Asian Chronicles-2

China 2 Beijing - 9/28/2012

“The restaurant opens at six o'clock,” Derek said before sending us to our rooms. “Some of you will be up at four - so you can come to the restaurant at six.” Mom and I arrived at 0545. The wait staff kindly seated us and served coffee while they finished assembling the breakfast buffet.

“I wanted you kids to be captivated by China like I was,” she said. “When I first came to China and saw all this; I've never been more proud to be Chinese.” 

Mom was a teenager when WWII fractured a flawless Hawaiian sky and descended like swarming wasps upon a quiet, Sunday morning. They watched Zeros dive-bomb Pearl Harbor from the roof of the family home near Chinatown. After that, ostracism of all Orientals became ubiquitous and unavoidable. Mom moved to Florida for a tour of duty with my Dad and the US Navy, where their inter-racial marriage was not recognized. 

Mom has felt the sting of racial bias seldom experienced by Caucasians. Arriving in China for the first time imbued her with a sense of ethnic pride, a these are my people sense of belonging. Raised in a large, Chinese family with traditions of a Cantonese-speaking Popo (grandmother), I understand this well. I too feel the Chinese are my people, though they might disagree.

Breakfast was the wonderful, international buffet commonly found in better hotels across Asia. Its menu included Chinese: congee (rice porridge) flavored with pork, pi dan (fermented duck egg), chicken, or plain; dim sum, fried rice, seasonal fruit (predominantly dragon, cantaloupe, and watermelon), and tea-boiled eggs. Japanese: sashimi, nori-maki (rice with veggies and/or fish rolled in seaweed), miso soup, pickled vegetables. Noodle chef for making Asian soups. American: egg/omelet chef, bacon, cereal, milk, pastries, pancakes, waffles. European: bangers, roasted tomatoes, pastries, croissants, crusty bread, preserved meats and cheeses.

The tour book read: Beijing is the nation’s political, economic, cultural, and educational center as well as China’s most important center for international trade and communications. ...Beijing is one of six ancient cities in China.

We gathered in the lobby and were sorted by lanyard color into the red (lanyard) bus or green (lanyard) bus. It then became clear, red lanyards were on the extended tour floating the Yangste River. 

Our tour of Beijing began on the green bus with local guide Angela - a 30-ish sylph with a deprecating, ingratiating way. “Ne hou?” she said over a microphone. “That means good morning or hello. Can you say ne (knee) hou (how)?” 

“Ne hou,” we chorused.

Chinese language now refers to Mandarin but China includes over 50 recognized Chinese minorities, most with their own language. There are eleven major Chinese languages and each has multiple dialects and sub-dialects. 

When the last dynasty toppled in 1911, there was no national language and in many ways, China remained as fractured as before Emperor Qin (the First Emperor, pronounced Chin) conquered six neighboring countries and unified them in 221 BCE. In 1913, the intelligentsia and new government proclaimed the Beijing Guanhua (Mandarin) dialect the national standard and language. Controversy erupted as Mandarin is filled with words from assimilated northern peoples and is considered impure Chinese. The argument for Cantonese was that it is closely related to classical Chinese, more pure. Nonetheless, Mandarin was spoken more broadly for it served as the lingua franca for centuries and with it, it was thought the entire nation could be unified linguistically within 100-years. In actuality, one century later, schools continue to instruct using local languages and Mandarin is studied as the universal language, like a foreign language.

Mandarin uses four tones; Cantonese uses six. Tones lend the sing-song quality to the languages. Change the intonation; change the word. 

This tonemap helps visualize the four pitches of Mandarin. To correctly pronounce ne hou, the word ne (knee) is level, or the first tone. The word hou (how?) employs the 2nd tone, intoned up as if asking a question. Nē hoú.

“Ne hou,” Angela repeated. “Good, very good. You are quick learners. How do you say I'm good?”

“Hou,” I said with others. Her eyes widened and mouth gaped in surprise. “Oh you Hawaii people are very smart,” her voice warmed with her smile. “Hou is good. If you want to say its very good you say ding hou. If you want to say something is extremely good, you say ding-ding hou.” Someone giggled at the back of the bus. Ding-ding has a different meaning in the islands; not extremely good, ding-ding means penis.

“So how was your breakfast this morning?” Angela paused then responded to someone nearby, “Ding hou? Oh, ding-ding hou!” She was baited by another. She beamed and was visibly pleased with the report that breakfast was ding-ding hou but her look of puzzlement grew with our laughter. “What? Tell me,” she pleaded. 

I watched her listen intently to an explanation at the front of the bus. Angela gasped and covered her mouth, “Oh you people are nasty!” A roar of laughter filled the bus and ding-ding hou became our categoric response until Peter taught us ma-ma-hoo-hoo in Xi'an - but that is a different story for another day.

Our bus crawled onto a freeway - that at 9am - was bumper-to-bumper. “How many people do you think live in Beijing?” Angela asked. We hollered out numbers. “Oh, that's too much,” she scolded with a feigned scowl. “Nineteen million,” she corrected. “They say 15-million is perfect but we have 19-million so travel into Beijing is restricted. You cannot move to Beijing without a job.”

A BMW sedan nearly grazed us as it squeezed in and passengers on the right cried out. “Don't look,” Angela instructed, covering her eyes. “That's why we call our bus drivers sher-fu. You know sher-fu?” Yes we did, we are from Hawaii and we are Donnie Chen fans. We know sher-fu means master, most commonly - kung-fu master. 

That bus drivers are called sher-fu is two-fold: first, they are masterful drivers negotiating large buses through treacherous traffic tangles. (While Beijing's freeways might have four delineated and painted lanes, actual traffic lanes may number six or seven!) In Xi'an, Peter explained that Chinese drivers are inexperienced and drive as the spirit moves them. Yikes! Secondly, many - including our driver - labor away from home for six months or more, so like a kung-fu master before battle - if they are faithful, they are celibate. They earn the title sher-fu.

“We have many joint-ventures with foreign companies in China now,” Angela continued. “That BMW was made here in China. We have Buick, Hundai, and VW.”

“Beijing is like your Washington DC. You are going to Shanghai later? That is our financial center, like your New York City.” 

H2O Cube

Olympic Torch

“What's that?” Angela pointed to a structure on her left. “Yes, the Bird-nest. Did you watch the Olympics in Beijing? Very good. The Bird-nest holds 90,000 people and is the largest stadium in the world.” Of course it is, I thought. 

“What's that next to it? Yes, the Water Cube, the aquatic center for all the water events.” We looked at a silver, cuboidal building covered in fluffy, convex squares. “The skin of the Water Cube is plastic. The outside coating? Plastic. Your Michael Phelps swam there. Did you watch him swim? Yes, he is ding hou.”

“Ding-ding hou!” we insisted, causing Angela’s color to rise with a chuckle.

“Your hotel, The Trader's? It was built for the 2008 Olympics. It is on the east side of Concentric Road.” Beijing has many concentric roads that encircle the city in concentric rings. The concentrics are bisected by connectors, roads to ease Beijing's 24-hour flow of newly minted cars piloted by Spirit.

Angela filled our drive with the facts, figures, customs, and history of Beijing.

You might remember Peking? When Mandarin was adopted as the national language, many names were officially changed to their Mandarin equivalents - and Peking became Beijing.

Beijing is located on a plain surrounded by the Yan Mountains. The Yans create a bowl that cradles smog until its scrubbed clean by wind or rain. It had stormed the previous day; the sky was sunny and bright. 

“You Hawaii people brought Hawaii weather with you,” Angela exclaimed.  And so it was for the entire sixteen days - bright, warm days arose with the sunny people of Hawaii such that every local guide commented on the wonderful state of the weather.

We drove to the Emperor's Summer Palace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace and as we neared, Angela began with its tales. "The Summer Palace Yíhé Yuán, the Gardens of Nurtured Harmony, was built during the Quing Dynasty, 250 years ago. Its two dominant features, Kunming Lake and Longevity Hill, are manmade. Kunming Lake is the world's largest man-made lake (Of course it is, I thought again), covering 2.2 square kilometers." 
     Like all of China's antiquities, the lake was manmade, handmade, hand dug by calloused hands and sweated brow of Chinese peasants. The soil excavations were used to build Longevity Hill. Its purpose - to provide relief from inclement summers within the Forbidden City. Both Palaces were occupied until the Qing (pronounced Ching) Dynasty was overthrown by Sun Yat Sen's democratic government in 1911. 

The Empress Dowager or Dragon Lady was its most infamous occupant. She was the last to rebuild the Summer Palace in 1902. She siphoned millions for the restoration from the Navy just six-years before the First Sino-Japanese War - which China lost. Talk about David and Goliath! 

The Palace is a garden and like all Chinese gardens, strives for the harmony of four essential elements: water (yin), rock (yang), flora, and architecture. In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace “a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design.” 

Angela & Yang Fu Dog

We disembarked and Angela unfurled a light green flag atop a meter-long, collapsible rod, like an old pointer used prior to the advent of laser pointers. We would follow this green flag throughout China for it would be passed like a baton, from one local tour guide to the next. 

“Turn on your receiver,” she instructed. In addition to name tags on green lanyards, we also wore small receivers that hung from a blue, synthetic cord. We donned earphones and heard Angela clearly. “Alohaaa - green bus; follow me.”

Yin Fu Dog w/cub

The entrance gate is guarded by two enormous Fu Dogs. Fu Dogs are paired lions - one female, one male - representing both Yin and Yang. They seem identical in every way, one foot propped atop a ball. But under Yin's foot, that ball is a cub rounded playfully on its back. I have seen Fu Dogs my entire life, looked at thousands of them, and have never seen that cub! You know, we look without seeing.

Ancient symbol for Dragon

The most ancient symbol for Dragon, dating back 2000 years, is C-shaped with a dorsal scale and was sculpted in green flowers. The dragon is yang to the phoenix yin. Typically, he is a four-footed, scaled, and wingless serpent and the symbol of power, strength, and good luck. Just two days before the Moon Festival, a national holiday, the city was bedecked, bejeweled, and bedazzled in flowers and this floral symbol of Dragon was our first example of hundreds to come. I have seen this symbol many times with unknowing eyes; now I know.

Raised thresholds keep evil spirits out; their height denotes rank and stature as do the ornamental roof corners. The Palace entrance thresholds were approximately 12-inches high and spanned three doorways.  In ancient times, the central door was for the Emperor only. That tradition was upheld for decades following the collapse of the Qing Dynasty but no longer. A group of school children in matching uniforms entered the Palace willy-nilly; I carefully stepped over the Emperor's threshold with mindfulness to its station in history. 

The Palace grounds are dotted with bronze statues of mythical creatures and imported rocks from sacred lakes. The worlds largest man-made lake is home to a floating lotus garden and the Marble Boat (Qing Yan Fang - Boat of Purity and Ease). 

Pavilion ceiling

We traversed sections of the Long Corridor barely stopping to appreciate its grandeur. The Long Corridor was commissioned in 1750 by Emperor Qianlong so his mother could stroll through the gardens year round.  It is 728 meters or 2,388 feet or 0.45 miles long. Log crossbeams divide it into 273 sections and four octagonal pavilions. Its wood members are richly adorned with 14,000 paintings depicting scenes of classical Chinese literature, folk tales, historical and legendary figures, famous buildings and landscapes, flora and fauna. Long Corridor is the longest painted corridor in the world. Of course it is, I thought yet again.

“Five-star toilets,” Angela sold them like a barker at a carnival. Step right up folks, gichyer five-star western toilets that are clean and comfortable. We got toilet paper, we got seat covers. Git em right here, right now!  Five star means  toilet paper is stocked as are seat covers for western toilets. This location had two western toilets. 
     “Chinese people prefer squatty-pottys,” Angela said, “Because they consider them more hygienic. You’re not sitting on a seat; you’re not touching anything.” Ah, the bulb of understanding was lit. I don’t mind squatty-pottys, in fact, I highly recommend them to maintain limberness and strength - but that’s me.

Do you know the Chinese do not have the rate of falls, hip/femur fractures, and death by subsequent pneumonia of western countries. Wanna know why? Squatty-pottys keep them limber and flexibility is the difference between recovering one’s balance or falling. Squatty-pottys man, I’m telling you, install one for longevity and good health - but I digress as I am wont to do.

Apparently there were a great many western toilets installed preceding the Olympics. Now bathroom doors picture a western toilet if one is installed and many bathrooms have at least one.

“Lady, lady; you lye hat?” The street vendors pounced thick as thieves as we exited the Palace and made our way to the bus. “Ten dollah. Okay, okay, foh you lady? Speshow price jes foh you; fy dollah. You lye? Fy dollah! So cheap lady!”

Asian Chronicles-1

Getting There 9/26/2012

“How’s preparations for China going?” my friends asked.
    “I have a suitcase parked at the edge of my living room - at which I throw things,” I replied. Two-days before departure, I laid it out in an organized fashion. I would be traveling for 24-days; what did I really need? Passport - check. Camera - check. Wilderness and Travel Medicine handbook - check. Two skorts and long-sleeved shirts - check. Bikini and sarong - check, check. Sling-shot, sock monkey for sister Gina - check. 

I set my out of office response: Traipsing through China, hanging in Hong Kong, munching in Macau. Ne hou ma? Email communication is best. A hui hou kakou! and boarded Hawaiian Air for Honolulu. There I joined my family and our tour group.

Early the next morning, I donned the forest-green, "Grande Holiday" lanyard holding my name-tag. At 10am people congregated along the wall at Korean Air’s check-in counter. Decibels grew steadily with the crowd. 

Lael, Mom, Gina, Michael, Collin

Mom had signed on with a small tour of twenty - perfect - but Air and Sea Travel had tossed our tour into a larger one. Some lanyards were green, others red; I knew not why. The group grew to eighty. Many were elderly and I felt some relief for my niece and nephew upon spotting a few twenty-somethings wearing name-tags. Most travelers had lunched in Chinatown on September first - for a tour debriefing. There I presume, they met our guide Derek. 

Derek is a slight man of Chinese descent. He wore a striped pull-over, faded jeans, and Keen sandals. Mostly Derek lives in hotels and out of suitcases. His wife and children however, live in Beijing while he straddles the dateline. His English is heavily accented in a way that is both familiar and homey.

Derek gathered us round, "They change the plane; I like this one better, it's bigger. We have ten rows. The seats are arranged two and four and two. Yup? Alright? Two, four, and two,” his fingers, extended overhead, reconfigured themselves from two, to four, to two.  “So married couples can sit together - two; easy. And one can have the window and one can have the aisle and you can switch so no one is trapped. Okay? Alright? And if you are in the middle four, you can go out on the right or on the left." His hand waved, gesturing right, then left. "Okay? Alright?"

I was reminded of a friend who passed his camera to an oncoming hiker for picture-taking. "You look through the little hole here," he said stating the obvious, "And you push the  little button there." That my eyes weren't captured rolled to the welkin was pure luck.

Derek continued, "The alcohol on board is free. You can have red wine or white wine. They will show it to you and you can tell them. Please enjoy but DO NOT GET DRUNK," he giggled, softening his caveat. Yup, okay, alright Derek.

My nephew Collin, a big, Hawaiian kid, mimicked, "If you in da middle, you can exit right oh lef. Alright? Okay?" We giggled our way to security.

We flew a newer, Korean Airlines airbus A330 with individual eight-inch LCD screens and USB ports for charging. We would travel 9.5 hours and 4,549 miles, crossing the dateline into a Korean evening nineteen hours ahead of Hawaiian-time. I watched several movies, made preliminary journal notes, and cracked the cover on a new and highly recommended book, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

    In preparation, I loaded my iPod Shuffle with favorite instrumentals - classic and modern - purely for escape and relaxation. I downloaded three audio-books into my iPad and iPhone. I however, still gravitate to paper and The Corrections was no exception. So when I say crack the cover, I do mean it.

    The Corrections is a best seller, winner of the National Book Award, and Pulitzer Prize finalist. It was also a recent finalist for NPR's top 100 by American novelists. It is a must read for those who are or have aging parents. Did I get everyone? Within its pages I felt revealed and known and expressed and celebrated and devastated and illuminated and transformed.

    Many hours later, we processed through Incheon International Airport in Seoul, Korea to catch our connecting flight to Beijing. It was 11pm Hawaiian time. Incheon was clean and spacious, its surfaces gleamed, its air - fresh. These features hardly impressed me at the time but would assume new shimmer and shine upon my return.

    Our China Airlines carrier was lackluster after the Korean airbus, sans individual LCD screens and USB ports. Domestic carriers, even in the states, have few amenities. We landed in Beijing at 6pm local time and 3am Hawaiian time. Darkness fell as we collected luggage and cleared customs.

    The barricade outside Receiving was lined with eager greeters including, not surprisingly, Starbucks. Our bus awaited two-blocks away, across a densely packed street that rose in resentful and incessant blaring at the mere notion of stopping to let 80 people cross. We negotiated uneven and unlit sidewalks, shiny with rain, and waited in the bus while the lost were found.

    My head spun and circled on approach for landing on a Beijing pillow at approximately 9pm local time,  6am Hawaiian time - after a full 25-hours of wakefulness. I was tired but with the jittery alertness that comes with sleep deprivation and a body driven by will and necessity.

Welcome to Neurology

I sent a text to a small audience: Got z call! I’m top o z list and I accepted! So z factor that most affects a start date is z re-credentialing pkg. Mahalo!!! U may un-pretzel now! (keepg all appendages crossed). More soon!!! Xoxo   ~L

Amid the yippees, yee-haws, and congratulatory texts, one stood out at the end of the day: SUPER NEWS!!!! Congratulations and welcome to Neurology. Welcome to Neurology... they can’t take it back now; can they?

After a six-year hiatus, I would soon return to Kaiser Permanente (KP) as a Nurse Practitioner (NP). I held my breath and spoke not a word. Beyond that core group of friends, I shared the news with no one. I waited in disbelief, bracing for the call rescinding the offer with sincerest apologies for their error. When a week had passed without retraction, I told my Mom and called my manager.

“This has been a great place for me to land,” I said. “It expanded me and in doing so, it expanded the NP team at Mercy General, where we now manage the diabetes of all post-op open-hearts.” The ripple effect through my life is seldom so clear. “But it is one of my heart’s greatest desires to work as a nurse practitioner for Kaiser.”

“I understand,” she said, “Were I in your shoes, I’d do the same. You have been an asset to this department and we will miss you.” Ditto.

Six years ago, my job with Kaiser's Hospital Based Service (the internist group that cares for hospitalized patients) was mortally wounded by line-item veto during a budget battle. I found employment as a staff RN in the ED (Emergency Dept.) overnight. A year later, I moved into diabetes management where I have flourished in an expanded-RN position. But an expanded-RN role is far from an NP role.

Saturdays at the General, I round independently, write orders, confer with other clinicians, and sometimes call for specialist consultations. Mondays at KP, my orders require approval and a doctor’s signature. The weekly demotion is acute, the loss of status - sometimes humiliating.

In a recent conversation, a physician said, “Your diabetes work is inspired, and authentic, and transparent. You’ve found expression there, and joy, and it enlivens you. It’s kind of a sweet spot.” 

“Yes,” I nodded.

“I am wondering how you reconcile this sweet spot as you look about for something else in your want to work as a nurse practitioner.”

“Well, you know,” I started slowly, “There is growing where I'm planted AND I am not my circumstance. The quality of my life will not be determined by my circumstance... and sometimes it is.”

“So you have a commitment to growing where you’re planted?” 

“Yeah, I guess,” I cast a long, backward look through my memory. “It’s always kinda been that way. Growing where I’m planted is certainly one way I live and I am intrinsically happy; I make lemonade. There is also recognizing when I am planted in fallow ground. My life is not a spectator sport. If I can’t play ball, if I can’t put down roots to nurture me, I’ll take my ball elsewhere.”

Diabetes Management had been anything but fallow ground.

If I knew then what I know now... I turned my nose up at two jobs in 2005-2006. One job involved migraines. Migraines? Does that have anything to do with the heart? 

Pause in think: When my favorite cardiovascular surgeon is particularly playful, he will respond to my questions saying, “Wait a minute, does this have anything to do with anything between the zenith of the aortic arch and diaphragm? Hmm? Then why are you asking me?” At which time we bust a gut. Thus my tangential, rhetorical question regarding migraines. But I digress.

The other job involved caring for Kaiser patients in skilled nursing facilities - the smells of which make me wretch, while managing monthly blood work held little appeal to daily, even hourly labs.

But if I knew then what I know now... that the KP tide would turn from NPs and I was in for a six year drought through which I would work split days-off to keep a particular skill-set alive. 

“I’m proud of you, at your persistence and creativity in the face of disappointment,” my friend said.

Yes, I’ve made lemonade and enticed many into drinking the Kool-Aid. Its been fun, rewarding, expanding, all that... and underneath it all has been my deep and sometimes despairing disappointment in not working for KP as an NP.

So its back to from expert to novice yet again for me. This is what I noticed... fear.

Fear that my friends Jack and Rochelle (neurologists both) will find out that I’m not very smart, and not all that teachable, and stubborn, and argumentative, and that all my work in diabetes was flukey and coincidental. Basically, I fear they will find out I’m a fake.

“Oh,” Blake said, “You’re suffering from the Imposteur Syndrome.”

“Impostor Syndrome; what’s that?”

“The Imposteur Syndrome,” he explained, “Usually felt by someone who has taken on something big and it’s working. They feel a little out of their league, hence a fake. And they are usually playing a bigger game.”

“Yep, that’d be me, z imposteur.”

Self-censoring internal dialogue - we all have it and it flares, fanned by circumstance. They’ll find out I’m a fake is some version of I’m not good enough - a primordial conversation for human being along with: There’s something wrong, I don’t belong, and I’m on my own. 

When these conversations run hidden in the background like elevator music... ever leave an elevator humming the song that played within? It’s so subtle. When self-censoring, internal dialogue plays in the background without our awareness (Landmark calls this undistinguished), and our actions and decisions are based upon disempowering beliefs about ourselves and others... life can be reflexive and knee-jerk.

In a recent training THE take-home message for me was this: A key aspect of integrity is knowing how I occur for myself.

How I occur for myself is like a brown pair of shoes at a black-tie affair, like an imposteur, a fake. How that manifests is that I withhold and keep secrets because if I told you of the fourteen patients who have weaned themselves from insulin and countless others who have lost weight and take a fraction of their previous medications, you might look deeper and finding that some have backslid - deem me a charlatan.

On a conscious, rational level, I know that inspiring and motivating people into new action is no different from that which supports them once change is made. However, my workflow does not include both. I am paid to do one and work in the other steals time from that for which I am paid. So I move people to take action but once they achieve the goal, I work elsewhere. 

And truly - if I didn’t have this justification, this human being would likely find another. My Landmark training helps me distinguish that the entire conversation is in service of: I feel like a brown pair of shoes at a black-tie affair. When I can see that, when it is distinguished, I can set my concerns for hiding, faking, and looking good aside to share my excitement in life with others.

It takes enormous courage to try out new ways of being in the face of fear and by choosing to do so, we become less reflexive and more author of our own experience. Choosing requires courage - and courage leads to the ontological discussions of being. 

Ultimately, there IS no reconciliation with where I am and what I want. Sometimes, rarely, I have been resigned that I might never work for KP as an NP. Nonetheless, I show up and play. The venue may change but my heart is not tied to the venue. My heart is tied to being: who I get to be and how I get to play. 

As it turns out - my new playground is spelled NEUROLOGY.

Those who know me well, know this as my creed, BaconiOS, if you will:

A person who is a master in the art of living makes little distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their mind and their body, their education and their recreation, their love and their religion. They hardly know which is which, they simply pursue their vision of excellence and grace, whatever they do, leaving others to decide whether they are working or playing. To them they are always doing both. ~ Lawrence Pearsall Jacks

I must be re-credentialed at KP. The background checks should fly as I am a KP employee and currently working as an NP (thus possess a DEA number, furnishing license, etc.) Ultimately, the credentialing process allows me to write orders, prescriptions, and bill for my work. It is a two-three month paper-chase. I now await arrival of the tome, a two-inch-thick packet from Human Resources.

Realistically, I expect to land in Neurology (fingers crossed) in November.

Mahalo for your support through these many years. 

Play on and I’ll keep ya posted!

Mating in Captivity ~ Unlocking Erotic Intelligence

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know 

how to replenish its source. - Anaïs Nin 

I have just read a riveting page turner, Mating in Captivity - Unlocking Erotic Intelligence. Written by couples and family therapist Esther Perel, I’d say its underlying question is (in the words of Dan Fogelberg), How do we make love stay? 

“Monogamy easily slides downward into celibacy,” Perel asserts, and relational celibacy is seldom, mutually acceptable. Perel examines long-term relationships beneath an uncommon lens, dissects common pitfalls, and builds bridges back to love, sex, and eros where sex and eroticism are not equivalents. 

Many marriages simmer in resignation, enduring versus endearing. Entrenched behaviors and disempowering forms of communication create callous combatants versus convivial compadres. “I’m often amazed at how couples can be up on the minute details of each other’s lives, but haven’t had a meaningful conversation in years.”

Over time, we build barriers in lieu of bridges and our relational dance floor becomes  increasingly cordoned by the taboo. We point to our boundaries, training others to avoid  the out-of-bounds. We don’t address drunkeness or acerbity that reopen festering wounds. We waltz around sensitive topics and the elephant in the room. 

Bridge-building occurs in dialogue - dialoguing through the minefield of fantasy and fear - getting nakeder than naked.

What Perel lacks is access to ontology - the nature of being and relational technology that allows partners to see the impact of their being-ness and behavior on the other, the ability to step outside oneself and become what Eckhart Tolle labeled the watcher.  Without that, partners can stay very, very stuck, entrenched in the rightness of positions and perspectives. You wanna be right or you wanna be happy? So while I agree with bridge-building, from a Landmark perspective, her methods lack trusses and bolts. 

Nonetheless, it is a powerful book and in its reading I gained appreciation for the difficulties of relationship and the capacities, or lack thereof, of its constituents.

“Your friends, don’t understand how you could let your life devolve to a state where you have no partner and aren’t interested in one,” she said.

“We were put here to be in relationship,” he said. “What about you Lorin; when are you going to be in relationship?”

“When I meet someone who inspires me to it,” I defended.

I defend myself weekly and weakly against the onslaught asserting that I should be dating or in partnership or seeking partnership.

I hear their concern and... I have gobs of relationships. If there is one thing growing-up in a large, extended, Asian family teaches - it is to be in relationship. But that is not what my friends point to and against which I defend.

To some degree, I agree with them. Should you have told me that seven years later I would have no real appetite for an intimate, romantic relationship, I would have disagreed. Nonetheless, there it is. I have no explanation other than I have no heart for it. And that, my friends, cannot be conjured ... so I defend. 

Dating to placate my friends or to meet some mythical deadline seems pure folly. I am not lonely or lacking. I am whole without a man. It is what it is.

“I’m a happening guy, I’m cool, I read,” one gentleman asserted while lamenting he lacked “Yummy Man” status. And he is cool ... but he lacks tools and is unwilling to acquire them. Pouting and defending one’s unwillingness to have conversations for workability and alignment is certainly one way ...

“You don’t have a TV?” he looked surprised. “You mean we can’t have a TV in our bedroom? That’s a deal-breaker.” Whew! Was my sigh of relief audible?

“My wife can’t have conversations like that. She can’t hear them and she can’t be with them.”

“C’mon!” my voice rose, “You can’t set things up? Frame them and have conversations for alignment and workability?”

“No,” his head shook. “No,” he reiterated more forcefully when I my jaw gaped and eyes popped. “And pointing out where communication doesn’t work is perceived as nagging. There’s all the make wrong and ... baggage,” he gave me a pained, pinched look.

“That SUCKS Cameron.”

“Uh-huh,” he nodded with an expression that unequivocally said, Yeah, so what?

If life is indeed created in language, then I seek someone who can language an intention to create and recreate love on-goingly, one who can generate conversations for workability and stay with them through breakdown to breakthrough.

Why is it okay with you to be treated that way?

Such a question can look like a nudge toward the door rather than the mine shaft it is. Mine shafts are for mining. They are dark and scary - to which we can bring light and discover treasure. My friend Paki would say, “There IS cheese down that tunnel.”

We know one another through language - and language can be sorely limiting. That limitation gives rise to music, poetry, and prose... the arts. Nonetheless, language is what we have and our reticence with our “outside voice” is very often the cause of our suffering: our unwillingness to have difficult conversations, to express how things are for us, to create alignment, and jointly forge new paths. We weren’t trained in this and there are painfully few examples that it works. 

Perel points to deliberate, parental orchestration of our children’s lives and the channeling of eros from partner into children. The birth of the first child often leaves parents (particularly fathers) surviving in an emotional desert. “I do believe that sex matters for you and your partner. How did it come to be that, on the extensive list of things your children need, parents who have sex isn’t one of them?”
Take home message? Orchestrate for ourselves, for and despite our children.

The cornerstone to the entire structure of marriage is a promise to love, honor, and cherish. Loving with our hearts, our souls, and our bodies. I assert the real work of marriage is an intention to restore and re-presence love on-goingly - with our hearts, our souls, and our bodies. We lose sight of this, we don’t speak it into existence, we don’t point to its starts and stops and pull for it  in the moment it wanders. Often, we do not row together but drift, oars up.

Further our focus on till death do us part is flawed and stigma prevails, albeit dissipating, in divorce. We have our eye on the wrong ball. If we had our eye on love, honor, and cherish - till death do us part would be a forgone conclusion. How do we do that; keep our eye on love, honor, and cherish?

When is pointing to love’s starts and stops like nagging? When one feels at fault. Its all in the delivery; is it not? We can hear anything if we are not made wrong. I think the cornerstone is an intention bigger than marriage itself, bigger than staying together till death do us part or the habit of it or inertia or fear or to preserve public persona and looking good or for the kids or because its the right thing to do or from a commitment to it or a bigger commitment to honor one’s word. 

Consider a marital commitment as old news unless that commitment gives rise to an intention to nurture the nature of its constituents. What? Nurture the nature of its constituents? What would that look like? It would look like knowing and providing that which makes your partner feel loved, honored, and cherished without regard for oneself.  What is today’s intention for my beloved? A relationship from a commitment might look very different from a relationship rooted in a commitment that inspires created and re-created intention.

Some years ago, a bleader (blog reader) said, “You’re not in relationship; you don’t know.” I let that silence me for many months. ...I was married longer than most. Without the distractions of children, I had years to cogitate and ruminate. When I expound on marriages of resignation and unwilling partners - I know from whence I came and daresay, it lends a particular perspective.

Writing brings my life and thoughts into focus. I often write when I am troubled or seeking clarity. Writing helps distill my seemingly random and disconnected thoughts into something orderly and meaningful. T’was the case here. I feel like a big chunk dropped into place. ... I can see the barrier and the opening.

I am primarily unattached to whether couples stay together. I am committed that they find peace, joy, and love versus suffering and struggle. More than love, what people seek in relationship is to be heard, known, and accepted for who they truly are.

This year, I am being trained by Landmark to “listen.” My hope is that people find themselves in my listening and discover the soft landing and sweet spot where who they are can unfold and express. That’s good relationship material in anyone’s book!

Mahalo for your bleadership, ongoing dialogue, and email threads - stirring the reduction of blog. 

Remembering Father on Father’s Day

Father’s Day quickly approaches and I find myself unexpectedly tearful. Dad died last July 13th; this Father’s Day is my first without a father. And... I am unexpectedly tearful. 

I’m not sad Dad died; Alzheimer’s ensured no remnant of him remained. I am deeply mournful of his last years, watching all of him trickle away.

His moments of anguish were mine, those shocking moments when he knew.

“I know my brain doesn’t work good anymore,” he said, tears trickling down his cheeks. “Help me,” he pleaded. I held him and loved him, it’s what there is to do when Alzheimer’s comes calling. Moments like that were islands in the stream of belligerence, arguments, combat, and confusion. He was more vacant with each trip home, his words more spare, his expression more wooden.

“What DO you think of Dad?” I asked during one of his more lucid moments.

“Nothing,” he said with a wide-eyed look of astonishment, “Absolutely nothing.”

In some ways, I think it was easier when he no longer knew, once his thoughts quiesced.

In looking beyond his undoing, there is much to celebrate in my father. He was a man of his time, hardworking and dutiful. A child of The Depression, he knew hunger, and poverty, and resourcefulness. He vowed he would never be that hungry again, that hunger would be a stranger to his home and children. Dad made good on his word. Our garments were home-sewn; we didn’t have much but we had a “Roof over our heads and food on the table.”

Viewing the gestalt of his life, he did well. He fulfilled his evolutionary duty raising and fledging offspring. He climbed the socioeconomic rungs from poverty and provided for his family even in death. Dad was successful by any measure.

In viewing him as a soul seeking expression and fulfillment in the world, I fear he fared poorly. Undoubtedly, full self-expression was not on his radar - but if it had been - what would it have been? Dad loved his family and he loved to sing. He loved Rogers & Hammerstein musicals and the outdoors: hiking, skin diving, scuba diving, and fishing. I don’t remember him doing much of what he loved. In fact, I know very little about what he loved or how, when, and IF it found expression. Typical of his time, Dad was stilted in his expressions of love. He seemed bound by duty and suppression, trapped in roles, and for that, I grieve.

Concerning men at large as a seemingly separate species and alien unto myself, I can be critical of their obsession with sports and its trivia. And of their fascination with cars, guns, and gadgets. Contrarily, Dad did not seem to have passions. Was I oblivious or was there no space or will for his passions to bloom? I fear his passions trickled away decades before his mind.

Men step or misstep into this role that occupies their thoughts, time, will, effort, attention, and intention. Fatherhood subsumes their lives. We seldom see our fathers sans the Father-Filter. But if we did, if we viewed them as souls seeking expression and fulfillment in the world - what fertile ground could we till for them?

Father’s Day is a day set aside to ensure we acknowledge and remember fathers. I am remembering mine and acknowledging the many fathers that grace my life. 

On this Father’s Day - learn the passions of one father you love  

and nurture his expression in the world.

Happy Father’s Day to all fathers past, present, and future. 

Fulfilled fathers:  

may we know them, 

may we nurture them, 

may we be them, 

may we raise them.

Giddy-up Dallas - Yee Haw! ~3

Downtown Dallas in bronze

I planned to walk to THE grassy knoll. I plotted a route in my iPhone and checked with the bellman. “Is it safe?” I asked, extending my iPhone to him.

“You want to walk?” he asked with a look of incredulity.

I made a face, “I’m sick of sitting.” 

“It’s safe,” he said nodding.

My destination was 2.5 miles east and a $17 cab fare. Google Maps estimated my travel time at 90-minutes. “I said walk not crawl,” I growled at my iPhone.

The day was hot, humid, and blustery. Telltale in retrospect, as I would depart Dallas-Fort Worth not twelve hours before twisters tossed semi-trailers like Tonka toys.

I initially headed east along the frontage road before turning north onto Oak Lawn Ave - a street that should terminate in a cemetery. Unlike the frontage road, Oak Lawn had sidewalks, albeit buckled and interrupted, and was lined in strip malls sprinkled with mom-and-pop businesses between empty storefronts. 

I walked passed a large campus of sweeping lawns, gently bent trees, and genteel brick buildings oozing Southern charm and design. The sign read: Old Parkland Hospital. I stopped to query a maintenance man, “Is this the Parkland Hospital that President Kennedy came to?”

“No,” he said, “This was closed before President Kennedy was shot. He went to the new Parkland Hospital.” I walked on through the urban sprawl surrounding Dallas.

The Texas School Book Depository was and is a nondescript, seven-story, brick building at the corner of Elm and Houston - on the northern edge of Dealey Plaza. The President’s car slowed to turn left onto Elm and the rest is history.

The Sixth Floor Museum is fascinating. Large pictorial displays line brick walls starting with the landing of Air Force One at Love Field nearby. The display recounts the hours... then slows to minutes... then... seconds.

The first half describes the early days in the White House, a country in love with a handsome President, his beautiful and poised wife, small children running and squealing in the Oval Office, the Peace Corp, Civil Rights, the end of open-air nuclear testing, and a promise to reach the moon. The scapegoat’s lair (er... sorry, but not that sorry) in the southeast corner marks the half-way and turning point.

The rifleman’s perch, Oswald’s “sniper’s nest” is sealed behind glass and remains as it was on November 22, 1963 - or at least replicates exactly, the large picture on the wall - book boxes pushed aside, the window partially opened through which, some say, a smoking gun barrel was seen.

President Kennedy wore a white shirt pinstriped in royal blue. They cut it from him. The jagged cut follows the button placard; the left shoulder and chest are stained in blood. Sealed in plexiglass, it hangs on the wall, a grim and tearful reminder of the man’s end.

I watched TV clips, live coverage of the day, of Walter Cronkite blinking back tears and biting his lips, distractedly pulling his glasses on and off, announcing the President and been shot and killed in Dallas.

I was a first-grader, my memories are culled from our collective memories and books. To view actual TV footage of the day, moved me to tears.

Book Depository: upper left building. His car traveled up,
turning left at Book Depository. 

Abraham Zapruder filmed steadily from atop the grassy knoll, never ducking for cover like those around him, even as he screamed, “They killed him; they killed him!” His uninterrupted 354 frames and 19-seconds would capture the most horrific, single event of the century. Stills from his film occupy the latter half of the museum. (Zapruder’s film can now be viewed on the internet in hi-def; it will turn your stomach.)

The timing and sequence of events were forever fixed in Zapruder's frames... into which the scientific and physical evidence HAD to conform. Could Oswald aim and fire three shots with a single-bolt-action rifle, at a moving target, with any accuracy in the given time frame? That the FBI’s most talented marksman could not achieve that feat did not deter the Warren Commission.

Could a pristine “magic bullet” travel through both the President and Gov. Connally, shattering ribs and wrists, collapsing lungs, and “fall out” unscathed onto the gurney at Parkland Memorial? That the FBI could never reproduce an unscathed bullet after firing it through equivalent cuts of goat meat and bone, did not deter the Warren Commission. Yes, apparently some “magic bullets” CAN cause lethal injuries, make 90-degree turns, fall out on gurneys, AND be deemed indisputable, irrefutable evidence. (Little has changed in Washington DC where magical thinking continues to prevail... but I digress.)

What about the “head snap”? What about first hand accounts of bullets from the grassy knoll and more shot reports than three? These inconsistencies give rise to conspiracy theories that were presented and explored without resolution. 

What follows is a synopsis of the investigatory committees, from information provided at the museum and further researched on the internet and Wikipedia. Underlined words hot-link to the source.

Contrary to the Warren Commission, in 1979 the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that President John F. Kennedy was likely assassinated as the result of conspiracy. The HSCA found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. 

All Warren Commission's records were submitted to the National Archives in 1964. The unpublished portion of those records was initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039). The 75-year rule no longer exists, supplanted by the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the JFK Records Act of 1992. 

The Assassination Records Review Board was commissioned, not to make any findings or conclusions, but to release documents in order to provide public access for independent analysis and conclusions. From 1992 - 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board gathered and unsealed approximately 60,000 documents, consisting of over four-million pages.

At the conclusion of the Assassination Records Review Board's work, all Warren Commission records were available with only minor redactions.

The remaining Kennedy assassination related documents are scheduled to be released to the public by 2017 - a full fifty-four years after the assassination! It is this sealing of records that engenders mistrust and reflexive questioning: What are they hiding?

The museum closes with two clips: first, President Kennedy’s speech in Berlin ending with, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” (And the crowd goes wild.) But more telling and illustrative of his visionary qualities is the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C. June 10, 1963.

So, let us not be blind to our differences. But let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Is this philosophy not iconic and lexiconic in the new millennium?

For more information about The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza visit: http://www.jfk.org/

I dried my eyes and walked to the grassy knoll. A large X on the roadway marks the approximate position of President Kennedy’s Lincoln at the moment of assassination. Several blocks east, I found the Kennedy Memorial - a cenotaph - an open tomb of white, granite walls that entomb a black marble seat for quiet contemplation. 

The ghoulish, Gaudi-ish (see Gaudi - famous Spanish architect) building next door is the old Dallas Courthouse turned museum. It reminded me of Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (see Harry Potter) and is note/picture-worthy for just that.

Dealey Plaza is downtown. I headed north past Uptown. Rather than hoity-toity Highland Park, known as the Beverly Hills of Dallas, I went Bohemian to Knox/Henderson: a collection of romantic wine bars along side the Apple Store, unique boutiques, vintage clothiers, and antique shops. There, I lunched at Chuy’s.

Chuy’s is a local Mexican food chain originating in Austin. It is kitsch and cheap, and gawdy, and bawdy, and serves menu favorites like Burritos as  Big as Yo’ Face and Chicka-Chicka Boom-Boom. Chicka-Chicka Boom-Boom? Okay - I’ll admit it was a little scary. 
My eating utensils were sealed in a white paper sleeve straight from the 1950’s emblazoned with: This silverware has been SANITIZED for your protection. The back of the wrapper was printed with three prayers: Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish blessings. 

A hand-painted replica of the Abbey Road album cover, replete with life-sized  Beatles hoisting platters of steaming Mexican food, covers the entire back wall.

Invoking Chris once again, I assessed the crispiness of their chips and the snappiness of their salsa. Their chips were greasy; their salsa snappy. My chile rellenos was strongly reminiscent of a corn-dog, a six-inch, battered, and chicken-deep-fried extravaganza. A bit greasy for my tastes and I swear I could feel the endothelium of my coronary arteries get sticky and attract LDL cholesterol - my anxiety of it alone, causing chest pain. 

Time to eat and run; I had a plane to catch. I routed my bipedal return to the Anatole along the edge of Highland Park, home of the landed gentry, and past the American Airlines Center, home of the Dallas Mavericks. By the time I reached the Anatole, I had covered over eight-miles and explored yet another city alone and on foot. I had an A-ha moment, suddenly understanding why I often explore alone. My interests and want for physical activity are far from mainstream and seldom shared by my companions. Cabbing it to the mall for lunch does little to excite me.

The trip to the airport and flight home were nondescript. Back at the ranch, I had a new perspective on my population-management workflow at Kaiser and a new date to track - 2017. I expect another series of theories floated when all Kennedy assassination material is available. That too will pique my interest. Yours?

So ends the recounting of my Texas tale. Mahalo for your readership, devotion, indulgence, and numerous tender mercies. You leave me with the experience of a life fulfilled. Many mahaloz ~ lorin