Smokeland

A week or so into November, fires 150 miles away filled the air with smoke here in San Francisco. I walked to County Hospital wearing an N95 mask. This kind of mask, if properly fitted, will help keep particles out of the lungs, though the wearer might still smell the smoke, or whatever it is, and his or her glasses can still potentially steam up.

That was my very first day with the palliative care team. At rounds, we discussed a patient who had been in jail or prison, received compassionate release because his death was imminent, and had subsequently perked up. Now what?

Before rounds, Robert, the head of the spiritual care department and main palliative care chaplain, explained how he conducts himself in rounds. “I don’t say much. I hold the space for the others. I might chime in if there’s a patient I’ve been following.” He said that if there has been a recent tragedy, he might say at the end, “Can we take a moment of silence?” He asks the doctor’s permission to do this; he said that doing this at all depends on who the attending is and what time it is.

Besides the terrible fires, there had been a recent mass shooting, so Robert did ask if we could have a moment of silence at the end of the meeting. He said a few words to draw our attention to those affected by both events, and then there was a bit of quiet, which ended with Robert saying, “Thank you.” That day was the monthly palliative care team lunch, when people eat together in a conference room. It was a friendly, relaxed gathering.

On Saturday, the playground outside my living room window, normally filled with children, was completely deserted due to the smoke. However, there were three completely insane (adult) tennis players on the adjacent courts. Hammett and I spent the entire day sealed in our apartment with our HEPA filter air purifier running. Tom called from Sacramento in the evening and said it was even worse there. One benefit of staying inside all day was that I finished sewing my rakusu.

I let the air purifier run all night on its lowest setting, and the next morning, the air in the room did seem noticeably fresh. When I rode my bike to Rainbow to get groceries, I wore a mask. My eyes were burning as I pedaled, and when I got home, I saw there was black gunk in the corners of my eyes.

In mid-November, I went back to school for the fifth and final time this year. When I got on the plane to fly to Albuquerque, the flight attendant advised over the P.A. that passengers should not move to a different seat unless requested to do so: “So the plane stays balanced.”

It was probably for that reason that they didn’t mention it when we flew over the Grand Canyon. The only reason I knew I was seeing it was that I was seated next to a Navajo woman who pointed it out, along with lots of other topographical features, including the Shiprock (in Arizona), Navajo Mountain (mostly in Utah, but partly in Arizona), and Ute Mountain (in Colorado). It was wonderful to have such an excellent tour guide. I gave her half my lunch, and by the time we landed, we were good friends. She gave me a magazine for Mormons, of which she is one, and took me outside the airport so I could meet her husband, who had come to pick her up. When we parted, she said she was honored to have met a Buddhist person for the first time.

It was freezing cold at school, with snow on the ground. The temperatures were in the 40s during the day and in the 20s at night. It was colder in Michigan, where I went two days after getting back from school, but, on the other hand, I never had to walk outside in my bare feet in Michigan, which I had to do every day at school. I consoled myself with the thought that I will never, ever go to Santa Fe again in November, nor December, January, or February.

The class I was there for was taught by Roshi and the fellow who started, or helped start, the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco. There were at least two students in the class who have terminal diagnoses, and many others who have suffered significant losses. One day, during a meditation on turning toward what is difficult—such as death—an older student collapsed and had to be taken away by ambulance. Fortunately, he was soon feeling better and returned later that day. Roshi said people regularly faint there, due to the altitude.

Most everything that was said I had heard or read previously, and there were also a lot of tedious guided meditations—I generally don’t like guided meditations—and I did not sleep well any of the three nights we were there, but there were also some genuinely powerful moments, including a ritual we did on the last day. I also enjoyed the company of my fellow students, including five or six people from the chaplaincy program, and meeting a whole bunch of new people. I met someone who will be starting the chaplaincy program next spring, which was particularly great. I gave her my key piece of advice, and she said two other people had already told her the exact same thing: get the book reports and field trips done ASAP.

As always, the food was fantastic. I was on cleanup duty after two dinners, and those might have been the most fun moments, working alongside other students and some of the full-time residents to wash the dishes of 70 people. My daily work assignment was also in the kitchen, helping to prepare for lunch by chopping vegetables or crumbling feta, and that was also enjoyable. Otherwise, I was kind of counting the moments until it would be over, and was delighted when I was in the shuttle heading back to the airport. I noticed on my boarding pass that the span of time allotted for getting everyone onto the plane is ten minutes, which is plenty.