Clouds, then Sun

You will indeed listen, but never
understand,
and you will indeed look, but
never perceive.
For this people's heart has
grown dull,
and their ears are hard of
hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look
with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart
and turn--
and I would heal them...

Matthew 13: 14-15









I haven't felt like writing these past two months because...well, there are many reasons I suppose. After the IVF didn't work and I wrote about it very honestly here and in messages to friends and family, I thought I'd preempted the grief by talking about my disappointment openly.

But then I went inside myself--too deeply it seems. I didn't go there in a self-pitying way, but I didn't do it in a healthy, self-reflective way either. I would describe it as a kind of shut-down, ignoring-everything introversion. I got addicted to internet Scramble. I read and read and read, without absorbing much. And then I got tired of reading (tired of READING? ME?). No topic or story interested me when I read it, but I read it anyway, as if I were shoveling in food, gourmet and mediocre, without tasting a bite. I stopped exercising. I stopped writing. I stopped the music, listening and playing both.

I could still act like the same person on the outside, but I felt disconnected much of the time. It depended on the person I was interacting with, and I gave up defending myself against hurtful, thoughtless chatter from loved ones when I was feeling fragile.

One of the things we don't want to see or hear is that death exists beside us. Knowing that death coexists with us doesn't mean we mope around as if we're in a cemetery. What I mean by an awareness of death is that we acknowledge the mystery each of us is, and also try to grasp that mystery by listening, not by trying to "solve" it with panaceas that make only us feel better on a superficial level.

Instead of living in the mystery, I became obsessed with bad news: the husband of a friend who died of brain cancer. A senior scholar in the Japanese literature field who once wrote me a kind e-mail complimenting an article I'd published, also dead, deteriorating within months, like my friend's husband. People losing their homes, their jobs, their businesses. A catastrophic gas explosion in my hometown that killed a young woman and instantly destroyed several cherished historic buildings and the businesses and jobs in them. A plane crash that wiped out 3 entire families with small children.

Ironically, I think all this focus on the morbid is because I've been silently dreading my 42nd birthday. I've been avoiding the anniversary of my birth as if I'm some youth-obsessed, declining starlet. I've always liked my birthday, the permission to give thanks for me. This year it became an occasion to fear that my body can never have another baby.

So I'd been rejecting myself and my body again. I wasn't listening to my pain. And then I got depressed, and got more impatient with people who talk without listening. That's because I haven't been listening to me. I've been ignoring my needs like a negligent parent ignores her child. I've been putting up with the thoughtlessness of people in my life because I haven't been doing much that is thoughtful for myself.

The thing is, it takes work to care for myself. But it feels good when I do. It's like the way people talk about relationships, or parenting: it's hard work at times, but the rewards far outweigh the demands.

So yesterday I ran with Genki, and the day before, I had a long yoga session. I ran again today with my friend Deborah. I wrote e-mails I'd been procrastinating on: to the administrative coordinator at the IVF clinic, and to a woman who manages adoptions at a service here in town. I tested out some guitars at the music store. Tonight I'm letting some girlfriends buy me a drink or three.

And...I wrote in here again! I'm back.

Felix called me outside to build a snowman. Here are some pictures of our handiwork. As Felix says, "I'll be sad when our snowman melts." And I say, "Yes, but then the flowers will start blooming," and he says, "I can't wait until it's winter again and I can build ANOTHER snowman!" Hope springs eternal. Even after it's been hibernating a while.