Life’s Just That Way

Life’s just that way. Who crooned those words, sliding silky-smooth into the stanza’s final measure? I can almost hear them, almost sing them, almost free them from neurofibrillary tangles in a forgotten snag of gray matter. I peg the song in the mid-80’s. I hear John Denver or Christopher Cross.

“We wake up every morning and rub noses,” Tim said, “And it’s so great because we never go to bed with incompletions.”

“And how long have you been married?” Barry asked. It was the question on the tip of every tongue and it’s implication hit me squarely across the cheek with a loud and resounding slap.

Barry has been married since God molded mud in Eden and he knew… he knew it couldn’t, wouldn’t last. Beneath his question and smug smile lay: just you wait you young upstart; you’ll see.

Swirling in a vortex of thought, carried swiftly offshore in a riptide of connected conversations, I could barely wade back to the current conversation. Barry’s question was telling for us all. Life’s just that way; isn’t it? We believe our relationship will be different and watch with best intentions and impotence as it slides from grace and love. We bumble along, playing the lead in a familiar motion picture, an inherited role and way of being learned from parents, grandparents and their predecessors.

“It’s so great to be with someone who gets me,” Tim continued unphased, “Someone who supports what I’m up to.”

I called him later to express what I heard, thought and felt.

“That’s it; isn’t it? To be with someone who gets you and supports what you’re up to.” Empowerment. Tears welled up and spilled down my cheeks. “It’s really what we all want.”

“Yeah,” Tim sounded wistful. “Thanks for getting that.”

I caught myself early on, in disagreement with and disapproval of my husband. Further, my behavior was disagreeable and disapproving. In a rare moment of clarity, I discovered my disapproval grew from familiarity, an inherited role and modeled behavior, one I’ve labeled: the Disapproving Chinese Wife or, when I am less generous, the Empress Dowager. I knew I didn’t want to be that.

The ranks of disapproving, wronged wives far outweigh the content and happy. In a model that looks for something’s wrong versus right, the result is both logical and predictable.

And the best performance by a leading man in a supporting role goes to: silent, withdrawn and enduring! A man’s man, those strong, silent, and aloof John Wayne-types we epitomize and love to love. John Wayne too, is an inherited role and way of being, equally unworkable and unknowingly mimicked because life’s just that way.

“You know,” I began with caution, “Every now and again we meet a couple who have been married forever and actually still love one another AND love is clearly visible. Like you can see the love that flows between them in their style of communication and the tenderness of their touch.”

Mark and I were newly acquainted and walked three blocks from the garage to a tiny restaurant of dark wood paneling, reputed for stellar seafood salads.

“And we think it’s rare and that they’re lucky.”

“It IS rare and that they ARE lucky,” he asserted.

 I could not disagree. The couples I knew with relationships effusive in kindness and love had, for the most part, stumbled unknowingly into them. In retrospect, communication with an intention for workability was key, the old adage: Never go to bed angry – a practice, and communication – seemingly excessive.

Erich Segal wrote: Love means you never have to say you’re sorry – a formula for pale and pathetic love – and so very John Wayne.

“I think they have a set of tools that are foreign to the masses,” I said. “Those tools are available now, from a sundry of sources and… I notice we’re not all racing to get them.”

“Nobody wants to work at this,” Mark snapped.

“The truth is, we are always working on something,” I countered, “Working on being right, working on making the other wrong, working on being angry or difficult. We could work on being loving and having love present.”

“Why are you talking to me about this?” Mark stopped mid-stride and turned to me.

“Because something you said made me believe you’d be interested in this conversation.”

          That something was elusive, nothing specific but a hint, gossamer that Mark suffered in his marriage. His subtle omissions, an undercurrent of disequilibrium, like a man with one foot in the boat engaged in the tricky business of balance. He looked like a man trying to manage something. The life of a mahout – managing the large, pink elephant defecating on the living room floor.

We stood on a crowded street corner, beneath the midday sun of a crisp spring day and even Earth seemed to stop hurtling through space.

“I am so alone in my marriage,” his voice cracked with his heart. “I sleep alone, I do all the cooking and cleaning. My wife works six twelve-hour-shifts a week and … she doesn’t have to. She doesn’t even have to work!” he spat. The bilious bitterness in his words scorched the pavement.

“How long have you been living like that?” I recalled pictures of his daughter, nineteen and beautifully sporting her father’s pert nose.

“Years,” his brows knitted with dis-ease.

Suddenly the endless acquisition: the boats, the cars, the homes, the dress shirts – one in every color – made a certain kind of tragic sense.

Watch each one reach for creature comforts, for the filling of their holes. ~Peter Gabriel, In the Blood of Eden

“Mark, can I tell you about the Landmark Forum over lunch?”

Ping! Brent was hard to miss, towering six-foot-and-ten over the queue for our northbound flight. Handsome, lean, athletic, darkly tanned in shorts, t-shirt, Tevas and buried in a paperback; he beautifully bore all indices for a sonar ping. Did I mention tall? I could naught but notice. Boarding thirty people before me, I was surprised to come upon him in the emergency-exit-row with adjacent empty seats.

“You’re no dummy; huh?” I opened the conversation with a smile.

“Nope, I know where I fit,” he smiled back.

“Bet you do. May I?” Brent stood to let me pass. There was no getting around his infinitely long appendages otherwise.

“Lorin,” I extended a hand.

“Brent.” My hand disappeared into his uncallused, dinner-plate of a hand. OMG!

“My girlfriend Kendra is behind me. Okay if we save this seat?” I motioned to the one between us. Kendra would love sitting next to Brent; any woman would.

We were returning home following the completion of our yearlong Partnership Exploration Course. Effervescent and bubbling in it’s finality, Brent asked about our course. It naturally led into a conversation and invitation for an introduction to the Landmark Forum.

“The Landmark Forum is a guided dialogue that can forever change the point of view from which you live,” I proffered, “And it does this reliably, weekend after weekend, after weekend.” Brent was clearly interested and clearly stopped.

"How would you feel if your husband was on a trip and talking to two women?"

“Are you concerned with presenting this invitation to your wife?” I was aghast.

“Well, yes.” Brent’s face turned somber. “How am I going to explain that I was talking to two women on the plane and they invited me to something?”

“Correction,” Kendra help up a finger, “Invited you both.”

“I know, but do you know what I mean?”

I knew exactly what he meant. Jealousy will sour love faster than heat sours milk. There is no appeasing a jealous spouse.

“You tell her the truth; just like that,” I snapped my fingers. Brent rolled his eyes and gave me the look, a look that clearly communicated the conversation would be fraught with danger.

“Brent; are you not allowed to talk strangers?” My question caught him off guard. “Are you allowed to speak only to people your wife knows and only do things with her approval?” He paused and responded slowly.

“I’m away a lot; I travel for business quite a bit. And while I have never been unfaithful, she is so suspicious. She would be upset if she knew I was talking to two women.”

My eye roll was unintentional, automatic, autonomic methinks, and completely indiscreet.

This watchfulness of women for betrayal is an ancient trait – try Paleolithic – when women, both weaker and smaller, were dependent upon men for survival. While we’ve come a long way baby, we’ve come not far at all.

The jilted wife is an uncommon scenario though we act like it’s frequent and imminent. Women watch for and fear betrayal. Life’s just that way. We leave our men like Brent, feeling like he can never do or say enough for his woman to feel safe and sure.

While we gossip about our men and their shortcomings, airing our grievances and fears that they might leave, there is one conversation that seems notably absent. That conversation is akin to this: Who would I have to be for him to want to stay, not from duty, default, inertia or piety, but with all his heart? Am I willing? Can we make that work?

Ultimately, the fear of inquiry, our unwillingness to look, and our attachments to the way things ought to be, keep us stuck.

“She quit working after we married,” Brent’s voice pulled me back. “Now she sits home and waits for me.”

“That’s a pretty small life,” I commented.

“No kidding. Don’t get me wrong,” he raised a large hand, “I love my wife and there is a lot that works but obviously, my marriage is not what it could be if I have this concern and… I’m not the best communicator. You know, I keep my mouth shut and try to keep the peace.”

Funny, my Dad said the same thing at his 50^th wedding anniversary party. When asked to share how they made it to their golden anniversary my mother spoke of compromise. My father’s statement was much more telling and classic John Wayne, “Shut up and do what you’re told.” The crowd laughed. I wept.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. ~Thoreau

“Honestly Brent,” I said in earnest, “A married man is married... not dead. I don't expect him to forgo meeting people, talking to people, being interested in people and generally having a life. A married man is married,” I gathered momentum and steam, “Not imprisoned - though sometimes the difference is difficult to discern. When a married man is not free to express himself for fear of being misconstrued, misinterpreted, maligned or any number of things, he begins to live a life smaller than his capacity. That is a sad day in his community. Does this communicate?”

Brent’s eyes grew. “You’ve touched on a topic that is very dear to me,” he responded with unusual candor. “This living a life smaller than my capacity has definitely been an issue. I am so easy-going that unfortunately, internalizing this has not helped my relationships, past or present.  OK therapists,” he smiled broadly, “I can tell it will take a few more flights up and down the coast to really get into this.”

“Here's the thing Brent,” I nailed him with my eyes, “You get to say how your life goes. You get to choose. You have been more than forthcoming and you’re such a good sport. Please accept our invitation when it suits you, to check out the Landmark Forum. It’s quite a remarkable weekend that few regret and it pulls far more relationships together than apart.”

We swapped emails and I sent the particulars for he and his wife to join us. He never did; nor did Mark. I can only surmise why two men in difficult marriages would not attend an evening that might give them tools and access to something beyond their current situation. To do so would require venturing beyond the familiar and we are none to keen on that.

Ultimately, we do not believe those rare and lucky relationships are possible or we would clamor for one. I’ve got what I’ve got and life’s just that way. Nor are we willing to trade our difficulties, the endurable and tolerable known, for the unknown.

My conversations on the other side of the yearlong Partnership Exploration Course, an exploration into communication as the bridge to partnership, are less formulaic. My boundaries have expanded. I am less willing to ignore these uncomfortable conversations that hang in the air, waiting with bated breath, begging a voice. Once broached, these out-of-bounds conversations are surprisingly transparent. The ease with which transparency and vulnerability occurs points to something akin to breadcrumbs – indicative of right path-finding.

My Mother was right in pointing to compromise. Workability however, is much more useful. While they seem one and the same, they are distinctly and critically different.

“We HAVE to set a lunch date for July,” I insisted. “The…,” I hesitated, What to call the Yummy Men? – that group of delicious men with whom I regularly dine –  “… cadre is clamoring and I cannot schedule anyone until I schedule you.”

“Why? Because I’m the most difficult?”

“Um, because I say and because you’re schedule can certainly be difficult.”

“Am I the most difficult person you deal with?” 

“I,” I stabbed my chest with my thumb, “Am the most difficult person I deal with.” We laughed.

“Am I the second most difficult person you deal with?” Good Lord he was determined.

“You – are the person I manage with the most joy and the most difficulty, but the difficulty is me, not you.”

I am clear that loving relationships are about capacity: the capacity to love and be loved, to give and take, to contribute and allow contribution, to risk full self-expression and listen to the degree that the other is left feeling heard and known.

I notice that in relationship, we tend to do what we do, whether it works or not. We seldom, if ever, willingly put ourselves into counseling, therapy, coursework, or anything that might disrupt our habitual ways of being and dismantle the unworkable. Far easier to blame others than face that The Empress Dowager and John Wayne, as models for behavior, do not work.

Tim was right when he pointed at incompletions, that is, upsets that have not been addressed and managed to everyone’s satisfaction. We make messes and let them fester and boil. We keep quiet and wait for upsets to blow over. That’s the fallacy, they don’t. Upsets have a sticky quality, a residue that wraps us in web and sucks the love from our lives.

We have a saying: get off it with velocity. The velocity with which we address and clean our messes is directly proportional to happy and loving relationships.

“How this work occurs for me,” I said, looking into 300 expectant faces, “Is like taking a sledgehammer to my concrete. Before the Landmark Forum I had walls, lots of them, and as they are dismantled, something else is possible.”

My friend and Wisdom Course leader Joan says, “Resignation and cynicism are the familiar path of most relationships. If you are going to have a life that works, you must be willing to hold others to account and be held to account. There is an exquisite life on the other side of this but it is not for the faint of heart.”

Long before our first syllable, we are born instinctively to communicate. We grow in communication, learn through communication, marry in communication, divorce in communication, thrive in communication, live alone or in community - all within communication... or not. Learning to communicate effectively, lovingly, with an intention to support and empower is wise, generous, and infinitely satisfying. Oh, to be that.

“Be surprised by something,” I challenged.

“Find uncommon peace and joy,” he charged before boarding his plane.

“I’ll be on the lookout for it.”

“Oh, it’s there!”

They are here methinks, uncommon peace and joy are here, beneath the rubble and fractured concrete.

Life’s just that way. Neurofibrillaries untangled! Christopher Cross, on the album of the same name. Song: I Really Don’t Know Anymore. Co-crooned with Michael McDonald, 1979.

MasterCard Moments

The sun in heaven methought, was loth to set, but stayed and made the western welkin blush. By my buddy Bill er…Shakespeare. I love running with the setting sun. Much of my time on the high school track and marathon training encompassed these hours when Earth seems to expel a long sigh before nestling in for night. The madness of man slows, children are hauled unwillingly home to sup, Maui, warrior-god, extinguishes sun in sea and Earth reclaims herself. I arrived to a honking fanfare, geese heralding the hour, as birds are wont to do. I run year round at a small reservoir, excepting when snow drives a lioness from the high country to prowl its banks and circumferential dirt track. “How do you know it’s a mountain lion?” Herb asked one February. “Look,” I squatted over its tracks. “See how round these pads are? The entire print is round. And, no toenails.” I nearly covered the print with my palm. “That’s a big cat,” I brandished my palm at him. “Look at this dog print.” I pointed to well defined tracks in mud. “See how narrow and long it is? See the shape of its pads? Plus… toenails. Keep running,” I rose and started again, “I’ll show you her cub.” We stopped to examine a pile of poop. “This is probably coyote scat, see the fur? If there were no fur, I’d say it was dog pooh. See how it’s pinched at the ends? Some of these larger dog tracks are probably coyote.” We continued our jog. “This is probably mountain lion scat. It’s more round than dog and coyote, it’s segmented, there’s fur in it and the ends aren’t pinched." “How do you know all this?” Herb was incredulous. I shrugged, “Coz I spend time in the mountains. Here’s the cub.” We stopped for a small, round paw print that remained untrampled by frenzied dogs. “That makes her super dangerous, if she’s hunting to feed a cub. So I don’t run here alone during the winter, unless it’s bright and mid-day. This is the second winter I’ve seen her tracks.” “Have you seen her?” “No, thank God. I figure if I see her, I’m a mountain lion morsel.” “Have you called Fish and Game?” “I did last year but they were only interested in sightings, not tracks.” That the reservoir abutted a high school seemed of little consequence. Guess that’s just deserts for intruding upon their habitat. Aren’t you gents just a little tardy gettin’ outta Dodge? I addressed the ganders and their flock telepathically in my first quarter mile. As if in agreement, with a rush of flapping, splashing and squawking, they began a short run-on-water that reluctantly released them to the sky. Directly in their flight path, I froze. Wet wings beat a painfully low trajectory. Would they clear the small cliff at the western lake lip? Will they clear me? Two boys fishing from the ledge turned to grin before giving full attention to the low-flying bodies. In-coming! Like zeros on-approach for strafing. The cacophony grew with proximity and pitch. Fighting the urge to duck, our heads turned in unison with geese overhead and then beyond. They circled once, as if synchronizing watches and truing their compass. Tightening their formation, they honked a flight plan en route to a north-north-westerly summer holiday. I watched until their calls faded and formation disappeared, imprinting everything the moment held: Earth washed in burnt umber, the western welkin softly aglow, insects hovering in curtains over glassy water disturbed only by feeding fish. Oppressive heat released its grip on the day and I too, sighed. A southbound airliner, glinting gold, dragged a short con-trail and my thoughts back to running. Another quarter turn round the pond and I surveyed the small inlet where four adults – two couples with six goslings glided in the gathering gloam. Are their hatchlings early or late? No matter, now they would surely stay several months before a not-so-northern latitude beckoned. I thought, and not for the first time, about mates for life. Geese are one of sparingly few animals that mate for life, a long life. In stark contrast to certain insects that mate for a life that ends even as they copulate, bringing new meaning to the words: till death do us part. All of it swirled in my head as I lapped my Walden Pond thrice more and arrived home moments before nightfall. In listening for the knock of the Eternal, dawn and dusk have always held some magic for me, a glimpse through an open doorway, if you will. In seeking connection to the Eternal, running with the setting sun is a sure bet. In having a life fulfilled and one I love, recognizing and replicating such moments are… priceless.

Déjà vu or Vu jà-dé?

I bolted upright for a coughing jag that produced little but wakefulness. Reaching for inhalers, I heard myself wheeze. Never a bad time for petting, my cat jumped into bed, hopeful. I coughed again and listened to air rumble through mucus-plugged passages long after I stopped exhaling. My bronchial tree literally dripped and oozed in excretia that suffocated, like Spanish moss on deep swamp cypress. I inhaled deeply and coughed forcefully. The wet rattle should have produced gobs of goop. I sound like one of my patients. “Cough,” I encouraged them, “Harder! Cough that stuff up!” It sounds like such an easy fix, moving mucus from bronchioles to bronchus where it can be hawked up and out. I had no such luck; try though I might. In that moment, I saw my end. Ever experience déjà vu; that compelling sense of: I’ve been here before? This was vu jà-dé, the antithesis of déjà vu and presentiment of: this is where I’m going. In the stillness, solitude and silence of the predawn, within the dim dome of a single bulb, I suddenly saw myself: a tiny old woman, ribs protruding, racked by cough. Death by pneumonia; the most common death for seniors. And why not? “If you can’t sleep because you can’t breathe," I advised, "Or if you are afraid to sleep because you’re afraid you won’t breathe, you need to come in.” Well versed in sleeping upright during periods of respiratory distress, I knew the subjective difficulty in deciding when to seek medical attention. I attempted to give my patients an objective measure, a line drawn in the sands of seeking help. After two consecutive days of listening to my barking cough and raspy voice, Dr. Forrester slapped down his pen to ask pointedly, “Have you seen a pulmonologist?” “Five today,” I croaked, grinning. “Would you PLEASE seek medical attention outside your own cranium?” he pleaded. His fatherly advice was welcome and wise. “This is always the dilemma,” I spoke in a halting, hoarse whisper, “When to start steroids? My peak-flow-meter is up 30-points so I think I’m getting better.” “Wait a minute. Didn’t you just say you slept upright last night, for the first time?” he asked. I nodded silently, resting my vocal chords. “You’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. Start your steroids.” I never think clearly when asthma flares. My excellent deductive and diagnostic abilities are inversely proportional to mucus production. For this reason Kaiser has a policy contrary to the adage, Physician, heal thyself. Were I my own patient, I would chart: dysphonia, laryngitis in the vernacular. “I think it’s the propellant in my inhalers,” I said. “This only happens when I’m using my inhalers every three hours.” My physician friends disagreed, shaking their heads, “No, it’s your asthma.” “But I never used to get this way!” I protested. During the last decade my asthma worsened or I am less resistant to its predictable cascade when I entertain a respiratory illness. I say entertain because I am a reliable host for a solid month to a series of sleepless snoozes, the song of sleep deprivation, the dancing bacterial follies, a chorus of antibiotics, and curtain calls to a protracted standing ovation by salvation steroids. That’s entertainment! Emailing one’s doctor daily can purport and support a false sense of wellness. He wasn’t here to hear this… the gurgle so aptly named the death rattle. Sequential nights of coughing fits interrupted by succumbing sleep had wrung all resistance from me. I fell back to my pillow and closed my eyes. I would wake up in the morning… or I wouldn’t. I would open my eyes to my oak tree appliquéd against the sky… or not. Either was okay and no one would know the difference until I was missing from work. The feeling of apathy, complete and utter apathy was astounding. I emailed my doc in the morning and requested a visit: This is day 12. I need better meds for cough suppression. I have bilateral subconjunctival hemorrhages from coughing; I look ghastly and feel worse. Later that morning, he examined my eyes, ringed in vermillion. “You look pretty rough around the edges,” he shook his head. “How long has your voice been gone?” “I think today’s the fifth day.” I proffered my theory of dysphonia secondary to inhaler propellants. “Not your inhalers,” he disagreed, “It’s caused by inflammation of your entire bronchial tree including your larynx.” He stretched my steroidal course an additional week and prescribed narcotic cough meds. “Maybe you should have someone that you check-in with daily,” my Mother proposed, worried and helpless in her island home two-thousand miles away. I had never been so sick, never mucus-trapped to that degree, it scared me and I said so. A daily telephone check-in when I’m sick. It’s a sound plan and one I resist, as if it signals the end of an era of independence toward something more… dependent. I hear the longing you have now for a deeper sense of connectedness and interdependence, a friend wrote. Nuh-uh! I have an automatic way of being called: I do by myself. It is the conversation of a two-year-old. Life does not go well when she rules. In the evolution of man and society, women have never survived independently without a man or tribe. That we do now or think we can… is an illusion. We are pack animals by nature and no different from the days of Christ, we still live in tribes. The two-year-old has grown into a content cave woman. Connectedness and interdependence rise solely in my recognition and disassembly of that which keeps me isolated. A vu jà-dé presents a jarring opportunity to assess one’s course. I have some years before I am that tiny old woman with protruding ribs, racked by cough, and apathetic to the sunrise. I am 2400 air-miles from my tribe and I am surrounded by kin. I can live alone on the ice flow or join the clan. Welcome to the human race for the grave, one that perhaps produces something meaningful on its way and in its wake. What we remember with relish in the stillness, solitude and silence of the predawn, within the dim dome of a single bulb, will not be our acquisitions but undoubtedly, those relationships of deeper connectedness and interdependence. The richness of life pre-packaged in meaningful relationships.

Memorialize Peace

In a patriotic display, I dressed for work in a vest of red, white and blue, with an American flag placard across the chest. Then I thought that on the day we memorialize our war dead, I would wear a t-shirt emblazoned with a gigantic peace symbol. Worn not in disrespect, for I too am a vet, but as a statement for peace, for a time when ‘war dead’ is an archaic phrase relegated to history. A t-shirt that screams for peace. On this Memorial Day I stand for peace. Peace at home and abroad. May we have peace in our homes, in our countries, in our world, in our lives in our lifetime. Peaceful people: may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them. Pax.

On Stewardship – a myopic view.

“If you ask God for healing,” my Aunt said, eyes aflame with conviction, “He will do it. He will give you a new kidney, grow you a new one, right next to your old one.” A magic bean, like Jack and the Beanstalk, and just that simple. I was tempted to Google medical miracles and divine donations. Steeped in science, I believe organ donations arrive on ice in coolers, with tissue classifications of cadaveric, bovine, porcine, or live human, not immaculate implantation by divine intervention. Call me skeptical. I have sometimes felt my God lowly and insufficient because my tongue is not Tongues, my Jesus of colors and his ‘Father’ androgynous, because my faith flows in Technicolor, unconstrained by traditional lines of black and white pressed on fragile pages between covers by St. James, because I am unwilling to condemn gays or Buddhists, because… “Because my faith is much broader than that,” I defended. “Jesus was very inclusive; religion tends to be very exclusive. And I’m so tired of: we’re going to heaven and you’re not.” I felt my God would be unwelcome in church. Though quite frankly, if I met Her on the street, I might not be welcoming either. But lowly and insufficient was anything but, during this conversation for miraculous healing. I felt Aunt Millie’s genuine love and unflappable belief that God would deliver a kidney for supplication like a can of beans tendered at the grocer. And… I am far too cynical to ask for a new bean grown right next to the old one. “If you really believe and ask for a miracle,” the elders said, “You’ll be healed.” We were high school seniors when leukemia was spotted like a vulture circling carrion. We loved Jesus with the untainted zeal of youth. Even then, I thought it too great a burden to heap on her diminutive and diminishing frame. For life to pivot on her faith or lack there of, that she alone was responsible and thereby… destined to become her own executioner. Wendy died before graduation. I never bargained with God again. Life is, after all, a terminal disease. Why bargain? “I wonder how both my kidneys quit at the same time?” Mom asked. “They didn’t, you’ve been killing them for a decade.” I was frustrated and angry. “Well, I have to die from something, it may as well be from renal failure,” she said, so nonchalant. “Besides, I don’t want to eat like you; your diet is boring!” The medical community considers a hemodialysis patient within the nuclear family, medically significant family history. A prognosticator of sorts. I bargained, as if coercing and cajoling her to mindful, conscious eating would camouflage the trail of genetic breadcrumbs and prevent The Fates from connecting the dots, the indisputable carbon polymer linking me to she. So lucky to live in this body, I thought, to really live in this body, to feel its call and live responsively and responsibly. I began eating a ‘boring’ renal diet and avoiding nephrotoxins decades before medical science affixed its diagnosis and prognosis to me and my medical record. My diet is perfect, including everything I desire, excluded nothing I can’t live without. My body is perfect, or as perfect as I can coerce and cajole it to be. I am stable, healthy and planning to summit the highest mountain in the lower-48 in two months. That’s healthy and fit… and not without stuff to manage. “Guess I won’t make it to ninety,” Mom said, “I’ll be the first.” Blessed with good health and longevity, death was always relegated to the far distant future. “It’s unlikely unless you change something. I can coach you on this diet,” I offered. “I don’t want to.” She doesn’t want to, I emailed my sister. I felt sorry for the burden of care Gina would bear, dialysis appointments, doctor visits, and watching Mom’s life-force siphoned away, filtered from her blood in just a few years. “How will you get to dialysis?” I changed tack. “I’ll catch the bus,” her tone sharpened with annoyance. “Mom, you have no idea how bad people feel on dialysis. You won’t like life on dialysis and you sure as hell won’t feel good enough to get on a bus before or after your appointment. They are the walking dead,” I said, refusing to join their ranks, “The listless, the lifeless. I’m a No.” It was several days and conversations to sort myself from my anger and resentment. It’s all about me, my fears, my greatest fear, and my difficulty with the abuse and disregard for one’s body. “There is much automaticity to life,” Bert’s deep, Nordic baritone boomed from the stage. I attended a three-hour workshop entitled, All the World’s a Stage. The discourse concerned roles, our roles in life. “Catch,” he snatched at the air to his left with both hands. “Carry,” he rotated center, holding his imaginary catch chest-high. “Release,” he rotated right, opening his hands to free his prey. “Catch, carry, release,” he repeated the rotation, “Catch, carry, release. We are caught by a role, as if by the throat. We carry and use it for a time, until we stop and are released. Some roles, we never release. You think you are trapped and used by your roles. Consider that you use roles and believe you are victim to them.” Often my life is lived in reaction to fear and threat and I believe I am used by it. Catch. Were I not fearful of hemodialysis, I’d conjure a new demon. Were I not worried for one friend, I’d find another to fret for. Any demon, any fret will do as I carry my role, unwilling to release until a suitable substitute is located. How would life look without victimization to my roles? How would life feel for Mom and I, if I let her live without constant comment and red ink edits? “The thing that makes me so sad,” I confessed the following week, “Is that you still have so much life-force. Dialysis will remove that even as it removes the toxins from your blood. I expressed my sadness and fear as anger. I’m sorry.” “Well… I won’t need dialysis,” she said, “I have faith. God will heal me.” Catch, as if by the throat. I can, with amazing speed, ease and righteousness, point an accusatory finger at the faithful with tarnished relationships and gluttonous flesh. Carry. “If you have faith that God will heal you, you must also recognize that God has given you tools,” I seethed. “God gave you a medical plan, and a pharmacy plan, and a nutrition class, and a kidney class, and you haven’t used the tools that God gave you nor have you honored your body.” I was reminded of a joke circulating the internet in the wake of hurricane Katrina. A man sat on his roof to escape floodwaters. A rescuer came by on horseback and the man refused saying, “I have faith God will save me.” Later rescuers approached by boat and the man turned them away saying, “I have faith God will save me.” Finally, a helicopter hovered and he shunned it shouting, “I have faith God will save me.” Upon arrival at the pearly gates and entrance into Heaven, he asked, “Why didn’t you save me Lord?” And the Lord God said, “I sent a horse, a boat and a helicopter. What were you waiting for?” Does God knock? Are we listening? Do we hear? And if so, do we open the door? In the broad-brush application of stewardship against the grain of life, what is its color and boundary? In recent years, I noticed my friends were all very fit. I have come to know that I have little tolerance for otherwise. Using fitness as the sieve, as inclusionary criteria is a narrow therapeutic window for life with L.B., a very skinny gate to squeeze into my circle of friends. Caught, as if by the throat, in my very own version of us and them, I am no less exclusionary than the religions at which I point. Catch, carry, release. “Maybe I’ll go take that diet class again,” Mom said. “I’ll help you if you want.” Catch. It’s tricky business, asking favors of God. Did not the predeceased beseech and bargain for more? And to what avail? Death is always our next place and may well be our next best place. Carry. I appreciate and desire a peculiar level of impeccability in nearly every aspect life. That broad brush includes both physical and spiritual realms with a degree of congruency between them. Through that lens, I see it is not mine to cajole or coerce. Release. It is mine to sort myself out and return to love, and sort myself out and return to love, and sort myself out and return… always to return. That being said, my garage and many facets of my life are in disarray. Perhaps God-speak can appear quite ordinary, like a medical plan and renal dietician. Largely due to the parable, I often think of stewardship in reference to talents. Stewardship may paint the breadth of extremities, well beyond talents (ancient money) and talents (aptitude and skills), to the stuff and stuffing of life methinks. Stewardship may include honoring one’s body as the temple, not in narcissistic adoration but in gratitude for the gift it is. Stewardship may include tithing to that which brings centered, peaceful and loving coexistence with others. In practical application, this may be as simple as completing home repairs to create workability and thereby peace. Spiritual and relational home repairs bring another level of peace, a rare and recognizable exemplar of faith. Stewardship may include those intangibles like the listening of oneself and others with generosity and grace. Stewardship may include listening for the call of the Eternal in the ordinary. Does God knock? Are we listening? Do we hear? And if so, do we open the door? Perhaps asking for a new kidney is as simple as asking. Catch. I don’t ask because I am fearful of any and all possible answers. Carry. I am leery of all disruptions to my equilibrium and status quo, suspicious of any disturbance to living in the familiar and known. The degree to which I love impeccability reflects my efforts to control the uncertainty of life. Release. Stewardship asks that I honor that within me and be not used by it to separate and segregate. What does any of this have to do with asking for a new bean as my Aunt suggested? Catch. Does stewardship demand that I ask? Carry. Harrumph! Recognizing that my definition of stewardship is yet again another sieve… ah-haaa. Release! Note: before you flood me with notes of concern, re-read the paragraph that begins: So lucky to live in this body… All is well and I am well. And Mom? Well… she is as well as she is, isn’t she? xoxoxo! #

Duck Soup Island Style

“Are you two dum-dum-dah-dah?” Ron asked to the tune of Here Comes the Bride. Ron & Pat stood before us, having spied us across the restaurant as they entered. My eyes flew wide in alarm, appalled at his audacity and hubris. “No,” I said with finality that should have ended his questioning. “Well, are you dating?” he grinned devilishly. “No,” I answered with an edge he should have heard. “Oh honey, don’t embarrass them,” Pat piped in. “Why aren’t you dating?” he persisted, “He’s a great guy!” “Got it. Thank you.” I did little to hide my growing irritation and swatted him like a pesky gnat. “You two would be great together,” he continued. “I’ve known him for years.” Tom and I reconnected in the Kaiser Roseville parking structure, ending a yearlong hiatus. Our food, newly delivered, steamed from the tabletop. “You two should date,” Ron waggled a finger with a parting shot, even as the hostess summoned. Why does this conversation make me see red? What has me hunker-down, defend, protect and want to kill? The dating conversation puts me on edge; is an edge. In this conversation, I am an unwillingly participant. I’ve attempted to establish a boundary and train others to avoid the topic that always delivers a shock to my collar. Obviously with little success. Duck Soup is a colloquialism of dubious origins, dating back to a 1902 cartoon. It conjures a popular island image of ducks floating in a large, soup-filled rice bowl, chopsticks laid across the lip. More akin to a sharp chopstick in the eye, the dating conversation is anything but duck soup. “Anyone catch your eye?” Jared asked as we looked out over the ballroom, into a sea of faces. “No.” “There are a hundred and twenty people in this room,” he squared up and faced off, “At least one-third of them men. And you mean to tell me not ONE MAN caught your eye?” My male friends often seemed frustrated, even angry at my disinterest in dating. “What about Chance?” Not a chance. I raised a brow and shot him a sidelong sneer. Monkey’s lip twitched, baring an incisor. I took a deep breath to calm us both. “Oh,” Jared bore a look of consternation, shaking his head, “He’s probably too pretty for you.” “I’m old enough to be his mother!” “How ‘bout him?” He pointed at a tall, thin man with a ponytail reaching mid-back. How ‘bout you let me do the choosing? I rolled my eyes. At least he chose a model featuring a long-and-lean chassis. “What about James?” “James?” I scowled, “Who’s James?” “Frank.” So much for long-and-lean. “Does he look like he owns a pair of used running shoes and a bicycle?” My words dripped with sarcasm. “You're so superficial,” Jared admonished before giving it a rest. Perhaps. But long-and-lean can point to something, something in which I have great interest: a commitment to fitness and an active lifestyle. I answered my cell-phone to a familiar voice. “What are you doing?” he asked. “I’m standing in the Apple Store; my Mac died.” “Can they fix it?” “Dunno yet. I’m waiting for my genius to perform the miracle of resurrection.” “Good Lord!” “Exactly.” “Okay, hope it works. So, how many people are there?” “Um…” I looked about, scanning Apple’s milling shoppers. “Lots, the place is packed.” Like mealy worms milling and drilling an apple. “About forty.” “How many guys?” Here we go. “Um… at least twenty-five.” “Anyone catch your eye?” Jared was nothing if not persistent. “No.” I responded easily without another look. Any long-and-lean man would have pinged my sonar upon entering. “You’re telling me there’s not ONE MAN in that store that interests you?” It was more accusation than question. I am so tired of defending this. What had I learned in Wisdom about bringing play to areas of life that are difficult? Suddenly the game appeared out of thin air, like 3-D, holographic chess. “Here’ the deal sweetie…” my words oozed, dipped in honey, sweetness, and irrefutable love, “They’re not you.” Check. “A-u-w,” he melted into a puddle. Checkmate! I knew he would never insist that an unknown, unseen man in the Apple Store was better than he. I win! People have no idea, would be surprised to learn, the frequency with which I am pushed into the conversation for dating… and why I’m not. The question: Are you dating yet? occurs with quotidian regularity. “Because laced within that question is the implication that I want to date, or need to date, that I am not whole and complete without a man… and I resent it!” I stood at the front of the room, venting my frustration at the Wisdom City Team. “I’m not the one saying I want to date. Y’all act like I live in an ivory tower, lamenting my lonely life, awaiting my white knight on his mighty steed. I’m not! I am fully engaged. I meet more men and have more men than I can manage and they are lovely, but how it occurs for me is: I’m not interested. I’m not a No-never; I’m a No-not-now. I know myself to be reliable to create another long-term relationship and partnership, but not now.” “Got it,” Joan leaned to one elbow and blinked slowly. “You know, there is a cultural conversation that if you are not in-relationship, there’s something wrong with you.” The City Team giggled. “No really,” she addressed them in earnest. “And we can hardly tolerate someone who’s not; like they need fixing or something. And we ask about dating to deal with our own discomfort because we don’t have any capacity to be uncomfortable. Is there anything else you want to say about this Lorin?” I wanted to scream, Get off my back! to drive the point home. “No, I think that’s it,” I said, returning to my seat. The City Team, all 80 of them, took to merciless pestering in their commitment to expand my capacity for discomfort. Damn them! Collin had expressed a similar sentiment. “Based on results,” I said over dinner, “I am reliable to create another long-term relationship; you are not.” “Maybe I don’t want one,” he wore a strained, pained look. “Maybe I’m not committed to relationships. Any relationship!” “Maybe you’re not,” I agreed, “It’s a good thing to know about yourself. If it’s true… quit dragging women through relationships with you.” “People approach me all the time and say, ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’” Collin’s voice rose. “And I often think, what makes you think I want to meet anyone?” “Maybe that’s not a lack of commitment to relationship, maybe it’s a barrier to relationship, that’s in your blind spot, that you can’t see. There is an exercise coming your way called Limits to Participation – pay attention.” “I will,” he said with a genuine smile. Is my limit to participation secondary to a barrier residing in my blind spot? Like a growing cancer in my cranium, undetected until it’s inoperable? Until I’ve spent a lifetime alone? I am often unavailable and inaccessible on many, many fronts. “It comes up,” Pua said, “Because it’s a mismatch. It’s not consistent with what you’re committed to.” “I am not going to date someone just to make y’all happy!” I was exasperated and defensive. “I just haven’t met anyone I’m interested in, who is interested back. I don’t think I need to defend that. Listen, the bed’s not even cool before some find another partner. Like they’ve barely had time to launder the sheets. Nothing wrong with that?” And really, there is nothing wrong with that. We are social beings, pack animals with behaviors across a continuum. The behaviors in question represent opposing tails of the bell curve. “I have a cadre of men who cast a very long shadow,” I continued. “I see them regularly. They love me, support me, guide me, console me, help me, and want the world for me. With them I feel loved, wanted, desired, beautiful, all that. I don’t have to date to fill that hole and… none of them is my lover. Can I be content with the way things are? I can!” There is no paucity of people pointing to my foibles. “Why are you attracted to unavailable men?” I dunno, my Daddy complex? My Dad, a long and lean drink of water, is as unavailable as the dance is familiar. I didn’t know how to undo that. I could meet a wide variety of men in all shapes: check, sizes: check, and colors: check. I could have close relationships with non-athletic men: check. I could spend time with men of different educational backgrounds: check, and socio-economic levels: check. I could foster friendships with men outside my standard lanes of traffic: check. I could ask men out: check. I could accept dates: check. I could date men to whom I am not attracted: er… that seems like a pointless and futile exercise. “Why is this okay with you?” Wendell pressed, “Like, this is okay for right now.” “No, it’s not this is okay for right now, this IS right now,” I defended. “Right now is all there is and my life looks like this right now. It doesn’t quite match my picture… and there is nothing wrong, nothing broken, nothing lacking, no unmet expectations.” "But don't you missed being kissed and hugged and cuddled?" he asked. "We won't even talk about sex." "Of course." “But then you’re not even engaged.” As if the frenetic search for a mate is all there is. Certainly not a bad game but not the only game. “I don’t know how you can say that,” my heart zoomed, sending a flutter into my right carotid. “I am on the phone or attending a function up to five nights a week. That’s a lot of engagement. But I’m not on eHarmony or Match.com if that’s what you mean. I have no lack of men nor do I have trouble meeting them.” “But you’re not even interested,” he changed tack. Interest is an entirely different matter. “I was interested in Collin.” Wendell hated hearing about Collin. I was guilty of brandishing Collin like a proof-of-purchase that now and again, and contrary to urban legend, my sonar did indeed – ping. “Get over Collin already,” he scolded, “He’s unavailable in more ways than you can imagine.” Tall, dark, handsome, lean, aloof and unavailable. Purrfect! “I am over Collin; I was never stuck on Collin. But Collin got me out of the gate, for which I thanked him. Here’s what Collin proved: if I’m interested, I’ll saddle up. But for the most part… I ain’t interested. Is that the product of a barrier? I don’t know. But y’all act like I’m sitting in the duck blind and need help choosing my prey and pulling the trigger.” Duck soup: shooting ducks in a pond is duck soup. “What few seem to understand is: IT AIN’T DUCK SEASON!” That’s it; isn’t it? The what-is-so of it: it ain’t duck season. Shooting ducks in a target rich environment is an expedient starting point for making duck soup. Funny... no moah duck soup on da menu. (Said in my very best Charlie Chan.) Ah-so, no wondah no likey duck. Not everyone pulls a permit when hunting season opens. That the barren bed draws for another like a vortex may imply a universal law, to which I am at odds. Funny that common denotes normalcy, as if there is such a thing. Society presses and pressures with constant comment that relegates deviancy uncommon by virtue that it goes to ground, underground. Neither is better, only different points on the spectrum, once again. The noise of others, like a concerto in my head plays second fiddle to the rhythm of my heart. I am not moving to the duck waddle, the hunter’s dance, the fertility dance, the mattress mambo, or the moon dance. I move to the I-like-my-life-just-the-way-it-is-and-just-the-way-it-isn’t dance. No fixing, no defending. I sway to the tune of: blossom where you’re planted. There is a chord of deep contentment in that melody. Ha’ina ‘ia mai, ana ka puana la. My life, my song, my hula. I understand that my hula may be an acquired taste and not for general consumption. There are many, many halaus in which to dance. This is my halau: kick off your slippahs, take up your ti leaves, move da hips, bend da knees, tell da story in your hands… and dance with me. Happy Mother’s Day! Mahalo to my Mother, for birthing me, for raising me, for teaching me the love of books and quiet time, for instilling respect of my heritage and my elders, for allowing this tomboy to trade crinolines for footballs, for music and horseback riding lessons, for my 1st Kamaka ukulele and my love of family, for standing in women's rights long before the vogue, and for dancing a distinctive and synchronous hula. Fearless and progressive, Mom provided forward-flow to my life. Mahalo and Aloha Mom. Me puuwai na oe.

Swedish in Seattle

I spent half the morning wandering through secured doors, convoluted chutes and circular corridors, attempting to get the lay of the land. My compass star? The Starbucks in the main lobby, around which Swedish Hospital – Cherry Hill revolved. I stopped for a cup of yogurt and stepped into the walled garden bordering the cafeteria. Three weeping cherries stooped, skeletal and barren, awaiting the strong-arm of summer to pry its way between cement towers and force the spring that seemingly bathed Seattle, to their minuscule plot. Weeping cherry trees, Swedish – Cherry Hill... I get it. I was in Swedish for four full days, training nurses. I turned to miniature weeping Japanese maples, heads bowed and branches gracefully bent as if in prayer. Their new leaves like gnarled fists uncurling, released by winter’s grip. Squatting to read a small bronze plaque set between them, I was caught unawares: Sisters of Providence. Sisters of Providence? I had worked at the Sisters of Providence hospital in Anchorage – a full lifetime ago. “Was this hospital a Sisters of Providence Hospital?” I inquired. “Yes. Swedish bought it a few years back and has eradicated nearly every sign of the Sisters.” I mentioned Providence over dinner to a chorus of similar sentiment. I was saddened that new owners would obliterate versus honor the fruits of their labor and the Sister’s memory. Eradicate may not have been the intention, though clearly it was the impression of the community. On the hill chosen by Sisters long ago, I paused at a sixth floor window, taking in bruised skies and a sleeping city’s shadowy skyscrapers poking through a nocturnal blanket of fog. Why can’t I find Mt. Rainier? Perched over the city, Rainier is only visible, weather permitting. And like most populations that dwell in the shadow of a great mountain, word rippled through its denizens when the weather broke, the clouds parted and the mountain in all its glory, stood its ground. Get thee to a nunnery. There are many reasons to join a convent. A want and call to serve God is but one. A family’s hedge on life eternal and one less mouth to feed is another. It was the proper place of repose for the deeply contrite and indubitably pregnant. And until modern times, the cloister was the sole source for women’s education. Circumstance surrounding induction into the Order of the Sisters of Providence takes nothing from their contribution. A band of women in the yet untamed lands of the Pacific Northwest built a home to house and nurse the sick to health. And in the absence of health, offered prayer, comfort and care until death. I walked more erect; my gait gained bounce for the ground was suddenly familiar. I'd found my bearings in friendly territory, this was Providence. “Have you ever had a catheter that you could get medications into,” I pointed, gesturing forward, leading them through my seven-minute talk, “But couldn’t get blood out?” The small group of nurses nodded silently. Nurses are eager and apt students; teaching nurses, people who care and care to make a difference, is as easy as it is pleasurable. “That’s a problem. You should never have a catheter into which you can infuse but can’t get a blood return. We call that a partial occlusion, most likely caused by clot, and we want you to treat that sooner than later.” “Are you Swedish?” someone blurted. Do I look Swedish? Monkey volleyed sarcastically, fully expecting an answer though thankfully, he was unheard. I smiled a knowing smile. “We at Kaiser are very incestuous,” I have said more often than not. “We l-o-v-e being trained by one of our own.” A familiar family crest begets kinship and a willing attitude. “No,” I answered, “I am here with a team of people visiting from California, to train in all three of your hospitals.” I boarded my plane after days of traipsing down their halls, never once having glimpsed the mountain. Airborne, Mt. Rainer rose to meet my climbing jet. She gathered herself from the lowlands like a woman gathers full skirts and crinolines to rise. My eyes were drawn to the fall of her shoulders, her curves, her flanks and the aura of ice crystals that sparkled with magic and mystery. A domed cloud cupped her crown and reached with creeping tendrils to shoulders and breasts covered by a perpetual shawl of snow and ice. Substantial hips and flanks wore an apron of white that would soon give way to summer’s lush and fecund lands, the fertile valleys that skirted her feet. The breeze that whistled through concrete seracs perched on Cherry Hill carried the frigid fragrance of Madam Rainier. Mesmerized by the mountain, I stared unblinking as my mind wandered, hopscotching over previous days. United beneath one flag, Swedish-First Hill and Swedish-Cherry Hill are twin sons of different mothers. I suddenly understood her question, Are you Swedish? as a variant of: friend or foe. I had wrongly assumed Swedish, friend. Beneath blonde Swedish skin, behind shiny, new letters emblazoned at the circular entrance, beat the pulse of Providence. They did not eradicate the garden nor the telltale, small bronze plaque. On Cherry Hill, they had yet to still the heartbeat, vanquish the loyalty or banish the passionate champions for the mission of the Sisters of Providence.