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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

 
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Plastic Flute

On January 3, 2021, I got the first dose of Moderna’s COVID vaccine. I arrived 40 minutes early—I was paranoid about being late and losing my spot. I thought they were going to say, “We’re practicing social distancing. Please stand outside until your appointment time,” but they invited me right in. The process was very smooth. They were only doing first doses at this location, with the second dose to be given elsewhere.

After I got the shot, I got a card documenting it, and a sticker for my work badge, and I had to sit down for 15 minutes to make sure I felt fine. About five minutes into the 15 minutes, I began to feel a slight pressure in my chest. This occurs from time to time, and so my heart has been checked over and over, and I also spent an entire night in the hospital about ten years ago plus several hours in the ED a couple of years ago for this same symptom, with no problem ever being found. On the other hand, this time it occurred five minutes after getting the COVID vaccine, so I mentioned it to the young lady who had given me the vaccine, and this was taken very seriously, though I made a point of telling everybody I discussed it with that I am a known hypochondriac.

I sat for a second 15 minutes, and then a nurse came from the ED and said they would like me to be treated in the ED. I was pretty sure this would mean six hours of hanging around in the ED (right near lots of COVID patients), followed by a long bike ride home in the dark wet, and possibly a large bill—with no finding of any heart problem—so I hinted that I was feeling better, though I really sort of wasn’t, and agreed that I would sit for a third 15 minutes and then start walking home with a friend of mine who was also there getting her vaccination, and this proposal was accepted.

My friend and I walked for several blocks, and then her husband picked her up in their car, and I rode home. By then, I was starting to feel some twinges in my shoulder near where the shot had been placed, and I still felt the pressure in my chest, and I also felt so fatigued that I got into bed as soon as I got home. The pain in my shoulder worsened steadily all evening and made it impossible to lie on that side that night. The fatigue abated after an hour or two. The pressure in my chest stayed all evening but seemed basically gone the next morning.

The next day, I didn’t notice the chest tightness or fatigue; my shoulder continued to hurt for a day or two.

And then it was January 6, 2021, and I was sitting in front of my computer watching the horrendous events instigated by our own President—I remember wondering what was taking the National Guard so long—and my eye fell on a thing in the New York Times: five minutes that will make you love the flute. I listened for a minute or two and still didn’t love the flute, but I remembered that sometimes I’m getting a massage, and the person plays music that sounds like rain dripping in a forest, with a haunting wooden flute sound which I like very much. Is this the Japanese wooden flute? (Much later, I found out it was more likely a Native American wooden flute. Which is much easier to play than what I now do play.) I Duck Ducked that, and next thing I knew, I was signed up for shakuhachi lessons with a really nice fellow in Berkeley.

The shakuhachi is a bamboo flute, and once upon a time, only samurai were allowed to play it, as part of their Zen training, but now any schlub can have at it. My new teacher recommended beginning with a more affordable epoxy version of this instrument, called the Yuu. (Available you know where.)

My plastic shakuhachi arrived and I found that I could not get a sound out of it. It’s basically just a tube with holes in it. As my teacher says, “This is a very primitive instrument. Body is the main instrument.”

I also found sound elusive at my first online lesson, though I immediately liked my teacher a lot. He advised that I should knock on the door of the spirits and God would make the sound. I did not succeed in making any sound during that whole first hour-long lesson, but later that night, while looking in the bathroom mirror, I made a sound! I made a little five-second video to send to my teacher and a few others. My teacher wrote back immediately and enthusiastically. At my second lesson, five days later, he declared that my sound was “ten times better.”

I made arrangements around then with two people to mentor me for my next try at board certification as a chaplain. One of them was a former CPE supervisor of mine whom I’m very fond of. I was put in touch with the other by my friend Sam, and she proved to be a dynamo. Her advice was superb, and she responded almost immediately to any piece of writing I sent her.

Marvin leapt one day onto the breakfast table, sloshing tea out of both cups. I was on the phone with my father and yelled, “God—excuse my language—fucking damn it!” A moment later, I said, “Sorry about my language. That was very annoying.”

My father said, “That’s okay. I’ve heard the word ‘annoying’ before.”

Cats

I venture to say the cat in the first two photos is Marvin, but the cat on the scratching post is Duckworth.

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Darnly Darn It

For a minute there (in November, 2020, this was), I thought Duckworth might have learned his name, but it turns out that he answers to any name, including Marvin’s, whereas Marvin answers to no name, including his own.

The Duckle also does not discriminate when it comes to food. Marvin is picky, but Duckworth eats anything that appears in his bowl, plus whatever Marvin doesn’t finish, though I now put the latter into the compost, because I don’t want Duckworth to look like a basketball with four stubby legs protruding from the bottom of it, though as of this writing, that's exactly how he continues to look.

On cooking day, they are strongly enjoined not to advance onto the area near the sink and stove where the floor is linoleum. They are welcome to linger in the other half of the kitchen, where the floor is hardwood. Sometimes one slinks by me, heading under the sink, and I can practically see the thought bubble forming over his head: “I’m going to my water bowl. I think I’m allowed to go to my water bowl, aren’t I?”

One morning as I had breakfast, Duckworth hopped onto the table. (Both cats earlier had jumped onto the table together, sloshing an inch of liquid out of my tea cup.) He sweetly put his face near mine and then tried to tear some of my hair out with his teeth. I don’t think it was malicious. I think he (correctly) perceived something unkempt about my coiffure and just wanted to help me achieve better grooming, as he and his brother do for each other. “That’s not lying flat! I think I can fix this.”

If the neighbors listen carefully, they can probably hear me merrily singing out from time to time, “Gosh darnly darn it!” or even, “Dang you dangheads!”, or something like that.

One day I found a pushpin in the cats’ water bowl. It had formerly been in use, several feet off the ground, to keep a couple of wires out of their reach. They must have sat on top of the bookcase just inside the next room and worried the pushpin until it fell to the ground, and then the conversation likely went something like this:

“Ooh, wow—nice! Where should we put this?”

“In the pool!”

In November, 2020, at my second job I participated in a training on trauma-sensitive crisis prevention, which included instruction on several ways to break free from someone who has seized your wrist, neck, clothes, or hair, or grabbed you around the waist or chest from behind. We practiced the latter with a partner. There were only six students, including two friends of mine, and two trainers. We were in a large room that allowed for plenty of distancing, and of course we all wore masks all day. Several of us got fish and chips burritos from Publico for lunch, which was a treat.

I thanked our boss for including us per diems in this training; that seemed pretty generous. She explained that because we are all on-call chaplains, we will often be the only chaplain in the hospital, and so we will be part of a crisis response task force.

Thanksgiving last year was via FaceTime with my parents and sister.

After an extremely busy night shift at my second job (in December of 2020; we’re almost to 2021, just in time for 2022!), I got an email saying that patients had transmitted COVID to staff members on two particular units. Those known to have had contact with the patients had already been contacted, but anyone who had been on either of those units was strongly encouraged to get a COVID test. My boss said there was probably little to worry about unless I had hung out in a breakroom with other staff members with my mask off, which I had not. I faithfully wear my mask, and goggles over my glasses. (I still do that now, in October of 2021.) I wasn’t worried about COVID, just slightly disgruntled about having to free up several hours the next day for this task, which required going back to work. It turned out to be the most pleasant of the three COVID tests I’ve had so far. I was handed a cotton swab and told to run it around the inside of my nostril. (As for the people who had to deal with a bin full of cotton swabs that had been in other people’s nostrils: less pleasant, I suspect.)

In mid-December, there was a Code Blue in the ICU at my first job. As I stood outside the patient’s room, I felt goosebumps go up the front of my legs, the third time this has happened. The patient did indeed die. Do the goosebumps come at the moment the person’s life force emanates into the cosmos? Don’t know.

Christmas was also via FaceTime with my family. It was fun, and also sad: there they were, such perfect little images, so familiar in every detail and so beloved, but the actual people so far away, perhaps not to be seen for another entire year.

Cone

Marvin with the cone he had to wear after his bloody injury to keep him from licking his paw. Sometimes he walked dejectedly along with his head hanging down, kicking the cone with each step.

Below is Marvin (or possibly Duckworth) shortly after adoption, about three months old.

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The Land Behind the Stove

A few feline doings: There was the night I was brushing my teeth and heard a stunningly loud crash from the kitchen. This turned out to be Marvin knocking a substantial small oven (much bigger and heavier than the average toaster oven) off the top of the fridge while Duckworth looked on admiringly from below (and fortunately did not get crushed). Needless to say, this oven had a large ceramic plate sitting on top of it. If my downstairs neighbor was in her kitchen at the time, she’ll never forget that moment.

One day I saw Marvin lick Duckworth’s rearward orifice and then back away slowly with an expression that suggested the experience hadn’t been as pleasurable as he’d anticipated.

Another day, I found that my stove had unaccountably stopped working. It is a gas stove with an electric starter and the problem turned out to be that one cat or the other (i.e., Marvin) had unplugged it, which would have entailed standing on the stove itself and pulling at the plug. Of course, that seems like nothing now that it is routine for Marvin to disappear behind the refrigerator.

He started by going behind the stove. Prior to the first time he did this, I had had a conversation with their cat sitter (retiring from this line of work at the end of this year—wonder how much my cats had to do with that decision) about the mischief they might get into while I was at work. She said that if one of them got into a tight spot, he’d get himself out. So the first time Marvin disappeared behind the stove, I just waited. There was dead silence for several moments. Duckworth was freaking out, and I wondered if Marvin had somehow killed himself doing this, but in due time, he scrambled up and out from behind the stove, the first of many, many trips to the Land Behind the Stove.

Eventually I figured out that the stove could be moved close enough to the wall that he couldn’t physically get back there, which solved the problem for about a week. I had thought Marvin would not fling himself into the dark abyss behind the refrigerator. I was wrong. That behavior continues to this very day.

One morning, I emerged from the shower to find the kitchen floor spattered with blood, likewise the cutting boards, likewise the kitchen wall. I examined Marvin and could not see any injury, and he seemed to be in a perfectly good mood. Just as I was concluding he must have cut himself in some area that bleeds a lot but that the wound had already started to heal, he began to gush blood onto the living room floor.

In the end, there was blood from one of end the apartment to the other, literally. There was blood on the windowsill in the kitchen, as far west as you can go, and blood near the windows in the living room, as far east as you can go and still be inside, and many points in between, including on the bed slats, which I could see only by lying on my back under the bed.

I called the vet and arranged to bring Marvin in that afternoon; I had to call my boss at the last minute to say I had to take the day off work. I still could not spot any wound on Marvin, whose mood continued sunny. The vet immediately discovered that he had torn a claw entirely out of his back foot, along with part of the bone it was attached to. It must have been excruciating. I know that cats are supposed to be good at hiding their distress, but had always thought I’d sort of be able to tell if a cat was seriously ill or injured. Nope. There was not the slightest sign. The vet said the claw might or might not grow back in time; it has not.

The cats soon learned how to open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and fling my toothbrush, etc., into their litter box below. One day while I was visiting Carol-Joy in Novato, we made an emergency trip to the hardware store so I could get a barrel bolt to keep the medicine cabinet door shut. Eventually, they figured out how to open that, so I added a spring latch, which they cannot open—I myself have difficulty opening it. Someday someone else is going to move into this studio apartment and wonder why so many doors, small and large, have extra pieces of hardware—nine as of this moment—affixed to them. 

Unrise (Rather Than Sunrise): September 9, 2020

Here are two photos I took on that day. One is of a lobby in one of the hospitals where I work. It looks like it's night, but it was about 2 p.m. 

(Click photos to enlarge. If problems, please try clicking the photo again.)

Drumming Class

One day while I was sitting on a unit not my own, a nurse approached and asked, “Are you a chaplain?” She explained that one of her patients was reporting shortness of breath in response to her heart medication, but the RN wondered if the patient was actually having panic attacks associated with the anniversary of the suicide of her daughter. I agreed to visit the patient. Before I finished my charting, a physician came and asked the same thing, and told me the same story about the same patient. She added, “Shortness of breath is not a symptom normally associated with this medication.”
 
I went to see the patient, who was friendly and welcoming. Just as our visit began, her bedside RN gave her a new medication and warned, “This is the last resort.” The patient told me about the difficulty she’d been having with her prior medication and explained that if she had the same problem with this medication, she would have to have surgery.

After we’d been talking for 10 minutes or so, I said, “I understand something terrible happened at this time of year two years ago. I don’t know if you feel like talking about it.” The patient then told me the story of her daughter’s life, becoming tearful several times. Sometimes, as she looked into space, I imagined she was seeing the tiny face of a precious girl decades earlier.

Near the end of our 80-minute visit, I asked who she could talk about her child with and learned that she did not have a confidante. At the conclusion of our time together, during which I mainly just listened (and during which the patient did not experience any shortness of breath—maybe she was able to avoid surgery?), I expressed my sorrow at the loss of her beautiful child, and mused, “I imagine the anniversary has some impact. I don’t know what it would be, but I would think there would be some.”

The patient thought for a moment and said, “Yes, that’s probably right. Maybe I’d better go back to therapy or find a group.”

I reported a bit of this to the patient’s bedside RN, who seemed pleased, and I also felt pleased.

At the end of September, 2020 (a year ago!), I had my first COVID test, not administered in regard to Job One, but as part of onboarding for Job Two. It was pretty unpleasant; a stiff little plastic brush was stuck quite a ways up my nose. The result was negative.

Tom began leading his students in stretching each day via Zoom, which he reported was a popular offering. One day, after the end of stretching class, a loud, very repetitious noise commenced. When I called to ask, “Now what’s happening?”, Tom brightly replied, “Drumming class!” That evening, I called back to say that I had been impressed with his students’ mastery of drumming.

“I’d say they have tested out of drumming and don’t have to practice any more!”

My first day at Job Two arrived. You have to complete a screening each day before going in any building, answering the now-familiar series of questions, but your temperature is never taken, unlike at Job One. The day was chaotic, with calls, pages and electronic requests for spiritual care flowing in. When the next chaplain arrived, I had to turn over about six things I hadn’t been able to get to.

On October 8, 2020 (almost a year ago!), Duckworth and Marvin turned seven months old and I was finally able to find ten minutes to complete their microchip registration online.
 
Several months before the pandemic began, three friends and I had begun to co-facilitate a Buddhist meditation group in the Tenderloin under the auspices of the San Francisco Night Ministry. When the group had to stop meeting per social distancing, we began using that same time of week to check in via Zoom, and at this point, we have become fast friends. Late in October, one of us who lives in both Northern and Southern California came to town and we decided to meet, spread far apart, in the room where our meditation group had been meeting.

When the cab driver dropped me off in front of the building, he said, “Be careful.” Seconds later, a man came up to within about three inches from me and said, “How you doing?”

Seeing my three friends was wonderful and did not prove to be a superspreader event.

Around that time, I met with a committee for board certification as a chaplain (via Zoom), and did not pass. You send in a big pile of stuff, including 31 essays. The idea is that you will demonstrate your competency in each of the 31 areas in writing and/or via your conversation with the committee. I was asked to do more work on six of the competencies, and make a subsequent appearance.

At an orientation session prior to our committee meetings, someone at the national organization told us that if we didn’t pass after our first appearance, we should not take it as a “No” but as a “Not yet,” and she added that people routinely say the additional work they had to do was worth it, so when I got the news, I was perfectly gracious, and I resolved to have a good attitude about the whole thing, although sorrow soon set in: Ugh—I was so looking forward to this process being over.

Have you ever had someone important die and, for moment after waking up in the morning, you don’t remember it, and then you remember it? It’s as if the person has died all over again. This happened with my board certification. The following day I woke up and thought, more or less, “Another beautiful day! Isn’t it wonderful to be alive!” And then: “Oh! I didn’t pass my thing!”

One thing that made me feel better was the utter shock of everyone I told this to, and another was that three of my friends / colleagues also didn’t pass, including one whose MDiv is from a very fancy school and who started his own religious community after graduation. Apparently there was a huge crop of candidates, so there may have been inexperienced committee members, or even people serving for the very first time. Maybe committee members new to this process didn’t want to be the ones to let a psychopath slip through. Also, this was over Zoom, whereas these interviews formerly were always in person, and maybe that made it harder for the committee to get a good sense of the candidate.

In due time, I received my written report from my committee and found some disturbing things in it; for instance, the committee said they weren’t sure about the care I offered a Hmong patient, as written about for such-and-such competency. I looked at my essays and saw that I did not write anything a Hmong patient for that competency, but I did for a different competency—so which one did I not pass? There were three things like that, so I sent a note to the coordinator, and she got in touch with my committee. One of my committee members wrote back, “Well, whichever competency it was, we think such-and-such.” That seemed rather cavalier to me.

I convened a group of three of the four of us who didn’t pass, and invited several chaplains in the pipeline right behind us, so we could share what about our experience we thought might be helpful to each other. I typed up notes from this session and sent them to the CPE educators I am personally acquainted with; they were warmly received.

I started to not feel good about the whole thing, partly based on my own experience, but considerably more so in regard to two of my friends who were explicitly given a hard time for not being Christian. Finally, and somewhat on impulse, as is my custom, I sent a note to the organization saying I was feeling unenthusiastic about continuing with this process—could I maybe speak with someone who could restore my trust in this organization? I ended up having a very helpful conversation with someone who agreed that my committee had been rather flippant. As for understanding which competencies I actually needed to address, she said, “Maybe these are the competencies the universe wants you to work on.” I decided to assume that was the case.

The Great Outdoors (COVID Version)

Ah, beautiful!

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COVID Overview

I can’t remember what I’ve said about this so far, but to recap how COVID affected life at the hospital:

One of the first things that happened was that employees were instructed to use one particular entrance, and visitors to use another. (This made my own process of getting into the building about ten minutes longer.) We began to have to answer a series of questions when arriving, and to have our temperature taken every time we entered the building.

Visitors were restricted. This has ebbed and flowed over the months. At many times, the restrictions have been so stringent that the building has seemed quite empty. This has been a considerable hardship for patients, and is often mentioned by them.

Employees from the beginning have been required to follow social distancing guidelines: staying six feet away from others as possible; frequent hand hygiene; wearing of a mask when not eating; eating preferably done in the cafeteria, where tables have been placed far apart and many chairs removed. There are signs everywhere with instructions about social distancing and PPE usage. Plexiglas appeared here and then there. At times, people were seen carrying buckets around the hospital, wiping down high-touch surfaces.

Chaplains are considered essential employees and have reported to the hospital the whole time, whereas our manager, administrative person and one or two others began working from home in March (of 2020, this is) and have rarely or never been seen since.

At first it seemed there would be no effect on my income, and in fact, there seemed to be a double financial upside in that I was not traveling nor taking days off work in order to travel. However, after a while, the pandemic began to cause budget problems for the hospital, partly because elective and non-urgent procedures were put on hold to leave room for a surge of COVID patients, which to date has not happened in San Francisco, at least not in the hospital where I have been working for the past few years. Many workers have been forced to take time off (this might entail using PTO; I’m not sure, since this does not apply to me, since I am a per diem and do not have PTO), and retirement and early retirement have been encouraged. As mentioned here, I began to have fewer shifts than before, which is what led to my seeking and (fortunately) getting Job Two.

As for our actual work, from the beginning, we have placed new emphasis on staff support. Chaplains do not go in the rooms of COVID patients. If we are called to care for such a patient, it is done by telephone or video. I think this largely to preserve PPE and perhaps to put as few staff members as possible at risk. Because visitors are so restricted, chaplains have been more important than ever when it comes to emotional support of patients. There is sometimes a balancing act, as we try to stay six feet from patients and keep visits as brief as possible, while maybe being the only person there, besides the bedside RN, when a patient’s final hours are approaching. We want to keep ourselves and others safe, but not leave someone who is dying alone, or leave a frightened single visitor alone.

The supply of PPE has been uneven. At times, employees were asked to put their used N95 masks into special bins so they could be cleaned and reused. This didn’t seem to go on for long, and is not happening currently. However, rather than being fitted this year and last for N95 masks that come in at least two different sizes, we are now being fitted for one-size-fits-most models that I suppose are cheaper. In my case, I think the fit was better with the sized masks.

The first time I reported to work after San Francisco’s shelter in place order (which was a week or so later than my colleagues did, because that was also Hammett’s final week), I made sure my father and sister had my important financial information. However, I didn’t feel frightened of going to work, and I have never felt scared at work, though once or twice, at one job or another, I have walked by a whole series of rooms containing COVID patients and kind of thought, “Holy moly.” I do find I don’t want to stand around right outside such a room for long.

The hardest part has turned out to be when one of my very own colleagues has been sloppy about social distancing, which occurs exclusively at Job One, and the second hardest part was early on when people in my neighborhood weren’t wearing masks and/or allowing six feet when I thought they should be.

Cats

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I Really Like You

Early October brought yet another bad night with cats, this one involving the mini-blinds and an unbearable racket as I was trying to fall asleep. I kept losing my patience and tossing Duckworth and Marvin into the bathroom, followed by a loud, satisfying (to me) slam of the door. When I had to pee in the middle of the night, I let them out, and soon heard a loudish crash: a pretty blue ceramic pot given to me by my sister, falling onto the hardwood floor. Fortunately (for the cats), I could detect only one small sign of damage, and that might have been there before. Into the bathroom went the cats once again.

Before my alarm went off, I leapt out of bed to do something I’d decided would have to be done: I moved nearly all my books to the two bookshelves in the living room and moved a bunch of small items and pieces of paper to the bookshelf in the walk-in closet, which is off limits to the cats. I don’t necessarily want anyone who comes in here seeing all my books, or touching them (cooties!), let alone asking to borrow them, but I was sick of having papers knocked to the floor and then used as toys, and I could see that Marvin was very close to hopping up onto a shelf where there were a lot of little things I really didn’t want disturbed.

In my saner moments, I reminded myself: Whatever it is, it can be repaired, replaced, repainted, restored to its former condition of cleanliness, or, if all else fails, remembered.

While on call I received a request to visit a patient who had just been diagnosed with the same kind of cancer his mother and grandmother had had. The patient’s grandmother, with metastatic cancer, declined chemotherapy and lived on for many years, eventually dying of something else. The patient’s mother’s cancer was also advanced and she had survived it. My patient, alas, was just in his early 30s and said his diagnosis was completely unexpected. He knew he was experiencing some pain; that it was cancer never crossed his mind. The COVID pandemic delayed medical visits and tests.

I had two long visits with this (not spiritual or religious) patient where we talked about nothing in particular. He was determined to “fight,” and he was concerned about the effect of his diagnosis on his family. Our second visit was taken up almost entirely with discussing the feeding tube that was scheduled to be placed that same day. We did not discuss anything particularly deep or personal, but the patient seemed to appreciate having company.
 
The very next day, the patient ended up in the ICU, and when I went to see him, he was intubated and unresponsive. I learned that his team did not expect him to leave the ICU alive. The next time I went to see him, he stared out the door at me with no expression. I wasn’t sure if he even remembered me, or if he wanted me to visit or would prefer I didn’t. He was unable to speak, and also unable to shake his head “no,” but he could slightly nod his head “yes.” He could also make the “thumbs up” gesture, and used this to indicate that he would like to communicate via writing. I asked his nurse about this, and she said he had tried, but not been able to.
 
I gave the patient a pen and paper and he labored repeatedly to express himself, making a mark or two, after which his hand fell weakly away. At times he pointed at himself and then at me. Clearly he was writing “I,” which he did over and over, but I couldn’t make out anything else. A speech therapist came in and figured out that the next word was “really.” After the speech therapist was gone, I finally figured out what the patient was trying to say. I asked him, “Are you trying to say you really like me?” The patient nodded, and I nearly wept: This patient, with whom I had discussed nothing in particular, felt connected to me and was willing to expend a huge amount of his little remaining energy to express this. Even though what we discussed had seemed mundane, it had indeed mattered that I—that the chaplain—was there.

In the end, his family decided to say their goodbyes and leave, after which he would be transitioned to comfort care. If they had discussed this with me, I would have affirmed their decision. I would have said that the patient could feel their love from any distance, and I would have meant it. I would have said whatever decision they made was the right decision, and I would have meant it. But inside myself, I felt a bit shocked, and sorry that he would likely die alone, even if he didn’t know it. On his final day, I sat with him three different times, for as long as I could.

Bottles

 
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Loogie-Free Zone

One day in mid-September, Tom and I walked around the block to talk to one of our neighbors about a couple of practices of his that had been causing us some dismay. This is the fellow who for years stepped out his back door several times a day, took a hit off his bong—filling my place with secondhand smoke, if my windows were open—then coughed his head off. The grand finale was when he coughed up a giant loogie and spat it onto the ground. I was grumbling about this to Tom and was surprised when he said he really hated the spitting, too. I thought he was going to say, “What guy who smokes weed and spits?”

I said I was thinking of going to talk to him about it and asked Tom if he would come with me. I was surprised again when he said, “Sure.” We picked a day, but when that day rolled around, it was too hot. We picked another day, but it proved to be too smoky. Then our neighbor seemed to be out of town, and so forth.

Finally, there came a day when, alas, our neighbor was certainly home and it wasn’t too hot or too smoky to spend 15 minutes outside. I had been rehearsing a speech, and felt quite nervous as I meditated beforehand. It occurred to me that I more than usually did not know what was about to happen, which was slightly thrilling. Tom and I strolled around the block, arriving disappointingly soon, and I rang the bell that I thought must be this fellow’s. Someone buzzed us in instantly, and we went into the lobby. A woman came out of a nearby door and I said, “Maybe we rang the wrong bell.”

She said, “Who are you looking for?”

I said, “The smoking guy.” She looked puzzled.

I said, “The guy who smokes weed out back.”

She said, “Oh! He lives here, but he’s not here right now.”

She said she was his partner, so I said maybe we could tell her what was on our minds and she could pass it on. I delivered my spiel, during which she smiled and nodded understandingly, and then she said, “I’ll try to pass that on with the grace with which you delivered it.” How nice! I thanked her for her kindness, and off we went, lighter in heart and step.

This was back in September, and I can report that the nice woman’s partner has not smoked outside their back door even once since then; sometimes I hear him coughing from far away. After a couple of weeks, I sent them a heartfelt thank-you note.

At my wits’ end one lousy day with kittens—some days the misbehavior seemed relentless—I emailed a few people to say how much I hate living with these cats. Hammett’s cat sitter immediately replied to say that maybe I would have to return the cats and adopt an old cat. A relative who has cats said she was sorry this was happening and could I send them back? This had occurred to me many times, but having it seconded by others felt heartbreaking. I should know by now how futile it is to imagine a future scenario, imagine how I will feel about it, and then try to make a decision based on that. This never seems to have much to do with reality. That is, the thought of handing the cats over and bidding them goodbye is horrendously sad, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.

I went and took a look at adoptable cats at the SPCA just to see if a one-year-old cat perfect for me happened to be right there, and saw two sad things. One was a cat whose owner was looking for a new home for him when I was shopping for Duckworth and Marvin. That cat was still listed there. He bites. Also when I was looking for D&M, I saw the cutest kitten and almost indicated my interest in him. In fact, I think I had visited the website to go ahead and do that only to find that his picture was no longer there. Someone else had adopted him. Well, now they wished to unadopt him. There was a photo of him, two months older, in the Rehoming section. That’s where photos of Duckworth and Marvin would be if I decided to give them up. (Which I have since definitely decided not to do.)

I had more discussion with Hammett’s cat sitter and she said a very wise thing:

I understand. We all get frustrated and then feel bad afterward. My partner and I ask ourselves: What is it that they are trying to teach us? What can we learn? Maybe what we need to learn is patience with our own frustration.

So, onward and upward with cats. When I went to put away their toys before bedtime that day, I saw that I had forgotten to put them out! That can’t have helped.

Duckworth

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The Dust Age

I had mostly been using Duckworth’s one white whisker to tell him and Marvin (formerly Howie) apart, though there are several other differences, including their general shapes and their profiles. Marvin’s nose doesn’t curve but goes pretty much straight down, giving him a rather exotic look. However, you have to be looking at him from the side to see this. Duckworth has a round little belly. Also, Duckworth’s fur is silky soft and Marvin’s is a little scrubbier, like Hammett’s was. I was thinking one day that if Duckworth were to lose that one white whisker, I could always go back to telling them apart by looking for the distinctive markings on top of Marvin’s head, as if someone had dipped three fingers in peanut butter, or gold leaf, and stroked his head. I took a look at him to confirm this—and saw that those markings were entirely gone, and then one day Duckworth lost that white whisker. He has never grown it back, and even now I still sometimes find it difficult to be sure which cat I'm talking to.

Sometime in August, the cats’ diarrhea finally cleared up, which was great because I was getting really tired of scraping diarrhea off everything in the bathroom.

My parents’ departed charming and beloved cat dribbled poop everywhere he went in his old age. I remember going to visit, which I hope to do again someday, and seeing all the chairs and couches covered with towels.

“Do these towels cover the poop?” I asked.

“No, they cover the upholstery.”

“What covers the poop?”

“Nothing.”

“What?!? How do you sit on poop?”

“Let me demonstrate,” said my father. He extracted a folded white cotton handkerchief from his pocket and said, “Pretend that’s poop.” He tossed the handkerchief onto the seat of the nearest chair and sat down on it.

Aha! So that’s how it’s done.

The cats have been pretty hard on a lot of my possessions. Shredded items include my bicycle seat, sheets, the brand-new shower curtain, the hardwood floor, the paint on the bathroom windowsill, the binding of at least one book, and various shoelaces. I’m trying to learn to love the feeling of grit affixed to the bottom of my feet, because I don’t have time to do anything about it.

However, so far they do not make any particular effort to get out the front door when it opens, which I was quite worried about, since there are two of them, and they also do not seem interested in shredding the upholstered chair. They use the horizontal and vertical scratching surfaces provided.

I see that they teach each other—I was going to say “for good or ill,” but I think it might be only for ill. Marvin has so far not taught Duckworth to cover up his poop, but he has taught him how to let his tongue dangle, flapping, out of his mouth, ready in case there is a suckling opportunity, whether of one’s brother or oneself. It’s kind of gross looking. Because Duckworth does not involve himself with covering up poop, he is perfectly pristine at all times. He smells like cotton candy. Picking him up is like hoisting two loaves’ worth of bread dough; he evidently lacks bones, and he radiates relaxation, often yawning while held. Marvin, whose manner is often worried and tense, does the right thing in regard to his own poop and sometimes in regard to Duckworth’s, as well, and consequently is sometimes filthy; he is undoubtedly the cat who tracked all the diarrhea throughout the place.

Hammett has not been forgotten. I show Duckworth and Marvin a photo of him periodically: “Now, if you want to see what an actual good cat looks like, here’s a photo of one.”

I am using the spray bottle to deter just a few things: hopping onto the kitchen counter or ironing board, and participation in my daily exercises. Regarding the latter, they can get excited and take an exploratory nip of a finger now and then, or try to seize fabric—i.e., my pants—that is moving in a rhythmic manner. For some things, I have adopted the view that their “bad” behavior is a request for affection, even though I’m sure it is usually not. The cat is probably not thinking, “I wish Mom would pick me up,” but rather, “Who even is that chick? I just want to shred these shoelaces.”

One evening as I lay in bed, I felt someone adjusting my coiffure. When I reached back to investigate, I stuck my finger right into the open mouth of a cat and felt its little snip-snap teeth encircling my finger.