There are difficulties going on here. Jerry has developed a compression fracture in his back that must be repaired. And he may have heart problems. He can’t walk any distance without extreme fatigue. And I’m having increasing pain in my left hip which feels like something is wrong. It could be a screw has pulled loose.
Shinzen Young
This is a good time to bring up meditation and my gratefulness for my two main meditation teachers over the years. I rarely write about this. My first teacher, Shinzen Young, who spoke fluent Japanese, told the story of traveling to a Japanese monastery to ask to learn about Buddhist meditation for his dissertation on comparative religions. He knocked on the door. “Go away,” the monk told him. He knocked on the door a second day. “Go away,” the monk told him. The third time, the monk said, “I will teach you only if you sit with us.” In other words, learning “about” something is not at all the same as experiencing it. Talking about meditation does not equal doing it. [He eventually abandoned his degree and became a monk].
Meditation is nothing more than training the mind. Mostly we’re at the mercy of our thoughts. Dedicated meditation over a period of time pulls the thought loose enough so you can also be aware of your thinking. What do you know—it’s only a thought! There can be a freedom and deep peace in the gap between the thought and awareness of it. “Huh?” you say. Which is why that’s all I’m saying, because none of my words are quite right and probably sound utterly confusing or stupid. Like the monk said, if you want to know what it is, you need to do it.
Things come to fruition. The years of writing lends words a richness and an authority. I so often think of W.S. Merwin’s poem from his Pulitzer-Prize winning book, The Shadow of Sirius:
Worn Words
The late poems are the ones
I turn to first now
following a hope that keeps
beckoning me
waiting somewhere in the lines
almost in plain sight
it is the late poems
that are made of words
that have come the whole way
they have been there
These health breakdowns aren’t really “problems,” but the natural consequence of age. Flowers wilt and so do we. Yet we keep shoring ourselves up, living as fully as possible as long as possible. Of course! Being alive, being conscious of the dazzling array around us—who would want to give that up? I might wish to have the body I had at 25, but I have no desire to give up the fullness of mind, the bright orange of the sunset.
A neighbor, with our building in the background.
This has been a hard winter. I’m grateful for where we live. It was a good move, even though it seemed at times a bit premature. Like we didn’t need to be here, among old people (smiley face here). But I love these people, I have to say. There’s a richness in life here. Also, when we’re not feeling well, we can order our dinner and bring it to our apartment. We’ve done that a lot for months. First my back pain, then my post-surgery, then Jerry’s lung infection, then his fracture (probably from heavy coughing), and his weakness. But we have these people close around who care about each other. The scrim between me and other people has grown thinner.
Doesn’t it feel like you’re all your ages at once? I don’t feel old. I feel very much alive. There is nothing happier than feeling alive. One of the blessings of my many years of meditation is that I’m some version of happy—peaceful inside—even when I’m sad and/or hurting. Granted, I’m not very happy when I can’t seem to write a decent poem these days, but something in my mind hasn’t wanted to do that lately. It’s been kind of a refusal I didn’t will to happen. It’s been a watching and waiting for what’s next.
The P.S.
I’m down to two half-tablets of Norco a day. It’s been hard, but I’m almost free!
Also, I’ll be reading with several wonderful poets on Sunday Salon Chicago on Zoom, April 28, at 7:00. Free, but you need to register at sundaysalon-chicago.com.