chasing and dodging

after a few attempts to dodge my feelings with chocolate and bunny-shaped graham crackers, i'm making a good dinner (well, defrosting one) and some favorite chai and sitting down with them.

actually, if you could have heard the convo in my head, you might have been surprised to find some familiar players.

me: maybe i'll have a drink... maybe some more chocolate... what's so wrong about numbing out the feelings?

miriam: you know you will have to feel them eventually.

me: oh cmon are you sure? do i have to?

michelle (goblinbox): yup. those are the rules. sorry babe.

so anyway. my aunt died in September and i've managed to ignore that fact. i haven't called my mother more than a couple times since then, because i don't want to be reminded that she's grieving tremendously for her sister. (yes, i beat myself up about that a lot, but i won't here). it's bad enough i get her emails about her sadness, cc'd to me as she writes other friends (a standard m.o. for her).

but now that i'm heading to AZ in less than 72 hours, i can't avoid the fact that i'm going to be immersed in the collective grief of my uncle, their three sons, and the wives and grandchildren - and of course my mom. i'm dreading it. absolutely dreading it. i don't know if it's because my grief is walled off or because i'm afraid theirs will be so much greater than my own that it will be overwhelming or what.

i should look at it as a time to be kind to people i love. but i'm afraid of all those feelings. i'll try to let go of those fears and take on the positive viewpoint. and to remember, as all of you would remind me, to be gentle to myself.

fear to fearlessness

Last night I saw a new friend at meditation - one of the people I met on retreat. Some good friendships are coming out of that and I am really happy about that.

This friend talked about how he was trying to be fully present in all his relationships, not hold back at all, not even the smallest part of himself. We particularly talked about it in relation to family.

He's so earnest - he's only 24 - and I felt the need to protect him, to tell him to protect himself - that he was going to get hurt, that this was unsafe, that bad things would happen to him. He seemed so fearless and yet so vulnerable.

I thought more about it today, thinking surely I could quote him some teachings about being sensible, about self-defense - essentially, that I could justify how I behave toward my mother - I keep 98% of my true self out of our interactions, which I know hurts her, but I feel that I need to protect myself from her somehow.

Instead of finding teachings to defend myself I found only the revelation that everything in the teachings supports what he is doing. I wrote him the following email just now:

"Thanks for the conversation last night - it was good to spend time with you and catch up a little. I'm really glad that we met.

I especially wanted to thank you for the insight about not holding back. Again it triggered a lot of alarms in me and I wanted to ask (maybe I did ask) "is that really safe?" I felt the need to protect myself more than that.

This morning on my walk (I try to walk the dog an hour in the mornings - one of the best parts of my day!) I was thinking about it again and again thought, surely that's not what the teachings are talking about - surely that's unsafe. But I started to think about teachers and teachings and I realized - that's exactly what the teachings mean.

Pema talks about "fully enlightened" meaning "absolutely fearless." It doesn't mean that nothing bad will happen to you - it's the confidence that you can face it and be able to relate with it directly, be present with it, and not be undone.

There's also the teaching about "hope and fear," that they are two sides of the same coin - as long as you have one you have the other - and that the opposite of these is "fearlessness and confidence."

They also talk about "the path of the brave ones," and about how running away from the present moment is always about "not wanting to see something, not wanting to feel something." The opposite, of course, is being present, being willing to see, willing to feel. And that's - as far as I can tell - the whole point.

So thank you for kind of cracking open a hard place inside me. I'm grateful, though resisting the challenge at the moment. I'm not ready to come out of that shell yet, but I see it for what it is now, and that's the first step.

I really have to get you [the Pema Chödrön CD] "From Fear to Fearlessness." I believe it really speaks to where you are right now.

your friend
v

[end quote]

Dangit. Do I have to follow the teaching in this regard? Can't I just not do this part? Can't I stay closed off?

Dangit.

waxing crescent

Saw a king snake, a crescent moon, a giant bat (really, like, pizza size), three Harris hawks, four or five families of quail, endless doves, a squashed 'horny toad,' assorted non-squished lizards, miscellaneous jackrabbits... it's only very recently that jackrabbits have started to look long-eared to me. and "regular" rabbits still look small-eared. heh.

i've treasured my time in the desert, in my grandmother's old house where i came hundreds of times over the years... the house has been gutted but the view out each window is the same, aside from the new houses that have sprouted up all over - but the patio and the sky and the mountains are the same. The windows and doors are in the same places.

Many of my childhood memories are uneasy, but there are some that are utterly content. Being up here, the sweet-smelling wind off the mountains (still smells the same - more creosotey than it does in Tucson), clouds in the sky... very carefree. Heart floating on the breeze, tethered to my wrist... I remember standing on the patio with Petra on New Year's Eve, almost 1985. It was so cold and we were trying to watch the fireworks all around the valley... can't see the valley anymore, there's a house in the way... my grandmother used to love to watch the storms come and go across the wide expanse of flat land ringed by mountains, really much wider than a 'valley'... i don't mind that the house is in the way. things change. i don't mind any of the changes here. but i remember. i remember mornings and breakfasts and evenings and starlight and changing seasons and my grandmother. i remember.

it's also been great to spend time with my cousin and his wife... lots of good discussion, politics, family, life... good food... and love.

i spent the day at the hospital today but... my aunt is basically already gone. she looks up with huge, uncomprehending, infantile eyes when spoken to, or mutters without enough thread to grasp any gist, half in French at times. today my cousins decided to discontinue any further treatment and just provide palliative care (reduce pain).

the mix of emotions that all this engenders is... not impossible to put into words but... i don't really feel like trying.