Day 194 “Buddha Nature”

The bus I am riding on is actually a small house. The bus driver sits at the front door and collects fares. The front door opens into a dining room, where riders are playing cards. I move back further, into the adjacent sitting area. My friend Sandy is here and she has a young child; a girl. The girl remembers me although I am sure I have not seen her in ages. The bus stops, and panicked I rush to get off, only to discover this is not my stop, so I rush back on the bus. I feel frazzled, but laugh at my error and return to my seat trying to relax. Then I realize I am missing my purse. Thinking I’d left it at the last stop, I holler to the driver to go back, but then see that I’d left it on a table in the front hall. I pick it up and notice that it is lighter than it was. In fact, it is the purse, emptied of its contents. I am outraged, and accuse all the occupants of the bus. As it turns out, I know many of them, and I rifle through their belongings looking to recover mine. Worst of all, my passport was in the purse and losing that is a nightmare. I know the culprit is on board.

Coming to terms with the diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is difficult, not unlike being robbed of one’s identification. In the dream, it is my passport I am worried about. My passport, in particular, is the only document that bears my full legal name. More importantly, it allows me to travel.

Replacing a passport is possible, but difficult. Metaphorically, I have lost my passport to come and go freely. Life now needs to be measured or paced, and I do not have credit to draw on. My purse has been emptied.

The bus that I travel on is me: the driver, the same robotic ego that takes me mindlessly through my daily route. The passengers are me also. Sandy is my over-analytical, uptight self, which is balanced by- or, perhaps (if I am more honest) protective of- my little girl innocence. The card players, and readers on board are me too. So is the thief.

Why is my bus a small house? My husband and I bought a small house over a year ago to retire in. We haven’t moved in yet, but it continues to be our promise for the future. Is this a premonition dream then? That the greatest struggle, or lost, will come when we move to our little house? Time alone will tell.

Derek Lin says that we each have a Buddha Self – an enlightened, loving self that lies at our inner core. As in the dream, I am struggling to find my bearings, conscious of the need to register my progress, and be on alert. I have long since moved away from a time when I trusted the process, and I am feeling disconnected from my Buddha Nature.

I can only hope that those who surround me don’t lose sight of it also. Reconnection will be my saving grace.

Day 193 “Character Counts”

I knew something was wrong the week before my granddaughter’s first birthday.  Despite the increase in asthma medication, I was not able to get my breathing under control.  On the day of her celebration, I was in Emergency, then back home with Prednisone: the wonder drug.

This summer was more active thanks to a new home with a pool and within walking distance of a park.  Our new lifestyle felt promising, especially the fact that we were entertaining more, and enjoying the great outdoors.  Thor was still recovering from a spring full of surgeries, so his movement was limited, but he too felt more positive.

By July, the pain in my body had increased, but I told myself:  No pain, no gain, and pushed harder.  Isn’t that how the body works?  When record high temperatures hit mid July, I decided that was to blame for my troubled breathing.

The Prednisone didn’t work, so I continued to up my meds and rationalized that once the frost came, everything would be better.

Soon school was back in and with it the onslaught of germs.  I constantly felt like I was fighting something, and then one day, standing talking to a peer, I felt faint, unable to breath, and was sweating profusely.  I called the doctor.  An xray showed pneumonia.  A bout of antibiotics and I would be good as new.

Except, I wasn’t, and my breathing became more and more laboured and the dizzy spells continued, and the sweats, and I found myself back in Emergency and on the wonder drug again.  Twice, with no effect.

By December, the doctor decided that maybe this wasn’t asthma, and began to treat me for COPD, and arranged lung tests.  Nothing.  So, I went for heart tests.  Nothing still.

No, it’s asthma!  declared the lung specialist and he upped my medication, stating he would see me in two weeks.

In the meantime, I felt more and more like I was swimming against the tide, through thick, debilitating muddy waters.

I just want to be able to breath again!  I told him on my next visit.  To be honest, none of these meds are making any difference, and I am fed up!

Now I like this doctor just fine, but he has a undeniable sense of self-importance and on any given occasion is prone to answer his own questions before hearing my response, but this day he stopped and looked at my file.  Really looked at my file.  He went on-line and looked back over all the tests, and former tests and diagnosis, and sat back and looked at me with renewed interest.

You have Fibromyalgia, he said, as if realizing it for the first time.  This is not asthma.  This is Chronic Fatigue. 

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  My family doctor had mumbled it questioningly months before, then dismissed it in favour of further testing.  I can treat your lungs, he said, but it’s back to your family doctor for the rest.  

So, there it is.  A diagnosis.  Eight months of struggle, exhaustion, self-doubt, and frustration, and here is where I land.

There is relief in knowing what I am up against, but there is also an enormous sense of disappointment and a bracing myself for what is to come next.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, like Fibromyalgia, is an unknown that draws at best blank stares, but mostly, misinformed advice.  I brace myself for what lies ahead.

As the criticism, and ‘you shoulds’ rolls in, I realize that I will need clear boundaries, and the ability to deflect the controversy.  Now more than ever, I will need to walk with my head held high, choosing the path that supports me best.

Now is the time that character counts.

Commanding Love

“Come sit down beside me,” my father pats the floor commanding my presence as he would a dog.  I hesitate.  The glass in his hand tilts dangerously, threatening to spill the amber contents, and his voice slurs slightly.  A dangerous scenario.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?”  He reaches a hand out towards me, and I know it is useless to object.  I accept the invitation, settling in at his feet.  He pats my head, absentmindedly stroking my hair.

“I am proud of you, Squeegie.  Did you know that?”  I have an idea.  I’d overheard Mom and him talking the other night and he’d said as much, but he seldom says it to my face, unless he’s been drinking:  a double-edged sword.

“My father was a brilliant man, you know.”

I nod my head.  I’ve heard this story before.  “I never got his brains, but you did.”

“Oh, that’s not true, Dad, you’re very smart.”

“No, no.  Not as bright as you are.  There isn’t anything you can’t do in this world if you set your mind to it.”

“Thanks, Dad.”  Where is this going? I wonder.  Last week Dad chastised me for only getting 96% on my math report.   How does anyone miss four percent? he blasted.  Sounds like you were careless, to me!

“The thing is, Veej, it’s not enough just to be smart.  You have to have goals and ambition.  You have to work hard.  Me, I wasted my life.  I let my demons take over.  Don’t make the same mistakes as me.”

I never know what my father wants from me when we have these conversations.  I feel more like his confessional than his daughter.  “You haven’t wasted your life Dad; it’s not too late.”

“Oh, yes it is.  I have been weak; a fool.”  Looking up I see the tears forming in my father’s eyes.

I remain silent.  This really isn’t about me, I realize.  My father is seeking reassurance.  I pat his knee, and let him ramble on, my mind glazing over.  The thing is, I’d actually built my hopes up for a moment, thinking that my father was going to praise me.  Of course, he wasn’t; it’s not his style.  I should know that.  Day after day, I watch him debase my mother, cursing her ineptitude.  Then he turns that venom on us children, yelling about our incompetence, and reminding us how we will never amount to anything.

“You do love me, don’t you?”  Dad’s winding down.   This is my signal to break free.

“Of course I do, Dad.”  I rise and gently kiss his cheek.

He catches my wrist and pulls me towards him.  “Look me in the eye and tell me you do, Veej.  Tell your old man you love him.”

“I love you, Dad.”  Pity floods me, temporarily whitewashing the underlying anger.

Later, I lie in bed letting the numbness of disappointment overcome me.  Praise never comes without a hitch in this house.

(Image: www.dreamstime.com)

Day 191: The Fear Response

I am little and hiding behind the green-brocade, swivel chair in our family’s living room.  My mother is sitting on the chair, but she doesn’t see me.  The room is full of adults talking, smoking, and laughing, but I am afraid.  My father has pulled out a gun and is pointing it at another man.  I want to scream out to him to stop, but I cannot.  My voice is frozen.  I am paralyzed and helpless. 

I wake up.

And remember.

My parents loved to party when I was a child, and I wanted to be part of it.  In later years, I would perch on the staircase and listen to the exploits, but the dream takes place in the early years, when we lived in a bungalow, and I would wander out of my bedroom and hide behind the living room chair, wanting to be close to my mother and hoping I wouldn’t be found out.

My father never actually owned a gun that I know of, but he did have a violent temper, and on more than one occasion ended the evening by beating up on one of the male guests.

I learned fear in my father’s home.  I learned that to step out of line was to invite violence.

What I didn’t learn is how to define that line, so I lived most of my childhood in irrational, and sometimes paralyzing fear.  Survival, unharmed, became a goal and focus.  I spent countless hours and years upon years trying to figure out how to avoid my father’s wrath.

And in the meantime, I failed to learn about a healthy fear response.

I didn’t flinch when my older sister took me to a biker bar when I was only twelve.

I didn’t think anything was amiss when I was allowed to stay out to all hours of the night, and no one asked where I’d been.

It never occurred to me to question a strange man giving me a ride home.

When home is a scary place, everything else seems tame.

Day 190 “Name Change”

My father named me despite my mother’s protests; she’d carried the name for all her life and never liked it.  I grew to hate it too.

“Is it possible to change your first name?”  I started asking when I was nine, but I wasn’t sure what other moniker I might adopt.  Heather appealed to me as it was reminiscent of the moors in England where my family hailed from, but when I met a girl named Heather who I didn’t like,  I looked for another name.  Ali, short for Allison, became my next desired name.  I even wrote a book about her.

I never did change my first name, but at the age of nineteen, when I first got married, I acquired a new surname, and with it the hope for a new life.  Being married, I was sure, was an official step into adulthood and away from childhood struggles.  I exchanged a mundane family name for one that sounded more regal.  I was a new person.  Well, maybe for the honeymoon period, but of course, I was still the same, and the distance between me and my past had not lengthened.

Marrying again brought a new surname, erasing the mistakes of my first entanglement.  Under this name, I became a mother, completed my degree, and launched a career.  I liked this identity.  It connected me to people I loved, and felt good.  I wore the name years beyond the divorce.

When I met Thor, and the discussion of marriage came up again, I had to make a choice – retain the name belonging to both my ex-husband and my children, or embracie a new identity.  Two weeks after marrying, I would be entering teacher’s college, so decided to change my name to honour this life change.

As a woman, changing my name is akin to establishing landmarks in the journey of my life.

Day 189 “Karma”

He sat in the middle of the auditorium, and with his flaming red hair and beard, and booming voice, everyone knew who he was.  On lecture days, he attended both sessions, even though they were repeats, and he made comments that bounced off the walls and caused the audience to stir uncomfortably.  He was full of himself, and long-winded, and while I was amused at first, I soon joined my peers in dreading his presence. 

When classes switched at midterm, there he was, front and center in my Counselling Adolescents class, deflating my bubble of anticipation.  His was always the first hand to shoot up and when the instructor acknowledged him, he would settle into his seat, clasp his hands on his belly and begin his epic pronouncement.  Nothing that he said invited response, it was instead an endless declaration of his own accomplishments, real or imaginary.  I shared my fellow classmates disgust of this fellow, and like the others, chose to keep my distance. 

“He must be awfully insecure,”  my husband offered.  “People like that usually are.”

I tried to feel sympathy for him.  Maybe my husband was right.  Maybe he actually will make a good teacher, and is as gifted as he likes to proclaim.  Maybe I needed to give him another chance. 

In our final week of classes, the student body was divided into mock schools, complete with a pretend principal, vice principal, etc.  Each “school” team was given an series of issues to explore:  preparation for the real world.  My assigned principal was mister pomp and circumstance.  I knew in that moment that this would be a wasted exercise and committed myself to sudokus for the remainder of the course, sitting in the back where I would be undetected.  I remember little of what went on as those little math puzzles can be wonderfully addictive.

On the last day, a real principal visited our team and presented a dilemma to be acted out.  A disgruntled parent was to appear before the principal and teacher to argue that her child had been unfairly treated.  Principal Pomp turned the tides on the parent, berating her in defense of his teacher.  After the role play, we were asked to comment on what we saw.  Ignoring the blah, blah, blah, I hunkered down to break the current pattern on my page.

That is when I heard a fellow classmate tell the “Principal” that he did a wonderful job.

I was on my feet in protest before I even knew what was happening.  “No he didn’t!” I objected.  “He was condescending and patronizing and quite frankly, if I had been the parent I would have punched him in the nose.”

Whoops!  Did I just say that out loud?

I sat back down.

“Actually, you are right,” the real Principal responded.  “Your tone was out of line for someone in a position of authority.  How should he have responded?” 

The spotlight was now on me.  “Well, as a parent, I would want to feel like I was heard, so he should have acknowledged her frustration, and then invited input as to how they might resolve the situation.  Everyone present was an adult, so everyone deserved to be treated as such.”

I didn’t hear the response, mortified as I was that I had just embarrassed myself and acted unprofessionally in front of a future potential employer.

The next day, our last day, I found myself elevated to heroic level as people cheered me in the halls: word of my outburst had traveled quickly.  I deflated the pomp.  Momentarily.

It would be a while after graduation before we all had interviews and found our various jobs.  Occasional work was all there was for newcomers, and so like many of my peers, I went from school to school searching for that final resting ground.  In my third year, I landed a job at a tiny school, thirty minutes out of town.  With a staff of twenty, I knew it wouldn’t take long to get acquainted, so I sought out my colleagues and introduced myself.  All seemed very friendly, except for one fellow who left each room when I entered.  I finally caught up with him in the staff lounge and when I offered my hand in introduction, he replied:  “I know who you are, Beth.  I am _____________”.

Yes, you guessed it.  He’d shaved the beard, and somehow his hair wasn’t quite as red, but here we were, face to face, colleagues in a staff of twenty. 

Now if that isn’t karma, what is?

 

Simplicity: A Noble Quest

At thirty-one, I had to learn to change my approach to life, because the old way wasn’t working.

th-2The old way put me at the center of the family (even though I was fifth born), listening to and attempting to resolve every family issue:   Do you think your younger sister is okay living out there in isolation?  Your older sisters are not talking to each other.  I can’t talk to Mom, will you?  Why do men always leave me?  Your brother thinks I abandoned him as a child.  I can’t talk to Dad; he’ll listen to you. Your brother is coming to stay, and well, you know about his wife.   I can’t live with your Father.  And on and on.

The old way was me constantly trying to run from my problems, striving to be better, to do better, and to get ahead.  I was invested in the belief that if I could just do the right thing, my life would be perfect.  I beat myself up trying to reach some magical destination where peace would prevail, and all would be well with the world.

Attachments, chaos, interference, and desires were destroying me.  I lived in a perpetual state of strife and discontentment.

And then the blessing came:  my mind snapped.

As I picked up the pieces of my life, I had to learn to simplify.

th-3I was gifted with new objectivity.  I realized that even though my own life had come to a screaming stop,  everyone else’s went on without me.  The chaos and drama of my family continued, and for the first time in my life, I recognized that I had no ability to control it.  Never had.  My need to feel important and responsible in the midst of that whirlwind was my own sick way of coping.  Nothing I said, did, or sweat over was going to change the outcomes.  I learned to detach and stop interfering.

Mom and Dad are trying to run my life.

“You are strong and have supports.  I trust that you can deal with this.”

Find out what’s wrong with your sister.

“I have my own relationship with my sister, and would prefer that you do the same.  Let’s not get them confused.”

It was the first step to learning to breathe again.

Losing my mind also put a stop to all that rushing around.  I was forced to stand still, which meant everything I had been running from caught up to me.  Egads!  I went into therapy.

th-4My family, I came to understand, dealt with dilemma’s by creating more distractions: new problems.  Our momentum came from the next crisis and there was never any shortage of those.  The problem with this way of living is that the underlying message is that there is something so wrong, so unmentionable, that it is not safe to relax, and so we hang on until the next cliff hanger.  The only control I had in all of this was to no longer choose to be part of it.  Peace, I discovered, was an inner journey and not an outer destination.  Boy, had I been on the wrong track!

“What is it that you really desire?”  the therapist asked me one day.

“I don’t know,” came the response, and it was true.  I had been driving myself so hard, I had forgotten what it was that I was aiming for in the first place.

Life, I concluded, is not a game in which the person with the best ideas, and the most responsibility wins.  It is a journey of moments, and discoveries, and connections, which if we’re not careful, we will miss.  Simplicity, my heart’s actual desire, is being able to minimize the attachments, resist the need to interfere, and be the calm at the center of the storm.

I’m still working on it, but at least now, I am more aware.

Day 187 “The Thorns”

I grew my thorns at a tender age before my flower was even in bloom.

I grew them with clenched fists, in a fetal position, sobbing into my pillow while the rest of the household ignored me.

“Take that mood to your bedroom and don’t come out till you are over it,” my father would say.

“I don’t need anyone!” I would tell myself, over and over again, and chastise myself for forgetting in between.  If I didn’t need anyone, I reasoned, I could never be hurt like this again.

I reinforced those thorns throughout my second marriage, changing my mantra to “I don’t need anything.”  Married to a man who either made me pay for everything I got or deprived me of my wants, I decided that the answer was to just not want for anything.

No matter how strong I thought my defense system was, it didn’t work.   I still suffered.

In retrospect, maybe I suffered more because of the thorns.

My flower is long past bloomed, and I no longer have need of the protection, but it is not easy to let down one’s defenses.

Maybe by writing, I can one by one, strip the thorns.

Day 186 “A Life Well Lived”

I am addicted to word games – the ones where you have to make as many words as you can from a limited number of letters in a limited amount of time.  As you progress, the time is shortened.  I love the challenge, and the brain workout.  And if I am stuck, I can just quit and start again.  I make ‘genius’ moves and love the positive feedback.

My job is parceled into seventy-five minute periods in which I have to solve an unlimited number of problems in a limited amount of time.  Unlike the word games, I cannot click ‘quit’ and start again.  Unlike the game, there is no score to give me immediate feedback.  I juggle, think on my feet, and then start again when the bell rings.  I only receive feedback when I have erred in my judgment, or displeased another teacher, the student, or a parent.  There is nothing ‘genius’ about what I do.

Am I making a difference?  Is this a life well lived.

How would you define a life well lived?

Day 185 “The Desire to Control”

In the bedroom, my mother is trying to settle the baby.  I am in the kitchen trying to clean up when a gust of wind, followed by a wall of water hits me.  The floor around me is quickly filling up with this flood of elements and I push my way through to find the source:  the sliding glass window on my third story balcony is bent and off the track, unwilling to close. 

“Grab me duct tape,” I yell, but no one hears me, so I rush to find it, trying desperately to minimize the damage. 

Duct tape is no match for the storm brewing outside.  There is no way to fix this problem.

This dream has unsettled me.  I can’t shake the image and the feeling of hopelessness.  Too many responsibilities.  Too many things in need of repair.  How did everything get so out of control?

I know it is a dream, but the need for my inhaler coming out of it is real.  I have been struggling for weeks, no months, to get my breathing stabilized, and it is weighing on me.  I am the same age my father was when he was diagnosed with emphysema; is this to be my fate also?

I try to go back to sleep, but can’t shake the image and the feeling that there is no solution.  This is the end, my dream self realizes.  When I do slide back, the images are no different:  my baby daughter drowning in a pool and no one reacting but me, and I am too late; trying to take a shortcut home through the woods, only to find it is a dead end, blocked by police who turn me around, then realizing I have lost everyone, including myself. 

Deep despair.

The dream is flooded with images from my life.

The setting is reminiscent of the apartment I rented after my first divorce.  Marriage was to have been my salvation, but instead, here I was, more broken than before thrown back into the turmoil.  Just released from the hospital, my sister Mai came to live with me.  She was too fragile to live with my other sister, but the two were often present, adding to the chaos in my home.

The kitchen was how I defined myself at the time.  I could cook – had cooked at home for the family – and I became the mother figure for all lost and single souls looking for a home cooked meal and a warm place to land.  No one seemed to mind that my schizophrenic sister sat rocking endlessly in a chair in the corner, nor that my ailing (mentally as well as physically) older sister would drop in unexpectedly, bringing with her a constant storm of drama.   Maybe it was dinner theater for those whose lives were comparatively tame.

The baby is my middle daughter, who traumatized by illness during pregnancy, struggled in the first years of her life, unable to sleep and constantly screaming in pain.  For three years we dragged her from one specialist to the next desperately looking for an answer and eventually found one, but I remember the daily heart wrenching  feeling of inadequacy as a mother who couldn’t meet her child’s needs.

The path into the woods was the one I took so many days as a child to find solace.  Deep in the shelter of trees, there was peace and tranquility and it filled my soul many days and gave me the courage to carry on. The path is long gone and many have been lost in my life, myself included.

All my life, I have fought to overcome.  Overcome failure, dis-ease, dis-order, and in-sanity.

Bottom line, as the dream so eloquently points out, is that there never is a way to fix all that.  There is no sudden solution or ending.  The storms of life rage on, ready to unleash their power at any time, and the only hope – the only answer – is to hold ground through it and humbly pick up the pieces afterwards, knowing that this is the best anyone can do; the best anyone can be.

Control is an illusion.