As my mother used to say, and maybe still does say.
The loss of Hammett (on March 21) has made the boundary between crying and not-crying quite porous. When I was describing one patient’s sad situation to the next day’s on-call chaplain, I found myself in tears, which is good. I remember being on call one night at the children’s hospital during CPE and telephoning one of our supervisors, like myself an Enneagram One, to share something sad. I was deeply admiring when she immediately burst into tears: what easily activated empathy! I want to be able to feel deeply, and it is fine to cry when with a patient. As one palliative care doctor said during a training, “Just try not to cry more than the patient.”
Today I attended the first of three online training sessions presented by Roshi Joan Halifax, founder of the Upaya Institute and Zen Center, where I just finished the two-year chaplaincy program, and Frank Ostaseski, founder of the Zen Hospice Project. Offered on a donation basis, it was called Bearing Witness Together in Troubled Times, and today’s session was absolutely superb. I was scribbling notes throughout. These two teachers are so excellent, and it was also a huge comfort and joy just to see Roshi’s beloved face and hear her voice. Even though the panelists could not see any of the 1000+ participants, I got up and put on my rakusu, anyway, which Roshi gave me when I received the precepts.
I find myself craving nature, beauty, pleasurable sensory experiences. There is often a breeze coming in the small screened window in my walk-in closet, carrying the lovely scent of the big tree and other greenery just outside, and the grassy park beyond. I know that with every breath, I breathe in an infinitesimally small particle that was once inhaled by Hammett, and one inhaled by F., and one inhaled by each of my parents, and by every breathing creature that has ever lived. At least, so I once read somewhere, and I like to imagine it is true.
Because my parents were and are such avid gardeners over so many decades, inhaling the scent of plants makes me feel connected to them, as does eating my morning salad, with all the beautiful colors and tastes, each grown in some garden somewhere. I have FaceTimed with my mother a couple of times lately. It is wonderful to see her, though seeing the familiar room that I normally see in person gives me a pang. Will I be in that room with my parents again?
I read today that the meat supply chain is breaking down. This is obviously terrible for those who eat meat, and considerably more terrible for all the animals who were and will be killed. Could it have the good effect of pushing us toward plant-based eating, much more efficient and much better for our health? Or does it merely presage the breaking down of the supply chain for all the other kinds of food? Will I be found months from now in my apartment, desiccated, clutching a final herb-crusted black olive?
Along with the fresh breeze at the window and the lovely morning salad, I am enjoying sautéing onions, garlic and ginger for my weekly pot of beans. I had been putting fresh, raw ginger in canned salmon; adding freshly pressed garlic at the end of cooking beans; not bothering with onion for the beans; and eating fresh red onion in my salads. Then I got the message, via chronic chest pain, that this might not be appreciated by my digestive system. I was also putting garlic granules on toast, which is so delicious, but I think might have been the biggest culprit, because 99 percent of the pain disappeared when I stopped doing that.
I also stopped with the raw or barely cooked ginger, garlic and red onion, though I am a huge believer in the healthfulness of these things, and started sautéing for my beans as mentioned above, yellow onion rather than red. Now that I feel better, I bought a red onion to put in my salads, but will stop again if the pain returns.
I plan to start putting bay leaves in my beans and will research what other kinds of aromatic stuff you can put in beans.
For several months, on the advice of my fantastic chiropractor, I have been using this thing called YogaToes for about 30 minutes daily, to prevent hammertoes. The effect is subtle but at this point unmistakable. My toes are definitely lying flatter on the ground, and I now feel sort of reluctant, having made this ongoing effort to straighten them out, to mash them into slippers. Setting out to obtain some slippers that would allow freedom for my toes, I ended up ordering some Birkenstocks, the Mayari style, which looks like it affords even more liberation for the toes than the Arizona style I used to have.
For the final many years that I had them, or all the years I had them, I never wore them to walk outside. I wore them when I took out the trash. I actually don’t think Birkenstocks are very comfortable, but I want to be the kind of person who thinks Birkenstocks are comfortable, so I guess the two ways the coronavirus has transformed me so far have to do with bay leaves and Birkenstocks. Also, I am craving fruit, particularly bananas and citrus fruit.
There is a lot of work yet to be done in my apartment because of the flood that occurred here in May of 2019. Sanding of drywall, priming and painting are needed in the front hallway, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. The entire place needs to be re-carpeted. Hardwood in the front hallway and kitchen needs to be refinished. There are bare bulbs dangling from wires overhead here and there. Something needs to be done about that.
The common areas of the building were lately painted, supposedly with low-VOC, odor-free paint. So far, it has reeked for eight weeks. Even Tom, who (unlike myself) never complains about anything, said he couldn’t wait for the unpleasant stench to abate. I’m glad that painting occurred, because otherwise they would have gone ahead with the exact same paint in my place, and then my apartment would have become literally uninhabitable for at least eight weeks.
This morning I was thinking that I would have to resign myself to living in the place as it is until I move out, which will probably be when I die. It was a slightly dismaying thought, mostly because I know I would periodically succumb to self-pity about it. Living in a construction zone would not be good, but risking my health also wouldn’t be good. I used to smoke when I was a teenager, alas, and am deeply desirous of avoiding COPD and lung cancer.
Then I remembered that if both of two options are bad, then both are good! Avoiding weeks of a terrible odor would be good! Having a beautifully redone apartment would also be good! Mainly, I reminded myself that I am not a victim. I have agency here, and I can choose, and I can take full responsibility for my choices.
Then I had a brainstorm and sent the building owner an email proposing a phased approach:
Maybe we could pick out paint that will hopefully be fine and:
Phase 1: Sand, prime, paint the bathroom. If that goes fine, or once the smell has died down …
Phase 2: Sand, prime, paint the front hallway.
Phase 3: Sand, prime, paint the kitchen.
Phase 4: Hardwood, carpet, paint the living room. I could be out of the apartment for a couple of days for this phase.
Doing something like this would lessen the paint smell at any given time and give plenty of time to notice if a given paint was really a problem.
Finally, a small tragedy this morning, when I opened the swing-open window, which I never did when Hammett was here, and saw some gunk with legs sticking out of it on the inside of the frame. Alas, a squished spider. I had seen that spider near there, but not right there. She must have ventured to that location for a change of scenery, which proved fatal.
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