Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday and the day before I did a zoom retreat on the practice of Chod. I know, I had no idea what it was either, but I enjoyed listening to the two teachers, one of them mine. They are both Tibetan Rimpoches, but my teacher speaks excellent English and the other had a translator. At the end of the two days I surprised myself by enjoying the translated teacher more. He is very lively and so is his translator, and somehow I received the essence of him through my computer screen. If I told you the basics, you would be horrified. But somehow, thinking about the body as a corpse, and going to what they call haunted ground (metaphorically) makes sense. If our greatest fear is the deterioration and loss of our body, then facing that fear is liberating. Having witnessed my daughter's loss so recently, this teaching eased me. Our culture is so different than the Tibetan, but after a few years I have come to appreciate what it has to offer us in the west. I'm grateful I did this retreat, and feel lighter now.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

If people asked me who my favorite actor was I readily answered Daniel Day Lewis. But then he retired, so I began naming Chadwick Boseman. He was unrecognizable in each film, because he disappeared so completely into the role, as Day Lewis did. He portrayed Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, James Brown and others so powerfully he knocked your socks off. Now he has died at 43, downed by colon cancer. I am devastated. The loss to the film pantheon is immesurable. I have been assuming he'd win his Oscar soon. At least we have his handful of films to treasure.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our grandson asked to be driven back home early today. He seemed not quite himself, but part of it was his expectation dashed. He wanted to see a movie about pirates, and his parents looked it up and it seemed okay, so they brought it over to see after lunch. Of course our grandson wanted early lunch, and was so excited that we ate well before noon and then my husband took him up to see it. But something about the film disturbed him, and I came up and turned it off. Instead we watched Daniel Tiger for an hour, which soothed him, then I suggested we play little critters and after a few minutes he announced he wished to go home. The air quality was so poor today we couldn't take him out for a walk or a scooter ride, or even in the back yard. I think the little fellow was disappointed that, as he said, "I'll see it when I'm older", meaning it scared him. And then he'd been cooped up inside and our options were limited. Expectations are the ruin of many an adult, much less a three year old. It was a good lesson for me. The suffering was caused by the high anticipation followed by a crash. Been there, done that.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been doing an ancient exercise video in recent days, as the air quality has not always been safe. I'm pretty sure I did this one in my forties, and my mind as I'm following the moves wonders what all these cuties look like today. Probably not as ridiculous as I look, though thankfully no one is observing me: like the hypopatamuses in Fantasia. My loose skin jiggles and I try to keep my feet securely on the ground. But I'm doing it, and that surprises me pleasantly. What else have I given up that was premature? Running? No. I never did run. Stairsteps over and over? Probably not a good idea. I'm as the teacher in the video says, lookin' good. Next step? Maybe try those old Bollywood dance videos again. It can't be much worse than last time I tried. I just know better than to do the floor exercises. I might be stranded there for hours!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today I watched the ceremony for my Zen teacher's cremation. On Zoom. It was not the same as being there. Not in any way. The camera was not good, the sound was sometimes un-understandable, and there was a lot of restlessness among the six or so people present. Surreal is how I would describe it. Yet, I think my teacher would have been amused, or maybe was, who knows? She could be a stickler for ritual, but also goofy and irreverent. They filled her box with flowers from her garden and her daughter's, and I know she loved that. I sent a picture of her and her husband last year, before he died, and also blessings I wrote. I asked her to take care of my daughter who died as well. Afterward, I was very hungry and ate a big lunch. My husband came out to the studio a while ago and asked if I was sad, which was nice of him. I said no and meant it. She's in nirvana now, or close to it, and with her beloved husband and has avoided years of Alzeimer's and needing a caretaker. She lived until a couple of weeks of her 85th birthday. She had an extraordinary life, inspired many people, and was loved by many. I have a million memories to cherish, and her voice in my head when I'm unsure of how to speak or act. She hasn't left me. Not at all.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had a good talk with my therapist, who validates my feelings in a way that really helps me. I can't do this grieving on my own. As my friend says, I'm tribal. I am interconnected with many and this isolation thing is not easy, plus grieving for me means sharing with others. This morning I babysit for my six month old grandson while my daughter took the three year old to the dentist. Babysitting makes me feel useful and needed. Otherwise I contemplate my own mortality or something equally dire. Loss is hard to adjust to and sometimes my life just feels like a big gooey ball of loss: my parents, my brother, friends, my daughter, the absences are glaring. At my kids' weddings, the only blood relative was either my husband's sister (the first), none at the second, and my cousin at the last two. I can't produce family, which seems sad. My nuclear family has been gone completely for four years, but consisted only of my brother for the thirty years before that. How's that for whining? Maybe the therapist didn't help as much as I thought!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I will be able to zoom my Zen teacher's cremation ceremony in a couple of days. The question is, do I feel up to it? I am going to talk with my therapist by phone tomorrow, and I keep overestimating my capacity to "handle" things. Last week, zooming in on a remembrance ceremony for my daughter by her college, I felt deeply depressed after. Having her name read did not do anything for me except point out that when they got to her graduation year, she was the only one who had died, and they skipped whole years before and after. I want to be strong, but am I? I often read my grandson a story in Frog and Toad Together where they wonder if they are brave, and end up being brave together with toad in bed with the covers over his head and frog in the closet with the door shut. That's about how much confidence I have in my strength right now. I ate two brownies with sugar in them last night, and I am diabetic. I am a wreck. We will just see if I am able and willing to mourn my teacher at this moment. It could go either way.