For 6 euros, fresh squeezed juice and a song

We are in Europe now. We arrived in Paris, bleary-eyed from the night plane, last Wednesday morning. The day was cloudy with some sun, warm and cold at the same time. We tried to accustom our jet lagged bodies by walking through the Tuilleries, casually looking at the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe as if we saw these structures everyday and that it was no big deal to have them as our backdrop.

Paris was as stunningly beautiful as I remembered it from our trip five years ago. Almost too much beauty to take in all at once. Too many croissants and crepes. I wish that I could spread it out in my life.

We walked back to our old neighbourhood, our apartment on Rue Vavin, the Luxembourg Gardens, the place where we would get gelato. 

Then we tried to fit in as many new experiences as we could. We had dinner in St. Germaine, we went shopping on Rue Coomerce, we visited Sacre Coeur in Monmartre, and we strolled the streets of Canal St. Martin.  Everything is expensive in Paris, but our best 6 euros spent was for a bottle of fresh squeezed juice in Monmartre where the vendor sang while he made juice for us. "Chante," he said to Aveen.

 Our trip was completely different than the one five years ago because this time the kids can walk a lot. So we walked and walked and soaked Paris up as much as we could in less than three says. It was too short. I could definitely live in Paris. Maybe one day, we will stay for a month.

A Letter to Robin Williams

Dear Robin,

I have been thinking a lot about you this week, as has everyone else.  Like everyone else, I was surprised that you had suffered severe depression and took your life last Monday. 

Surprised and not surprised. I had not really given much thought to whether you had been depressed or not, but if I had, I might have guessed that you were.  After all, you have, at various points in your life, abused drugs and alcohol (I would never characterize you as a drug addict or an alcoholic as that would debase you to only the negative parts of you and why do that when there were so many wonderful parts to you?), and generally people do those things when they are unhappy and want to escape something.

So I wasn't really surprised, but I was sad.  I was sad that you felt such despair that you would take your life.  I am sad that you did not have someone you felt you could turn to or that you saw no way out.  I was sad that even someone so funny could be so depressed.  You had a kind face.  You must have had people who loved you.  And yet you took your life.

I can't say that I don't understand that.  I mean, I have people who love me, and yet, I have been depressed at various times in my life, especially in the last two years.  I have had good reason, I think, at times in the last two years to be depressed from time to time.  I don't even think it is considered depression if you have a good reason to be.  I think that is called being normal.  Then, again, maybe it isn't.  After all, I had good reason to be anxious, yet my psychologist said I had an anxiety disorder.  (Yes, I know it probably has to do with the degree to which you are anxious or depressed about difficult things in life.)

Today, I felt a bit down.  It was the 5th day of cold, rainy, gloomy weather.  Oh, and it's not October.  It's the middle of August.  The weather network is calling it Augtober.

And we have been going through a difficult time with my father.  Not in the cancer sense.  But still, we are waiting for results of imaging.  And I so love doing that.  (Read this last line in a sarcastic or ironic.)

It rained and rained today. And there was nothing to do all day.  And I felt so lonely.  I wanted to call a friend to go for coffee.  But I didn't.

Did you call a friend to go for coffee, Robin?  I bet you didn't either.  Because people often don't reach out when they need to.  I wish I had been your friend.  I wish I could have gone for coffee with you.  Not that I am narcicistic and delusional and think that I could have saved you from killing yourself.  (No, I'm just a bad speller and can't figure out where the spell check is on this blogger.)  But I just think we might have had a good talk.  In fact, I could have used a coffee with you today.  I'm sure you would have made me laugh.

Don't worry about me. The forecast is for sun tomorrow.  I'm sure I will feel better as soon as I can get out for a bike ride or a swim. 

It's just that it's too late for you.

If it rains again, tomorrow, I'll ask someone to go for coffee.

Rest in peace.

Sunset Salads

It is the middle of August.  The summer is slipping past me, too fast.  I can't hold on to it.  It's over before it's over.  A particularly cold and wet week - the week I am OFF work - gives us a preview of fall.  It gives us time to be cozy, to sleep late, clean the house, bake cookies.  We even went shopping for school supplies and fall clothes, before November this year!  But really, I would take a messy house and be ill-prepared for back-to-school for cheerful, sunny days. 

I can`t say that we haven`t had our share of sunny days this summer.  We have been swimming and eating our dinners outside.  Almost every evening, we take our salad to the second floor balcony and eat watching the sunset.  Every night, we go to bed too late.

Despite summer slipping by fast, the world seems to tilt slowly on its axis.  My father`s torn leg muscle has covered our summer in a blanket of slowness, reflecting the slowness of his movement and his progress. So slow that he wonders what is going on and has asked his doctor to do an x-ray.  The results are slow to come in.  We have spent slow-moving visits at my parents` apartment, talking and arguing, providing company and not much help.  Hoping to see improvement.  Then being happy to leave.

My father`s leg has taken my mind off, ever so slightly, of my own health.  Yet, I notice subtle differences in myself.  I feel ... changed.  I have difficulty relating to the world.  I have lost interest in certain things, it seems, permanently.  I sometimes feel impatient.  I sometimes don't understand and feel that others don`t understand.  How can they?  It doesn`t mean anything, except that I sometimes feel alone. 

I have been less scared.  Though I still replay the events over and over in my head, it is less often.  Though I still have he same symptoms repeating, they are less severe.  The experience is fading, somewhat, in my memory.

Yet, sometimes, I will react to things in a way people don`t understand.  The cleaning lady comes at a different hour than the one that we agreed on, and I realize that Aveen has been at home, enveloped in the fumes of cleaning supplies, for over an hour.  I am panicked and angry and get Aveen out of the house urgently. 

No one understands why.

I am kept waiting for dinner.  And I don't eat until late.  And it makes me too full, and I can`t sleep that night.  I lie awake, and everything hits me.  And I wonder how I could have spent the day not scared.  At dawn, I finally sleep for a couple of hours.  And when the sun comes up, things are less dramatic and I wish I could have just let myself sleep.

But.  The memory is fading.  Ever so slowly.  But fading.  Like the sunset.  The memory is fading into darkness. 

Moving on is a slow and gradual process.  Little by little, new experiences replace older ones.

And I have sunrise to look forward to.  And a new day. 

Parents, and parent-like people and places

Part 1

 

I would never tell my mother, but my father has always been my favourite parent.  Partly, unjustly, since I saw my mother all the time (since she was a stay-at-home mom) but also because I have more in common with my father than my mother, a love for reading, going for walks, and reaching for academic fulfillment and success.  At the same time, it has always been my parents, together, that have given me balance in parenting.  I can talk to my father about more intellectual/philosophical things.  But my mother is generally more cheerful and social.  To this day, I prefer to have them both on the line when I talk to them on the phone.

 

Last Sunday, on Father’s Day, I ended up spending the Day in the ER with my father.  For my father, this time, not for me.  We were supposed to go to Merrickville that day to celebrate Father’s Day.  But a few days before, my father had said he would prefer if we just went over to their house for dinner instead.  On Sunday morning, my father called and said he had hurt his leg a little.  It turned out that he had not been able to walk in days.  It surprised me that my mother hadn’t insisted that he go to the hospital, as she is generally wont to do, but there was a logistical problem in getting my father to the hospital, given that he couldn’t walk.  An ambulance was an option they were keeping in the backs of their head. 

 

My tolerance for uncertainty has not increased, so I insisted they go to the hospital right away.  Jaime was able to skillfully manoeuvre my father into our car and get him settled into a wheelchair in the hospital.  Several hours later, an ER doctor decided that it was a muscular pain (possibly a torn ligament), gave him some painkillers and a cane and sent him home.  I felt unsatisfied, because they didn’t do any tests to confirm that the issue was muscular, and they didn’t provide anything really helpful, given that he couldn't walk.

 

I was unable to sleep that night.  I kept thinking that if my poor, beloved dad woke up in the middle of the night, he would not be able to just get up and go to the bathroom or get a drink of water.  As if to compensate, I kept getting up.  I thought how awful it was that your life can change just like that – even if it just just temporarily.  That, one day, you can wake up and you can’t walk, or you have a broken wrist or you are sick – and your life changes.  It seems like everything can change in a day. 

 

And I wondered if the opposite is possible, whether it is possible for your life to suddenly take a turn towards the wonderful.  I couldn’t think of when that happened to me.  I asked Jaime, who doesn’t have this cloud hanging over him the way I seem to lately, and he said that, aside from maybe winning the lottery, your life can’t just change for the better in a minute.  Anything you do to make your life better, like getting a better job or achieving better health, happens over time and takes a lot of hard work.

 

It brings me back to something my father used to say about friendships, that good and true friendships take a long time to build, but they can be destroyed in a minute, with a betrayal or a few harsh words.  Just like a ceramic or a beautiful flower – anything good takes effort and a long time to blossom but can be broken with no effort in no time at all.

 

My dad was right.  And though his summer has been changed in the blink of an eye, I hope that with time and nurturing, good things will happen and he will be walking again.

 

Part 2

 

I tell my kids that they can tell me or talk to me or ask me about anything.  Boys (or girls, whatever the case might be), friend troubles, school troubles, questions about drugs and puberty and science and skin care.  I want, more than anything, to be the trusted adult in their lives.   

But over the last couple of years, I have also tried to teach them that I am not the only trusted adult in their lives.  Of course, they have their father.  But they also have access to so many other adults that they should feel they can turn to – teachers, parents of their friends, coaches.  As I faced my mortality, I really wanted them to know that they would have many more people to take care of them than just me.  I even gave up my prized position of being “favourite parent” over to Jaime.  They used to love me more.  But now they love Jaime more.  And I did that consciously, for them.  That hurt me to do, but it also makes me feel better that if anything should happen to me, they will be all right.  And, in any case, the more people in their lives, the better their lives will be.

 

I know this, because I have had many people in my life that were not my parents, but parent-like.  Mostly they were teachers.  Sister Murphy, Ms. Pronowitz, Mr. Kyte.  They were all really wonderful teachers who saw something special in me and cared about me and were influential in shaping my life – my love of writing, my extra-curricular activities, my eventual study of economics.  When I started working, I had bosses like that too.  Bosses that became parent-like to me.  To this day, those relationships have sustained me and helped me get through the most difficult periods of my life, with complete selflessness and generosity. 

 

This week, I felt sad, saying good-bye to one of those people in my life.  At the same time that I had to start more of a caregiver role to my father for the first time.  I know that I should be a grown-up now and not need parents and parent-like figures in my life.  I should be one.  I am one.  And, yet, I feel sad and vulnerable and inadequate.  Though I know that I am strong, resilient and up to the job.  I know, because all these people in my life have nurtured and taken care of me, taught me and shown me about studies and work and life, and, most of all, to stand on my own two feet.  I have to be able to show them that I can do it, that they haven’t wasted their time.

 

There are parent-like places too.  Schools, jobs, places that grow you up.  As I stood in one such place yesterday, listening to speeches at the farewell reception of a colleague at my former workplace, I was flooded with a rush of emotions.  I had worked at this place for 15 years, and I had spectacular ups and downs there.  And all those ups and downs came to me, like water unleashed from a dam.  I was conflicted, and just wanted to go back to my new job, which is a bit boring right now, but is steady and even-keeled and in many ways, more grown up.  I was in my old job for so long.  I grew up in that job.  In my new job, I don’t have parent- or mentor-like bosses.  My bosses are now younger than me.  And getting younger by the minute.  It doesn’t matter what my position or job title is, I am the adult in my new job. 

 

Next week, I will attend my son’s school-leaving ceremony.  After 8 years, he will be finished elementary school, and moving on to middle school.  There will be no more supervised walk-overs or after-care programs.  He will leave the relatively safe confines of the Glebe, where trusted teachers and parents of friends are everywhere.  He will be crossing the boundary into centre-town to go to middle school there.  At times, he will be able to walk with friends.  But there will be times when he will be by himself.  And he will have to rely on his judgement and good sense and everything we have, as parents, and as a community, taught him about traffic-safety and stranger-safety.  He will have to stand, as I have to, on his own two feet.

 

And, finally

 

If life came with a sound track, this would be the song of the moment:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFrsT9sc_B0

 

 

 

 

 

Marking the Day

Once again, I was brought to the brink of disaster and, once again, saved.

My doctor called me with the news that my results came back negative (which is positive news) – a fibro-something.  I prefer his technical explanation that it was “completely boring” (though the nurse told me I would have to have a repeat mammogram in a year to see if anything has changed and apparently now I am in a higher risk category). 

In the first few days after I received the good news, I felt alternately grateful and angry.

Grateful, because: 

I am doing fine, for the moment, after ovarian cancer, (which, my ovarian cancer specialist said,  will kill you), minus a number of organs and a serious case of PTSD.

My body healed itself after scares that I might have to have a nephroscopy bag or might lose a kidney because of my complication from surgery.  It turns out I didn’t even need further surgery. 

I  didn’t break any bones falling off my high bed at the yoga retreat even though I have osteoporosis.

This latest scare turned out okay.

Angry, because:

I have to be grateful not to have had two cancers in as many years and to not have a nephroscopy bag, etc. when no one else around me does either and they don’t have to feel grateful about it.

Others seem to receive congratulations for getting a new job or promotion but I get it for not having (another) cancer.

And, really, just because.  I had to spend another 6 weeks on tests and a biopsy (which was not fun, says the girl who thought the mammogram was actually okay) and had to wait, suspended in time, to find out if I was going to have cancer again or not. Because, to cope, I took Ativan again, and the withdrawal (decided to go cold turkey, just because I couldn’t make myself take another one of those pills) even after a few weeks is tough.  And just because.

I guess I really felt that somehow the world should change after I got the good news.  And it didn’t.  Just as when I was going through the tests and waiting for possibly life-changing news, I was expected to go to work, co-ordinate my children’s activities, cook the meals, after I got the news, I was expected to do exactly the same thing.  When I expected the world to somehow mark my news.

I told Jaime that I wanted to mark the event somehow.  He suggested a trip, which I would have loved, but I let practical considerations get in the way (though I am trying not to let those get in the way more often). 

Instead, I said I wanted to do a hike around Pink Lake in the Gatineaus in the early morning.  I love the Gatineaus and thought there would be something sacred in an early morning walk there.  My kids were not happy.  What?  A hike?  We don’t like hikes.  Early?  Why?  We don’t like to wake up early.  And when we do, we like to sit in front of the T.V.  Well, somehow, I got there buy-in, and by 8:00 on Sunday morning, we were packed and on our way to Pink Lake, even knowing to take an alternative route because of the bike race.  Well, wouldn’t you know, that alternative route was also closed because of Sunday morning bike rides.  We turned around and headed to Meach Lake instead.  When we got there, things looked okay.  But when we started the walk, about a million mosquitoes started to attack us, getting in our eyes and mouth and biting us.  Poor Amrita was getting the most bitten, though at least I had made her wear long pants.  To keep the mosquitoes away, Jaime swatted at his face and his glasses flew off, landing somewhere in the piles of leave, where we couldn’t see.  We started looking for them, getting eaten all along.  I finally spotted them.  We walked faster.  We ran, and ran and ran, all the way to the clearing and a lake, where there was a brief respite from the bugs.  At the lake, we stopped for a bit and I tried to really look and to really see and really breathe and really be grateful.  We saw butterflies.  We saw fish.  We saw ripple in the water. After a few minutes, when we were ready to do the run back, we set our watches to see how long it would take.  10 minutes.  We ran back in 10 minutes.  It used to take us 40 minutes to do the walk.

So the walk didn’t go exactly how we planned.  But for me, it was the beginning of being able to let this latest scare go.  The beginning of being able to breathe again.  The beginning of being able to think about my life again.  I don’t expect the world to change anymore. I marked it.  And now I can go on.

And my kids said it was the best hike we’ve ever been on!

 

 

 

 

Learning from Sri Chinmoy

Almost seven years ago, when I spent a few weeks in the summer in language training, I had a teacher who knew Bengali.  Unusual for teachers training hopeless civil servants to get their required C-levels in French.  But this teacher asked me if I could speak any other languages, and after he learned that I knew Bengali, he would intersperse a few words of Bengali here and there and make comparisons between French and Bengali.

J'aime.  J'amais.  Ami bhalo bashi.  I love.

French has two ways of addressing "you".  Tu and vous.  Bengali has three.  Tui, Tumi, Apni.

Jomoge.  Jumeau/Jumelle.  Twin.

He didn't tell me until after the course was done why he was interested in Bengali or why he would run in a marathon every year that didn't seem to have any purpose - not raising funds for any reason, not to see who would win, none of the typical reasons.

After I had passed my test and had just come back to say good-bye to him, he said he had something for me.  It was a poster for a play that he was going to be in.  Two Spiritual Lions.  He said he had directed it and was going to be acting in it.  I promised I would go to see it.

Before the night of the play, I looked it up.  It was a play written by Sri Chinmoy, a Bengali spiritual leader who promoted peace and harmony through sport.  One of the many things he had done was to start the World Harmony Run, a global torch relay, seeking to strengthen international friendship and understanding.

I was so taken by the play, I started to read more about Sri Chinmoy, who also taught meditation.  I found his words comforting.  I kept The Wings of Joy on my night table and read it again and again, and uploaded Flute Music for Meditation on my iPhone.    

In the last few weeks, I returned to Sri Chinmoy for comfort.  I bought a book of his meditation techniques.  One of my favourites has been this:

Remain unaffected by the waves.  Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil.  On the surface, there may be a multitude of waves, but the sea is not affected below.  In its deepest depths, the sea is all silence.  When we start meditating, first we try to reach our inner existence, our true existence - that is to say, the bottom of the sea.  Then, when the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected.  Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoil will just wash away, because inside us is solid peace.  Thought cannot touch us, because our mind is all peace, all silence, all one-ness.  Like fish in the sea, they jump and swim but leave no mark.  So when we are in our highest meditation, we feel that we are the sea, and the animals in the sea cannot affect us.  We feel that we are the sky, and all the birds flying past cannot affect us.  Our mind is the sky and our heart is the infinite sea.  This is meditation. 

The things happening to me are the waves and I am trying to be unaffected by them.  I am trying to remain in the depths of the sea and my inner existence. 

It doesn't always work, but it helps.  And when I am scared, I read a few more of Sri Chinmoy's words.  He also helps me to understand why suffering is necessary.  It is a purification of the soul.  Suffering can be to atone for sins in a previous life - Dharma - but it can also be to allow one to understand humanity better, an experience that God wants to have through us.

Sri Chinmoy passed away just a few days before I went to see my French teacher's play.  But he did not consider death to be the end, just part of the spiritual journey. 

And I never saw my French teacher again.  I think he came into my life to introduce me to Sri Chinmoy (and help me get a C in French).  Who would have thought that it would be a Franco-Ontario who would bring a Bengali spiritual leader into my life?

Clouds and sunshine

Amid the storm of my feelings this weekend, a few rays of light….

 

….Amrita’s friend who tells her mother she can so come to our house hungry because we are practically like family.

….Dinner at a friend’s house where everyone is nice and I am able to just enjoy myself for a bit.

….Amrita who falls asleep with my arms tightly wrapped around her.

….A friend who is moving away who gives Aveen her old guitar (a beautiful guitar) because he loves to play.

….A plunge in the pool which is freezing but exhilarating and makes me feel good for a few minutes.

….Being close to the earth as I pull out the weeds in my garden.

….The warm night wind as I make my nightly pilgrimage to the Blessed Sacrament.