Cellular Response
Last spring, after the breakup of a significant long-term relationship, and during the most anxiety-producing days surrounding the decision of my “interim-position” status, I developed extreme muscular tension in my legs which had some other, rather scary, side effects. Ever since then, I have taken a, more-or-less, physical-therapy approach to the problem and, after long months, was making progress: almost able to see light at the end of the tunnel by December. However, over the holidays, I had somewhat a reversal of fortune, and I seem to be more symptomatic these days, rather than less.
I’ve approached this as primarily a muscular issue, with anxiety as the root cause. I've done many, many sessions of deep-tissue massage and ultrasound in order to attempt to settle my leg muscles down. Some of the early work, with the deepest massage treatments, produced rather dramatic emotional responses on my part. The work on my body would result in waves of feelings of sadness and loss, for example, and I would end up crying in the office before I was able to gather myself together and get dressed to leave. As I started to get better, less symptomatic, I stopped having such responses. But, yesterday, again, as we worked and probed and pressure-pointed spots on my lower body, I was once more similarly affected. Like a tsunami, feelings of extreme sadness rapidly, and without warning, totally engulfed me.
Although there are a number of possible explanations for what's going on (including neurological), I suspect my body is sending me some kind of message that, to date, I've not totally deciphered. But, my working theory is that the overwhelming loss, and potential for loss, that created last spring’s anxiety led my body to react the way it did, and that the depth of the physical pain — memorized at the cell level — is reflective of the severity of the emotional wounding. Further, when my physical being is poked and prodded in just such a manner, there’s a direct link to the emotional scar tissue. The physical part of the experience yesterday was quite painful, of course. But, the emotional aspect, for me, was profound. And, today, twenty-four hours later, I'm still processing and asking “what is this all about?”
Which part of my being do I heal first: my body or my soul? How do I go about doing that?
Becoming REAL
I don’t know what it is about me, but I seem to attract women into my life who apparently think of me as “little-boy-like” ... perhaps, want me to be more little-boy-like? (Or, maybe it’s something else that’s going on?)
For example, a very important person in my life right now gave me a teddy bear and some Scooby-Doo bubble bath for Christmas this year. Then, back when Katrina and I were together, I remember she gave me, at various times, a Mr. Potato Head set, some Play-Doh, Miracle Bubbles (with wand), and a couple of children’s books: The Velveteen Rabbit and The Runaway Bunny.
What is this about, do you suppose? It sure has had me a-wonderin’. Not only do I feel grown up, at least most of the time, I’m starting to feel, well, old sometimes too. How is it, at age 58, I score a teddy bear for Christmas?
Of course, as I have this on my mind, I go to the bookshelf and find The Velveteen Rabbit. Truthfully, until Katrina gave it to me (on Valentine’s Day 1998), I had never heard of it, though I’ve come to learn that most of the rest of the world has. Since then, I admit, I have come to rather adore this book. Although it’s definitely a little-kid’s story, written at a sixth-grade reading level, it has a message about life and living that is very wise indeed.
After all, it’s a tale of personal growth and transformation, answering the question about how we change. How does one become REAL, is the question…
Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.(p. 13)
Doesn’t that just about say it all?!
Amazing Grace
Man, woman, birth, death, infinity. What is this business of living, anyway? Isn’t this existence just a total mystery? If things are totally clear to you, congratulations, for I have to admit, I’m sure having a heckfire of a time figuring things out.
Why didn’t I die during my drinking days? How did I make it through the Vietnam era without suffering a bloody, painful death in a jungle a million miles away from home? How did I luck out with a mere kidney stone, having been diagnosed with bladder cancer by two doctors one night in the emergency room? How have I made it through my depressing times of relationship and job loss?
I may be living in a state of grace, but I am still having problems figuring out why I am here. Is life totally about love and work? Is that what we’re all really here for? Do those things sum up our existence? Are they reasons enough to be born?
Surely, for love, I suspect that is the case. I fell in love with and, in my heart, “adopted” three young people (my significant-other’s kids) during the course of a years-long relationship that I have referred to in other essays here. One of those kids, two years ago, on January 9, 2004, had a child of her own. I had an incredible “first” (for me) of holding this infant at the age of six hours. This was a totally-wonderful experience, and something, at age 56, I was not ever expecting I’d have the opportunity to do. I was enchanted, enthralled, delighted, thrilled, and even a little scared. I was immediately drawn to this little one named Grace. Grace’s second birthday is coming up and I’ll not be there, now being separated from her grandmother for some months now—and no longer a part of the family circle.
I miss Grace, her mom, her uncles, and her grandmother. Even absent from them, I love them all, and send them light and love across the miles from where I reside here in Portland.
Birth. Life. Living. Loving.
Grace.
Amazing.
Zwischenraum
Yes: Zwischenraum. That’s probably a very appropriate term for my life on this New Year’s Day. As I learned from reading The Painted Drum, Zwischenraum is literally “the space between things.” Or, perhaps another descriptor for my existence right now is limbo — “a state where nothing can be done until something else happens.”
Might I be just plain stuck?
I don’t know. I am, all the time, trying to make something else happen.
Well, whatever I am, wherever I am: Here I am.
I am not in a relationship. After seven-plus turbulent years, during which time I experienced repeated rejection and heartbreak, I became unattached again, apparently permanently, last spring. I have been mourning the loss of that relationship, the loss of her, and the dream of being with her, ever since, waiting for a time when I feel I’m healed and that it’s possible to move on. I’m in as in-between a place, relationship-wise, as one can be. I want to be healthier than I am; but, alas, this is what’s going on.
And, I’m in a temporary job. It happens to be a really good temporary job, but it’s a transitional one nonetheless, simply by its designation as “interim.” I am giving it absolutely the best effort I am able, but I feel perpetually unsettled, and not entirely wanted. I have been in this in-between condition professionally for two years now. The Oregon State Board of Higher Education was replaced by the Governor in the fall of 2003, and it became apparent early in 2004 that significant changes were going to be happening in the Chancellor’s Office at the direction of the new Board. So, from late 2003 until the present day, I have been leading a work life fraught with ambiguity, with no place to really call “home” professionally.
At work and at home, for months (or years…how, actually, should I count?) I have felt rejection. And, the job-search process I continue with is, practically by definition, an activity set up to perpetuate this feeling. I experienced another huge rejection two weeks ago as I came in second place in yet another search process.
Sigmund Freud has been quoted as saying that “love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” Another quote also attributed to him is “love and work...work and love, that’s all there is.”
If love and work, are, indeed, what defines our existence, then maybe it’s no wonder that I am feeling so off-center. I am not at all solid in either of these life dimensions at the moment, and I don’t know exactly when things will be changing.
But, still, I continue to get up in the morning, displaying a sincere curiosity about what the new day (and, now, the new year) will bring. Life is about the journey, so the saying goes. And, I need to remind myself, as Ram Dass advises, that “it’s all perfect.” I know that I am doing some good in this world, even in this place between things. I know that I am present for others and making some responsible, positive changes around me, despite my Zwischenraum state.
Here is a passage from Ram Dass’ “The Seasons of Our Lives” 1977 speech that I have on an old audio-tape. It is something that I find comforting to refer to in times like these:
But I say to you very simply, and very directly, what happens to another human being in your presence is a function of who you are, not what you know. And who you are is everything that you’ve ever done and all the evolution that has occurred thus far. Your being is right on the line every time you meet another human being. And what they get from you through all the words of love or kindness or giving is very simply a function of your own level of evolution. And the injunction given to the physician “heal thyself,” is right at the mark because we are here to talk about our own work on ourselves, because that is our gift to each other and it’s also what we’re doing here on earth in the first place.
My guru used to say to me, “don’t you see that it’s all perfect?”
The implication of “perfect,” if you want to deal with the concept of God…if I say…“God, what are you doing, why are you screwing up?” …I, who have this little teeny limited vision, mainly controlled by my rational mind, which is a little subsystem of a little subsystem, it isn’t even a very interesting way of knowing the universe, I sit there like this little ant on an elephant and say to him “you really blew it that time.” I say “you really blew it that time” – you know where I say that from? – I’m saying it from my own fear of death…
If I’m attached to you being other than the way you are now, I’m saying to God, “if I had made him, I would have made him different than he is now,” and I forgot my guru saying “don’t you see that it’s all perfect.” What we do for each other is we create a space, by not clinging to models, we create a space that allows each other to do what we need to do…we each have our own work to do in this incarnation.
Yes, I believe that I am doing my work in this incarnation. And, I believe that it is serious work. I simply wish, at times like these, that I had a more profound understanding of this universe and my place in it.
On this day of transition, I ask the universe for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
Life Will Break You
I can’t believe that winter break is almost over. For the last week the campus has been closed, so faculty and staff have been able to go their own ways to celebrate whatever version of the holidays they choose. My time has been spent, for the most part, in solitude: I have cleaned house, run errands, written job applications, sent out and replied to emails, taken naps and hot baths, gone on long walks, made up new playlists, Photoshopped pictures, driven to Albany for lunch, and, generally, tried to relax. (With only modest success on that last item, I might add, despite the apparently-leisurely, non-work schedule!)
Also, I just finished a novel that I spent a little time with each day: The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich. I learned of this book by listening to NPR on Sunday morning, October 2, 2005 , and I immediately ordered a copy from Amazon.com . I admit I had never heard of Erdrich before, even though she has published several novels. I was intrigued, though, during the NPR piece, by the description of the story, as well as by Erdrich’s voice. The NPR website indicates that “novelist Louise Erdrich returns to the Ojibwe world in her latest work, but The Painted Drum also explores human relationships.” In my post of December 18th, I mention my attraction to works that explore the human condition, and this book certainly fits that category. I was totally drawn into the narrative, as Erdrich proves to be an incredibly-skilled storyteller.
Erdrich has published other novels with Native American themes and characters; this is not typically subject matter that I’d be attracted to. So, without having heard the brief description on NPR, I’m fairly certain that this book would not have leapt off the bookstore shelf at me. I am immensely gratified to have been listening to Liane Hansen that Sunday morning, though.
As I’ve indicated in another essay, I’m not really interested in doing book reports, per se . And, I’ll certainly leave literary criticism to those more suited for such activity, such as my good friend the Dean of Humanities. I found several things about The Painted Drum to be extremely compelling, however. The theme of loss was pervasive, exemplified, in part, by the deaths of a couple of young girls, a marriage torn apart by betrayal, and the diminishing eyesight of one character who had fought in the Gulf War. The complexities of the relationships, and the connections between, children and parents were also featured elements. And, too, the distance-closeness aspects of the relationship between Faye (one of the narrators) and Kurt, her free-spirited artist friend-and-lover, were explored. All these dimensions, and many more, are to be found in the context of this story of a mystical, magical drum, believed to be a “living thing.”
One of the reviewers of this book at Amazon.com says that “Louise Erdrich is a verbal artist. Through her carefully crafted prose, I could smell the dust rising from the prairie, hear the wind rustling the grass and feel the texture of the drum. The Painted Drum gives us a snapshot into the lives of people who must reconcile tradition with reality.” And I agree. Erdrich’s prose is absolutely lyrical. What hooked me was a paragraph she read during the NPR interview:
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could. (p. 274)