
My altar
It has been a difficult start to 2023. Already, toward the end of 2022, I noticed I was not moving and exercising nearly as much as I should. However, I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel like running. I didn’t feel like taking walks most days either, though I would typically try and get out around the lake while at work. I know I’m in mourning. Will always be in some form of mourning. Have been in mourning for so long. I come back to my brother’s death so often—how there was hope and then there was none. Mom lived with her diagnoses for many many years. Dad lived with his for three. There’s a level of processing that happens during those years that doesn’t take away the grief, but provides time to reflect, prepare. I have had a number of dreams since Gary’s death where I’m sure he’s not dead but just lost. In one, I was looking for him and thought I heard him in another room and was frantic to see him to let him know that people thought he was dead, but I knew he wasn’t. In another—a dream when I was in the throes of covid—I was sitting with him and told him I didn’t think he was dead, but that he had just been misplaced in another dimension. Basically, my heart is broken. But one doesn’t get through life without a heart broken into pieces over and over.
And 2023 started with covid. On 12/30/22 I thought I had a sinus infection and didn’t give it a second thought. At 2:15 a.m. on 12/31/22, I woke up and felt a blockiness in my chest—like a lung full of congestion. I leapt out of bed and took a test that came back positive almost immediately (I barely had to wait 3 minutes to see the positive line). I took another, thinking something might be off with a test that turned positive so quickly, but the second one did the same. I moved into the guest room to quarantine and spent a hellacious week in there. I had heard from friends that their experience with covid was mild, but mine was definitely not. Coughing wasn’t the primary symptom though it was one. It was mostly my head and sinuses and body aches. My faithful companion Jojo seldom left my side, which I appreciated so much. She left only to eat and potty and then came right back and stayed by my side. Spence took a photo of me asleep with Jojo sitting next to me, looking over her shoulder at him. I didn’t know he took it at the time (a perk/con of living with a photojournalist), but when he showed it to me after I was better, I was shocked at the fact that I looked ready for the coffin. Completely drained of color. I did survive, happily, and am so grateful to my immune system, but that time being beaten up from the inside out as my immune system fought the covid virus did not leave me feeling ready to get up and move my body once the fight was over. I was tired for days and days, even after I was ostensibly over covid. And I am better today than I have been, but still dragging a bit when it comes to exercising for its own sake. Last week, Spence and I went on a 4.3 mile hike and I felt invigorated when we were finished, but also thirsty and a bit achey. I came home and slept for 2 hours. The question I’m looking at now is how do I return to a routine of movement? One that I look forward to again? (The cold weather doesn’t inspire me to get outside, unless I’m heading to the woods.) Considering a treadmill, but maybe a space for resistance work is better? I don’t know.
In late 2022, I spoke with my therapist at length about grief, my brother, mom and dad, and how sometimes it feels like I don’t have anyone anymore, even as I know that’s untrue. I have Spence, who is my favorite person on this earth, and terrific friends. But losing your entire nuclear family is unmooring. I miss them all the time. She and I discussed the future and finding things to look forward to or setting goals. She reminded me of some work goals I had set and met in an earlier timeframe, and when I turned 40, that was the year of running and getting to my first half-marathon. Some weeks after that conversation, I realized what I wanted to turn my attention to more fully: Buddhism. I have been informally studying and reading about Buddhism since I was 16, when I was introduced to it by the Beat writers. It has always, always resonated with me deeply and helped me in so many ways when my parents were living with cancer—remembering to live in the moment and not to get carried away by what ifs. Not an easy balance to strike, and I wasn’t always successful, but it was there as a guiding light. When I lived in South Florida, I remember driving by a Buddhist temple on my way to an assignment and thinking how much I’d like to stop, but being too intimidated—I didn’t know what kind of rituals were required before walking in. When I knew we were relocating to our current town, one of the first searches I did (outside of vegan restaurants) was for Buddhist temples. There is one only 20 minutes from my house and it is a Zen temple, going back to the roots of my first introduction! I started attending some online meditation sessions in late 2021 (online sessions were a covid precaution), but didn’t get into the habit. Then I spent 2022 preoccupied with Gary and his diagnosis. In his absence, and in realizing all the people who are gone from my life now, I realized this may be the perfect time to fully turn my attention to Buddhism. It has been in my life as a thread all along, but now, at mid-life, I could practice it and study it more intentionally. The fact that this house is likely our home base for the rest of our lives (even if we snowbird it to a second home) and it’s only 20 minutes from a Zen Buddhist temple fills me with gladness. I enjoy all the teachers and have been to the Koan Cafes, the Heart of Buddhist teachings, and join their morning and evening meditation 2-4 times a week. I hope to take the precepts at some point when the time is right. It’s also nice to be building a community nearby. At one of the sutra services, the Five Remembrances was chanted and that night I wrote it down and hung it above the altar I have dedicated to my deceased loved ones. I think some may read this and feel sad/pessimistic, but, for me, this is the essence of it all. Recognizing that nothing lasts forever is what makes the current moment so luscious and beautiful—it’s going by quickly. Soak it all up.
The Five Remembrances
(Shakyamuni Buddha, from the Upajjhatthana Sutta)
{I am of the nature to grow old;}
There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health;
There is no way to escape having ill health.
I am of the nature to die;
There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature of change;
There is no way to escape being separated from them.
My deeds are my closest companions.
I am the beneficiary of my deeds;
My deeds are the ground on which I stand.