Redemption

Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life. -The Fray in "How To Save a Life"

Day 194. An amazing, beautiful, redemptive day that left me figuring out how I can move to Durango. I will elaborate on this blog when I return to Oklahoma. Presently I am on the hotel computer, and the internet service is questionable and fickle. No worries - I am used to indulging the dinasaur back home.

With some general directions compliments of Google, my son and I headed out for a day hike late this morning. As luck would have it, we ended up at the trailhead of a breathtaking trail up a mountain not five miles outside of Durango. We hiked up, up, up until we reached a high ridge with a view over the entire (gotta look it up) mountain valley. Evidently, my son inherited Scottish highlander genes from his mother; he is gifted in climbing and bouldering and fearless at the edge of things. What a delightful hiking companion. He repeatedly treked out to the very edge of several rock bluffs along the ridge, calling out to me to take his picture with his cell phone. I obliged, and will post pictures in the next couple of days. He took several of me as well. We seem to have no qualms about hanging out on the edge of steep dropoffs, high up on a Colorado mountainside. I'm very glad my son, like me, is in his element on the edge of things.

The most spectacular moment occurred just after I had snapped his picture - out on a bluff looking east up the valley. I heard him exclaim, "Mom!" and point to the sky. There, drifting on the high air currents, was a spectacular falcon soaring above the valley floor. From the edge of the bluff where I was dangling my legs, I watched him wafting gently through the warm air. He was dark brown against the dazzling blue of the Colorado sky, coasting, barely moving his wings. I could feel the effortless movement of that magnificent bird, floating through the sky, surrendering to the direction of the breeze. Breathless, I followed his flight until the brown of him disappeared against the mountainside.

Tears welled, and I was awash with a sense of peace. Wherever spirits go, whatever follows death, I am certain that there is peace and grace. The beauty of that moment: a glorious day with my son, a brilliant summer sky, a mountain valley awash with the shades of deep green only late summer can produce - the moment collided with a sense of absolute certainty that Tom is at peace. He is in the realm of the One Love. His spirit resounded throughout the valley. We felt him there. We celebrated his life. We joined him at the juncture where boundaries melt away, and only love remains.

The remainder of the day was every bit as magical, but I want to end tonight's blog with the memory of the falcon. I could never make this up. It was Real and True and Here. I know that Tom would be pleased with how we spent today. After all, he was there with us, soaring through the sky.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Razor's Edge

Me: Look at the New Mexico sky. The sky is bluer and the clouds are whiter. It's like being inside an HD television. Even the air feels different here.

My Son: I know. When you walk outside in Oklahoma, it's like someone is trying to make a stew out of you. - Conversation en route to Durango on August 13th.

Day 193. Beautiful drive to Durango today. My son and I have been tempted to text, phone, and/or e-mail everyone we know in Oklahoma to tell them we are in the mountains; it is below 90 degrees; the sky is bluer and the clouds are whiter, and we just walked through the whole town on a trail beside a rushing river making sounds like the Nirvana Non-Fight Song. Lovely beyond words. Our energy levels soared the second we stepped out of the car. To my child's great annoyance, I commented on the weather no less than 50 times as we walked along the river. After plodding through the past two weeks of stifling, life-sucking, misery-inducing heat in Oklahoma, I feel like running a marathon. And I don't even run any more.

To my great astonishment, the 12-hour drive went very well. Probably because I only drove five hours of it. Mostly because I could watch the temperature gauge in my car and not have a panic attack. Hugely because I was a captured audience and there is nothing funnier than a college sophomore. Good times. Most of the way.

As we got closer to Durango, the desert became lush as future tumbleweeds gave way to actual trees, and dried up creek beds yielded to flowing streams and then a rushing river. With my son's assistance, I used his computer to burn a road trip CD for us titled, "Durango Bound." It proved to be bittersweet. Inadvertently, I had included songs with lyrics that spoke to me about Tom. My brain began to play a cruel trick on me. For a few miles, I could listen to the music, look around at the gorgeous scenery, and feel excited about meeting up with Tim and Dana. In those moments, my road trip happy feeling would gather momentum and send tingles to my limbs. Then the real reason for our journey would wallop me from the side when I wasn't looking, overwhelming me with sadness. Grief sure throws curve balls. With some sliders stuck in for good measure.

The feeling made me recall a comment from a client that froze in my mind the first time she said it. Together, we were processing the anniversary of the death of her infant son at the age of nine days old. This was several years after he had died. She noted that, around the time of the anniversaries of his birth and death, it felt like she was "living on the edge of a razor blade." The edge of sanity was that slim for her, and for a few days before and after those terminally important dates in her life, she never knew what side of the blade she would land on at any given second.

That is how this afternoon felt for me. From second to second, I came down on different sides of that razor's edge. I could get caught up in the moment, with the vast sky and the backlit mountains rising around me, basking in my son's company and wicked, clever humor and then - Wham! I'd slide down on the other side, tears would well up, and I would be reminded that I wasn't coming to Durango to mountain bike and talk about Afghanistan, Nepal, or other exotic foreign lands. I am here to say good-bye to a friend. To honor a life that has touched so many.

There is a poignancy and vividness unique to grief. As much as I can bear, I am trying hard to be mindful and present on this trip, because there is nothing like Death to bring Reality into crisp, clear focus. I spoke with Dana when we arrived in town, and she was working with Tim and some close friends to prepare the slide show for Sunday's memorial. Talk about crisp, clear focus. I noted previously that both Tim and Tom could be professional photographers. They have mammoth archives of photos, and I cannot imagine what the production memorializing Tom will be like. I can, however, anticipate what watching the slides will be like.

Like standing on the edge of a razor blade.

Gassho,

CycleBuddhaDoc

Intervals of Life

The important matter of life and death, everything is impermanent. - Inscription on a wooden temple bell from the Zen Calendar (December 31, 2001).

Day 191. You can feel the state of Oklahoma collectively holding its breath, waiting for this heat to break. It will break before we do. After all, we survived the Dust Bowl. At least some of our closest relatives did.

It was too hot to ride outside today, so I did my interval DVD on the trainer. I concluded that interval training is the best life preparation there is. I further concluded that cycling can provide a metaphor for EVERY - bar none - life circumstance that has ever been or ever will be.

After a ten minute warm-up, this particular DVD has three five-minute "power intervals" during which you pedal all out - at a cadence and intensity that is higher than you could possibly sustain for a second beyond five minutes. It's supposed to prepare you for time trialing, which I doubt I will ever do, but it makes me feel like a cyclist to train for it just in case. As I sweated and panted and suffered through the intervals tonight, I thought about surviving this week in particular and this summer in general. It occurred to me that I have endured three power intervals, just like on the DVD.

The first interval was the surgeon's decision not to clear my son to return to football. The interval required support and compassion and patience and a sound listening ear as he grappled with this unanticipated blow. Not to mention finding alternative testosterone discharging mechanisms since he couldn't hit anybody. The second interval consisted of amassing funds to quell his school's insistence that the summer term (the semester where he didn't first procure financial aid - the one required because he planned to play football in the fall) be paid for or his fall enrollment would be dropped. After sharing a household with him for the past two weeks, I CERTAINLY want him to return to college. I thought about selling him on EBay as a fund-raising strategy; however, that would defeat the purpose of paying for his school. Decisions, decisions. The third interval was the loss of Tom. I am pedaling through it.

When pedaling the literal intervals, I try to stay just this side of stroking out. So far I have succeeded. They are painful and effortful and resplendent with suffering. The only thing that keeps me turning the cranks is the knowledge that the interval will end in five minutes, whereupon a five minute easy spin ensues before the next tortuous interval. This is life. It transpires in intervals. Usually they are not conveniently measured out in succinct, symmetrical time periods, but there are intervals nonetheless.

When I think about difficult, painful segments of my life (current and future), they feel survivable when I approach them as intervals. Separate but connected, interrelated, impermanent intervals. Zazen helps tremendously with this approach. I can't count how many times I have been in the midst of a challenging task and bumped into that moment when I wanted to wad it all up and throw it away. I think about the last five minutes of those horrific 35-minute sitting sessions, and - Voila! I am instantly confident I can survive anything. We all have our yardstick of comparison. Mine happens to be sitting still during the last minutes of zazen before the timer sounds - those minutes when the Monkeys chatter incessantly about my numb legs, aching back, and sagging mudra.

I have much more to say about intervals, but need to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I have a long drive tomorrow. I plan to approach it in intervals.

Gassho,

CycleBuddhaDoc

Tuck Your Chin

"It's okay, Grandma. I remembered that they said on Animal Planet to tuck my chin and keep my eyes closed." - Three-year-old boy to his grandmother in the emergency room after being mauled by a chow.

Day 190. This quote was shared with me by a client today. She is a friend of the boy's grandmother, who phoned her from the E.R. Monday evening to tell her about the dog attack. The little boy was badly injured, primarily in his face, but he is going to be all right. Physically, and I have a strong hunch emotionally as well.

When I heard the quote I knew it would open tonight's blog. Not because I am being dramatic or morbid. The quote reverberated because it so powerfully reminded me of the indomitable human spirit. Our capacity for survival is unfathomable. In the midst of the terror of a dog attack, this little guy had the resourcefulness to literally protect his jugular (probably saving his life) and save his eyesight. Gassho to Animal Planet for providing instruction on what to do if attacked by a dog. Especially in a manner understandable to a three-year-old.

I desperately needed to be reminded of the strength of the human spirit. It is tempting to feel overcome with rage and hostility and hatred. Those emotions, however, make me too strongly identified with the people who gunned down Tom and his colleagues. The third credo in my father's arsenal of parenting platitudes was, "Two wrongs don't make a right" (originality was not the man's forte). Hate begets hate. Violence begets violence. These are not inconsistent lessons from history. When I pause to reflect on the revolutionary changes in technology in the past couple of centuries, I marvel at the lack of evolution in humankind's skill set at resolving conflict. At the macro level, we suck at it. The premise remains the same: bite and kick and hit and kill and take. I am pretty sure these methods were firmly established even before the Cro Magnons clashed.

The means through which these ends are accomplished have changed dramatically. Killing implements have certainly evolved faster and more impressively than advances in maternal health care. At the risk of stating the obvious, these improved methods of destruction don't seem to be advancing the well-being of our species very effectively. I doubt they will change until societies attach more value to compassion, patience, negotiation, intellect and compromise than they do to large, uh, guns.

I'm on one of my academic tirades. The ones that signal I am coping by waxing cerebral, i.e. I am avoiding painful emotions by residing in my prefrontal cortex. It's effective, and served me brilliantly while in graduate school, but it's not the kind of writing I want to do on my blog. In the interest of authenticity, I'm stopping myself and heading for the cushion, where it is virtually impossible to dodge what is really occurring within.

Reality bites sometimes. A lot of the time. But I'm going to keep trying to stay in touch with it anyway. Because it's not going anywhere. No matter how hard I try to disappear into my gray matter.

Gassho,

CycleBuddhaDoc

Claritin Clear

She considered this fact as she watched him go, and she felt something shift inside her body - relief, it felt like, enormous and settled, like a pile of stones on a steep slope suddenly shifting and tumbling slightly into the angle of repose. The pounding of What do I want went still in her breast. It didn't matter what she chose. The world was what it was, a place with its own rules of hunger and satisfaction. Creatures lived and mated and died, they came and went, as surely as summer did. They would go their own ways, of their own accord. - Barbara Kingsolver in "Prodigal Summer."

Day 189. These are not easy days. The summer heat is interminable. Intolerable. And yet, what are we going to do? Ride through it. Pray through it. Whine through it. Sit through it. Breathe through it. Whatever it takes. I am so grateful to Barbara Kingsolver for writing a novel that speaks to me so deeply at this moment in my life. I think I'll find her blog and let her know.

I just completed plans for a trip to Durango this weekend to attend Tom's memorial service. It's about a month sooner than I envisioned making that drive. Definitely different circumstances. Dana said she has wonderful help planning the service from the hundreds of Tom's friends who live in Durango. They are worried about finding a big enough venue. That's the kind of man he was. Something for all of us to think about. What size venue will be required for our memorial service? I want to reflect upon that without ego. Challenging, indeed. Interesting that Tom had the least ego of just about any person I know. It is reassuring to observe that, in this case, a large venue is necessary because of someone's kindness and goodness, not frivolous popularity.

Blogging is hard right now. Sitting is not. In fact, it feels like about the only place I want to be. Sitting, breathing, surrendering thought to raw, primal feeling brings with it a dim flicker of hope. Hope that pain passes. Hope that such a powerful reminder of how precious life is will compel us to live our own lives passionately and mindfully. Hope that we can let go of the small things that muddy our relationships and focus on love and connection instead. Hope that we say, "I love you" to the people that matter to us often and with deep sincerity. Hope that a growing commitment to contribute to peaceful solutions rather than violent, fearful reactions will permeate our consciousness. Tom and the other members of the humanitarian convoy didn't die in vain. Their deaths should not be our focus. It's their lives that matter.

I don't understand exactly how grief and my zazen practice are interacting. It feels like a synergistic energy is reverberating between the two. Grief intensifies zazen, which loops around to contain grief. That''s all I know for right now. Zazen is about being mindful, present, and aware. Grief seems to have accentuated these processes for me. On the bike tonight, my sensory input was like an HD television movie with the contrast turned up too brightly and the surround sound tuned too loud. My nerve endings feel exposed without the benefit of skin as a buffer. As I prepared an omelet following my ride, I was stunned by the colors of the vegetables I chopped. The green of the broccoli, the red of the tomatoes, the orange carrots and the smokey gray mushrooms smashed my retina like in those 1960's acid trips we read about. I'm not sure what to make of it. All these months I've been practicing mindfulness and being in the here-and-now. Now that it is happening, I feel funky. It's a little surreal. It feels like that layer of film that peels back in the Claritin commercial keeps lifting and laying back down of its own accord. I have no control over it. Sometimes I am in a haze, and sometimes things are blindingly clear. Unnerving to say the least.

I'm headed for the cushion now. It feels like the safest place to be.

Gassho,

CycleBuddhaDoc

Grief Skills

One of the skills of grief that Lusa had learned was to hold on tight to the last moments between sleep and waking. Sometimes, then, in the early morning, taking care not to open her eyes or rouse her mind through its warm drowse to the surface where pain broke clear and cold, she found she could choose her dreams. She could call a memory and patiently follow it backward into flesh, sound, and sense. It would become her life once again, and she was held and safe, everything undecided, everything still new. - Barbara Kingsolver in "Prodigal Summer."

Day 188. I never dreamed I would be writing these particular blogs. A lot can happen in a year. A lot that I never saw coming. Sort of like when I began reading this novel with all the powerful words about grief in it, having no idea how soon the words would jump out and apply to me. There are no coincidences in the universe. A cigar is never just a cigar. Even in Cuba.

I heard from my friend Dana today. I am touched by her incredible poise and courage as she responds to the media circus surrounding Tom's death. I cannot imagine being at the hub of such a high profile loss. I cannot imagine comforting a husband who has lost his twin to a violent, senseless death. Her husband left Alaska today to be with his parents and plan for the first of two memorial services. I wish Alaska wasn't so far away. Dana isn't too keen on touchy-feely expressions of sympathy, and I get that. I hope someone is close by to offer the version of support that is right for her. I wish it could be me.

Every time I am on the periphery of a disaster, I feel self-centered in my response. Not my outward response; I am well socialized and a shrink to boot so I know about socially appropriate reactions to people in grief. I'm less certain about my inner experience. I always feel selfish about how consuming grief can be. I do this bizarre ranking order in my head - kind of like the six degrees of separation equation. My grief doesn't feel legitimate if I am separated from the source by more than three degrees. If a client told me this, I would tell them to cut it out. Grief is grief. It IS highly personal, our feelings rarely bother with logic, and all pain associated with loss is legitimate. I can't seem to apply this order of thinking to myself. I've always required a separate set of operating rules for myself. Talk about self-centered.

The strange thing is, there was only one degree of separation with Tom. I knew him. Dana and Tim have been married for close to 25 years, so I've known him on the periphery for quite some time. There are just so many levels to process. My own selfish attachment and thwarted plans to visit him this fall and pick his brain for my benefit. My less selfish outrage over the vicious, random way he was killed. My inevitable feeling of helplessness and futility in directly addressing the conditions surrounding his death. My universal feeling of grief over the loss of a man that brought so much goodness to the world.

Grief is a multi-tongued beast. It lashes at sleeping and eating and thinking clearly. It seeps into every molecule of my body and mind. Nothing feels solid; the outer world hums with an uneasy vibration like the trembling before a big earthquake. Without conscious awareness, it feels like the ground could open up at any time and swallow me whole. Sometimes, I kind of long for that. Not that it would solve much.

My perspective and sensory integration are warped and curvy. It's like when you get off a fast and twisty roller coaster, and your body continues to swirl with the motion even after you've exited the ride. Since completing "Three Cups of Tea," I had no idea how often my mind went to the place of planning a trip to see Tom and thinking about what that visit might catalyze. For now, every time my nerons flow down that entrenched path, they come to a screaming halt at the intersection of remembering that he has died. Then everything goes black. Empty. Suspended. And not the good kind I shoot for in zazen.

I would love to write that my zazen practice is proving to be a source of deep comfort and reassurance. Not so. Not yet. There is nothing comforting or reasurring about the violent death of a selfless, peaceful man at the age of 51. I do feel grateful that Buddhism gives me a mechanism with which to sit in the midst of this painful Reality and experience it for what it is. I don't have to be prematurely brave or philosophical or try to make sense of this nonsensical thing. I can sit quietly on my cushion and weep. Feel the gutwrenching horror of this tragic thing that has happened. Take my time to let it settle.

It will be a long 40 minutes. Probably for many, many days.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc

Simple Honest Grief

He had kept this truth at a distance for so long, it nearly made him weep with relief to embrace the simple, honest grief of it. He rested his hands on his knees, breathed in and out. Let the cherry tree fall on him now, get it over. What did it matter? - Barbara Kingsolver in Prodigal Summer.

Day 187. I am filled with sadness. I just learned that my friend Tom was killed in the ambush of humanitarian workers in Afghanistan. Tom's identical twin brother, Tim, is married to my "oldest friend" (we affectionately call one another "wombmates") Dana.

The tragedy and the loss stands on its own. It is particularly poignant for me because Tom has been at the forefront of my thoughts since reading "Three Cups of Tea." I knew Tom had been working as a dentist in Afghanistan for the past decade, and when I finished the book I had planned to visit him in Durango to hear more about his work and experience in the country so many Americans despise. Tom has also been on my mind as I've meditated this year. He was truly a Bodhisattva - an Enlightened One who continues to walk the earth in the service of others. He will be missed on many continents.

I have two favorites memories of Tom. I spent a week with him, Tim and Dana, and Dana's friend Steve on a houseboat traveling up the slot canyons of Lake Powell. This was in the late 90's, before Lake Powell had dried up. We would take the houseboat as far up into one of the hundreds of tiny fingers of Lake Powell as we could go, anchor the boat, and take off on amazing hikes through magical landscapes in Utah and Arizona. Dana is more domestic, and frequently opted to stay with the boat. I was in hiking heaven any time I could be with Tim and Tom. As we headed out for our first trek together, The Brothers Grams (pet named by Dana) told me and Steve they had two rules by which we had to abide (or be abandoned in the desert). "What are they?" I asked, willing to comply with anything, including selling them my firstborn. "Shut Up and Keep Up," they replied in unison.

Sounds harsh, especially since they were absolutely serious. Fortunately, I was able to do both. To date, I have discovered only two things at which I possess extraordinary natural talent. One of them is climbing. Climbing anything. (Recall the toddler who cleared fences at lightening speed when she was 18 months old). I credit my Scottish heritage for this gift, imagining my ancestors clamoring around in the highlands of Scotland. My body absolutely knows how to do it. I am freakishly adept at sticking to rocks like Spider Man, and he had the added asset of sticky web stuff that shot out of his wrists. The Brothers Grams expected they would quickly leave me on the valley floor. I kept up.

From my City Girl Who Loves the Outdoors perspective, Tim and Tom knew everything about nature. They taught me the names of flowers and plants and insects and birds and animals. They could navigate any terrain and were breathtaking photographers. They could turn a houseboat around in a four foot wide creek, and paddle a canoe up a slot canyon no wider than three feet wall to wall. They knew about stars and weather patterns. They knew about wine and any dish involving fish. They fished and hunted and brought home fresh food for Dana to work her culinary magic upon. We spent over a week on that houseboat, camped out in some solitary canyon, feasting on salmon Tim had brought fresh from their home in Anchorage and gazing up at the billion brilliant stars winking in the desert sky. Tom had more zest for living than anyone I'd ever known. He loved life. He lived life. He celebrated it every day of his 51 years.

My other memory occurred in 2005 - the year my son was involved in a serious snow skiing accident. He was flown off the mountain at Wolf Creek before I could be contacted. Mediflight headed for the hospital at Durango. Before I lost cell phone coverage during my nightmare drive from Pagosa Springs to the hospital, I telephoned my mother to get in touch with Tom, who lived in Durango. I wanted someone to be at the hospital to tell them my son had a mother on the way, and that his name was not John Doe. Tom, whom I hadn't seen in person for five years, immediately went to the hospital to offer what he could. I didn't get to see Tom at the hospital because we immediately left for the airfield to board another MediJet to transfer my son to the trauma unit at Grand Junction. My son was in a coma and has no memory of the accident and several weeks after it. I remember everything. Especially Tom's willingness to show up for a child he had never even met.

Tom showed up for thousands of children none of us will ever meet. He sold his dental practice four years ago so that he could devote more time to his work in Afghanistan. I was really hoping to talk with him more about his travels. He had so much to teach me. He was the person I am trying to become. I will continue in my journey, perhaps with more zest to honor his memory and live the values he inspired. I assumed we had many more hikes in our future. Tom was a good man. I will miss him.

Gassho,

CycleBuddhaDoc