Life Is Good

October 20, 2011 By

Buddha © Joan Z. Rough, 1998

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It’s a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs.

– Pema Chodron, “Stay with Your Broken Dreams”

At this moment I seem to be in that “off-center, in-between state” that Pema mentions in this quote.  It is an ideal situation with no bombs exploding in my life. I have little to complain about.  Though chaos and negative energy abounds around me, I feel healthy and happy.  I do what I can to stay positive in the midst of the darkness that seems to surround us all.  This is a place I love to inhabit.

But I also know nothing is forever and one of these days I could easily find myself deep in suffering again, showing anger, hostility, feeling pity for myself and wailing, “It’s not fair!” I’ll be bitchy and unpleasant to be around.  I believe that being in that place of deep shadows is okay.  It’s when I learn things about myself and what my choices are.

Once, as I was crying my way through therapy because my life felt like it was collapsing around me, my therapist told me, “You’re doing great!  When you feel this terrible, something’s gonna give.”  And it did.  Not right away, but down the road a bit, I realized I had choices.  I could keep clinging to my fears and anxiety or I could accept my pain, begin to let it all go, and find a sunnier place to live.  I understood that I am the only thing that I can change in my life.

Being in Pain, feeling glum, irate and anxious is part of the big picture and nothing to be ashamed of.  It happens to all of us as we wander down our paths.  One minute we’re in the sun, then clouds gather and we’re in what we think is our darkest moment. If we invite our demons in and sit with them, we’ll see that life is what it is.  We can add to the misery of the world or find a way to bring peace to ourselves and all of those around us.

Filed Under: Navigating Through Life, Wise Words

Longing

October 14, 2011 By

This frog who lives in my studio is always at peace.

“My mind works in idleness.  To do nothing is often my most profitable way.”

Viriginia Woolf

The peace I gathered and brought home from my recent retreat to the beach has worn off.  Until this week I was able juggle all that I needed and wanted to do without overwhelm.  But this week it hit me that suddenly the feeling of freedom had disappeared and my chronic dis-ease with too much to do with too little time, struck like a bolt of lightning.

Amidst dealing with a crew of painters working on the outside of my house, looking after an ailing dog, the daily stuff of laundry, and cooking, I’ve not been able to have extended moments of time to stare into space, when sweet epiphanies come my way and help me through the difficulties of writing and life.

I need time when there isn’t constant chatter going on just outside my window. I’ve had enough of men banging about with ladders and Molly and Sam responding with non-stop yapping in response.  It’s been going on and off for two weeks and because my studio is above the garage, and the only way I can get to it is up a flight of outdoor steps, I’m currently locked out and have had to drag my computer into the house to the guest room, where the elderly card table I’m using as a desk bounces about as I type

There is Bill, my beloved, in the next room, making phone calls and recording a CD of his lines in Act I of the play he will be acting in come December.  He’ll replay that darn thing until he’s learned his lines and then he’ll record Act II and begin again.  I long to be back in my studio where the peace and quiet I love lives.

We’ve had monsoon-like rains for the last several days and the painting, though mostly done, had once again been postponed until things dry out.  If the sun comes out and keeps shining this afternoon and tomorrow, the painters will come and put the final coat of paint on the studio stairs, finish up the doors and do a clean-up.  I’m praying that my last day in the guest room will be tomorrow and that by Sunday I’ll be at peace again, tucked away in the room I claim as my own.

Filed Under: Animals I Love, Life, Wise Words

My Donkey

October 9, 2011 By

“For most of us, and for most of modern culture, the body is principally seen as the object of our ego agendas, the donkey for the efforts of our ambitions. The donkey is going to be thin, the donkey is going to be strong, the donkey is going to be a great yoga practitioner, the donkey is going to look and feel young, the donkey is going to work eighteen hours a day, the donkey is going to help me fulfill my needs, and so on. All that is necessary is the right technique. There is no sense that the body might actually be more intelligent than “me,” my precious self, my conscious ego.”

Reginald Ray, Touching Enlightenment

Self Portrait taken while fooling around with my Ipad.

Found this the other morning in my mail box, one of the daily quotes I get from Daily Dharma, and wow, did it hit home.  My poor donkey is aging and tired a good part of the time and I realize I’ve been doing nothing but abusing her for years.

But what’s a donkey owner to do?

As I grow older, the days grow shorter and I need to get stuff done before I leave this planet.  I’ve beaten my donkey into pushing through the “To-D0” list, that seems to grow by leaps and bounds every day.  When she begs for a nap, eyes slowly closing, head nodding off then snapping upright again, I shake her, explaining that we must continue so that at least today’s to-dos are checked off.  If we don’t we might have start getting up at 5 AM.

In a new Yoga class just a few days ago, I felt embarrassed and ashamed in front of all of my friends, because my donkey couldn’t do what their donkeys were doing.  I wanted to be out front with the best.  Can an almost sixty-nine-year-old donkey be as good as a crowd of thirty-somethings?  Guess I need to go back to the Gentle Yoga class I was attending with girls my own age.

It’s not as if I don’t exercise on a daily basis.  I warm up each morning with a fifteen minute trot around the block with Molly and Sam.  Then if the creek hasn’t risen and the sun is shining, I take myself for a power walk, after which I do a thirty minute combo of stretching, body rolling, and Pilates.  If the weather is nasty, I’ll climb aboard the old cross-trainer in my studio.  Once a week I work out with my Pilates instructor.  She and my massage therapist tell me that my body is in a constant state of fight or flight.  So I added Gentle Yoga as an additional way of trying to get the kinks out,  stretching the tight tendons and learning further about relaxation.

What to feed my donkey?  Though I’m versed in healthy lifestyles, I can’t seem to get control when it comes to what is on her plate.  She’s always starving, loves fresh leafy greens, rice and fruit, but has been and could again become a raging sugar addict because of what I like to feed her.  Lot’s of sweet things like cupcakes.  Then there are salty things, like roasted cashews, and also cheese … a lovely sharp cheddar from Vermont.  Her digestive tract doesn’t feel too good when I make her eat lots of that stuff and she complains.  But it sure does taste good!

Bill and I recently attended a talk on SUGAR by Gary Taubes, whose books, Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat, gives us the low-down on what we’re doing to our donkeys as individuals and as a society.  By consuming the huge amount of sugar we do, we’re becoming a world of obese humans and susceptible to many more serious ailments like diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.  Bill has decided to give sugar up.  In six days, he lost 6 pounds without making any other changes.

For the moment, I’m doing okay with food, getting close to being vegetarian, but not giving up chicken, dairy or fish.  Last time I tried it I got very sick.  This time I’m studying India’s Science of Life, Ayurveda, and finding out what foods are good for my unique combinations of Doshas.  But it’s hard to give up those things that I love like the cashews, cheese and crunchy granola loaded with honey, even though my donkey tells me she feels much better without them.

Maybe if I give in to feeding her the things she really wants and needs, I can get her to work harder so we can get through the to-do list in record time!
Filed Under: Animals I Love, Healthy Living, Life, Wise Words

OnTraveling, Autumn Leaves,Trains and Ducks

October 5, 2011 By

Reid, Zed, Me with Mom in the background on our trip to Vermont.

When October comes, and colorful leaves begin to drop to the ground, I’m reminded of a trip I took one year with my family to Vermont.  It would be the first time I would find myself in the Green Mountain State, not knowing that one day I would move there and spend 20 precious years living amidst its spectacular beauty.

At the time of this trip I was living at Eaton’s Neck on Long Island and in eighth grade.  My parents rarely traveled, stuck in their roles as housewife and architect/building contractor, unable to afford going very far.  Our trips were mostly to New Jersey to see an aunt, uncle and cousins or to New York City for events like the circus.  They were always day trips, and by the end of each jaunt, us kids were tired, cranky, and just wanted to be home.

Mom and dad had always wanted to see New England in its autumn glory. So on the spur of the moment, on what promised to be a beautiful Columbus Day weekend we went on our first real overnight trip together.

We spent most of our first day in the car, reaching Bennington, in Southern Vermont, just as the sun was setting.  Dad tried to find us a hotel room for the night but there were none to be had. With three starving, unhappy children, he figured a meal was really the first order of the evening. After standing in line for an hour or more, we were finally seated while tourists from all over the country who had made prior reservations,were just finishing their meals.  My brother Reid, nodded off between bites while I just wanted to go home, where I could be less than the angel I was expected to be.

After dinner we headed out again in the car, looking for a room for the night.  On the advise my father had been given by a waiter at the restaurant, we drove out into the dark countryside, looking for what dad had been told was a blue-gray, barn-like structure where we would probably be able to talk the owners into renting us a room for the night.

After many twists and turns we finally found the place and settled into one room. There didn’t seem to be any heat, though there was warm, running water in the tiny bathroom.  Suffering from exhaustion I quickly fell asleep under several layers of blankets and a coat to keep me warm.

Sometime in the night, there was a thunderous, burst of sound. The building started to shake violently and even my parents were frightened by what turned out to be a freight train traveling on tracks right next to the building. Its long throaty call giving it away as it hurtled through the dark.  It happened again several hours later and then again just before the sun found it’s way over the edge of morning.  None of us had slept very well, though it was comforting to know that what we had feared was only a train, not some man-eating giant sweeping the land clean of all children and their parents.

Grumpy as we all were, we climbed into the car to try to find some breakfast.  It was a cold, sunny morning with silvery frost plating the grasses, goldenrod and other late-season wild flowers growing along the side of road.  Around a sharp turn we stopped to watch a cow in a small field, giving birth to her calf. Its small placenta encased body slipping into the chill of a new day.  The mother licked the calf clean as it wobbled to its legs, quickly finding the pink bag filled with warm, creamy milk.

We successfully found a place for breakfast, and spent the day wandering the narrow roads of what seemed like another country.  The leaves were brilliant in crayola colors: reds, orange, golds and yellow. A breathtaking painting of mountains, fields, and sky we drove right into.  We stopped at covered bridges, historical markers and began learning the history of this place, imagining what it might be like in the winter months buried deep in snow.  We found a small roadside mom and pop kind of restaurant, not bulging with rest of the world, and a slightly battered motel where we would spend the night before heading home the next day.  Here in the middle of some unknown land, I had my first taste of what real silence was.

The next evening, we arrived back home in time to feed the dog and three ducks that we had been given on the previous Easter by a friend.  They had grown from fuzzy yellow ducklings into sleek white adults over the summer months.  They layed eggs in odd corners of the yard and mom would gather them, giving them to the milkman in trade for milder chicken eggs.

My grandparents had agreed to visit while we were gone, to check on and feed the dog and the ducks.  The dog met us with a happy tail and little yelps welcoming us back, but the ducks were nowhere to be found.  Mom called my grandparents who told her that the ducks had disappeared the first day we were gone.  We searched, called neighbors and had no clue as to what might have happened to them. I grieved, missing their quack-chatter when they followed me around the yard.

It wasn’t until the following Sunday, when we went to my grandparent’s home for dinner that I understood what had happened.  After playing in the yard for a while, we were called in to a dinner of roast duck.  Needless to say, I refused to eat.  The pangs of hunger more welcome than the crisp taste of friendship.

P.S.  The ducks mentioned here are not the same ducks mentioned in my last post.

Filed Under: Animals I Love, stories, Travels

Commack: Robin

September 30, 2011 By

Dad is at work.  Mom has gone out for a while, leaving me in charge of my two brothers.  It’s a sun-drenched June morning. Tommy and Reid are outside playing in the sandbox with trucks and cranes. Suddenly they come running in yelling, “There’s a bird nest up in the oak tree. We think there are babies in it.”  By the time I get there, Tommy is half-way up the tree, eager to take a closer look at the tiny birds. They call in high-pitched cheeps as their mother circles above, a worm dangling from her beak.  With all of us looking up at her she doesn’t dare land on the nest. But her babies are ravenous for the worm-feast they know is on the way.

Tommy reaches the nest and reports that there are 3 baby birds in it.  Standing below, Reid and I want to see them too. But still a toddler, Reid can’t do the climb. I suggest that Tommy pick up one of the babies to show us.  He  does it, scrambling down the tree with a tiny ball of fluff tucked in one hand.

“What are you doing?” Mom, stands dumbstruck, watching as Tommy makes it back to the ground, handing her the tiny bird. Its head is bald with eyes shut tight, a few tiny pin feathers sprouting along the sides of the head where one imagines the ears might be. The rest of the round pink body is covered with downy feathers. The baby’s beak is open wide, waiting for a meal, unaware that he has suddenly entered the world of humans.

Mom tells us that we can not return “Robin” to his nest: his mother would abandon him, as he now carries the scent of humans. Mom is very mad at us. She calls us Nest Robbers. “Not only do I have three troublemaking kids to care for, but now a starving bird.”

But that is nothing new.  When it comes to animals of any kind, Mom has a heart about the size of the moon and will try to ease the suffering of any creature in need.  By the time we move from the house in Commack, we will have raised a litter of Daschund/Basset Hound puppies, three ducklings who would eventually die in the jaws of a neighbor’s dog, a crow named Henry, as well as a racoon, both of whom went back to living in the wild.

Robin would spend most of the summer in our kitchen.  His feathers grew in, and he loved to bathe and splash in a saucer of warm water.  We layed boards on the ground, under which worms, pill bugs and all sorts of insects gathered.  Perfect food for a growing bird!!  He learned to fly on his own from chair to chair, then across the room and into the next. We’d follow close behind with rags, scooping up his white, chalky poop.

Summer came to an end and it was clearly time to introduce him back into the wild. Mom explained that he needed to fly south with the rest of his kind to spend the winter in a warmer place.  When we opened a kitchen window, he flew out into the cedar tree that grew just outside.  If we closed the window, he’d peck at the glass and squawk, wanting to get back in. Eventually he took to exploring the yard and if we were outside he’d fly around us, landing on our shoulders.  While he was out exploring, we would leave a plate of food for him, along with a saucer of water on a shelf just outside the window. He always came back in the house for the night.

One day, after a heavy rain, Robin was nowhere to be found. Heartbroken, we searched and searched, sure that he’d finally flown off.  At the end of the day, I found him in a barrel of water, his wings extended to keep him afloat.  He was fine, but we dumped the barrel of water over so it wouldn’t happen again.

When school started in September, Robin was still hanging around, coming in at night, and depending on us for food.  One late September afternoon, I came home to find my mother in tears.  She told me that Robin was gone.  He hadn’t flown off with his wild kin, he had died.  Mom had been gathering worms for him from under one of the boards.  When she let the board drop back onto the ground, she didn’t realize that Robin had just landed next to her, gathering his own meal.

I still grieve the loss of that dear, innocent bird, but I learned important lessons as well. As an adult I know that a baby bird will not be abandoned by its parents even when handled by a human.  Keeping wild animals in one’s home is illegal. A license to do so is required. If one should find a baby bird on the ground, it should be returned to its nest quickly. If that isn’t possible a call to a wildlife center, like The Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary, near Charlottesville, where the orphan will be raised with other birds and minimal human contact.  When it’s grown and found to be healthy, the bird will be  returned to the wild, close to where it was originally found.

I wrote this story especially for my brother, Tommy, who we now call Zed.  He recently sent me the photo below and when I asked if I could post it on my blog, he said I could if I would write a story about some of the pets and wild animals we had as kids.

Zed with his beloved companion, Mousse, going for a bike ride!

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized
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