Yet still I hope

My heart sinks every time I do this. I make the right turn, pull down the street and the house comes into view. I feel my brother stirring in the back, I wonder, if he is as anxious as I am. Does he feel like this every time he approaches the house and prepares to go through those doors. Anyway, as I slow the car and pull into the driveway there seems to be some other force pulling my heart out of my chest, like an angry gladiator thirsty for blood. My heart aches for me, for him. I try to smile, recap the day quick and slowly walk him to the door. This is what the unconscious is for I think to myself, I am glad he cant hear my thoughts. As we slowly walk up to the house I think how I just want to grab him and run, run like hell for a happier place, a place where little boys dont lose their caring mothers, a place where little boys dont have to walk into a house full of pictures of their wonderful mother who is no longer here, a world where little boys dont have to feel the immense weight of cold hard reality every day. Who do I think I am? Why do I think I can save everyone from pain? I know I can't and still I feel the urge each and every time I walk him into the house. The house full of Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, presents and a Christmas tree feels as empty as a dried up pool on a hot summer day. Is it me or does his heart sink like mine as I move in to give him a hug good bye, does he too want to run away? I look around and she is everywhere, and yet not here. The pain I feel at this moment, these few days I am home visiting when I come to the house. Is that his pain 365 days a year? The pain I sometimes feel I cant bear another second is that what he lives with? As I say my last goodbye,close the door behind me, and slowly walk to my car the feeling of apprehension and anxiety is replaced by sadness and worry as I carry the weight of these thoughts after every visit. I try to console myself with the thought that I cant change what is, that I alone cant restore innocence to a child, yet still I hope.

Life Cycle Intro

It is amazing how things suddenly enter our field of vision, often times we fail to see what is right there staring at us. It is only after much searching that the seemingly obvious becomes so. I had always thought this, or thought I knew what this concept meant until a trip yesterday I made to my mother's grave. As I was about to leave her grave, I spun around for one last look out at the trees and ocean and there it was, staring at me. After this revelation, I realized how time sometimes clouds what will become of us, but somewhere deep in the dark recesses of the moment are faint hints of the natural cycle of life. Where we begin and where we return, and who we are at these different moments in our life is constantly in flux. Over the past day though I was reminded of this eery nature of time in three different instances. To keep things shorter I have titled them Life cycle I, II and II....

Life Cycle Part I

We never know who we will be when we return to a certain spot, and sometimes when we return, without even knowing it we are exactly where we should be...

As I dropped Ali off at the ferry the months came rushing back. Here it was December and I was driving her back to the ferry again, but in just a few short months our lives had become dramatically different. In June as I was making this same trek to the ferry, I was dropping off the girl of my dreams, letting her go and fully expecting I would never see her again. As we waited in that parking lot, saying our last good byes I was flooded by sadness. I had met my match, the woman who I saw myself traveling the world with, going on adventures with and growing with. Six short months ago I was laying it on the line, telling her my dreams and asking for her to trust I knew we could make it work. As she stepped out of my car and onto the ferry I saw my dreams walking away. My stomach was uneasy and I did not know what would happen. As that ferry pulled away I had never felt so lost in my entire life, for an instant I held clarity in my hands and I watched it fade away into the horizon with each moment of the ferries movement. After the ferry pulled out of sight, I climbed in my car, let out a deep sigh and slowly drove home into the unknown.
Fast forward to yesterday. After spending Christmas with Ali, I am driving her home to the ferry. Those 6 short months ago seem unrecognizable. The words spoken, the time between and the people we are now are so very different. As I walked her on to the ferry I could not help but think back to that moment in June as I watched this very same boat pull away. Instead of anxiety and sadness I now felt happiness. The girl of my dreams was now the girl of my reality, and this same spot in which I had stood just a short time ago welcomed me with a new face. I had seen in a glimpse on that warm summer day, but it eluded me. Now though as I returned to the point of our fateful departure, I kissed her one last good bye and told her I would see her in a few days. If I could have seen into the future that day I would have never even recognized who I or we were to become. It is phenomenal to me that our bodies can be in the same place, but how time changes who we are inside when we arrive again at those same places. In a way we are always arriving and departing and while the places may seem the same, who we are is forever changing.

Life Cycle Part II

Time changes how we look at things, and sometimes we can not even see who we will become and where we will end up even though it might be right there in front of us.
Shortly after leaving the ferry I drove up to visit my mother's grave. It had been a long holiday and my visit was overdue. As I strode from the road down to her stone, I gazed into the distance. I was amazed at the beauty of the place, the ocean, and the trees swaying in the cold December air. I had made these steps many times by now, frequently coming to visit whenever I was back in New York. This time I made the same long timid strides, the ones that brought me to her resting place, the ones that reminded me that this was indeed real. Its odd as I think about those steps, its like in my head I somehow feel I might arrive at her grave and find nothing there, and frantically run to the car to go see her realizing it had all been a bad dream. Never was this the case though, instead as I took my last few steps the stone came into view, and it sunk in that this was very very real. There would be no epiphany, no waking up, this was it and I needed to breathe and deal with that fact. Slowly as always I crouched down to the dirt, silently telling her hello, wondering if maybe she was watching me at this moment, perched high above her grave maybe she could see me weep, my head bowed and think how I had changed since my last visit. After some time of silence I got up as I always do, peering out with my back to her grave to look out into the distance. Despite the fact that I had been here many times, I never saw what I saw at that moment. Gazing out directly from her grave was a clear view of St.Charles hospital, the very hospital I was born in some 28 years ago.
As I gazed out on to the hospital, and looked at the tiny windows I thought how odd this whole scene was. Here I was standing at my mother's grave, looking right at the very hospital in which she gave me life. Here in this moment stood poised the natural cycle of life, birth and death. This epiphany forced me to wonder what my mom was like nearly 28 years ago. I pictured her young and beautiful, about to give birth for the first time. I saw a 22 year old girl sitting in that hospital bed, just a few miles, and an eyes gaze away from her final resting spot. Of course she did not know this, we never the where and when, but to think that on that day as she gave birth, or as she held me in her arms, buoyant with the possibilities of the future I wonder if for one moment her eyes fell upon this spot that is now her grave as she looked out the window. In that moment of pure life, where the future seems so huge and impregnated with possibility and teeming with life, did her heart stop for a brief second as her eyes saw that spot, did something deep inside her know? And now? Does her soul pass over this spot, does she look down upon me here weeping at her grave and turn her eyes just slightly upward and see back into where she gave me life? Does she gaze back longingly at that hospital, at those moments of bliss and pure possibility and weep? Or does she look back at that hospital, gazing from her grave and smile at the amazing cycle that life is? I would like to believe she looks back with a smile. I know I do when I think that each moment we encounter is both tinged with the great hope of possibility life while also harboring the fact that at some point we will all meet our end. This is both the beauty and the tragedy that is life. So when I reflect upon this great cycle before me, it forces me to remember to savor those moments, every moment as hard as that it is. As my eyes gaze out into the possibilities before me, as I smile at the moments that bring me elation, I remember to be thankful for this very moment, for who knows when it may end.

Just thinking...

I cant believe that in nearly a month it has been 3 years. I have Mom's picture up in our house and her huge smile shines over the living room which I love. Every morning I wake up walk out into the living room, open the shades to let in the sun, hear the sounds of the ocean and see her smile. I wish she could "be" here, I know she would love it, but I also feel she knows and is here in her own way. Waking to that smile, I try to start my day thankful I am here, and thankful for my family and try to let everything else fall as it may. I am still amazed though that it has been 3 years, it seems like yesterday I was stepping off a plane into the cold NY December to bury her. It also seems like ages since I have heard her laugh and felt the warmness of her hug, and I think that is the hardest. She had this way about her, this lightness and belief in the good of people despite all she went through. I have never met anyone who could love so much, and who always had this lightheratedness about her. I miss her like crazy and after three years I realize that will never go away, but I need to turn that sadness into something productive, so I try to remember all the good I have in my life, and I have a lot of it.

Tasting the heady wine of freedom...

Not mine but I read this and found it worthwhile to think over:

"We move through the world in a narrow grove preoccupied with the petty things we see and hear, brooding over our prejudices, passing by the joys of life without even knowing we have missed anything. Never for a moment do we taste the heady wine of freedom. We are as fully imprisoned as if we lay at the bottom of a dungeon, heaped with chains." Yang Chu

So with that...how are we going to find that freedom? I think the answer is simple, it is right there in front of us. It does not lie in more clothes, more purchases, more money, a better car. This freedom he speaks of is so elusive because it is always right there, all we have to do is slow down, stop thinking and enjoy. The simplest of tasks are often the hardest though and pulling ourselves away from our "responsibilities" (checking email, watching the latest TV show) becomes increasingly difficult. I am guilty of this too, but my goal is to stop and enjoy more, pull myself away from those "pressing problems" and see how pressing they seem after a long walk on the ocean or a run through the woods. If they still need to get done, they will, but in the meantime don't sacrifice your freedom and vitality for the sake of those small things that add up and eat away at your day. Seize that freedom now. Taste the sweet elixir of life and don't wait until you have time, or put it off till another day....make someday today!

A way to start the day...

At work this week one day of school began with a really cool meditation that I think is a great way to start any day, as a way to be thankful and also ground yourself when life is tugging you in every direction. To "meditate" you just take some time to think about these 4 things...
1) Your Wow- What is something you saw this morning or see in general that makes you say wow (This could be something like an amazing blue sky on the way to work, a simple reflection of light you find stunning anything that makes you say wow).
2) Your Sorry- Think of something you are sorry about and whisper this intention or this apology to send it where it needs to go.
3)Your Thankful- Think of something in your life that is great and that you are thankful for. This could be a person, a job, your health whatever...
4)Your change- Think of something you would like to improve or change about yourself. This could be how you react to situations, reducing your anxiety, trying to say thank you more...whatever you think would be a positive improvement.

It's all in the hands

Overheard at this mornings early morning surf...."It's all in the hands, one where you have been the other pointed where you are going..." If you drop one hand and forget where you have been you lose balance, but if you drop your lead hand, you lose the hand that points where you are going. In surfing, and in life, this balance is critical. The past must not weigh us down, but serve instead as a reminder of where we have come from. The future is there too, ripe for the taking, and with some direction we will hopefully end up there eventually. In the middle though is the part that truly matters, that moment where you glide down the face of the wave, one hand back to where you were the other pointed to where you are going, but the body transfixed in that moment. The key it seems then is embracing that ever changing moment, aware of past and future but truly in the present. This is nothing new, and a central tenant of most Buddhist philosophy, but being present is one of the hardest tasks there is, and if I can exist there, if only for a moment, I feel better for it.

Why do we cloak our pain in silence?

Why do we feel we can manufacture happiness with silence?
Why do we let the pain go unsaid?

Silence does not take away the pain.
Silence does not change the reality.
Silence does more violence than good.

What happens to pain unspoken?
Where do those feelings go, left deep inside?

I can tell you, not speaking does not create the happiness we seek.
Our hearts know the pain of loss.
Our souls whisper out, looking for a listening ear.
We are all confused.
We are all in pain.
We all know all too well the pain of loss.

The loss is still there, spoken or not.
The pain is there, expressed or not.
The confusion is still there, shared or not.

So why do we choose to honor her in silence?
Why do we grieve to ourselves?
Why do we take this loss upon ourselves
And feel it is ours alone to bear?

Speak I say. Speak to me. Speak to him. Speak to her. Speak to each other.
We are all lost and all in pain without her presence.

Not speaking does not make this birthday go away
Another year without her.
Deeds left undone, words left unsaid, love left unexpressed.

So if she can no longer speak, console, and make us laugh
Than the need is even greater for us to speak.
To utter our pain.
To communicate our confusion.
To express our love.

She would want it to be like this.
In our moments of happiness she would want us to share happy memories.
In the depths of sadness she would urge us to look to each other for consolation.

Most of all she would want it all.
Every emotion. Every smile. Every tear. Every scream of anger at the pain of it all.
She would want it all expressed. Shared. Spoken.
We no longer have her, but we still have each other.
She may be gone, but in our thoughts, and in our words she lives on.
So why not speak of her.
In happiness. In sadness. In confusion. In memory.

Do not take this pain upon yourself.
We all grieve. We all smile. We all wonder.
Lets turn these whispers of our hearts
Into the emotions spoken form our lips.
Let us not bear this weight alone any longer.
Without her, WE are all we have left.

One last goodbye

Bear with this piece, its long and a work in progress, it might actually end up being a few separate works or chapters....here is a preview

“All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”

It begins like this. A long drive to the east end of long island. My grandparents in the front, I alone in the back. Alone? I guess not technically alone. Beside me lie the remains of my mother. Nearly 3 years have passed…3 years. Beside me a small black box. I try not to think or look, this is all a bit too much. I stare at the vineyards, farm stands, any beauty amidst the chaos of my mind right now. I never thought it would be this hard. I thought I was done grieving. It started as a simple request. My grandmother had decided that she finally wanted to put her daughter to rest, the remains had stayed too long in her closet, it was time. When my grandmother asked me to accompany her to the beach I agreed. I knew it would be hard for her, and foolishly thought that it would be a simple task for me.

Tasks like this can never be simple.

I realize this when we finally arrive at the beach. I take my grandmother by the hand, easing her step from the car, her dark sunglasses fail to hide the pain. “This is the right thing to do she says,” a sense of questioning in her voice. I tell her yes, this is what needs to be done. Strong. Resolute. Calm. I am all of these things until I glance to my left. Out of the corner of my eye I see my grandfather, he reaches into the black plastic box and pulls out a plastic bag. This is when I it all sets in.

Nothing prepares you for the day you see the remains of your parent in a small plastic bag.

Humbling. Philosophical. Sobering. I am not sure what you would call it. But when you physically see that in the end. After all the smiles. All the tears. All the laughter. All the joy. All the worry. All the pain. After all this, all that remains is ash. I thought I knew this, but at that moment I realized I had no idea. To really know such as thing you need to see it, and then maybe you can know. I still don’t know if I know.

Slowly we walk to the beach. My grandmother, a light fit woman, now seems to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders. My grandfather stands resolutely by her side, gently helping her make her way to the shore. She tries to smile. None of us are sure how to do this. Where to go? What to feel?

Finally we arrive at the shore. The three of us stand by the shore searching for answers. The small bag tucked under my grandfather’s arm.

“You should do it Bill”, he says.

“I know but I can’t,” I respond.

****

This is all too much for me. I know what I have to do. I know what I should do. Despite this, every muscle in my body resists taking that small bag from my grandfather. Call it denial. Call it repression. Call it fear. Maybe it was all of these things. As I hold back the tears I reach out my hand and slowly grab the bag. I look out at the sea and know what I must do. Slowly I ease my way into the ocean. The cool water splashes my legs. When the water reaches my knees I stop, look back at my grandparents and take deep breath. I take the bag, and in what feels like slow motion begin to turn it upside down. As light as snowflakes the ashes begin to fall creating a pool of deep gray around my legs. I look down, part in awe, part in amazement. The ashes don’t simply dissolve and disappear into the ocean. Instead the remains form a swirling dark gray tone around my legs. They linger. She lingers…as if trying to say goodbye. I breathe. A sense of peace washes over me. I alternate between staring out into horizon and looking down at the water as the small waves make their way toward shore, just as the waves since crashed make their way back out to sea.

In the midst of this perpetual motion, one wave beginning, another ending I begin to think. Where does one wave begin and one wave end? To the eye and with our language we clearly distinguish what we call A wave, a singular entity which rises, falls and crashes into the shore, never to exist again. But what of this wave, where does this “thing” go once it is wave no more. Is it not made up of waves that have crashed before it, and will it not become part of the waves that will come after it. In fact as you slowly break it down, the wave becomes just water, there is no beginning, no end, but for that brief moment that we discern what we call “a wave.” The water then that composes that wave then is both always arriving and always departing from shore. Each wave, each moment we suddenly distinguish, is composed simply of water, a bit of the previous wave a bit of the later, water from far off lands, water from close to home, no beginning, no end, just simply water in its essence. The wave then is a construct of the human mind, of our language and of our visual capability. Baffled by the endlessness of water, the way it is composed of pieces from all over, with no clear beginning or end, no neat lines drawn around it, our mind searches for something concrete, something we can clearly delineate and name. Out of this mass of endlessness and uncertainty, from the chaotic and infinite we describe the finite as a wave, a mass of water which makes it way to the shore, crashes and is no more. But it is simply because we have chosen to name this particular moment, instant and entity that the wave is no more. At the molecular level, at its very essence a wave is simply water, it has no beginning, no end, it is not its own unique entity, it is composed of the water before it, the water behind, the endless ocean from which it came.

All of this leads me to think, maybe life is very much the same way. From the infinite and chaotic we emerge, brought into life, the instant we are born. Much like the wave it is hard to discern from where we came, of what molecules, what journey are bodies have taken before this “birth into life.” It also seems at the moment of birth, like the wave, that we are headed to shore, on our own journey, and once we reach shore, our being will exist no more, “life” will come to an end. Much like the fallacy of the wave, it seems life then may simply be a result of our own inability to comprehend the infinite, and the chaotic, our instinctual need to carve out something discrete from a big swirling mass of uncertainty, pulling some small bit of understanding from the incomprehensible. We clearly delineate and mark off what we call “a life,” instilling the infinite with a clearly marked beginning and end. But is there a way to think beyond this invention of the mind, of language, of our own inability to fathom the endless? How might we think of life more like a drop of water in the ocean than a singular wave? Life viewed this way becomes less a distinct singular entity with a clearly defined boundaries and more like the flowing mass it is, drawing simultaneously on the many lives before it, the life it currently envelops and the lives to come. So as the drop merges into the ocean, the ocean also merges into the drop…or as a single life becomes part of the infinite, the infinite is also part of the single life, always there, amassed from memories of the past, sustained by hopes from the future.

****

These thoughts they race through my head, rushing faster than I can comprehend as I stare down at the remains of my mother, melding into the ocean, the ocean melding into her. And just as the ocean slowly absorbs the ashes, swallows it back into that infinite space that no longer has beginnings, or endings, but just simply being. So too my sadness is slowly dissipates, seemingly melding into the ocean along with the ash. As the pool of grey surrounding my legs slowly begins to fade, I feel her, sense her, there is an overwhelming sense of happiness. “Home at last she seems to whisper,” as the last visual remains of her presence swirl into the ocean, becoming one with the water. I wonder to my self, if it is her happiness or mine that I sense. It seems with this act she has been returned to where she belongs, among the infinite, that endless mass of forever that has escaped that realm of human thought that grasps for clear linear being. She was always a part of this vast ocean, long before she arrived, all the while she was here, and forever she will remain. For a brief moment she stood on these shores, I know this because I was there. She loved the ocean, its as if she glanced out at its vastness its beauty and understood the chaos, the complexity that is life. I also envision her returning now with smile on her face. Laughing at me as I clumsily pour her ashes into the water, laughing at my fear of the plastic bag, of all this. Laughing because she knows that life is more then the instant we mark off, that she was long part of the vastness and that cremation, remains, ashes, they are all just symbols we hold on to in our search for clarity in the murky depths of this ocean of life. I sense her laughter and smile too, for I slowly begin to sense it as well. As the ocean has no boundaries, no clear place, she will be everywhere forever with me. We know not where the ocean comes from, nor where it is going. Perhaps her remains are right there as I stare out into the pacific from my house, perhaps she will be there as I dive into the ocean in some far off land, perhaps a bit of her will remain, right there on the shores of Long Island, greeting me whenever I return home to this spot. Knowing her, and knowing the ocean she will be in all of these places. Her soul finally free to roam, to explore and to travel as it pleases. No longer constrained by the confines of life, of these human imposed limits, she can now be the free spirit she always was, and forever will be.

****

As for me, well for now I must step back into the confines of life, of this clearly marked entity we have created. I will go on, as a wave, but deep down will know that I was here long before I arrived, and I will be here long after I depart. And then it occurs to me, that maybe this analogy is not so crazy. I, my physical being, is the result of reproduction. Back further then we can ever trace we began, our cells, our being, is the culmination of all these past lives lived, their regrets, their hopes, their fears, their lives. Each of us carry this long lineage in our cells, our essence is derived from them. My mom, dad and many others literally live on inside of me, without them I would have no being. I too will pass on this life (perhaps) and in that life, will be the lives of those before me, and the lives of those to come. So maybe this ocean thing is not so crazy after all, just like the wave, once you break life down into its individual molecules its hard to discern the clear beginning, middle and end we so strive to see.

With this thought, I slowly turn my back to the horizon and head towards shore. As I look up I see my grandmother’s head resting on my grandfather’s shoulder. Both of their faces carry an odd mixture of sadness and joy, beaming smiles bursting through the damp wetness of tears. They look at me and open their arms in embrace as I emerge from the ocean. I hug them, smile, and we take one last look at the vast expanse of water before us. I smile, and for the first time assuredly tell my grandmother we did the right thing. She is free, I say, free to roam as she always dreamed. And we, we too should be free I say. Free to know that wherever we look, wherever we go, she is there, smiling, peaceful and patiently waiting for us to join her in the infinite. But until then she seems to whisper, enjoy the ride, enjoy your wave, but don’t fear the shore, for you will only be returning to what you always were, what you will always be, a piece of the vastness.