saying goodbye

There is so much I cannot do--speak, write, move as I want to. And to breathe without the support of the bipap machine is labor unimaginable before all this. So much of All This is unimaginable. 

How do I say goodbye, never to return? Before this, my goodbyes were paired with an imagined future. Now, my mind full of memories of capacity, I strive to recognize this new self as myself, never to recover what I didn't appreciate enough, never to 'feel better.' Abandon Hope, I used to like to say, with grand jocularity, gesturing at the freedom a Buddhist master embedded in that phrase. Now it is a deadly serious mantra that snaps me out of reverie and back to Just This. 

Most excruciating is the idea of saying goodbye to my daughter. I don't think I can do it. I realized this morning that another goodbye has to come first. My body needs attention before I can part from her. From you.

Goodbye, dear feet. The left, with its hammer toe and neuroma. Before the neuroma you were my better turning foot. The right, perfection except for the tiny second toe, which is supposed to signify something but I forgot what. The arches, so lovely, either because of heredity or early experience with ballet, never realized as a skill due to my being special, as they said back in something grade. 

Goodbye, knees; amazing how I never had to replace you despite all the trauma you suffered from childhood RA (rheumatoid arthritis). The right hip, not so lucky, now a cyber hip that I love even more. Goodbye wrists, fused since my twenties, and the elbows and fingers that valiantly did their work. "You're as old as your spine," I once heard in a yoga class. My dear neck, at its tip, once elegant, now bowed in helpless submission. Goodbye.

And of course, goodbye, diaphragm. We tried, you and my pelvic floor, we and my throat, humming and talking until we couldn't anymore. Untalking, this mind can't quite touch the others. Thoughts linger, then fade away, neither supported nor challenged. Goodbye, mind; without you I am nothing. And everything. 

I love you more than infinity, my daughter and I still say to each other, mathematical impossibility becoming a stalwart koan that tells the truth of continuity. 

All of you, dear you, thank you for being part of my life, for being my limbs and guts and heart and mind. We are never separate. 

Fare thee well.*

April 11, 2022

*I'm still alive but likely unable to continue writing. 

Atonement

no I don't have permission from the NYTimes to use this picThis morning at the Zendo our host riffed on a quote she said was erroneously attributed to Trotsky: you may not be interested in war but it is interested in you. And then she encouraged at one ment, atonement, with all the players. I am the wounded pride. I am the mother with no home for my children. I am fear, rage, wailing, determination. 

Last week I was happy to be downtown in our fair city, the buzz of anonymous proximity waking cells long dormant. 

We are picking sides. We are for democracy. But someone said democracy itself is a right to battle, to protest, to parade your point of view. I asked what is the role of structure on the battlefield? If a bully breaks the rules? or makes the rules?

Yesterday the birds squawked and the breeze blew. Today the snow from my window is putting on a show. Who is winning? 

Each breath is a battle. So far I am victorious. Each word presents a challenge to type. I am assisted by the technology we love to protest--auto spell and its intimacy with my mind. Soon I will lay down my weapons and someone might say rest in peace. 

 March 9 2022

foamy

I like foam, foamy cortado, foamy ocean on my toes, foamy beer on my lips. bubble baths. 

When I shared this affection with my zen teacher, he commented: not something, not nothing. My other zen teacher reminded me of foamy skies in koan tales, and pointed to a few lines from our current study text, Shodoka.

Greed, hatred, and ignorance appear and disappear
Like bubbles on the surface of the sea.

And so, my life. here and gone. here and gone. and again. pop pop pop. where did I go?

Helpfully, wikipedia tells me that foam is an example of a dispersed medium, in which two media, one discrete and one continuous, don't mix but instead hold each other in a particular way. Ooh, and I just remembered the title of a friend's brilliant project: Dispersed Holdings. 

A beautiful rabbi came to see me this week to offer comfort and prepare for my funeral. She spoke of the soul. She spoke of fire, earth, breath. She sang. Tears bubbled up, fell upon my my cheeky soul and nourished all of life. 

February 16, 2022

How To Say Goodbye

With a bow to How To With John Wilson and his quirky meanderings and a bow and a wow to Lucy Ellman for the fact of her facile fiery fragments, I offer you mine.

What dies? My energy and my love continue. Whomever I have helped are still helped. yelped. touched. wounded. wondered. wandered. 

From my diary in 2019: 

sound of machines in the hallway, cat on my right thigh, man in the woods, I did love him, my belly says. heart in my throat, cancer in my breast [not really, not really], at some point this body will break down and then my legacy already spilled into the world. the brutality of spring, buds pushing their way out of the naked branches who had their glorious unveiling in the winter. 

Reminder, don’t get massage after breakup because being touched makes me want to be touched. 

I am a performer. I feel the flow when my whole body is activated and I feel the touch of the gaze. even two people is better than one, except at a party because of what happens to my ears. the buzz of the crowd sets my neurons on edge. 

What dies is my point of view. How do I let go of what I see, how I understand things? I can barely express myself now. People who see me don't see me. I am not an influencer. So I quietly sit, outside when I can, and let the world settle into me.

my burial shroudA friend from the Zendo made me a burial shroud. I gave her scraps from my fabrics and my friends contributed from their collections, and she patched them into this gorgeous wrap. We sat in meditation for a few minutes and then I tried it on. I performed dying.

I tell myself it's like when I finally tear myself away from the beach by reminding myself it will still be there even when I'm not. I don't have to have the experience of waves. I don't have to do the dancing. 

Dance. I see you. Sing. I hear you. 

Live. 

I am still alive. This is not goodbye. I'm just rehearsing.

January 19, 2022

Fragments

my sky my body. belated winter solstice, a birthday"It's a funny sort of thing," they like to say in Feldenkrais classes when noticing how one thing subtly relates to another.

When I can't have a proper conversation my mind fragments. Here are some shards that have lingered here and in the draft folder in my mind:

No I don't want to see Nicole Kidman's frozen face attempt to perform Lucille Ball. I don't want to read about her process, no matter how popular The NYTimes tells me it is. I don't want to see her picture and I don't really want anyone else to enjoy it either.

ok, no, I realize she is a victim, not just a perpetrator of our vacant plastic aesthetic.

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Here I Am

Do you recognize me? Sometimes I forget who I am. It's a lifelong problem, soon to be solved by death.

Since my typing hand no longer cooperates with my thinking brain, I've decided I can cut and paste some excerpts from diaries.

I fell in love with a poet who lived in the woods, March 24, 2018

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Let's be Negative!

photo by Tsuh YangThis morning I heard yet again a person equate sad and negative, and suggest that someone with negativity (which was actually sadness) had some understandable reason for being so, and deserved compassion therefore. 

Do you pity negativity? 

what about negative ions? negative feedback loops?

what about shabbat? a day of rest.

what about darkness? death.

says the sutra on the Identity of Relative and Absolute:

Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before and the foot behind in walking.

Be so-called positive if it pleases you but you cannot escape the negative. 

Tumbling toward death
with open arms
one fist, one palm
heart aflutter

November 8, 2021

on a roll

I visited my grave on Monday, then lost my voice.

Even though I can only whisper, I can still move along.

it's only 7 seconds and, personally, I find it funny. still entertaining! 

October 29, 2021

Dissolution Dharma

I gave a Dharma talk today. Here are the words, spoken by my friends where indicated:

Good morning. My name is Yuuka. I’m a senior student at the Village Zendo and a member of the Sangha. 

I sound like this because my diaphragm and vocal cords have atrophied from ALS, lower motor neuron dominant ALS, a rare variant of a rare disease. So today, my friends will speak my mind. Thank you, Roshi, for allowing and encouraging this accommodation.

clockwise according to textMy name is Fusho; We often start by talking about the weather… [improvise and bow]

My name is  Joren. And we often say how amazing it is to see all of you… [improvise and bow]

My name is Mukei .Sometimes we say something about how we’re feeling… [improvise and bow]

My name is Gessho. Or what’s going on… [improvise and bow]

My name is Kojin. We talk about these things because they are immediate, happening now.  [improvise and bow]

Yuuka Kojin, will you be my voice? [bow] 

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What do I know?

photo by Leor MillerToday I am crying. My sky is crying on my tree as I sit inside watching it. I cannot go outside today because I don't have help. I did not know that I would not have help, and so I didn't ask around. I did not know that I would lose the ability to balance and walk. I did not know that I would lose the ability to talk and breathe. I did not know that I would know that I am dying.

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