces new branches in all directions; it grows up, down, left and right; it bulges in all directions at once, like a basketball being inflated; categories develop subcategories. If I ever got done with the Tasks of Top Importance, it would be on to the Other Tasks, and then to what I call Things to Do Never, in recognition of the fact that I will never do them (though I would if I got through the other categories).

I think all I can do is just take a lot of entries off the list, all those things I will never, ever get to, and to try to have a more sane relationship with what remains, which I think means saying how much time I can spend today after I do what is necessary for well-being and a serene relationship with time and giving up the idea that if I stay up all night, I can get it done! It won’t get done even if I stay up all night every night for the rest of my life (which might not be that long if I make a habit of staying up all night every night).

So never mind for today estimated taxes on capital gains in this state versus that state. I guess a person without a to do list just does what obviously needs doing right now and does not worry about anything else? And then does she end up with a huge penalty in April because she did not pay her estimated taxes?

Perhaps a person can be mindful of her estimated taxes and also ask herself regularly what in this moment would constitute good self-care.

This bring us to formal meditation practice. From one week after 9/11 until a month or so ago, I missed precisely one day of sitting in meditation, and that one missed day was an accident.

I have lately returned to practicing in the style of Sayadaw U Tejaniya who, on the one hand, thinks sitting meditation is a fine thing to do, but who, on the other hand, doesn’t think you should do it if you’re merely trying to fulfill some clockly requirement and are going to sit there replaying over and over what you’d like to say to your cigarette-smoking neighbor. (Though on the third hand, I once read somewhere that meditation is whatever you do while you’re sitting in your designated meditation spot, a kind and generous idea I rather like.)

Tejaniya’s idea is that meditation starts when we wake up and concludes when we go to sleep, and that we don’t spend the time in between focusing grimly on whatever object is most noticeable in a given moment but rather in a relaxed, steady, calm, cool, easy observation of our own mind and body, in due time coming to notice how our thoughts, bodies, attitudes and emotions affect one another for good or ill.

This really has been interesting. I have the thought, “I can’t stand this,” and immediately there is a downturn in how my body generally feels, which confirms that, yep, I can’t stand it, and then my body feels even worse, etc. In mere seconds, my life feels completely untenable, thanks to that one little not-fully-observed thought, which could occur during sitting meditation or at any old time.

Accordingly, I decided to experiment with sitting for as long as it actually felt fruitful or for as long as I felt like sitting rather than for a set period of time. I decided to try skipping a day! I had always been afraid some teacher would grasp how rigid I was about my daily meditation and order me to skip a day on purpose. All on my own, I skipped a day. And then another. Soon I was sitting in meditation never, except for Tuesday nights with my teacher’s sangha.

Really, it felt fine. I don’t think I feel any worse than usual. I mean, I feel terrible. I feel crazed. Thoughts of suicide are appearing regularly. While I guess I would say it has been decades since that specifically has been the case, I can’t say there weren’t many, many times of feeling terrible and crazed during the 25 years when I meditated every single day except for one, and many, many times of life seeming easy and delightful.

I don’t know if the extra awfulness of this time is due to not meditating daily or just the horrendous pressure of having to make what is literally a life-changing decision or if it is mainly a manifestation of grief.

After my father died but before my mother did the same, I decided that I would absolutely commit suicide after my mother was gone. I got online to pick out a method and soon learned that nearly everyone who survives a suicide attempt reports that right after they did whatever they did, they regretted it. There was a horrible story of a child who took a lethal substance, readily available online at low cost, and then asked his mother for help, but it was too late.

I took suicide permanently off the table, with the counsel to myself that no one is going to follow me around making sure I conduct my life in a constructive manner. Only I can do that and only I can choose to do it.

I thought that was that, but I find those thoughts popping up again in maybe the past month.

I just feel so stressed and so miserable. I suppose here is where a person might consult their therapist, but that is absolutely off the table after she laughed merrily all through the story about the death of someone I knew.

I’m just going to have to figure it out. I do not have a suicide method picked out—wow, wave of dizziness as I typed that—and therefore I don’t have the supplies, and if I find myself choosing a method, yes, I will call the suicide hotline.

I was reading today online about how meditation actually rewires our brains. That seems to be in direct contrast with something Howie mentions regularly, which is that our meditation practice does not “trickle down” into the rest of our lives: The 30 minutes we spent meditating yesterday evening does not affect this moment. Or does it? Does meditation rewire the brain over time? If 25 years of daily meditation hasn't done the trick, would 26? Was it that one missed day that put the rewiring out of reach?

On the chance that the lack of regular sitting meditation is actually making things seem worse or genuinely and actually making them worse, I’ve decided to return to daily sitting meditation, even if it’s just for ten minutes.

Toasty

On Wednesday I went in a Zipcar to see my friend in Novato. We went to Marvin’s for lunch and sat outside. The weather was gorgeous. I had a grilled turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese on sourdough bread, and onion rings; I slathered a quarter-cup of butter on the outside of the sandwich. It was sublime.

We spent the afternoon playing cards. I told her about feeling so tired at work and in effect now being on a leave of absence and she asked if I resort to sugar or caffeine at those moments. I was shocked! Such a thing had never once crossed my mind, but I guess that is what people do, now that she mentions it.

Needless to say, the typing of which never stops me from going on to type the thing that was needless to say, by the time I talked to Lisa C. on the phone yesterday, my decision about moving or not moving had liquefied to a certain extent. It’s that dread of making a fatal error: What if I feel better in a few months and, alas, my job is gone? But then, what if this is my permanent condition and, alas, someone else now owns my house and is pulling up my weeds?

There are some things that still need to be done for the house in any event, including removing the bottom six to eight inches of about 75 feet of wood paneling in the basement that either has been touched by water already or could be in the future; this is a mold prevention strategy.

I had put a lot of effort into another thing to be done in the basement only to finally grasp that the City of Ypsilanti does not permit it, as confirmed on the phone by one of their inspectors. 

To wit: There is ancient clay tile under the basement floor which is clogged with dirt and who knows what else; this has been verified by camera. Water collects on the floor when it rains; this has been verified by my eyeballs. The advice I got was to tear out that clay tile—which is not tile per se but pipes—and replace it with some nice, modern PVC pipes out to the footing, which is the perimeter of the house. When it rains, storm water goes in drains in the footing or under the footing or near the footing or in some way having some other relationship to the footing, and then, if the clay tile were sound, it would go through those pipes to the sanitary drain in the basement floor and off on its municipal adventure. Oh: a sanitary drain is where the water from sinks and toilets, etc., drains.

But because the clay tile is blocked, water ends up on the floor; it might be seeping right up through the flooring, if there is such a thing as seeping up. That is the theory of one person with expertise in these matters, anyway. If we had put in the PVC pipe and still seen water, the advice was to then install “drain tile” (not to be confused with clay tile) just along the stretch where water was seen, and then, the water that went into the drain tile could make its way via gravity to our now-confirmed-to-be-functioning sanitary drain.

One could also install drain tile clear around the whole perimeter of the basement, along with a sump pump, if one wished to spend north of twenty thousand dollars.

I was in the process of getting my third quote for the PVC pipe when I finally came to understand that in 1981, Ypsilanti disallowed having storm water go into the sanitary drain, because all of that rainwater then has to be processed by the water treatment plant instead of going more or less harmlessly into the ground. Ann Arbor doesn’t permit this, either, and probably zillions of places don’t. You are required to have a sump pump and something outside the house (specifically drywall or a “bubbler”) to absorb the water so it doesn’t go right into the basement of your neighbor whose house is downhill from yours.

I guess you can easily find someone to do this disallowed thing, as evidenced by the two quotes I got without the contractor saying one word about a sump pump, but I would rather do the right thing. Also, what if you did the wrong thing and then had some kind of problem with the new system? It could get to be a big mess.

So I think that ends for now any idea of doing anything about the wet basement, as we don’t have enough cash left to do drain tile all the way around the whole basement. By the way, it took me months to grasp even the rudiments of how this all works. It felt good, the other day, to confidently explain to a contractor what exactly we need—just before I found out it’s not allowed.

Along with removing the bottom of the wood paneling in the basement, which the estate will pay for, there are a whole bunch of things to be done if I am going to buy the house, nearly all having something to do with Marvin the cat. So there continue to be many, many phone calls to make, and by late yesterday morning, what I have self-diagnosed as a vestibular migraine had set in and is still with me. It’s not even really a self-diagnosis; my chiropractor, who knows and fixes just about everything, concurred when I mentioned that.

It is definitely giving me the heebie-jeebies that soon I will have to stop whipping out the estate’s credit card and start reluctantly extracting my own from my wallet, though whatever I spend will result in at least a minor improvement to something I will own that will presumably appreciate in value unless it’s completely swept away by a tornado.

I’m now starting to think the difficulty with this decision might boil down to fear of my own death. My parents have both died, removing the generation that in some conceptual way was standing between me and the great beyond, and whereas there is at least still one more thing after working—retirement—after retirement, which this decision greatly turns upon and which might have already happened, there is only death, at least as seen from my habitually gloomy perspective.

I had mentioned here that a co-worker had recommended this book: The T.I.G.E.R. Protocol: An Integrative 5-Step Program to Treat and Heal Your Autoimmunity, by Akil Palanisamy, MD. I don’t have a diagnosis of autoimmune disease, but I ordered the book, whose advice my co-worker had followed with good results. The idea was that autoimmune problems can cause inflammation which in turn can contribute to fatigue. So if there is fatigue, is there inflammation or even the beginning of some kind of autoimmune problem? (Though besides not having a diagnosis of any autoimmune condition, the couple of times I’ve had C-reactive protein tested, it’s been very low.)

After acquiring the book, I put it on the shelf where it couldn’t do me any immediate harm. I was put on my first diet at the age of seven by my mother, whose intentions could not have been better, but this was the beginning of decades of disordered eating, not to mention the conviction that I was fat and ugly. At this point, I know very well to be extremely cautious with anything that feels like a diet; an elimination diet is one of the major components of the T.I.G.E.R. Protocol.

Yesterday evening I had gone to the other extreme and decided to read the whole book ASAP—in the coming several days, if possible—and to do what it says to do: What if following that advice actually worked and I could return to my job? In a rush, I turned right to the part of the book about how to eat and soon concluded that I would rather feel horrible every single day for the rest of my life than to follow that plan for even two weeks. I couldn’t even if I wanted to; by about the second day, I would be eating a half gallon of ice cream after getting home from McDonald's.

I also felt a little confused: The book mentions fermented food as being great for your microbiome; I believe that. But the internet mentions fermented food as being a known migraine trigger. (The internet also avers that “vertigo” is a symptom and not a diagnosis. This I did not know.)

Fortunately, I had an appointment with my chiropractor on this very day, which forced me to shower for the first time in a week, because, really, who cares any more? (My friend in Novato is ten years older than I am; I was hoping that thing about the sense of smell diminishing with age is actually correct.) Truly, this is a very difficult time. I have also stopped meditating, but I think that is actually for a good reason. I’ll get back to that some other day, probably. (Cliffhanger!)

I told my chiropractor that the vestibular exercises seem to be helping a lot: the room no longer spins and the floor does not suddenly tilt. I told him about the symptoms that are continuing: brain fog, slight vertigo with certain motions, very slight headache if symptoms go on for enough hours, nausea; I’m not sure if the nausea is related. On my last two trips by airplane, I came close to vomiting.

I asked him if vestibular and autoimmune issues are related and he said they could be; the gut affects a lot of things. He watched me do some of the vestibular exercises and confirmed there has a been a big improvement. (It has something to do with how the eyes focus on and track a moving thing.)

I told him my feelings about attempting the T.I.G.E.R. Protocol and asked what he thought about my just ceasing to eat gluten (on the theory that gluten can cause “leaky gut,” which can cause inflammation, which can cause fatigue) and he said that since I don’t have a diagnosed autoimmune disease and since that’s my visceral reaction to the matter, setting gluten aside for a time would be a “good elimination.” This mainly affects eating out at certain restaurants; at home, it’s just a matter of having oatmeal instead of toast. 

Poof

I went to work on Saturday at the hospital, and while I was speaking with a patient I have spoken with a couple of times before, I felt that familiar feeling of the energy suddenly draining out of my body. (I’m sure nothing to do with that particular patient; I just happened to be with her.) I looked at my watch: 1 p.m. exactly.

After work I felt lousy, as usual, and I decided I was done doing the same thing and expecting different results, and that I was going to have to give my two weeks’ notice on Monday morning. Or maybe I decided it was not okay to feel lousy nearly one third of the nights of the week. I wrote it in my calendar, and I wrote “Last day of work” on the page for that day. After that, with relief in sight, I actually felt a bit more jaunty for the rest of the evening.

Sunday morning, the next chaplain called at 8:30 a.m. to take over and we had a great conversation. This was a Clinical Pastoral Education student, one of whom I am particularly fond, though this year’s whole crop is wonderful. He shared in a vulnerable manner about his life, an activity we chaplains highly approve of, and so I decided to tell him about my decision, though I felt a little weird about it, since he is a student and it’s a personnel matter. In part it was because he spoke so openly and I pictured him hearing about my resignation and thinking, “I told Bugwalk all that stuff and she didn’t say one word about what was happening with her?”

So I just told him, including that becoming a board certified chaplain is the accomplishment in my entire life that I am most proud of, and that working in the hospital as a chaplain is the most profound honor in my life, which it is, but that I am sick of feeling horrible two days and nights per week. 

He asked, “How do you feel?”

“Sad.” I was very near tears.

“Is it okay if I feel sad with you?” We felt sad together for a bit.

Then he said maybe what is next is a whole new way of being a chaplain that I can’t right now imagine—maybe my chaplaincy is bursting out of the hospital the way the weeds I pull in Ypsilanti burst out of their narrow cracks (though I guess the analogy ends there, since at that point the weeds are, not to put too fine a point upon it, dead).

That was incredibly helpful. It made a place for the sorrow and the ending, but also opened up an expanse of space in which to feel joy in anticipation of being well rested every day and of a new chapter and new adventures.

I warned the student that I might change my mind about giving notice by Monday morning, which is what happened, mainly because I just could not imagine those words coming out of my mouth. Like, the thing I am proudest of and which means the most to me, I am going to say I don’t want it any more?

I could have just done nothing, but in the end, I asked my boss if I could speak with him, and I told him everything. I told him that while I have made a bit of progress in improving my sleep schedule, it hasn’t been enough. I told him several things I had never told him before: that I need an enormous amount of sleep and that this is why I can never work two days in a row, and about wrestling with the decision about buying the house. I told him I had planned to give two weeks’ notice in that very conversation, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

He said what is great is that I’m a per diem! He said I can simply step away for a time but not give up the job. He mentioned that, after all, I work just two days a week. (And on top of that, have been away fifty percent of the time for more than four years; he didn’t say that.) That was a nicer way of putting it than, “We barely see you, anyway, and will hardly notice if you aren’t here.”

So the upshot was that he took all of my scheduled days off the calendar but I am still an employee of the hospital.

Later in the day it dawned on me that my income had just ended. However, I mainly felt an increasing sense of ease. Because I pretty much spend Monday and Friday getting ready to go to work on Tuesday and Saturday, I suddenly had a wide-open vista before me, four newly free days every single week. I can have lunch with my friend! I can sew a pair of pants! I can call Recology about the collection of e-waste that has been outside my apartment door for weeks and weeks.

I didn’t have to go to sleep early yesterday evening because today was no longer a work day. Instead of the alarm going off at 4:55 a.m., I didn’t set it at all and woke up at 11:30 a.m.

I think I have finally figured out what the most important thing is. It just is not mind over matter when the matter is one’s own body.

I think I just retired.

And after all this agonizing and trying not to agonize, it is suddenly and finally obvious: I will buy the house, and I will move to Michigan. I am kind of patting myself on the back: I knew that eventually things would become clear. I was just hoping it would happen before my siblings took me to court for malfeasance.

I will not be moving right this minute. There are several things I need to do to the house, mainly for the cats, and I have to figure out how to move the cats and move my stuff, and I need time for it to sink in and to plan how to take leave of the things and people I need to say goodbye to, here where I have lived for 45 years.

It is hard to grasp that being a hospital chaplain is over. It is almost ten years to the day since I began my training to be a chaplain. I can easily picture the day I started, the other people who were there, the room we were in, specific things that were said. It seems like it was five minutes ago. The whole ten years, including a solid year spent full-time at UCSF for Clinical Pastoral Education, seems like the merest puff of smoke, barely seen, and then—poof!—gone just like that.

Part of me suspected I would end up staying in San Francisco, which I still might. But part of me knew I would move back to Michigan the day I took a walk with my friend there and put my hands into a cold lake and whispered a wish, “Bring me home. Bring me home.”

Our realtor had lately gotten new comps for the house and found they hadn’t budged from earlier on. I asked her yesterday to go ahead and do her market analysis, which will establish a range for the list price. I plan to go with the number halfway between the top and bottom figures. I must then discuss details with my sisters, sell some stocks, and pay my sisters for their thirds of the house.

The to-do list will be long, but as I recently read somewhere or other, if the task seems daunting, it’s because it hasn’t been broken down into small-enough steps.

I’m kind of looking forward to getting away from the 200 AI billionaires, but there are things I will really miss, I think mainly the sun, and being able to have the window open and have a fresh breeze nearly every day of the year. Neither place has everything; each place has nice things the other doesn’t.