Grace

You can't see what I'm doing but I'm lifting my pelvic floor. You can't hear me but I'm humming. The hum sounds like a growl then graduates to a stutter as the vocal cords begin to get the message. I practice the vowels in my throat. I read a sentence without the consonants, then I practice the consonants in a whisper, then I add a bit of voice. When I get to conversation I am still stymied because there isn't enough air to get through more than a few words. I stop to breathe but my thoughts keep going, so I have to deal with the collision and make a choice, and then attend to the pelvic floor and make a note to remember to practice breathing, easy to avoid because it is so hard. 

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Fuck Gratitude! Amen

Continuing my campaign against gratitude even as people in my community escalate their preaching I feel more and more like an alien. Spring! Prayers! Moments!  Meanwhile I struggle to breathe and talk and walk and I am not fucking grateful. I do not prefer this. If you just give me my body back, why, then, sure I'll be grateful.

So Monday I bent down to check on the water in a vase and I guess my head dropped and my eye landed on a dryish flower. If you've never felt a corneal tear it is hard to convey the intensity of the pain. All consuming, as if your eye is on fire, there is no way to shift attention away from it. My thoughts went immediately to oh my god what if I have to go to a doctor what if I have to go the ER what if I go blind! and then, please god if you make this go away I'll be so grateful...

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Faces!

Who knew so many people were paying such close attention to CDC guidelines? It was just this morning that the vaccinated were given a mask pass, and the park is blooming with smiling faces. I walked among them with my own, breathing the lilacs, brushing the fresh green on the old trees. 

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The Real Me?

"Oh, you're young!" 

She said when I revealed my age, only 61. Because when you see a bent-over spine and you hear a croaky voice, you think Old. 

Walking in the park now I know I'm in a category. My sexuality is disappeared, vigor shoved into memory, and what remains is, well, remains. 

On the other hand, my feet!

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Slow Down

I whisper to myself as I watch the leaves overtake the buds, who, having done their job, having flourished and amazed their audience, simply fall away, no big deal. But it always breaks my heart a little, the brutality of spring. Slow down, I protest, I don't want to miss a thing. It reminds me of when my daughter was very young and very adorable her father and I would joke about an age freezing shot. For sure she has grown more beautiful and more complex, and I am entirely for it, no way would I prefer a toddler. I just want to savor it again, more slowly. 

Time has always seemed to move too fast for me. Trains arrived at my station a minute earlier than I did.

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Love and Anger, Intersections

Updated on Friday, April 30, 2021 at 9:37AM by Elena Taurke

This weekend I'm participating in a Dharma Dialog on love and anger. I'm also participating in teaching a monthly workshop on White Work on Racism. 

And I also strive to stay alive by eating and walking and washing the dishes. Why does washing the dishes come up so often in Buddhist conversations? I've written about it before, in some semi state of semi enlightenment, one of those recurrent episodes when I think I really Have It.

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What have I done?

Did I promise to die?

Last week not only did I write to you about the great benefit of dying to goals and drive but I also shared the blog with my friends on Facebook. A moment of popularity followed, most notably with my high school boyfriend posting several pictures of me with long hair, seemingly innocent, dreams not yet shattered. I was called an inspiration and a few other laudables, and people seemed to be saying goodbye. My life felt over, and I was suddenly awake to how future had changed into history, how many possibilities had vanished. 

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A Place to Turn Around

Last week I told a handful of people that I'm dying. I let go, stopped trying to conquer what can't be conquered, stopped trying to make progress, decided to respect the disease and my limits. And I wanted to talk about it. I described it to some friends as a kind of Tourettes, spitting death into the patter of polite conversation that irks me. 

Death. I'm dying. No, I'm not getting better but I'm alive and will try to keep it that way for as long as I can. Enjoy your day and I'll do the same. I feel a bit guilty when I rebuff the well-wishing but, hey, this is my protest and my medicine. 

In many of the Zen koans, a teacher is praised with the phrase: He had a place to turn around.

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Alive and Growing

This morning I tried and failed over and over again to lift branches in a stone vase onto a shelf. I cursed that I couldn't do it alone, and I couldn't bear to wait and ask someone for help. Finally I discovered that if I stand on a yoga block I can raise myself up just enough.

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Pooblic

Who are you? 

When I write I feel you as a benign and understanding listener. I feel an obligation to write each week because I said I would, but I also know that almost no one reads this blog, partly because I don't tell anyone about it. Recently a wise advisor commented that it was as if I had people over and kept the food in the fridge instead of making it available on the counter, or serving it or something. I stopped writing the newsletter and I don't use social media, so this is more like a semi-coherent diary than anything else.

I've always had a fraught relationship with the public. "Pooblic" is the pronunciation given by the brilliant clown teacher, Jean Taylor, to coax humor from the interplay.

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