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Being 60:
A Scholar’s Search for Fearlessness

Alternative title:

Being 60: On Death & Dating

Patricia Mellencamp

Table of Contents

Section I: Death: A Passage through Time


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Prelude: Becoming 60

Chapter 1: Facing Death & Aging: From Anxiety to Equanimity

Chapter 2: A Spiritual Quest in India: A Student of Death

Chapter 3: Of Mothers, Daughters, Fairytales, and Death

Chapter 4: How I Learned to Read the Wall Street Journal: Money, The Market,
and my Mother, A Love Story

Section II: Dating: The Problem might not be the Prince

Chapter 5: Melodrama in Morocco: ‘Deep Sixtied’

Chapter 6: Sea Ranch, California & the Buddha.

Chapter 7: An Asian Odyssey: Buddhist Boot Camp

Chapter 8: High Drama in the Himalayas: On the Road in Tibet, Nepal, and

Bhutan

Chapter 9: Southeast Asia: The Silence of History

Chapter 10: A Man, A Plan, A Canal: Panama

Chapter 11: An Old Girl Can Learn New Tricks: China, the Market, and Me.

Epilogue: Now: Being 60 . . . or 70 or . . .

Footnotes

Author
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*****

Although personal experience is used as illustration, this book is neither


autobiography nor memoir. Far too many encounters and people are missing to
constitute a life. The highly selective focus is on moments of learning about fear and
moving through its anxiety. So it’s about 5% of a life. Is it self-help? Yes. Particularly
because the goal is to find and nurture the inner self. Is it how-to? Yes. Because it
relies on the updated yet ancient teachings of great beings who reveal ways to deal with
fear and other emotions. But it is intimate and private rather than objective and
professional, a tale told by an amateur. The structure is a search for fearlessness
through events, books, countries, and finally the lense of a new, late in life love affair.
And it is told from the point of view of a 60 year old woman, a feminist media scholar and
author of seven books, and a single mother, unmarried for 25 years, who reveals her
struggles with a late-in-life relationship, along with the self insights and happiness that
emerged from confronting fear and embracing love. It is a tale of mother love and of
romance, including love at first sight and travel to exotic places like an ashram in India,
Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, the remote, primitive regions of Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Laos,
and China. It is a book which anyone who has had fear about losing a child, caring for
ill and dying parents, death, aging and growing old, money, and finally, men and
relationships, will understand.

Along the way, Distinguished Professor Mellencamp shares her many great
teachers – keeping their invaluable words intact so that they may be reapplied to other
lives. Happiness is Not an Accident is a creative encyclopedia of great spiritual writers,
including many women, whose words are guides through life’s fears.

And it is a book which consistently reveals the adventure and joy of being 60, a
secret that has been kept from younger women for generations. As the Epilogue says:

“Being something, anything, is to fully inhabit, or embody . . . whatever, without


hedges, or qualms or self-doubt. It is a state without equivocation. Being 60 is to
embrace all the aches, wrinkles, intelligence and experience that have accrued in six
decades. Being 60 is facing the last part of life with an attitude – of assertion and
acceptance, of curiosity and humility, of adventure and retreat, all dosed with humor.
Being 60 is prime time.”
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PRELUDE: Becoming 60

I always felt ten years behind in my adult life – achieving at 50 what men do at
40. Only in my 50s, did I learn to value myself and my thoughts accurately. Although I
had many essays published, only in my 50s did I write my own books, becoming an
author, and more importantly, feeling some authority. I think this time lag is true for
many women, particularly those who are also mothers. It took time for women of my
generation, girls in the 1940s and 1950s, women and mothers in the 1960s and 1970s, to
find and then pro/claim 1 their talents. Self worth, like economic equality, was an elusive
value. Many of us were the best students in the class, from grade school through
graduate school. Although we learned how to study and to work, we weren’t taught to
have professional careers; instead, we had jobs. And there is a big difference. This
paradox trained us to be wives and to support our husbands’ ambitions as if they were our
own. But they are not. A career, like education, cannot be given away, it cannot really
be shared equally -- although this is what the Clintons are trying to do by invoking
Hillary’s experience as first lady/wife. (See Addendum for more on contradiction.)

Despite this double bind – be smart, not ambitious -- I became an independent


woman with an academic career as a feminist media scholar, known for speaking up,
irreverently so, and lecturing around the world. My divorce in 1976 was my economic
incentive. My inspiration came from my two children who were adorable and superb
students. They are wonderful, accomplished human beings, now in their thirties, with
professional careers and families. I eventually lived in a beautiful condominium in a
gracious estate built by a German beer baron in 1907 on Lake Michigan, walked a few
blocks to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where, as a Distinguished Professor, I
taught film history. I took my two Cairn Terriers to my lectures; they loved college
students, especially the snacks in their backpacks, as did I. Work involved re-viewing a
Hitchcock thriller or a Buster Keaton comedy or a German Expressionist or Japanese film
or attending an international conference with good friends. Sometimes I had to pinch
myself. And I could deduct “going to the movies” from my taxes. I loved my work. I
ended up with a magnificent life.

It was a self-made professional life – for I did not have a PhD. I became a
Professor (Associate, then Full) and was appointed a Distinguished Professor on the basis
of my writing and international reputation 2, a rare achievement, particularly for a woman
(and one who taught movies, just crass popular culture for many, and was [and is] a
feminist), in a university system in which only 2% of Full Professors were women.
Unlike this rarified percentage, I was also self-taught. I had only one film course in
graduate school – receiving a Masters degree in Communication. In a highly professional
world of hierarchical credentials, I was, early on, a rank amateur and had to run very fast
to keep up. It took years for me to believe that I had even adequate knowledge.
Academia can be exhausting – for there truly is no end to knowledge.
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During my 50s, my quest was to conquer fear – many of which had been dormant,
or unconscious, unnamed for years but there as anxiety or high drama or just emotional
chaos. Walking toward fear by leaning into the pain became a challenge, almost like an
obstacle course I was learning to master. Each time, I would successfully emerge on the
other side, stronger, happier. I didn’t realize then how much of my intellectual writing
also concerned fear – that beneath the patina of scholarship, I was writing about my life,
trying to understand my emotions. I began with writing a book about the ways television
creates anxiety, High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age & Comedy, a very fat book,
and ended, books and experiences later, with a project to write about death. Becoming 60
involved dealing with archaic, and displaced, and real fear, particularly the fear of death.
When I was ready, and open to learn, I found teachers everywhere.

During my 50s, my Siddha Yoga meditation practice helped me deal with my


son’s diagnosis of cardiomyopathy at the same time as I faced the long illnesses and
deaths of my parents. I would also learn about investing in the stock market; my mother
was my teacher. Later, in my 60s, came knowledge of emotions and relational dynamics
via Buddhism and the concepts of the Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung. I call these my
amateur knowledges. Amateur knowledge comes from experience, from the ordinary and
the everyday, and, like the Latin root of amateur, amo, it has love at its core. Acquisition
of this kind of knowledge was precipitated by trauma, along with fear. Initially the
knowledge is a means of survival – a lifeline -- and then of healing; eventually it becomes
a way of life that leads to contentment, the highest form of happiness.

My awareness of death came in stages – beginning in my late 40s. The first form
death took was highly amorphous, as fear and anxiety -- Fearing Death. Then death
became a very real and unexpected drama. I was there as my father died of botched,
emergency stomach surgery. The second form of death was Facing Death. As in life, my
father was my teacher. I didn’t want to look away from what was happening, I wanted to
see death.

During this brief period and then throughout the seven year deathwatch for my
mother, who had bone cancer, I began to read about death, particularly Eastern
Philosophy. As I became a student of death, death became a part of my life, at least
intellectually so. This knowledge was reassuring, comforting, not frightening;
acknowledgement began to quell my fear. I wanted to lighten my mother’s fear of
excruciating pain and impending death by talking and reading about others’ experiences.
Rather than avoid or deny or pretend, Studying (or Acknowledging) Death became a
spiritual practice for us. I read, she listened, and then we talked. I learned more from her
than she did from me.

The more I contemplated death, others and my own, I became simultaneously


aware of a vast interior world, my inner self. It was made up of gratitude and joy; it was
a source of supreme contentment and profound energy; within me was a universe
infinitely greater than anything I had imagined, even as a fanciful child. (Think of 2001
or Contact for just a tiny glimpse.) I sensed that this enveloping space was timeless,
eternal.
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When my mother died, I was ready and became a witness to the process. In this
fourth stage of awareness, death was a palpable entity, a compressed, intense event with a
beginning and ending. Death was different from dying. While dying is constant and
erratic, death arrived with a flourish and left in silence, in a clearly demarked time.
Meeting Death was a liberation for my mother, literally a freeing of the spirit from the
confines of the body. Perhaps the most liberating aspect of becoming 60 is my awareness
of death – which reminds me to live well and not to waste any more moments in
negativity, or fear, or anxiety.

These preparatory years for 60 were intense, destructive and productive –


spiritually and intellectually, personally and professionally. Academic subjects
overlapped with private experiences in a mix of life imitating art, or something of that
nature. The first part of this book is about the past, about my family and about my
professional life, including some thoughts about media culture and aging women. It is
about middle age, about becoming . . . unafraid, or better, fearless.

Then, fourteen dateless years later, in 1999, when I thought I had faced my last
and greatest fear, death, I had a brief relationship, meeting Jonathan one year later, only
two weeks after I turned 60, and very soon beginning a committed relationship. Fear and
anxiety again! . . . of aging, of emotional intimacy, of surrendering my will to be right, of
a lifetime commitment with no back door escape hatch, and the sheer hard work that a
deep relationship took. It was as if I had to begin my spiritual practices all over again –
this time focusing on my reactions to another as much as my actions. I also needed to
develop the understanding, trust, and compassion for men that I had for women. Just as
feminism had made me stronger intellectually, my relationship with Jonathan made me
stronger emotionally, forcing me to put my spiritual beliefs into everyday practice. I
shifted from what my psychoanalyst, Dr. John Beebe, called an “ethics of justice” to an
“ethics of caring.” This is such a lovely concept.

I used to believe that my supreme achievement in life was learning the great
pleasures of being alone, when I was in my forties and fifties. Now I know better – being
together, like being 60, takes surrender, humility, tolerance, and acceptance – the truly
difficult virtues. There is no room for a big or solitary ego in a loving relationship.
Above all a true partnership takes compassion – being able to listen, to inhabit, for just a
few moments, another’s point of view. While I knew a lot about women, I knew virtually
nothing about men – they were stick figures to me. Little did I know about their tender
egos, deep sensitivities, or desire to care for others. I always thought my son was an
exception, surrounded as he was by females. Now I know that his gentleness is closer to
the rule.

Being 60 . . . initially a difficult number. Old age begins here, I think, although
we stretch middle age out each decade, disguising ourselves by masquerade or cosmetic
surgery. Contemporary culture has, until recently, minor interest in 60 year old women,
although this is finally changing as older women become more visible and audible. Born
the same year I was, 1941, Julie Christie is luminously beautiful, wrinkled and sun-
spotted, at 66, in Away From Her, playing a decisive woman who, despite her advancing
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Alzheimer’s, determines her own destiny, with a bit of ironic justice towards her formerly
philandering professor/husband. The same year, at 66, that she was nominated for her
second Oscar and won the Screen Actors Guild Award, she married for the first time,
perhaps deciding that she finally knew enough to risk it.

At 60, Hillary Clinton has never looked better than during the hundreds of hours
of television campaign coverage in 2007/2008. Unlike Christie, her face is smooth,
unlined, taking her down to more like the late 40s. Although she, like Nancy Pelosi at
68, Speaker of the House, has had “work” and wears great makeup, both women look
terrific, healthy, and beautiful. But it is not their appearance that is so unusual; it is their
authority and achievement – Speaker of the House and Senator/Presidential Candidate --
their total life’s work, that has been honored.

Like these powerful and famous women, I have discovered that being 60 can be a
time of redemption and possibility -- when we can take credit for everything we have
learned and lived, our sufferings and celebrations, our successes and failures alike. This is
a revolution of acknowledgement and awareness of the importance of our lives en Toto.
It results in the greatest freedom, interior freedom, and the exhilarating belief that
anything except youth, thank God, is possible.

Unlike these exceptional women, I am living an out-of-the-way life, without


fame or professional aspirations. For me, stepping aside to let the next generation have
their turn seemed age appropriate. Although I now live in a small town in northern
California, Sea Ranch, my world continues to expand. Nobody told me that being 60
would be so completely delightful, so filled with insight and elated contentment. I
wonder why this has been such a well kept secret for women. If we knew this time of
authority was coming, would we become too powerful? Too independent? Too happy?

Is Hillary happy? Usually what we know of others’ lives is a surface knowledge,


with sometimes shiny boundaries concealing the inner life, its true feelings. In these
pages, I have gone beneath my surface – of being a successful professional, living a life
of adventure and accomplishment, a life that has been surrounded by loving and talented
family members, particularly my two adult children, Rob and Dae. On the surface, mine
was a close to perfect life – except for the fear -- sometimes low grade, sometimes panic,
and always painful -- that threatened to derail any serenity. At first I didn’t recognized
my anxiety as fear, coming from within me. But as I began to identify particular fears, to
lean into the pain rather than try and escape it, to take full responsibility for my inner
state, to stop blaming others, and to find great teachers, some in books and others in
person, fear subsided and was replaced by happiness – which I have learned is not an
accident. It takes work. I am happier now than I dreamed possible. So I know the
teachings in this book work, completely. Are you afraid? Ashamed of being afraid?
Unaware of your fear? This might just be a book for you.
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Chapter 1

From Anxiety to Equanimity: Facing Death and Aging

A Parable

I became an old woman suddenly, accidentally, February 15, 1996. I was walking
my Cairn Terrier, BP (for Buster Keaton), through the back trails of Lake Park, near the
University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, where I taught film courses. It was a sunny, sub-
zero morning. Then, without warning, I was no longer in this scene. Like my dog's
namesake, I had taken a pratfall and landed on my head, receiving a deep gash. I was
unconscious for some time in the snow, bleeding, and then, intermittently, for a week in
the hospital. When I momentarily came to, the voice of a paramedic was concerned that I
remember my name. I couldn't. (They would ID me from my dog's collar. My fingers
were clenched on his leash. His barking led the police to my body, concealed by the
early morning snow and my white parka.) Later, the voice of an emergency room MD
asked me to lift my shoulders. I couldn't. Nor could I move any part of my body.

Oh my god! I can’t move my legs! Thick fear began to coagulate in my cells,


especially my knees. As the anxiety spread, I closed my eyes, focused on my breath, on
inhalation, then exhalation. With this meditation ritual, my mind turned inward and
became calm, quiet. Fear receded, and never came back during the days in the hospital
that followed. Through some amazing grace, I was not identified with my body and the
anxiety and fear that come with that identification.

(Good thing, too, because I was not wearing make-up that morning and had not
washed my hair. This would be my unkempt state for six days. Being semi-conscious
did have its advantages . . . I never went anywhere without makeup or hairspray. I was,
however, perfectly dressed for a fall in subzero weather, wearing a thick headband and
hood which cushioned my head. My heavy parka and silk long johns protected the rest of
my body from the hours in the cold.)

I was in my body, but I was not my body. I was peering out of my eyes,
watching, rather like looking through the face mask of a deep sea diver. No matter what
happened on the outside, a parameter that now included the immobile shell of my
physical body, I was safe inside. My body was a space suit, or a self-propelling vehicle
now broken. While my friends were curious and upset about the events of the fall (the
police suspecting a mugging because of the deep gash in my head), what fascinated me
was my inner state of being a witness to outer events. I was involved, and in some pain,
but detached. (In 2001, the mystery, ultimately medical not criminal, was solved after
another surprise event in a supermarket in New York City, diagnosed after two weeks at
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the Mayo Clinic not as epilepsy but as a rare pancreas disorder, but that’s another tale,
one of dating.)

But what does this story have to do with being old? (Me? Old?) After
ambulancing me to the hospital, the rescue squad had taken my dog, BP, to the humane
society for safe-keeping. When my sister, Nancy, picked him up, she was given a manila
envelope containing his sweater. She gave me the envelope six weeks later, only after
she decided I was sufficiently recovered. On it was written, "Elderly owner in hospital."
My nameless body had been given an identity -- “elderly!” Although "elderly" was a
new adjective for me, my first thought was of the wisdom and status accorded Elders in
Native American cultures.

My second thoughts were less noble. How could I be elderly? Did I look that bad
without eyeliner? (Notice the false presumption that to look old is to look bad.) Not only
was my 81 year old mother still giving daily counsel, but so was her mother, my
grandmother, very alert at the age of 101. Although I was a mother, with children in their
mid-twenties, I was also a dutiful daughter and granddaughter. How many elders can one
family have? Our place in this familial time line, along with our bodies, our faces and
organs, delineates age, an archeology as much as a chronology. (Although I was 55, I just
didn’t look all that old, or even just plain old; in fact, I was still thin, healthy, in shape,
stylish, and looked pretty terrific, or so I believed.)

One minute I was a middle-aged professor, taking a walk, the next I was elderly,
unable to move. This split second transition was an effortless passage, without
forewarning or fear, from one state of awareness to another. In each state, something
within, what Germaine Greer, the British feminist, calls our "inner landscape," and Carl
Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, after ancient Sanskrit scriptures, calls the Self, remained
the same. This inner space was vast, tranquil, and very still. (Was this a sneak preview
of death? If so, death was not to be feared.) But it had taken me years to experience this
inner tranquility. I changed the way I thought -- not for lofty reasons, but out of searing
panic that made my nerves, and my heart, raw.

In Life

It began as a mother's nightmare. In 1987, my brilliant and gentle son, Rob, then 18,
and home from college for vacation, was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy -- a
degeneration of the heart muscle. There was no explanation and no cure other than an
eventual heart transplant. 3 While Rob's life had been an ongoing series of medical crises,
with forty-one broken bones from osteogenesis imperfecta and several surgeries, this was
primordial. God had upped the ante to live or die. I can still recall the pounding,
constricting terror I felt when I walked down the hospital corridor to his room each day. I
tried to pretend I wasn’t literally “panic stricken.” But I was. At night I would sit bolt
upright in bed, awakened by skin-crawling fear.
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My anxiety was exacerbated by the lack of diagnosis and prognosis. This was a
story without origin, without linear progress (improvement or cure), without cause-effect
logic, without closure, a story without a future. This catastrophe had no time frame -- it
could be weeks, years, even decades. It was a continuous, indeterminate crisis, a
contradiction in terms. Paralyzed by fear, I counted on my mind, ironically enough, to
get me through. 4 I turned my frantic thoughts to intellectual sources for consolation.

I read Sigmund Freud then Walter Benjamin, the German cultural critic, and Rene
Thom, the French mathematical theorist, on catastrophe, shock and anxiety. It all made
perfect sense. My life had resembled Thom's words: "Our everyday may be a tissue of
ordinary catastrophes, but our death is a generalized catastrophe." 5 My reaction to Rob's
initial diagnosis was textbook Freud. As the doctor spoke, I began to feel panic. Anxiety
is very physical. I remember visually receding, down a long, narrow wind tunnel. Sound
became barely audible. My body was separated from reality as if encased in thick glass.
My senses were sealed off. Only my eyes allowed the real in, and if I closed them, I was
shielded from bombardment. It was like floating in an air-proof bubble. Fear and
anxiety, which were almost unbearable, had, for the moment, been physically mediated. 6
A shield, like a cellophane membrane, distanced me from the world and from my own
senses. Then it blanketed me in exhaustion. I slept for two days, afraid to wake up. If I
didn't open my eyes, this painful trauma would go away.

(The connections among perception, knowledge, and pain were unstable. The
regression back to early childhood confusion between presence, absence, and perception
– kids hiding by covering their eyes – was a momentary escape.)

As Freud put it, I had "two reactions to real [as distinguished from neurotic]
danger"; the first was "an affective reaction, an outbreak of anxiety," the other was "a
protective action." 7 Or as Samuel Weber, the cultural critic said, the shield is porous. It
has a "double function" which protects us "against excess excitation . . . and also
transmits excitation from the outside to the inside of the organism." 8

This experience, or figure, of being encased in an outer covering or shield was


comparable to my fall in the park but without the self-awareness or understanding. I had
not yet discovered Greer's "inner landscape." "I" was hollow. There was no comfort or
safety inside, or anywhere. Fear and danger were the only signals coming from
everywhere. Thus, the shield that protected me was also my problem -- an outer crust
where all my fear, guilt, attachments, identifications, addictions, and obsessions had
accumulated. "I" was a shell of inherited fear about to crack.

In Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926), a late Freudian text and one long
overlooked by contemporary cultural theory, anxiety was a physical response to a danger
situation, real or remembered, fictive or factual. The amount of stimulation rises to an
unpleasurable level without being mastered or discharged. (137) Anxiety is a situation of
helplessness, predicated on "missing someone who is loved and longed for." "Longing
turns into anxiety." (136) Thoughts of Rob, memories really, would trigger my original
panic. Emotion was inseparable from memory. As Freud had said, every affect (or
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emotion) was reminiscence. (133) (Although I realize that Freud is, perhaps fatally, out
of style, I love this short thought.)

One solace for my anxiety, my helplessness, was to seek further information --


doing research on heart transplants and talking with medical specialists. Information was
consoling, temporarily. But science offered neither hope nor solution. Because I couldn't
escape or quiet my thoughts, I sublimated, displaced, avoided, whatever: I wrote a book,
High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age, and Comedy, about catastrophic, obsessive
logic, with an analysis of television, electronic culture, as both shock and shield. 9
Although I included a cancer scare, a medical misdiagnosis, in the first pages, the book
ignores the true catastrophe, Rob’s cardiomyopathy, which is at its core. To be honest, I
don't think I saw the connection until the manuscript was finished two years later, in
1990. It was like the recovery parable of an elephant in the living room. The sagging
floor and cracks in the wall are attributed to everything except the elephant.

In retrospect, what intrigues me is this denial, even repudiation, of the personal


experience of a crisis. For the longer span of my life, intimately and intellectually, I
valued crisis and discontinuity (along with the rational assurances of science). The
celebrated, remembered events of history, politics, art, and my daily life came from the
exceptional, the extraordinary, the upsetting, not the reassuring, the everyday. 10 Crises
made life more exciting. I created high drama, even chaos, in personal affairs.

Like so many visual culture critics, my aesthetic came from events that rocked
universities in the 1960s, an era of social causes and political movements forged in crises.
I wanted history, at least the way we write history, to change – by including women and
their points of view, along with people of color. And shock and discontinuity were
central, for many theorists, to changing history. In fact, crisis in the form of battles and
wars is the primary story of history itself – starring men and primarily written by men.

Like other early boomers born to Cold War logic and nuclear fear -- which held
out a Soviet attack as imminent danger to 1950s U.S. suburbia, escalated by civil defense
alerts in the 1960s, I had been taught to think catastrophically – globally, historically, and
personally. Later, as a good consumer, I had also learned obsessive thought, logic of
more; the same was not good enough. The gauge of “enough” always climbed higher,
never getting or achieving “enough.” The logic inevitably turns against the self – “I” can
never be enough.

The similarity between the military, corporate and psychoanalytic logics of


obsession, all driven by fear, is truly uncanny. Although events in the world can be the
trigger, our thoughts perpetuate, exaggerate, and even create fear. In 2003, the U.S.
attacked another country, Iraq, based on fear, not evidence – that the country had nuclear
capabilities and “weapons of mass destruction.” The stock market, presumed to be
rational like the military, is continually roiled by fear, which spreads among Wall Street
brokers like a contagious virus.
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Gradually I realized that anxiety production had imploded even further -- the logic
of crisis has been applied to virtually anything. Now the same structure of thought can
apply to a war, an earthquake, a faculty meeting, being late, being over-weight, being
forty, or sixty, and growing old. We have been trained to think obsessively,
compulsively -- as the norm, not the exception. At least this was true for me. And it
dovetailed perfectly with my addiction. I think it is the way many women in our culture
view the process of aging -- dealing with it only by denial or repudiation – which can
take many forms, particularly cosmetic surgery and various injection procedures like
Botox or Restylane. This ritual of pain can become obsessive, a costly compulsion, and
hence endless (except for death – and then there is the mortician, skilled in masquerade,
in the art of concealment).

The ritual is paradoxical – to handle the psychic and social trauma of aging, one
inflicts physical trauma on the body, especially the face – the sensory instrument which
sees our aging representation, our own face, and then compares it to other images. The
trauma becomes real; yet we are in control, it is self-inflicted; we pay astronomical
amounts for the pain, for the cutting, the laser burning, the injecting. It is deeply
masochistic. To some degree, the pleasure is derived from, or measured by, the pain –
which is expensive and voluntarily received. Ironically, the best cosmetic surgery or
treatment will remain invisible, unnoticeable, a secret of aging 11 As the Candace Bergen
mother/character in The Women (2008) remarks while swathed in bandages from a
facelift: “I am going through all of this only to be told that I look rested?”

Margaret Gullette, an early scholar of aging, admonishes feminism to see aging as


a cultural (not merely natural) process and to bring age into visibility as feminism did
with gender. She forcibly asserts that "in age changes, negative alterations become
visible not because a body ages by nature, but because it is aged by culture." Many of us
have internalized ageism as story and as biology. The story is one of decline that is
hidden in its "foundation in the body." "Decline narrative used to make me feel helpless.
Now that I see it as narrative, it offends me." 12

Gullette's argument points to the close connection between lives and stories;
representations can have very real effects. Along with family legends and anecdotes,
particularly important are the stories that we learn to tell about ourselves from popular
culture. Representations cannot be distinguished from their reception. Our stories, our
reminiscences, create the tone of our lives. Our thoughts were and are determining our
reality, our experience, of old age. The 2008 year-long media drama of Hillary Clinton
campaigning for the Presidency of the U.S. will have incalculable long term effects on
the way 60 year old women see themselves and each other, along with changing the very
perception of what being sixty represents. For this campaign, unlike those of her
husband, she has found a look, a style of hair, makeup, and clothing (not fashion) that is
consistently her own. Throughout the long campaign, she looked good – her campaign
promoted her as the sum total of all her life experiences. The passage of time was
portrayed as her gain, not her loss as is the usual portrayal.
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Women's "loss" of youth as if it were a tangible object -- not a productive time,


not a gain of insight, knowledge, and experience -- measured by our faces and bodies, is a
manufactured fear that verges on a national obsession-compulsion. Obsession, based on
reproaches, guilt and shame, is applicable to the aging body. Physical changes linked to
sexual attractiveness become the anxieties and fears that drive the marketing of costly age
remedies. This nexus of personal fears locates our identity in our bodily image, in our
appearance, and in our relation to the material world. Marketing turns obsession into
normality by concealing the cultural as the natural.

That our standard comes from the movies, from popular culture, that it is
historical and therefore changes, is forgotten. If all the female stars of movies suddenly
had lines and wrinkles, and were over 40, even 30 (to say nothing of 50, 60, and 70!)
which has never been true of Hollywood, the ideal would change. From Lillian Gish and
Mary Pickford on, in their early teens cast as leads in silent film because they had no
wrinkles, the female face has been perfectly smooth, high-lighted and air-brushed, vastly
different from male faces, wherein wrinkles and even pouches can represent character.
Marlene Dietrich’s face was illuminated by a complex lighting apparatus to such
perfection that she couldn’t move out of a small area of onscreen space – without her
high cheekbones vanishing. John Wayne rode off into a glorious, infinite horizon.
Dietrich, like so many women, was confined to small spaces, minimal movement, while
cowboys roamed the open landscape.

For middle aging baby boomers, what is missed, what is longed for, is the
youthful self. What is feared is growing up, as well as growing old. Other anxieties,
fears, and frights of aging are more conscious and less uncanny – being alone, economic
insecurity, dependency on others, immobility, loss of self determinacy, pain and illness.
Then there is being undesirable to men. And, of course, the classic, being dumped for a
younger woman.

This is the premise of the 1996 film, The First Wives' Club (directed by Hugh
Wilson). Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, and Bette Midler, "acting their age," the mid-
forties, reunite at the funeral of a college friend who committed suicide. Her husband left
her for a younger woman. The same fate has befallen her three college friends. Hawn's
movie producer husband has left her for a young actress, Midler's electronics
entrepreneur, for his young secretary; and Keaton's advertising executive for their mutual
therapist. These women join together and uncover information that they use to extract
"justice" from their former husbands. They take Ivana Trump literally: they don't get
mad, or even, they get everything! And they are very funny along the way, all three
being/acting the comic persona they each perfected in previous films.

The delight of the film is watching these three powerful women, who have
become producers and directors with real influence in Hollywood, talking about the
double standards of age. For me, it was deeply moving to watch these three comic
performers create so much positive energy together as friends. Along with women over
thirty, female friendship has been a rarity for Hollywood cinema, obsessed with the
youthful couple and romance or male buddies as its narrative has been for over 100 years.
14

Eight years later, Diane Keaton, in her fifties, returns in a romantic comedy for
older folks – this time with a comic nude scene – Something’s Gotta Give. She plays a
famous, wealthy, stylish yet unpretentious Broadway playwright, living happily alone in
a gorgeous summer house in the Hamptons. The woman and the house are elegant,
tasteful and comfortable – in classic, soft beige just like her beautifully tailored clothes.
Books and art create an aura of intelligence and high style. Two men fall in love with her
– a sixty something Jack Nicholson paunchy balding cigar-smoking music/mogul
womanizer currently dating her gorgeous daughter, Amanda Peet, and a late thirties
Keanu Reeves one-woman slim tight-bodied medical doctor who knows and loves her
work and takes her to Paris. In the movie’s end, on the Seine in Paris, Keaton picks
Nicholson (along with rudely dumping Reeves) – a choice that baffled many older
women in the audience. In real life, shortly after the film’s release, Keaton was rumored
to be dating Reeves, after a few dates with Nicholson. But the ending aside . . . a fifty
year old woman is not only the star, but she is the lead in a romantic comedy, a rare
sighting indeed. Her love scenes with Reeves are “normal,” not aberrant.

Another radical element of the film is Keaton’s face – which has lines and
wrinkles; although minimal, there in the close-ups, they are not airbrushed or highlighted
or surgically removed (the latter noted regularly in all the tabloids). She is in her fifties
and it shows, quite beautifully, if minuscule. Granted, she has no gray hairs and is pencil
thin – she is not your ordinary fifty-year old woman. She could pass for thirty – the new
double standard. Women can now be fifty, but they must look thirty.

But just compare this portrait to Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and the
distance is remarkable. We have come a long way, baby. For this woman is not only
living and working as a playwright productively alone, with loving relationships with her
sister and her daughter, she is attractive and desirable to men, due to her achievements
and success as well as her appearance. OK, granted that seeing her fifty-year old naked
body is the film’s tantalizing scene as well as the teasing trailer, her body looks great!
Unlike Jack Nicholson’s saggy butt which hangs out in the movie. His fleshy body is the
real scandal but this unappetizing sight is just sweet comedy.

Sunset Boulevard is the classical film portrayal of aging as trauma for women. The
screenplay focuses on a star of silent cinema, Norma Desmond, who has enclosed herself
in her dark mansion, watching her old silent films. Because Gloria Swanson was a big
star of silent films, these scenes are poignant, particularly for a film professor like me.
She fantasizes a comeback and is writing a screenplay about Salome for her return. Billy
Wilder and Charlie Brackett won an academy award for their original screenplay, which
was first offered to Mae West. Then Mary Pickford decided that the seduction of a
younger man was not appropriate for her image. The part was finally offered to Gloria
Swanson, appalled that she had to test for the role. Like Pickford, the majority of
Swanson’s highly stylized performances were in silent cinema, including the films she
produced under the aegis of Joseph Kennedy during her affair with him. Swanson retired
from films in 1934, when she was 37. She was 52 when she began working on Sunset
Boulevard – by cinema’s double standards, making her almost ancient for a female star.
15

Not only is Swanson/Desmond enclosed in her past stardom and trapped by her
own narcissism, she doesn’t look a day over 40. In cameo appearances, Cecille B.
DeMille and Erich Von Stroheim, both directors of silent films, look light years older
than Swanson – particularly the bald, paunchy DeMille, who makes an appearance as
himself, a famous film director. These old men are productive and working while her
desires to work on her screenplay and make her own movie are represented as pathetic
vanity, self delusion bordering on insanity or monstrosity. No one takes Desmond’s
screenplay seriously. Like a female starring in a film at the age of 53, her screenplay is
the film’s derided joke, grotesque.

In order to entrap a younger handsome screenwriter who is broke -- William


Holden as Joe Gillis -- and who wandered into her lair when escaping debt collectors, she
hires him to help her rewrite her screenplay, moves him into her mansion, bribes him
with expensive gifts, tries to seduce him, and attempts suicide to seal her need for him.
Later, he will be rescued by a younger woman, Susan, a sweet young thing and a script
reader for a big studio who wants to work with him on a script he had submitted. They
begin to meet and work on his screenplay. Susan, like Norma, falls in love with the
passive to whining failure. Perhaps the film’s real crime is that Norma wanted to be the
author, whereas Susan was content to work on Joe’s screenplay. Women have not been
allowed such brazen ambition in the movies, at least without consequences, often death
or murder.

Two women fighting over the same man is a familiar scenario for cinema. Just
take Singin’ in the Rain, for example. However, usually the star, not a supporting
player, ends up with the guy, the other star. But in this film that would be an improper
couple – the older woman with a younger man – and hence it cannot be the film’s ending.
Unlike Keaton and Reeves, however, the relationship between them is represented as
grotesque, improper, almost incestuous. But just reverse the scene to the older man with
the much younger woman, say Fred Astaire with Leslie Caron, or Gene Kelly with
Debbie Reynolds, and the double standard of age applied to women in cinema becomes
apparent. As women age in the movies, they become grotesque and pathetic; men
become powerful and attractive.

The older woman is also measured against the younger woman, the proper partner
for Joe Gillis/Holden. While Norma is all masquerade, makeup, posturing, and
melodramatic affectation, the younger woman is natural, open, and honest. She is real.
Norma wears a facial harness and various patients on her face – knowing the importance
of the close-up and knowing that wrinkles on women were not acceptable. Norma
Desmond is silent cinema and hence, like her faded mansion and classic cars, the past;
the young woman is talking cinema, the present. Norma is death, while Susan is life.
Norma is just too old to be a movie star, or a desirable woman.

Rather than this old scenario of two women desiring and fighting over the same
man, I can see another possibility – they work together rather than compete for the man.
Rather than killing the young, male screenwriter in a fit of jealousy, the stark
melodramatic scene that opens Sunset Boulevard, Norma hires the young woman to
16

work on Salome with her. Then they co-produce a successful film about women
pioneers in the silent cinema days – causing a flood of women to become interested in
filmmaking. There were role models in film history – they just didn’t make it to the
history books until recently. Great ensemble and starring roles are written for women
over 40. Perhaps even 50 or 60 or even 70. Amazing! (Just think of Julie Christie in the
2007 film, Away From Her.) Rather than star in her film, Swanson becomes the
director. She hires her old friend, Pickford, for the lead. Mae West makes a pivotal
cameo appearance. Von Stroheim has retired, along with DeMille. The screenplay tells
great stories about their idiosyncrasies and affectations. The male screenwriter, the
William Holden character, vanishes into obscurity – his manipulative and whining
character began to irritate the film’s producers. Although he is technically dead, shot in
the opening scene, floating face down in the swimming pool, Sunset Boulevard is told
from his point of view. In the new film, Desmond’s Desire, the director’s voice tells the
tale. The whining, judgmental voice-over that judges women as too old, too pathetic, too
vain, telling the story of women’s aging as a tale of decline, is silenced.

Rather than the close-up of Swanson as a deranged murderer, completely mad, the
film concludes with a close-up of Pickford, looking out at the audience, smiling, then
laughing, the soft lines on her face testifying to the wisdom and character of her age,
another stage of beauty, inflected as it now is by acceptance, seasoned by knowledge and
experience.

This is the role that Annette Benning plays in Being Julia. She reverses the
equation, making the younger woman the foolish one, without particularly the
intelligence and wit, but also the beauty and seasoned talent of the older stage (and
movie) star, Benning. She controls the plot, and indeed, the entire film. It is a portrayal
of a powerful woman – yet one woman still undoes another. Unlike the courage of Bette
Davis in All About Eve, playing the older actress against a more beautiful younger
actress, Benning plays against a horsey looking actress in unattractive costumes with
bumpy gestures -- her beauty suggested but not really there, just enough off.

After the success of Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson appeared in several


more films, along with being a guest on the Tonight Show. She talked about health with
Johnny Carson, using her own healthy lifestyle and youthful glamour to document the
good effects of a vegetarian diet and no smoking. It’s too bad that Carson didn’t listen to
her about the dangers of smoking. Instead, she was taken as a bit flaky not only because
of her age which still didn’t show, but because she was an early health food and no
smoking advocate.

Jump into 2005 and another comeback role: Jane Fonda. After a fifteen year
absence from the screen, her career of forty nine films relinquished for her marriage to
Ted Turner, Fonda reappeared – initially as the privileged presenter of a big Academy
Award in 2003, looking glamorous with her new short hairdo and remarkable figure; then
as the author of a best-selling autobiography on a book tour, timed with the release of her
film, Monster-in-Law, a bad title and pun on “mother-in-law.” Like Keaton’s character,
Fonda plays a successful career woman and mother, a top TV news anchor and celebrity.
17

Almost immediately, she is replaced by a younger blonde anchor and becomes highly
codependent on her son, the handsome and boring doctor about to fall in love and marry
the Jennifer Lopez dog walker/aspiring fashion designer. These two women then proceed
to compete for the man – at least on the surface.

But the focus of the film – the story and the comedy -- is the battle between the
two women, the new guard versus the old. The man is almost irrelevant. And although
Lopez is credited above Fonda, and they reconcile in a soft-focus ending, the gloves are
off between youth and age. And while Lopez wins the man/son in marriage, and gets to
humiliate Fonda by a face in the soup shot, Fonda takes the film – comically and
stylistically. No small task given the clinging mother/manipulative and controlling
mother-in-law stereotype she plays.

The reason for this is not a mystery – Fonda’s talent, elegant articulation, and
strong screen presence. Other elements of the film conspire with her. Foremost, after the
script, of course, Lopez wears unattractive, albeit fashionable, little girl clothes and acts
accordingly coy, while Fonda is given high fashion and arch double-takes. One recurring
battle is over whether Fonda will wear a fluffy peach bridesmaid dress or her sleek white
couture gown to the wedding. After throwing it away with disgust several times, she will
wear the peach in the happy ending but just for a few seconds, enough to prove she is a
good sport. However, we have already seen the fatal comparison – Fonda is more
beautifully elegant than the bride in full regalia. Both women have their own sidekicks –
Fonda a black assistant and Lopez a gay guy and dull girlfriend – who have snappy
answers and wisecracks. Another wise-cracker, Elaine Stritch, makes a cameo
appearance as the grandmother in law – bringing about the magical reconciliation just
before the wedding – reminding Fonda of her humble origins when she married Stritch’s
son. Class and ethnicity are the presumably higher principles uniting these two women
and ennobling the film.

In life . . .

Like the photograph of her face on her book cover, Fonda looks great, nothing at
all like the 67 year old plus she was, and doing physical comedy to boot – a terrain rarely
occupied by women. Along with the many close-ups in the film, I studied the cover
photo of her face with its few marks of age – and I compared this to my face, in the
mirror. When she showed up at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, California, I tried to get
closer – in order to see whether she had lines and wrinkles that had been erased in the
film and on the cover. I couldn’t get close enough for an assessment. And she was
wearing sunglasses, at night. Her words were energized, her passion for her life
contagious. I was impressed by her book, well written with knowledge and enthusiasm.
(Why did this surprise me?) Yet all I wanted to know about was the patch of skin around
her eyes and lips -- Was it just coincidental that the following week, I had injections of
Restylane around my lips and in the lines along my mouth? And then one month later,
Fraxel laser treatments to tone and tighten my facial skin? I think I was emulating Fonda
as I used to do with clothing. To be honest, I was not aware of this coincidence until just
now.
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The face (distinct from the head), its contours and masquerade, is another way
of thinking Freud's protective shield. Makeup and cosmetic surgery can be protection
from the negative social representations that our eyes and ears register as responses (our
own and others) to our aging faces. As Freud said, anxiety is a matter of perception.

I will never know whether my personal anxiety triggered my earlier fear of aging
or vice versa. But as I worried about Rob's heart, I began to focus on the bags under my
eyes. Which I would compare to the eyes of others. I had reduced my identity to a small
area of skin. Which was ridiculous until I calculated the astronomical profits made on
this square inch of face by the cosmetics and plastic surgery industries. The compulsive
workings of my mind, and the obsessive logics of culture, coalesced into logic of
contradiction, eat/diet, spend/save, be old/look young. Obsession, derived from thought
and the fear of catastrophe, and how it was culturally constructed, became intellectually
clear.

Everything from the stock market and the Wall Street Journal to plastic surgery,
from the funeral, cosmetic, makeup, lingerie, drug, gossip, and fashion industries fit my
model. In fact, there was nothing in popular culture my model of obsession could not
explain. All went into my book, High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age, &
Comedy, published in 1992, a fat little text indeed. And although it is overwrought and
overlong, I still believe it to be a unique analysis of the way television, or media culture,
produces fear and anxiety. It is not just terrorist acts and wars that are making us fearful.
It is also the way television and media culture are re-presenting those acts to us. Media
create events for us that demand more media time to explain them. But explanations
rarely come, usually repetitions of the same shock or scandal, made by a variety of
talking heads, usually men, speaking bland banalities with authority, as if for the first
time. On the news shows, the female talking heads are increasingly glamorous,
becoming more so the longer they are on the show. Several women who began their
stints on CNBC as plain Janes emerged in 2005 as glamour girls. Knowledge and insight
are not a prerequisite for this position of messenger. There is little thought on television,
but many bland and obvious and contradictory opinions, endlessly rehearsed, as if new
and original. Packaging counts more than content.

Good for me, thought I. I've mastered fear and all the cultural world, through
intellect. While my analysis of television's logic still stands, I failed to see how my
thoughts, now in overdrive, to say nothing of my outsized ego, were still my problem.
Furthermore, reading the book produced anxiety! I had mimicked TV's logic too well.
Although I had analyzed my emotional state, nothing had changed. My anxiety level
was off the charts. Likewise, while Freud always plots an intriguing situation, his
conclusions can be crashing letdowns. Other than blaming the past (especially family
members and childhood), Freud's causal interpretations (infantile sexuality, particularly
fear of castration and penis envy) are of little help in changing anything in the present,
particularly for women. How could I live with any tranquility, or happiness? I longed
for equanimity, for serenity (experiences and qualities) but saw them beyond my life's
reach.
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Then I had a startling and simple insight. I realized that Rob's heart condition was
not my biggest problem. My fear for his heart was my greatest problem, and my anxiety
magnified his worry, creating pain for both of us. Despite my reassuring words, he could
feel my fear, which made things worse. He knew I was covering up. On top of this, my
desire for a cure or a miracle made acceptance impossible. Stasis was not good enough.
This was my turning point, the pivotal moment when my life began to change. My
thoughts were determining my reality, not the other way around.

.........

After the shock of Rob’s diagnosis of cardiomyopathy in 1988, I lived in a state of


low-grade anxiety, fearful of losing him, and feeling that it was my fault. The only
escape was hoping -- for a miracle recovery, a medical discovery or a mistaken diagnosis.
Several cardiologists and hours of research later, I lost hope. To my surprise, this turned
out to be a good thing. Why? Because this kind of false hope and fear go together. As
the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron put it: “In the world of hope and fear, we have to
change something, we feel we lack something. We can’t just be, in the present moment.”
(40/41) 13 After all, in the present, what Ekhardt Tolle calls the now, Rob was OK.
Chodron goes on: Usually we believe that when we feel suffering, something is wrong.
And we try to escape the pain. “But suffering is a part of life, we haven’t done anything
wrong.” (41) I had to accept the pain and the situation, realizing it was not my fault. I
was the ultimate fixer, the doer, the rescuer. And now there was nothing to do. “All
anxiety, all dissatisfaction, all the reasons for hoping that our experience could be
different are rooted in our fear of death. Fear of death is always in the background.” (43)
I had to face my fear.

I imagined myself on a journey through fear that began with facing death. But
my fear was so deep and archaic that the mind couldn't touch it. Besides, my noisy,
restless mind was part, if not most, of the problem. In 1987, out of desperation, I made
an appointment with a therapist whose name my daughter, Dae, a very worried senior in
high school then, found for me. Disclosing my sad state to a stranger was not on my
agenda. But this very ordinary decision would change the course of my life.

Within a year, this decision would take me to India, to an Ashram in a small, poor
village outside Bombay, called Ganeshpuri (after the Hindu elephant God, Ganesha, the
remover of obstacles), where I had the darshan, a personal meeting, a sharing of a glance,
a word, an acknowledgement, of a brilliant woman, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, who
became my spiritual teacher. I stayed in the ashram for two weeks, sleeping on a cot on
an outdoor balcony with many other women from around the world. I meditated, cross-
legged on the floor, at 3 am, wrapped in a shawl in the cool Indian air, sat, cross-legged
on the floor, through the morning chant of the Guru Gita, a song of 183 verses in
Sanskrit, none of which I could pronounce, did “seva” by cleaning the kitchen for several
hours a day in 100 plus degree temperatures, and attended other programs. But I am
getting ahead of my story . . .
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CHAPTER 2

A Spiritual Quest in India: Studying Death

Marge Rock. Can you imagine a better name for a therapist? As I sat in the
waiting room of her suburban office, a very tall, looming over six feet, red haired, and
graceful 50ish woman dramatically swept out to meet me. Marge Rock was magnificent,
smelling of jasmine oil, wearing some Native American or crystal necklaces over her
purple knit outfit, with bright red shoes and bangles on her wrists pinging and jangling.
With her broad shoulders, ample bosom, and impossibly long thin legs, she was an
impressive figure, filling every inch of space with her energy -- which felt wise, seasoned
with experience. I felt as if I had just met the female Yoda, or the living Sphinx, or
perhaps Auntie Mame. She'd been there, done that, with gusto and laughter. She looked
down at me from her towering height with eyes that were gentle and spoke in her huskily
lilting voice . . . “Well, hello there, you must be Pat. It's great to meet you, come on in.
I'm a recovering alcoholic, you know . . . let's talk. I'm also an actress, a singer, dancer,
writer and an artist." Later I would learn this outsized claim was no exaggeration.

We entered her cozy, warm office – yes, it was womb-like. Was this for real? I
would soon find out that Marge was very real indeed. I would be lying if I said I felt safe
with a therapist, even if she were a Rock. I didn't like therapy at all. I felt pressure to
produce, to be interesting and “therapeutically correct.” This one-on-one thing required
honesty and a closeness that was beyond my reach or desire. But I needed help. My
never-ending anxiety would begin in my knees and elbows and then physically spread
throughout my entire body. Midway into the hour, Marge suggested that rather than
responding to her remarks with “I know,” I try saying “I hear you.” “After all, Pat, if you
already know everything, what are you doing here?” Whoa! But I couldn’t feel much
worse. So I scheduled a regular weekly time slot.

With Marge’s guidance, I began to deal with the fear beneath my anxiety. And
fear of losing Rob was only the most obvious and serious. I was a bundle of knotted
fears . . . fear of public speaking, fear of flying, fear of not being good enough, or smart
enough, and my biggest fears around money, loss and death. I began to see my life as a
journey through fear, which, according to Marge, was a “wonderful opportunity”.
“Surely, Marge, you jest. What is so wonderful about feeling fear?”

Marge had read every book written on new (and old) age spirituality and visited
healers, astrologers, mind readers, body workers, and various gurus. To me, this alien
21

world was a booga booga universe of unprovable claims and self-deception. Often she
would give me self-help exercises, which were printed on flash cards. How nice. Ho-
hum. But I always tried to do what she suggested, sometimes thinking the solutions were
ridiculously simplistic… And, of course, unfailingly, everything she suggested worked,
almost immediately! And there were few situations for which she did not have a ready
remedy.

Whenever I experienced the physicality of anxiety, I tried to envision the


specific fear, and then move toward and through it, until it vanished. Then I took the
affirmation literally. Fear of heights? Rob and I climbed the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and
then Notre Dame Cathedral. Fear of flying? I traveled to and around Australia, flew in
the USSR on Aeroflot, the notorious state airline. Fear of public speaking . . . I gave
presentations in Finland, Australia, and England, to large audiences. I was still
frightened, even terrified (I didn’t sleep for five nights in Helsinki, and panicked before
one talk in Sydney), but fear was losing its stranglehold.)

I even tried “affirmations,” then trendy, repeating out loud that “delivering talks
at major conferences was one of my favorite activities.” Or, I simply asked myself
“What could happen to me? What is the worst thing that can happen to me? Would they
stone me for a boring lecture? No.”. The answer was “nothing” or just acute
embarrassment. As fear began to ebb, faith replaced it. As one eked out, the other
flowed in.

When I was a girl, prayer had always been my link to God, soothing my childish
fears of the dark and of being lost. In college, rather than this mystical connection and
comfort from Catholicism, began a feeling of interior impurity, of a soul that was flawed,
imperfect. Prayer alone was no longer enough to counter this sense of shame; I sensed
that the answer lay in meditation, which to me was an exotic, Eastern practice. I was
intrigued by the story Marge had told me about her new Indian meditation teacher, the
Harlem minister, and the cashmere shawl.

“What a strange name, gurusomethingorother,” I thought. “Another one of


Marge's many mystical pursuits.” But without knowing any of the players, this parable
of contemporary life drew me in. It also baffled me.

An older man, a successful and well-known black minister from a large


congregation in New York, Eugene Callendar, who was a devotee, had told Gurumayi
about his abusive father, about how he had suffered from his violence as a child, and
about his vow never to see this brutal man again.

After hearing this very sad, teary, and deeply emotional story, Gurumayi
beckoned for a thick, lavender cashmere shawl. The minister thought that the shawl was
a gift for him, a reward for all he had suffered and survived, an acknowledgement of all
his good acts as a minister of a large congregation. But Gurumayi told him to take the
exquisite, luxurious shawl and give it to his father, during the upcoming holiday. After
inviting him for Christmas dinner! The powerful, charismatic man was completely
22

stunned -- not only did he want to keep this precious gift himself, the last person on earth
he wanted to give anything to, let alone a splendid shawl from his beloved spiritual
teacher whom he adored, was his father! And he had vowed never, no never, to see him
again!

But he obeyed Gurumayi's command and made plans to meet with his father and
give him the shawl at Christmas. To his amazement, his father, now wizened and made
small and fragile by age, began to weep and ask for forgiveness. The old and painful
wounds began to heal. The family reunited on New Year’s for the first time in many
years.

After it brings our lives into harmony, this gift of forgiveness and compassion
sets us free. But it can be a very difficult step to take. It is, as you might guess, a step
toward happiness, toward freedom, and toward humility. But I didn't understand any of
this yet. Like Eugene, when I first heard the story, it seemed logical to keep the shawl.
Why reward a bad man with a cashmere shawl? Why not give it to the one who deserves
it? The story, in reality a parable, was like a Zen haiku, or koan, completely beyond my
comprehension, intellectually and spiritually.

Marge gave me a taste of the power of compassion with one of her flash-card
exercises. My sister, Nancy, and I had an argument, over something trivial. I told Marge
I was finally going to take a stand, and be a strong woman; this time, I was right! I would
not cave to my sister as I usually did but would hold my ground. Instead of “Good for
you, you strong woman!” Marge handed me a yellow card. “Call your sister and say
these exact words to her.” On the card was printed: “I love you. You are right, and I am
wrong, and I apologize.” What? Why would I say this? I was right, absolutely! “Do
you want to be right or do you want a loving relationship with your sister? Just try it, Pat,
and call me afterward.” Grrrrrrrrrrrr....But I memorized the words, picked up the
telephone, called my sister, and repeated the words, exactly. To my surprise, Nancy
melted at “I love you” and began her own apologies. The fight disappeared. Such is the
power of forgiveness and compassion. And the corrosiveness of the need to be right.

Around the same time, in 1989, I was a fellow at the East/West Center at the
University of Hawaii; I was giving a keynote speech at the Honolulu International Film
Symposium and had a case of high anxiety. I asked Didi Chang, a lovely Chinese woman
and one of the film festival organizers, if she knew anything about meditation. She
invited me to her meditation center that very evening, for a Thanksgiving program and
chant in a house in the hills above Honolulu. I had never asked anyone about meditation
before this.

In the dim, wood paneled meditation hall, there was a large photograph of a young
Indian woman, with penetrating dark eyes and a stunningly beautiful visage. She was
wearing a red robe and a red hat. As the hostess told me, she was the head of the Siddha
yoga lineage. This was an ancient order of monks who preserved and passed-on their
experiences of meditation, revealing what were, until recent times, secrets knowable by
only a few seekers who made the difficult journey to a small village in India. The
23

photograph was placed on a large chair, we all sat in front of it. I couldn’t take my eyes
off it.

As everyone around me dreamily and then exuberantly chanted, “Hare Rama,


Hare Krishna,” going faster and faster, I became terrified. I had to escape the image and
the chant and the fear they had aroused. I quickly left the hall, went outside and smoked
a cigarette. (The smoke drifted into the purified air of the meditation hall, causing the
attendants to look around for a fire. Embarrassing moment indeed!) But I got myself
together enough to come back inside for a fabulous chocolate dessert after the program
ended. Didi drove me back to my room at the University; I said nothing about my intense
fear. “I’ll never do that again,” thought the Great I. But throughout the next days of the
Hawaii International Film Festival, strangers would ask me how I had enjoyed the
meditation program. I wanted to shoo them away, pretend I didn’t know them. This was
a no never event for me! Or so I thought.

But the image of that photograph had so indelibly printed itself that I couldn’t
get the vision out of my mind. At my next therapy session, I told Marge about this
experience. “Well, how amazing is this! She is my spiritual teacher, and I have just
returned from her ashram in upstate New York. The intense fear was not coming from
Gurumayi, Pat, it was coming from within you! It has to come up before it can leave
you. This is wonderful! Why don’t you come to the local center with me for a chant and
meditation? Oh, do you remember the story I told you about the cashmere shawl? That
was the same teacher.”

Although it took time for me to see the “wonderfulness” of this experience, this
was the beginning of my soul’s awakening. 14 I would soon begin to turn within for
strength, but before my inner world could become a source of respite, wisdom and
clarity, it had to be cleared of old (and new) fears and insecurities. And this is the work
of a spiritual master, a teacher, a Guru -- the job of the teacher or Guru, has always been
to purify and diminish the ego, the part of us that was either grandiose or belittling, the
source of fear and false pride alike. 15 And although I didn’t know it yet, I had found my
spiritual teacher, my guru.

My first official step into this alien territory was a Siddha Yoga meditation
intensive in a basement recreation room, in Milwaukee, on Easter weekend in 1989. I
had just been discharged a week early from six days in the hospital after emergency
abdominal surgery to remove an infected cyst, exactly, precisely, at the base of my spine.
The healing, like the onset, was inexplicably rapid, mysterious, enabling me to attend the
intensive. And for Siddha Yoga, the base of the spine is more than just bones we sit on.

The two-day program, broadcast live via satellite from India, began at 5 am and
lasted until 6 pm. It consisted of meditation, talks by Swamis (monks), and chanting. I
couldn’t believe I was doing this! Chanting “Hare Rama” to the beat of a drum and the
sound of a harmonium for an hour and then sitting in the dark for forty-minutes of
meditation! In a packed little basement room of strangers, a space that reeked of incense.
To say nothing about getting up at 3am! And paying for the experience! It all boggled
24

my mind. How did I get here, a frugal Catholic girl, independent thinker, and media
scholar?

In the past, I had more disdain than interest in Eastern meditation, seeing it as an
affectation of hippies and avant-garde artists in the 1970s about whom I had written (and
known). (I cringe when I remember my dismissal, based only on complete ignorance.)
But now I was desperate, I had hit a wall of fear and panic. I found no consolation in my
Catholic tradition – which had lapsed into mediocrity through my lack of practice and
belief. I needed reassurance that God was real and could hear me, I needed to take
dramatic action, to up the level of my belief in a “power greater than myself,” as AAers
might put it. I longed for an experience of God’s reality. I was desperate for God’s
tangibility.

During the intensive, the talks concerning the contemporary application of


ancient spiritual teachings were brilliant and uplifting. They focused on everyday life, on
the present moment. All the speakers had a light-hearted clarity and a real joy. I felt
happier than I had in years. What a rush, feeling “light-hearted” again after months in
panicky darkness. And there were breaks every 50 minutes at the intensive, times for
delicious treats.

Part of my enthusiasm came from the fact that I physically survived meditation,
and that I had the courage and open-mindedness to participate in something that was so
unfamiliar, even alien, to me. Sitting still (for even fifteen minutes) and focusing my
erratic, cascading thoughts were the most difficult things I have ever done. Seriously.
During the event, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda gave a talk in English and chanted with the
participants, live in India and in the US. via satellite. She was illuminating, lovely . . . a
compelling figure in her early 40s – with a great sense of humor and a magnificent
intelligence. She was the head of the large, international SYDA Foundation, she was
young but ageless, a captivating, fascinating, articulate presence, the still photograph
come to life.

I was assured that during this event -- an experience designed by Baba


Muktananda, Gurumayi’s teacher -- I would receive an initiation, what is called
Shaktipat, the awakening of the divine energy within each of us, called the Kundalini
Shakti. For Kashmir Shaivism, the basis of Siddha Yoga that shares aspects of Hinduism,
this life force, or Kundalini, lies dormant, coiled at the base of the spine (the precise site
of my removed cyst), until it is ignited by a spiritual teacher, a master – a being who has
attained enlightenment. This very high and rare state simply means to be one with God
and the universe, to live in unity, not separation, all the time. Union is, in fact, the
meaning of the word “yoga,” union with the inner Self, union with God, union with
everyone and everything. (Knowing about this state is one thing, experiencing it
another.)

My skeptical mind immediately began to object: How could this energy be


transmitted on television, over a live satellite broadcast from India? It must be wishful or
magical thinking, or a fanciful hallucination. It used to be that a Guru had a personal
25

relationship with a disciple – the instructions were oral, the look of the Guru was a direct
gaze. Finding and then meeting a spiritual teacher used to be rare, and arduous, and
usually in India, or somewhere in the Himalayas, in a cave.

As a wandering sadhu, a seeker, wearing only a loincloth, Baba Muktananda


walked the length and breadth of India for many years looking for his teacher, Bhagawan
Nityananda. The US had no tradition of wandering, almost naked men, seeking God. I
had never met Gurumayi. And here there were several thousand people around the world
taking the intensive. How could she look at each of us? How could she know I was even
there? Who was I kidding! This is TV, not life. My answer came on Easter Sunday,
right after the intensive: I had an experience unlike anything in my life.

It still sounds fantastical. I had stopped at a stoplight on my way home. Another


car pulled up. The driver stared at me, a perplexed, weird look on his face; I wondered
what he was seeing. Then I felt it – my body, all 118 pounds of it then – was no longer
confined within my skin, but was expanding, rolling into the back seat, rising up to the
top of the car, a red Toyota Celica, which this internal self now filled. I drove away
quickly, trying to pull my body or my spirit back inside its sack of skin, like a stretchable
Warner Brothers cartoon body. Bewildered, I laughed as I thought about gathering my
now elastic body to get out of the car. I had no boundaries, no limits, nothing holding me
in place except the car. I was so much more than I had ever imagined! And this
experience was so literal! I must be very thickheaded to need such a blatant experience.
Others at the Intensive had described seeing an exploding white light, or walking into the
blaze of their own hearts, or seeing ethereal blue beings. I turned into a cartoon-body, ala
Chuck Jones and his Road Runner.

When I got home, I took my dog, the ever-faithful BP, for a walk down Lake
Drive, toward the park. The spring day was beautiful, and I was inexplicably (or so I
thought) euphoric. Then I experienced the most extraordinary thing – I began to float up,
going higher and higher, over the city, anchored only by BP’s leash. I was lighter than
air and I filled an immense space. My Self was infinitely greater than the confines of my
body; it was free, it was buoyant and clairvoyant, it could go anywhere and see anything.
And it flew high above the shore of Lake Michigan. But as I began to wonder about this
strange state of elated elevation, remembering that I was afraid of heights, I slowly
descended to the sidewalk.

But even on solid ground as just my ordinary small self, I have never felt such
happiness. Ecstasy might be a better word. It was like a physical substance, an elixir of
nectar that I hadn’t tasted before. I was filled with it, there was no room for anything sad
or fearful. There was no space for anxiety. This “inner state” was for real; it truly
existed, if only for a brief time, and it was within me, although I could not hold it for very
long. I was like a sieve; I didn’t have the discipline or the inner strength to hold onto
grace. But for that moment, I was enough, in fact, more than enough.

*****
26

But I wanted more of what I experienced -- elated contentment. I suspect this is


what I was looking for, and never found, in my addiction to valium. I began to attend
satsang, programs with other spiritual seekers, at the local Siddha Yoga Center (initially
the same basement room in a small house in the suburbs), on Wednesday evening and at
a pizza restaurant for Sunday morning chants of 183 verses in Sanskrit which I could not
pronounce. I knew nothing about Eastern philosophy and spiritual practices, which Baba
clearly and repeatedly differentiated from religions. (The key difference is religion’s
man-made morality, systems of good and bad behaviors, based on dogma instead of
experience.) But every Wednesday evening, after a program of chanting and meditation
with other devotees or seekers, I felt lighter, happier, freer. I am a bit klutsy so this
feeling of floating was unusual,

I wanted to meet this woman, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda (a name I still couldn’t


pronounce or spell). I felt compelled to go to India. I wanted to test the truth of my
experiences in her physical presence. I also wanted to go faster along this new path, I
wanted the jump-start of seeing her physical form. And to be honest, my outsized ego
wanted or needed a dramatic experience. She was in residence at her ashram in India –
Gurudev Siddha Peeth. Visitors were welcome. I wrote a letter to Gurumayi and
received her approval to come to India.

Telling my very Catholic mother that I was in pursuit of a Guru was a daunting
task. I would receive a Fulbright to study women in Indian cinema a year or two later.
But scholarship was not my primary motivation – it was a justification for my mother –
who would subsequently develop fear of my new practices – believing them to be those
of a cult follower. No matter how many of my Siddha Yoga teachers my mother met,
including Gurumayi, Swami Indirananda, Peter Hayes, and a prominent minister from a
congregation in Harlem, Eugene Callendar, she held on to her fear and disapproval. I
suspect that “saving me” for Catholicism might have kept her alive. She elicited the St.
Robert’s Parish women’s prayer group, usually reserved for the terminally ill, to include
me, by name, in their weekly list, relayed via telephone.

I wondered why she so feared something that had enabled me to survive my fear
about Rob, and something that was making me so happy. I suspect that along with my
damnation, she feared losing her dominant place in my life. Her sad disapproval was
painful for me because I loved my mother deeply and I loved spending time with
Gurumayi, a figure of pure fearlessness. In contrast, my mother’s fear for me was a
heavy burden – as was her lack of trust in my intelligence and in Gurumayi. In fact, fear
was a legacy I wanted to shed. But this would take some time, as it turns out. A single
journey would not do it.

Despite the State Department tourist warnings due to the first Gulf War, I went
fearlessly to India, to the ashram in Ganeshpuri, a small, poor, and dusty village two
hours from Mumbai, then Bombay, my first time in a third-world country. I didn’t have a
clue what to expect. I worried that I was too noisy for such a holy place, I moved and
talked too fast to be a spiritual aspirant. I liked new clothes and entertainment too much!
I wore make-up and colored my hair! At least I didn’t drink; and I had just quit smoking.
27

At the ashram, I felt awkward removing my shoes when entering rooms, pranaming, or
bowing, to the Guru’s seat, or chair and photograph, and sitting cross-legged on the floor,
men on one side, women on the other. The Indian vegetarian diet, with its spicy odors
and tastes, along with the pungent smell of incense, added to my estrangement. I ate
using flatware and sitting on a chair in the Western style Amrit rather than in the Indian
main dining hall, with fingers, seated on the floor.

Then there was the dress code of long skirts (an initial affront to a pants-wearing
feminist) or Indian saris and the lengthy repetition of Sanskrit chants (which can last for
days, called saptahs), to say nothing of rituals of offering to, I foolishly thought, the
statues and paintings of Hindu deities and the photographs of saints that were
everywhere. (Shades of Catholic or Christian guilt – worshipping “false idols.”) The
images simply remind us of what we can be. The ornate, colorful Indian aesthetic
initially seemed garish, hokey more than sacred. But there was so much joy, wisdom,
tranquility and laughter that my embarrassment at being not only a novice but also a klutz
melted. As my fear was soothed by the knowledge and experience of Indian culture, my
intolerance and critical judgments, all fear based, also melted. I noticed that right beside
statues of Krishna were statues of Jesus and Mary. Once again, I was unknowing, and
happy to be in that state.

But I was a doofus, a Lucy Goes to India. Because there were fewer men in the
ashram, there were more spaces on their side of the various halls. Like a star-struck fan, I
wanted to be closer to the front, closer to the Guru’s chair in case she came to the
program, so I would sit there, for the first ten days, oblivious to the apparent gender
divide. Or I would take an empty spot along a wall (for leaning back) in a temple, just
beneath a photograph of Baba or another deity like Ganesha, the elephant god, not
realizing that devotees would be bowing in front of this photograph – in essence, bowing
to me. Basically, I was unwittingly sitting on an “altar.” In retrospect, ignorance can be
comic as well as embarrassing. But the hall monitors all took compassion on this gangly,
eager American, never correcting my social goofs.

For two weeks, I lived a truly communal lifestyle – which I loved. I slept on a cot
in the women’s dormitory, an open-air room for one hundred. We each had a metal
footlocker for our personal belongings. The toilets were pits in the ground, nice ones, the
shower, buckets of hot water and a cup, located in a separate building, three floors down.
During a bout of traveler’s diarrhea, I became a sprinter. I arose at 3 am for meditation;
then attended the morning Arati and the 183 verse Sanskrit chant, the Guru Gita,
followed by breakfast and seva – selfless service.

My job, or seva, was in Amrit, the kitchen, which fed more than 1,000 people per
day, including villagers for Sunday lunch. I served and washed dishes for three meals,
and then mopped the floors at the day’s end. The temperature was in the 100s, and the
humidity was high. I was soon exhausted from the heat and the rigor of the discipline.
How did everyone else have so much energy? How could they sit still for meditation for
such long periods? I would never have the stamina for such an arduous life. Why did the
other devotees look so happy, so relaxed, so breezy, so rested? Were they super beings?
28

I will never be strong enough for meditation! Like my weary body that yearned for sleep,
my mind was restless, noisy, longing for a distraction, like television or a movie or a
shopping trip.

So I went to Bombay, now Mumbai, a two-hour drive from the Ashram. As I


bought sandalwood carvings, inlaid marble, cashmere shawls, and intricately patterned
silk, I saw India with double vision – as luxuriously, sumptuously beautiful and as
abjectly poor. Beggars without legs and arms were on every street, living in mud shacks
lining the high walls around luxury hotels and on the outskirts of the city. I was
unfamiliar, and hence fearful, of Indian customs. I had never been in such a country. I
had been overwhelmed by the throngs at the airport, hundreds of outstretched, begging
arms and hands, a crush of thin, dark, grasping bodies begging to carry my luggage. The
smell of India was an intense odor, burning dung, or urination against building walls. In
public spaces, I felt very vulnerable, painfully visible, spotlighted by staring eyes, and
close bodies, some missing body parts and begging. My fear was on the surface. 16

But I was in India for a higher purpose than tourism and shopping. This was a
pilgrimage, a spiritual, holy journey, the first of many I would make to see Gurumayi in
the next eighteen years. Near the end of my two-week visit, I was introduced to
Gurumayi in her marble courtyard filled with fragrant trees and flowers. The devotees
were all dressed up, wearing saris and flowers in their hair. Everyone was beautiful and
moved gracefully, in an air of excitement. I was grubby from the kitchen, disheveled,
klutzy, awkward. I pranamed – kneeling and bowing, my head below my heart --and told
her about Rob’s heart. She looked at me directly and nodded compassionately. She
asked where I was from. Her look, her darshan, was unlike any other – she didn’t look
through me but within me; it was electrifying. I knew that Rob was in God’s hands. I
began to let go – a process which would take me years. My fear lessened, laughter began
to return. I felt that God had heard me, and was taking Rob, Dae, and me on a meditation
journey to a safer, more intelligent place.

The Guru, which simply means spiritual teacher in India, is an example of what
we can become. The job of a Guru is to destroy the ego, that part of us that keeps us
away from our interior greatness. The ego is a false measure of self – telling us that we
are nothing or that we are the best. The ego thrives on fear, in all it guises, including
anger and false pride. Thus, a spiritual path is an arduous one. For the ego doesn’t want
to give up control, it doesn’t want to die, and it will struggle mightily to survive. As the
ego shrinks, or dies, as it begins to surrender, one experiences pain, sometimes searing
pain, before the joy that will ultimately, always, be released. Siddha Yoga refers to this
pain as a burning sensation. Humility can be the result, along with contentment. It is a
prerequisite for a true seeker and a virtue I sorely lacked, but one of which I was aware
through AA. In fact, the 12 steps of AA dovetailed perfectly with spiritual practices and
principles.

The inner Self, or Witness, is the goal of all Eastern spiritual practices. Sogyal
Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist, puts it this way: “Two people have been living in you all
your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the
29

hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or
attended to. As you listen . . . to the teachings . . . your inner voice, what we call in
Buddhism ‘discriminating awareness,’ is awakened . . . and you begin to distinguish
between its guidance and the clamorous and enthralling voices of ego.” 17(120)
Cultivating “awareness” is no small task. Most people don’t even begin the process.
The rest have no idea that they have virtually no inner awareness.

Another way of illuminating this difference is the double definition of the


mind. Sogyal Rinpoche writes: “The still revolutionary insight of Buddhism is that life
and death are in the mind, and nowhere else. Mind is . . . the creator of happiness and
the creator of suffering, the creator of what we call life and what we call death.” The
ordinary mind “thinks, plots, desires, manipulates, flares up in anger, creates and indulges
in waves of negative emotions and thoughts . . . the ordinary mind is the shiftless prey of
external influences” and habits. “It is like a candle flame in an open doorway on a windy
day . . . it is flickering, unstable, grasping, and endlessly minding others’ business. . . a
Mexican jumping bean” or a “monkey hopping restlessly from branch to branch.” It is
within “this ordinary mind” that we “undergo change and death.”

And then “there is the very nature of mind, its innermost essence, which is
absolutely and always untouched by change or death. At present it is hidden within our
own mind, enveloped and obscured by the mental scurry of our thoughts and emotions.”
This mind is “like the sky and shining sun, obscured by the movements of clouds. It is
pure, pristine awareness that is at once intelligent, cognizant, radiant, and always awake.”
It is “‘the knowledge of knowledge itself.’” (46/47) Gurumayi, and Baba, would ask us,
“Who is seeing through your eyes? Who is the seer?” The seer embodies the
“knowledge of knowledge itself.”

All of this takes great discipline – of the senses, of the body, and particularly of
the mind, which causes all the restlessness and anxiety in the first place. Discipline,
rather than being restrictive, oppressive, is ultimately liberating. And while meditation
can be vexing, even tortuous, it will transform into a beneficial, joyous experience. As
the mind gradually becomes quiet, clear, and focused by meditation, it becomes strong,
like a laser beam, and mental tasks become simpler; thoughts and emotions arise and
subside rather than rage and overwhelm. The wild mind that has learned to obsess, to
rage, becomes tamed. I loved this new knowledge. I was very grateful, even for my
ignorance; I was a blank slate with everything to learn. This was thrilling to me. Life
began to look like an exciting adventure rather than a sad melodrama.

But first I had to change old habits, dug in for almost fifty years. I hung onto the
distinction between the pleasurable, the quick, temporary fix, and the beneficial, which
lasts and satiates. I imagined finding “the space between thoughts,” the place of
complete stillness. I yearned for contentment, I longed for “God within me.” I bought all
the books by Baba Muktananda, Gurumayi’s teacher, as well as those written by
Gurumayi, the head of this ancient lineage since Baba’s death in 1982. I began a decade
long practice of reading sections every morning and evening.
30

I visited Baba’s Samadhi Shrine in the ashram, a powerful space filled with
peacock feathers, with which Baba would bless aspirants. This is where Baba’s body was
buried. This place of death was comforting, joyous, not at all morbid. Baba had built
this ashram with his devotees, transforming the deforested, arid land and a one-room mud
hut into a beautiful place of blossoming trees, lush grasses, and hundreds of roses.

The walled ashram is a marble oasis, with cool meditation rooms and
halls, dormitories, beautiful gardens, open green fields and long walking paths.
Flowering trees perfume the air. The ashram is near a dusty, small village. Ganeshpuri is
poor, humble, with dirt roads. Everyone is barefoot, the children uniformed for school,
the mothers young and tiny, in brightly colored saris, carrying their small babies on their
hips. The only health care is provided by the ashram. The Siddha Foundation just built a
hospital and for years has provided dental care, along with eye camps, performing tens of
thousands of cataract surgeries. The temples in the surrounding villages are simple,
rustic buildings, old and small by today’s standards, yet filled with the history and
presence of great beings who meditated there hundreds of years ago.

We toured these places where Baba had lived, where his Guru, Bhagawan
Nityananda, lived and died; we visited Nityananda’s humble home, his bedroom a re-
creation of a small Pullman car; in his temple, we wondered at the power of his murti, a
statue of his likeness, spiritually alive, energetic; we chanted with the villagers, we
offered dakshina, a gift of flowers, or money, or fruit to these great Siddhas, these saints.
These were holy lands, sacred spaces, imbued with a history of intense feeling.

I was blanketed in a spiritual atmosphere that deeply moved me, exhilarated me,
and then exhausted me. I wasn’t sure that I had the stamina, to say nothing of the
discipline, for this newfound path. I was overwhelmed by India, by its poverty and its
riches, by its spiritual rituals, by its complex mythology, by its pervasive smell and tastes,
by its beauty and sordidness, by its spiritual and even physical energy. My two weeks
were up. I was relieved to return to the U.S., to the clean sterility of Heathrow and then
JFK airports, to an antiseptic odor, to my comfortable bed, luxurious sheets, privacy, TV
set, and bedroom walls; I was hungry for American junk food and clothing stores and
unpolluted air and movies and public shopping malls.

I looked forward to sleeping late – or so I thought. India proved to be another


indelible experience (and I would return). After this journey, something woke me up for
early morning meditation, followed by chanting the Guru Gita, the 183-verse chant, with
Gurumayi on videotape. After this beginning, my days were noticeably more
harmonious.

I began to MC programs and give talks at the local Siddha Yoga Center in
Milwaukee, sharing my spiritual experiences. My fear of public speaking was intense,
even after almost twenty years of college teaching, but I did it anyway. It took me two
days to prepare about six or seven minutes for each program, and then several hours
being tutored by another, more experienced devotee. What is this? The Great Me,
teacher and author of many essays, being “tutored?” By a massage therapist? Then I
31

remembered the Lord’s Club – where all the jobs from President down to janitor are
performed by everyone, on a rotating basis. All work, or seva, selfless service, is equal.
It was tough at times but the “great me” softened and began to gain a smidgeon of
humility. Tutoring is like brilliant editing – it always made the text better.

But it was also more than this. It encouraged a process of contemplation, where
we go deeper within and connect knowledge to our own experience. We make the
teachings our own while maintaining their integrity and truth. This is the way to speak
from the heart. I used to think my MC work was for others; it wasn’t, it was only for me,
to lift my fear of public speaking, to clarify my experiences, and to embed them in my
memory.

When Gurumayi visited Milwaukee two years later, in the spring of 1992, I was
an enthusiastic, quaking MC for her welcome program. I loved interacting with her, an
intensely heightened, energized feeling of grace. But I am getting ahead of my story 18

In February, 1991, two months after I returned from India, I heard that Gurumayi
would be returning to her ashram in upstate New York for her birthday celebration, June
24-26. I registered for a two-week visit of seva and courses taught by the Swamis and
other Siddha Yoga teachers. This ashram is in a small town, South Fallsburg, New York,
around two hours from New York City. It was created by combining three run-down
Catskill resorts – in what had become an unfashionable, hardscrabble area of
unemployment, abandoned summerhouses, and decayed swimming pools, long ago
popular as a summer destination for city dwellers and a nightclub circuit know as the
Borscht Belt that spawned generations of stand-up comics. (With the recent passage of
gambling laws in Stewart County, the area is on the rise again.)

At Shri Muktananda Ashram, I stayed in a 12x12 feet square hotel room, in a


building later named Anugraha, with gold shag carpeting on the floor and olive green
shag on the lower walls – leftovers from the sixties decor. The room had no telephone (in
a time before ubiquitous cell phones), one bathroom and closet, four metal bunk beds,
and I shared it with seven other women (and their baggage) of various nationalities. That
I could share a room with even one other woman, to say nothing of seven, was
astonishing. (By 1998, this décor had been completely remodeled, in soft beige and
pastels, for four.)

As in India, I tried to follow the ashram daily schedule, arising at 4 am, chanting
the morning Arati (followed by Chai, a sugary tea made from Baba’s special recipe), and
then chanting the Guru Gita. I was late, frequently. I worked in the Amrit Café, making
the morning coffee, slicing hundreds of bagels, serving food, and washing dishes. I
added the noon and evening Aratis, invocation to sacred deities, Shiva and Ram (various
names for aspects of God) along with a longer evening chant to my daily schedule –
trying to live the ashram life. I was soon exhausted, discombobulated, Lucy at the
Ashram.
32

Imagine Lucille Ball wrapping herself in the miles of an Indian sari, a garment
without a single pin or button. Or getting up from the floor after hours of cross-legged
meditation and chanting. Or washing huge pots and pans from meals that often fed two
or three thousand people, and running them in an industrial, room-size dishwasher,
dashing from one end to the other, by herself. I began to love chanting – although I
always wanted to sing, my off-key voice, like Lucy, had always been an embarrassment.
But in the chant, my voice blended in. And it felt exactly like rock ‘n roll when
Gurumayi was in the lead. No matter how off-key I was, the other voices carried mine.
The support of the community, the sangha, is very real and observable.

Then there was meditation. Not easy at all for me. In fact, the hardest thing I
have ever attempted. But at least my body didn’t scream in pain after fifteen minutes of
sitting cross-legged on the floor; slowly, it was learning correct posture and relaxation. I
noticed that as my mind became calm, so did my restless body. As I focused on my
breathing during meditation, repeating the Siddha Yoga mantra, “Om Namah Shivaya,”
meaning “I bow to God, to Shiva, within me,” I could feel my interior healing – from a
bleeding ulcer and a butchered abdominal surgery a decade earlier, from yearly bouts of
pneumonia and bronchitis, from stress and worry. It helped that Gurumayi came into the
amrit/kitchen backdoor one evening and walked directly toward me, gently putting her
finger in my sternum, while looking directly through me. I could feel my breath
revitalizing parts of my body, healing, lessening the stiffness of my shoulders, the
clenching of my jaws, the tightness of my hands. All my fear began to soften, then
crumble.

I took Hatha Yoga classes based on Yyengar’s methods of yoga and felt almost
supple. It was as if for the first time in twenty-five years – of running fast and constantly
to be a good mother, a dutiful daughter, and a successful professor, I was stopping to take
a deep and long and luxuriant breath. Muscles habitually clenched in anxiety
languorously stretched, then relaxed. My body was very reluctantly letting go of years of
fear and its tensions. How long had I been on guard? On the defense? Or on the run?
Against what foe, what dangers? And why?

I loved the story of the king’s parrot – a magnificently plumed bird that lived on a
perch in the castle’s golden courtyard. The parrot’s quarters were sumptuous, filled with
fruit trees and perfumed air; she was tended by kind servants and fed the best delicacies.
She listened to the soft flute playing; she felt the breeze in her feathers. But despite her
luxurious surrounds, the parrot yearned only for freedom. But as her longing increased,
she grasped tighter to her perch. The sadder she became, the tighter she held on. What
she didn’t realize is that she was already free. All she had to do was let go and fly away.

I had been given a perfect gift – awareness of stillness within and a way to touch
this inner world through meditation. This quality did not come from the outside, it was
within me. And it was free – located through the breath and silence. In silence, I could
hear God, in my heart, I had no fear. Baba’s maxim was true: “Honor yourself; bow to
yourself; God dwells within you as you.”
33

But of all the many benefits I received during that visit to the ashram in
upstate New York, perhaps the “Death Course” was the most profound. For five days,
we sat cross-legged on the marble floor of the great marble and glass hall, the Shakti
Mandap, as students of death, facing our fears, acknowledging our losses and our pain. I
noticed that after each session, I felt lighter. By the end of the week, I was positively
giddy. Our textbook was a small book by Baba, Does Death Really Exist? 19 Baba was
the witness of the death of his Guru, which is one foundation of his little book on death,
along with ancient texts like The Bhagavad Gita, and Jnaneshwar Maharaj’s
commentary on it.

Our teachers were Siddha Yoga Swamis, adorned in their orange robes. Many of
them had been college professors in the U.S. when they met Baba Muktananda during
one of his world tours in the 1970s. Their brilliance, along with their clarity and quick
wit, constantly astonished me. I had met and taught with some of the best and brightest
in academia, from around the world. But I had never heard such illuminating ideas, so
simply, so purely, stated. They had lived and studied with Baba for many years, and
when he died, became disciples of Gurumayi, Baba’s chosen successor. Their words,
like their thoughts, had no dross, no excess, as if they had been purified.

Siddha Yoga is passed on personally, from Guru to disciple. Baba was devoted
to his Guru, Bhagawan Nityananda, who anointed Baba his successor before he died. In
his remarkable book, Play of Consciousness 20, Baba shares his meditation experiences
and techniques with us, in careful detail. These used to be secret, but Baba opened up his
life as a guide to our own inner worlds. It is a road map, and a thrilling one, for
meditators.

The principles that Baba taught and Gurumayi continues to embody and enrich
are ancient, based on complex philosophy and the experiences of meditation masters
through centuries. The living lineage can be traced back through time. The practices
have been tested through centuries. Sogyal Rinpoche speaks to the guarantee of lineage –
the “unbroken chain of transmission from master to master. Lineage serves as a crucial
safeguard: It maintains the authenticity and purity of the teaching, living wisdom.” (128)

Sogyal Rinpoche also points to the great difference between Eastern and Western
philosophies: “Modern Western society has no real understanding of death or what
happens in death . . . people today are taught to deny death, and taught that it means
nothing but annihilation and loss. That means that most of the world lives either in denial
of death or in terror of it. Even talking about death is considered morbid . . . Others look
on death with a naive, thoughtless cheerfulness . . . it is nothing to worry about . . .One
views death as something to scurry away from and the other as something that will just
take care of itself. How far they are from understanding death’s true significance!” (7/8)

“The purpose of reflecting on death is to make a real change in the depths of


your heart . . . looking into death needn’t be frightening or morbid.” (32) This can lead to
a “relinquishing of old habits and the emerging of the joy of change . . . There would be
no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is
34

nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. Every time I hear
the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I
hear the sound of impermanence. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links
with death. They are death’s pulse, death’s heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the
things we cling to.” (33)

Baba Muktananda was also a student of death: “I did a great deal of sadhana, or
spiritual practice in graveyards. They are very good for sadhana because when you see
all the dead bodies you know that eventually that will become you.” (2) And a bit later,
“We fear death for no good reason. Even if we fear death, we are going to die anyway,
so why not accept it with courage? If a person is brave in the face of death, (3) then
when he is dying he feels that he is just going to sleep. . . I have watched many people die
. . . I was very fond of watching how people died . . . I saw that death is not fearsome; it
is only that we worry about it. Truly, death is nothing more than a long sleep . . . For a
wise person, death is beautiful.” (4)

Baba sketched a map of death’s progress within the body, limb by limb. Of his
Guru’s death, he wrote: “First the life left his feet; then his legs became limp. I took his
hand and then that too became cold. Finally his eyes rolled up into his head.” (33) (I
would watch the prana [life energy] leave my father’s body, in the same exact way). My
thoughts began to calm, as I began to let go of the belief that somehow I, in tandem with
modern science, could control Rob’s life and death. Baba taught that “No matter who a
person is, death pursues him . . . It does not come early and it does not come late. The
moment of departure is set at the time of birth, and it does not change, by even a minute.
Death is the one thing in the world that is always on time.” (11) It was comforting to
believe that the plan was already in play, that I was not in charge, that I could let go and
trust that whatever happened would be for the best.

And then the key. . .”The truth is that it is our own ego which is death for us.
When we have gone beyond the ego, death no longer exists.” (26-27) So here is the way
to go beyond the fear of death: “In order to conquer death, we have to transcend the ego,
to overcome our limited individuality. We have to realize our identity with the Universal
Consciousness . . . and merge with it . . . just as a river merges with the ocean. When a
being has attained this state of oneness, he has gone beyond death.”

Much like Carl Jung’s philosophy and Buddhism, Siddha Yoga distinguishes the
small self from the great Self, the inner Self. (28) 21 Baba tells us that the Self “does not
die. The inner Self is ageless and unchanging. Death cannot reach it.” He concludes
with these words: “May death die for you.” (44/45) Every day in meditation, I try to let
death die a little bit for me.

“There are two things you must remember all the time. One is God, and the other
is your own death.” Gurumayi elaborates on this message in her book, Remembrance: 22
“There is something about death. It touches the very core of your being. In death, we are
all equal. When it comes to death, no one is really special, no one is ordinary.” She tells
us: “Death makes life real. Death makes God true . . . Death is supposed to take
35

everything away, to put an end to everything. Yet it is death that gives life to life. Death
gives life to God . . . Death challenges you. Death makes you remember. It makes you
continue your search. What a wonderful phenomenon death truly is . . . In death, the
heart comes alive, in this death, there is beauty. In this death, something great happens.”
(65)

The other maxim of Indian yogis is: “Don’t wait for death to teach you a lesson.”
(67) We need to be ready for our death for it is said that “whatever is on one’s mind in
that moment of death,” that is what will be attained. “In order to die peacefully, you must
remember the Lord.” As he was assassinated, Gandhi’s last word was “Ram,” the name
of the Lord. This was the fruit of his daily meditation and study of the Bhagavad Gita.
During all the social struggles, Gandhi always put his spiritual practices first. When
death came, unexpectedly, he was ready. I don’t want to miss my death by being trapped
in fear. I want to be ready. I want to experience my death as something great.

In Still Here, Ram Das discusses the differences between Indian and U.S.
cultures regarding death and aging. 23 This famous US meditation teacher known for his
dynamic style and boundless energy now writes from his wheelchair, after a severe
stroke. He needs assistance in every part of his everyday life. And he is undaunted,
aware that our lessons, particularly the painful ones, are simply opportunities. “What
pervades Indian culture is the understanding . . . that death is not the end of the road,” but
a “point of transition.” The physical life is “a stage in the journey of the Soul toward
self-realization,” oneness with God. “Old age offers the opportunity to shift our cares
away from the physical toward what cannot be taken away . . . What Indians experience
as a time of liberation is experienced by many Americans as a time of loss.” (24/25) This
is a key idea for those of us in, or entering, old age: a stage of liberation instead of loss.

Near the end of the book, he discovers that “acknowledging our future death is a
prerequisite for living a truly joyful life now. Keeping death present in our
consciousness, as a great mystery and opportunity for transformation, imbues this
moment with a richness and energy that denial saps.” (165) We can view retirement, not
as “the end of the line, but as an opportunity to find stillness.” Stillness is a luxury very
different from those offered on Carnival or Crystal Cruise Line commercials for retirees,
with constant music and activity. But there is no greater pleasure, really joy, than
stillness.

Baba makes the logic of old age and death even clearer: “If you had true
discrimination, if you could think about things clearly, then you would realize that after
you have reached a certain age, there is absolutely no point in being scared of death.
When you are in your later sixties, your eyes are no longer able to see, your digestive
system can no longer digest the food that comes in, your skin is old and wrinkled, your
teeth have fallen out . . . You should welcome death.” (p, 37 Darshan)

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk known for his more than one-
hundred books as well as his peace activism during the Vietnam, or “American War,” in
No Death, No Fear, puts the Buddha’s teachings succinctly – redefining death in the
36

process. “Our greatest fear is that when we die we will become nothing . . . We believe
we are born from nothing and that when we die we become nothing. And so we are filled
with fear of annihilation. The Buddha has a very different understanding of our
existence. It is the understanding that birth and death are notions. They are not real. The
fact that we think they are true makes a powerful illusion that causes our suffering. The
Buddha taught that there is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no
going; there is no same, there is no different . . . We only think there is. When we
understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear.” Not only are we
liberated from fear, “we are free from craving and free from jealousy. No fear is the
ultimate joy.” (63) 24 The last sentence, “no fear is the ultimate joy,” is true, it is my deep
belief. Sometimes, not all the time, I experience no fear. This inner state is, truly
“ultimate joy.”

The process of thinking in dualities is the cause of pain, of suffering. (4/5) Thich
Nhat Hanh distinguishes between what he calls the historical and the ultimate dimension.
The historical dimension has the pairs of opposites, right and wrong, young and old,
coming and going. The “ultimate dimension does not have any of these things . . . There
is no beginning or end, no before or after . . . The ultimate is the original, continuing
source of being . . .It is the kingdom of God.” (107)

In the “ultimate dimension, we have never been born and we will never die. In
the historical dimension, we live in forgetfulness and we are rarely truly alive . . . We
tend to believe that happiness is only possible in the future. We are always looking for
better things, the right conditions to make us happy . . . We try to find things that make us
feel more solid, more safe and secure. But we are afraid all the time of what the future
will bring . . . But life is available only in the present moment. . As the Buddha said, it is
the only moment we have.” (100) We can live in the present. “Our true home is in the
here and the now.” “I have arrived, I am home.” “I am not running anymore. I have run
all my life; now I am determined to stop and to really live my life.” (101) I have been
running, for many years. I am stopping, to live. I am close to home, no matter where I
am.

Along with the reality of suffering, born of craving, the very basis of addictions,
“Buddhism reminds us of the impermanence of all things . . . we chose to believe that we,
or our personality, has a solid, real core rather than a collection of separate, constantly
fluid parts and energies.” Pema Chodron continues: “Most of the time, warding off
death is our biggest motivation . . . the sand is slipping through our fingers. Time is
passing. It’s as natural as the seasons changing and day turning into night. But getting
old, getting sick, losing what we love – we don’t see those events as natural occurrences.
We want to ward off that sense of death . . . When we have reminders of death, we
panic.”

She recommends that we “just return to bare bones,” “relaxing with the present
moment . . . relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass,
that things have no lasting substance . . . Fear of death is the background of the whole
thing. It’s why we feel restless, why we panic, why there’s anxiety . . . but we can have a
37

joyful relationship with our lives, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence
and death.” (When Things Fall Apart, 44-45) 25

Chodron goes even further in coalescing life and death: “To live is to be willing
to die over and over again. From the awakened point of view, that’s life. Death wants to
hold on to what you have. To have every experience confirm you and congratulate you
and make you feel completely together. We can only be completely alive by letting go,
by letting ourselves die moment after moment, at the end of each out-breath.” We can let
“things fall apart.” (72)

By studying death, this is what I sought -- to “let things fall apart,” to “let go and
let God,” as the AA axiom puts it, and by so doing, to have a joyful life. “No fear is the
ultimate joy.” Amazing thought indeed. And despite the repeated surprise at my topic,
death, there is nothing unusual or morbid about this. As Dr. Sherwin Nuland begins his
well-known death book, “Everyone wants to know the details of dying, though few are
willing to say so . . . We are irresistibly attracted by the very anxieties we find the most
terrifying; we are drawn to them by a primitive excitement that arises from flirtation with
danger . . . As with every other looming terror, we seek ways to deny the power of
death.” 26

This paradox is a central plot element in the Mahabharata, the long and complex
Indian epic at the core of Hindu philosophy and everyday life. Near the end of the tale,
the exiled King/protagonist comes to a splendid lake. Before he can quench his thirst, the
Spirit of the Lake speaks and challenges the King to a philosophical debate.

The Spirit of the Lake asks: “What makes the sun rise?” The King answers:
“Brahma (God) makes the sun rise.” Spirit: “What outnumbers the blades of grass?”
King: “Thoughts outnumber the blades of grass.” “What is the best happiness?”
“Contentment.”

Near the end of this exchange comes this question: “What is the most
extraordinary, the most wonderful, thing in the world?” The wise King replies that every
day “innumerable creatures die and yet those that remain behind believe themselves to be
immortal.” With this answer to the ultimate riddle of life, the Spirit of the Lake reveals
himself as the god he is and grants the King’s wish -- his twelve years of exile wandering
in the wilderness are over.

In this ancient epic, death is an integral, acknowledged part of life.


Accepting death is a prerequisite for a good life of right rather than egotistical or selfish
action. It is not death that is the great tragedy of life. Not performing one’s duty, or not
taking right action, is the real tragedy. The King’s willingness to engage in the debate
and his wisdom to see life clearly results in an exhilarating freedom and a boon -- the
lives of the King’s four dead brothers are restored. The battle to reclaim their kingdom,
to return goodness to the world, will begin.
38

While this complex epic is known to even the least educated of India, for
most of my life, I had no knowledge of it, including its premise that acknowledging the
ever presence of death is a precursor for living a good, happy, and free life. This
profound paradox – that while the signs of death and death itself surround us every
moment of our lives, we live as if immortal – can structure our thoughts and our lives.

This denial of the central role death plays in life, in everyday and
catastrophic figurations of life, is, in effect, a repudiation of reality. It functions much
like Freudian disavowal. I know it’s only a movie, an illusion, but I will believe that its
story and characters are real in spite of my knowledge. In essence, we hold contradictory
beliefs in order to protect ourselves, and to ward off fear or terror. But no matter the
denial, the disavowal, the fear at base remains. Why do we continue to deny, to disavow?

The famous Zen master and scholar, Suzuki Roshi, perfectly captures this
puzzle: “Life is like getting into a boat that’s just about to sail out to sea and sink. But
it’s very hard -- no matter how much we hear about it -- to believe in our own death . . .
the one thing in life that we can really count on is incredibly remote . . . we don’t say ‘no,
I won’t die,’ because we know that we will. But it definitely will be later . . . that’s the
biggest hope” 27

I soon discovered another paradox – while we deny our own death and quickly
banish the dead from sight, there are hundreds of death books, “even degrees in death
studies.” Judith Lief argues, “The more fascinated we become, the more unreal death
seems. We cover up the rawness of death by glamorizing it as entertainment, by
maintaining the safe distance of professionalism, and by poring through self-help books.”
I know this is what television does, particularly in the new and glamorous forensic crime
series with their many close-ups of mutilated dead bodies. But was this what I was
doing? Covering up my fear with thought? Something was different about these
writings. They went deeper than all my research on fear and anxiety; rather than
excitation, I felt consolation. (Making Friends with Death, 33) 28

Richard John Niehaus suggests that “it may be time for a critical look at
the psychology-of-death industry that got under way in 1969 when Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
set forth her five stages of grieving – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and
acceptance . . . There are hundreds of books on how to cope with death in order to get on
with life.” This genre of death books did not move me, I wanted to develop the
awareness of death, not ways of coping with, or ignoring or denying, its reality. Thus, I
focused mainly on books with a Buddhist or Eastern spiritual basis rather than the
psychology or self-help books; these included The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
by Sogyal Rinpoche, The Zen of Living and Dying by Philip Kapleau, and Making
Friends with Death by Judith Lief.

Lief writes of death as “a profound experience of dissolution . . . We have


literally come apart.” (25) Like the other Buddhists, she suggests preparing for death by
acknowledging the reality of suffering, accepting changes such as “losing a relationship
or a job” as “little deaths” (53) and then “contemplating our death, as a challenge to the
39

death-denying neurosis of our culture.” (70) Similarly to Chodron, she writes that “each
time we encounter death,” it reveals how our attempt to hold things together keeps falling
apart. (27) These times, “when things fall apart,” like our own death, are particularly
opportune moments.

In the Tibetan tradition, death is a passage that takes place in stages. “The
initial transition from life to death takes place over a number of days,” three to four
days.” (23/26) “Dying . . . can be awful,” says Dr. Derek Doyle . . . “but the death itself .
. . in 99.9 percent of patients – is peaceful, so tranquil . . . The tension in the face
disappears, labored breathing becomes easy . . . suffering just seems to vanish” (104) 29 I
like the distinction between dying and death.

In The Zen of Living and Dying, Philip Kapleau states that death is “a
temporary point between what has been and what will be, and not the black hole of
oblivion.” (42) When asked, “‘What is the length of a person’s life?’ Buddha replied,
‘The interval between an inhalation and an exhalation.’” We can imagine each
exhalation “as a dying; each inhalation, a rebirth.” (105) 30

Like Lief, Kapleau suggests that we apply Buddha’s Four Noble Truths to
our contemplation of death. These are the major “convictions about life which came to
him in . . . his six-year quest for enlightenment.” (79/80) “The first of these truths affirms
the universality of suffering. The Second Noble Truth is that craving or desire is the
source of suffering.” The reason that craving or clinging to things or people inevitably
leads to suffering is that “impermanence is a law of life.” The third principle is that there
is a way out of this craving which leads to the end of suffering. The Fourth Noble Truth
is the way out, the Eightfold Path: “right view, right thought, right speech, right action;
right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.” (81/82) Buddha
called this intentional way of living a “path.” This book, like Lief’s, is a Buddhist “how
to” book – which takes death as a starting place for a spiritual practice of contemplation
and meditation.

In What is Death? A Scientist Looks at the Cycle of Life, Tyler Volk reverses the
terms, “life, thus death,” into “death, thus life.” He cites the end of the Spielberg film,
Saving Private Ryan, as an example. As he is dying, Tom Hanks’ last words to Matt
Damon are “Earn this.” So many soldiers had died so that one could live. Volk cites the
interconnectedness between organisms: “Dead individuals or parts of individuals are
subsumed into a gigantic functioning system . . . In contemplating death we must attend
to a very large picture indeed.” (12) 31

Like Richard Niehaus, Volk also had a brush with death. The cause was carbon
monoxide poisoning from a faulty heater when he was in a remote location doing
research for a book. For him, the answer to the question “’What is death?’ is to show us
how we live.” Doing this is to follow in sacred footsteps, in league with the most
profound figures of history who saw how focusing upon death could propel them into
self-awareness – Jesus and Buddha.
40

Volk the scientist wonders about the fear caused by imagining our extinction,
which is “a natural, biological fear.” He states that if we could deal with the fear of death
consciously rather than inadvertently, then we could create a response to fear. This
response would be nourishing rather than debilitating, like fear. “Is this response what
the traditions view as the gain from contemplating death?” (60/61) “Can the idea of
death produce an emotion or cognition that works wonders for our being?” (65) For him,
the answer is “yes,” and the emotion is gratitude. “I have found that one cannot overdo
gratitude.” 32 In his last chapter, he reiterates, “Death is the resource of life.” (226) He
ends as he began, with the Buddha, “who saw death by the roadside and was motivated to
alter his life in the search for awakening.”

As I began to face my fear of death, I began to profoundly change in ways that


were not visible -- but I had not yet experienced what I was coming to understand. And
for Hindu and Buddhist traditions, knowledge that is not lived is not true knowledge. My
father would be my teacher -- in death as he was in life. .

In September 1993, I was with my father as he died, two weeks after botched
emergency surgery for an illness that had baffled countless specialists and outwitted the
latest electronic imaging, a tragedy of misdiagnosis and misperception. For the prior
three years, the focus had been on my mother’s bone cancer, on the patient rather than the
caregiver, on the crises rather than the everyday. While my mother endured great and
constant pain, my father lost fifty pounds, quietly, mysteriously.

The doctors detached the feeding and oxygen tubes. He could still squeeze our
hands. I sat beside his bed in the hospital room, holding his hand, and saw his prana, his
breath and energy, gradually, gently, leave his body, limb by limb, beginning with his
feet. His breathing would slow, almost stop, then start up again. As his breath became a
rattle, literally, I knew death was very close. I thought my heart would break. The
pauses between breaths became longer and longer. I wasn’t there when his breath
stopped – he was with my mother, his constant partner. But I knew when his spirit had
left his body. There was a profound stillness as a sudden wind exploded in silent gusts
and swirls outside. I have heard others describe death’s aftereffects in the same way – as
stillness mixed with powerful energy.

As I sat with his handsome, inert body, holding his hand, with its perfect tapered
fingers, it was clear that this long body was only a vehicle for something much greater.
What I loved and admired for so many years was my father's impishly sophisticated
spirit, his generosity, brilliant intellect and great wit, which would never die. He was not
his body. His spirit was also my spirit. As he had tried, futilely, to teach me in life: "If
you realize you have enough, you are truly rich. If you stay in the center and embrace
death with your whole heart, you will endure forever." 33
41

As Amy Tan wrote, "When you lose something you love, faith takes over." (131)
For that moment, death was not something to fear, it was a part of life itself. In that
instant, I knew that true knowledge came only with experience, it cannot be grasped fully
by the mind. My realization of my father's greatness became even clearer later. This
bank president had no personal possessions that had not been gifts from his family. He
had never bought anything for himself, he had given us everything without our realizing
it.

When I remember him, I am filled with gratitude, which gives me great joy.
Sometimes he is very near. Especially when I find coins on the street, or in a newspaper
dispenser. As inspiration for his forced walks around Evanston, Illinois, mandated by
his cardiologist, my dad looked for money, which he then carefully tallied (date and
amount) and dispensed to his young grandchildren every Thanksgiving. I think his
record was $150 in 1989. Thus found money is a sign of my father, a sign of wonder;
now my sister tallies up her yearly take from her long walks as he always did. .

What have I learned? Do I accept the truth of Dr. Sherwin Nuland’s


opening paragraph? “Every life is different from any that has gone before it, and so is
every death. The uniqueness of each of us extends even to the way we die . . .Every one
of death’s diverse appearances is as distinctive as that singular face we each show the
world during the days of life.” (3) I am uncertain of the unique individuality of death.
This might be true of dying, but I think that death has its protocol and stages that are true
across millennia, cultures, nations, ages, and personalities. The primary issue, for me, is
no longer death, but the state of “no fear.” Death will happen, whether I expect it or not.
The decision will not be up to me. But I could decide to be kind, patient, generous,
accepting, and tolerant in life. I could practice fearlessness and gratitude; I could learn
about surrender and humility – for I suspect that the best death has these virtues. And I
could decide, today, that developing these attributes was my life’s sacred work. This
focus on the spiritual aspect of life, my fourth and last stage of life, according to
Hinduism, is what I call “age appropriate.”

With Siddha Yoga, I had found a path, which would transform my life. I had a
place to go and a set of practices to perform that would not only quell my panic and
anxiety, but would give me serenity and peace. But more than anything else, I had found
a spiritual teacher – whose brilliance was intellectually and emotionally clear. I had the
rest of a lifetime of learning ahead of me, a thrilling prospect. For the first time in my
life, my mind was (sometimes) quiet. In those still moments, my soul would soar.

I have spoken with Gurumayi directly many times and listened to her wondrous
talks at numerous intensives and programs. The experience is indescribable, unlike any
other. I know I am hearing the truth, I know that she is the real deal, a living Siddha, or
saint. I have never known anything or anyone like her. She is pure intelligence, pure
grace, shimmering, beautiful, beyond words or images.
42

Although she is very accessible to her devotees, she does not grant interviews.
She seeks no publicity, no fame. She is a meditator who loves to chant. Here is a
journalist’s take. “Gurumayi has a relaxed method of lecturing which creates the
powerful illusion that she is speaking to me directly. She seems psychologically
incapable of giving a dry talk; her speeches are laced with easy humor that completely
disarms the listener till she drives her profound point home . . . Gurumayi is leading her
audience to the truths of Kashmir Shaivism. This tantric school, popularized by the sage
Vasugupta in the 8th century A.D. is described in abstruse texts like the Shiva Sutras and
Spanda Karikas. For centuries scholars have wrestled with these scriptures, yet
Gurumay explains their tenets so clearly a kindergartner can understand.” 34

Following a guru is not easy – for it takes great discipline – The Yoga of
Discipline, as the title of one of Gurumayi’s wonderful books puts it. As Gurumayi
explains, “the guru’s blessings these practices evoke are in reality the grace of your own
higher nature.” The Guru is within the disciple, the Guru principle and the disciple are
one. “She and the other masters of the Siddha lineage are human symbols for an
enlightened understanding which they [disciples] will ultimately have to find in
themselves. The external guru can point the way, guiding and inspiring and even
administering doses of shaktipat, but the answer is inside the disciple, in self effort.” (85)

I noticed that many of the English translations of ancient Indian scriptures were
co-authored by the novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, Christopher Isherwood. I
learned more about his years as a disciple in his diary/commentary on the years 1939 to
1976. The book reveals his long and devoted relationship with his guru, Swami
Prabhavananda, and his involvement with the Vedanta Center in Los Angeles. 35 The
diary also reveals Isherwood’s struggle with the everyday discipline necessary for anyone
on a spiritual path. Upon his first meeting with Prabhavananda, Isherwood told him
“how he always thought yoga” was “silly superstitious nonsense.” The Swami laughed:
“And now you have fallen into the trap.” (24) Which is precisely the way I felt initially.

He told the Swami about his homosexuality, and the Swami’s response, in 1939,
let him know that he could be his student. “I began to understand that the Swami did not
think in terms of sin, as most Christians do . . . The obstacles which the Swami
recognized are offenses against yourself.” (26) I love this distinction. The concept of
sin, like absolute morality, had always been so destructive – of self (guilt, shame) and of
others (judgment, exclusion). (Regarding shame, my child’s notion of “original sin” has
pursued me all my life like a dark shadow; it lies in wait to sabotage me by making me
feel misery and failure.)

I have no idea why, but I felt an intensely strong kinship with Isherwood. It
might have been his combination of being intellectually and spiritually enamored with his
Guru and placing himself slightly outside the circle of other devotees, or his ongoing
struggle with the constant discipline it takes to be a meditator. Isherwood wanted two
things, a perfect contradiction – the distractions of what yogis call “sense pleasures” and
the attractions of a contemplative, meditative life. I eagerly read about his relation with
43

his teacher, his time spent in the Ashram in Los Angeles, and his struggle to make a
complete commitment, continually drawn back into the world and desire. 36

I confess to feeling some of Isherwood’s arrogance and superiority – for these


practices are arduous, taking strength and courage of mind and body. I laughed when I
read about his response to other spiritual books, here, the psychologist William James’
Varieties of Religious Experience, “which we both condemned for its sloppy, imprecise
style and academic approach to its subject . . . We like to think of ourselves as now being
in a kind of front-line trench, actively engaged in spiritual combat and therefore entitled
to sneer, as combat troops sneer at a war story by non-combatant.” (82) Although most of
my university colleagues thought I had fallen under the sway of a mindless cult, and
imagined the ashram to resemble a spa, I knew the opposite to be true – I was becoming
free of destructive habits and defeatist thoughts for the first time in my life. Never had
any knowledge been more challenging than this, it was a sparse and disciplined lifestyle
for warriors.

Isherwood’s ashram in Los Angeles was part of the Vedanta Society, begun in the
U.S. by the disciple of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, who attended the World’s Parliament
of Religions in Chicago in 1893. After his inspiring talks there, he lectured in the US and
England and established the Vedanta Society before returning to India in 1893.

Isherwood’s book, dedicated to his long-time partner/lover, Don


Bachardy, reveals his devotion to and belief in his Guru, and his difficulty in living the
monastic way his Guru instructed him. He visits the ashram regularly, meditates, writes
and edits manuscripts, and meets with the Swami. He gossips a bit about ashram
participants, giving a sense of the everydayness of ashram living. Although the majority
of passages are from the 1940s and 1950s, the book, which begins before WW II,
concludes in 1979, three years after the death of his Guru, in 1976.

The ending particularly affected me. He writes, in Three Years Later, “The
reader may ask: Now that your Swami is dead, what are you left with?” He answers: “I
am left with Swami. His physical absence doesn’t make nearly as much difference to me
as I had expected it would. I think about him as constantly as I ever did.” (335) “The
contact I sometimes think I feel isn’t with him but with what I believe he has now
become, the Guru, a being who exists only to help his disciples . . . the mantram is all I
have of him and all I need.”

These words foretold my future, when my guru would return to India, and then to
South Fallsburg, cloistered, in 2004. The only way to see her was to live in the now
private Ashram for six months. Now there were no longer visits every three months, no
satellite talks, no live intensives to jump-start my sadhana, no darshan to ask personal
and spiritual questions of her, no acknowledgements from her voice and eyes, no thrill
from bumping into her at the Ashram, no quick fixes to help me deal with my latest
crisis. She was inside me, she was thus ever-present. All I had to do was remember this
by quieting my mind and stilling my emotions. The Siddha Yoga Teachings and the
44

Guru were one; if I remained close to the teachings, through daily practices, I stayed
close to Gurumayi.

Isherwood’s ending looked to aging and death. “Now that I am nearly seventy-
five, I am mindful that death is near; I no longer avoid the thought of it.” (336) And then
always remaining the skeptic, Isherwood writes: ”Quite irrationally, I find I have faith in
Swami’s faith, to this extent: if death isn’t the end, then I believe that the life to come
will be more or less what he led us to expect.” (337) 37The ancient sages said that at the
time of death, our guru would lead us through the transition. This would make death a
glorious reunion for a yogi, one who practices yoga, the art of union.

I had commitment and enthusiasm and loved this new dimension of my life. As
with AA, this was knowledge I could live by, wisdom I could experience and embody. I
was a voracious reader of Baba and Gurumayi’s books, taking one with me wherever I
went. These books contained all the answers I could ever need for living a dharmic life, a
life of right action.
45

Chapter 3:
Mothers, Daughters, Death, and Fairy Tales

Jumping back a few years . . . In the fall of 1990, my mother, 75, and my father,
73 and recently retired, moved to Milwaukee, to a condominium down the block from
me. Several weeks later, a bone in my mother's back broke, misdiagnosed for two years
as osteoporosis. But the crippling agony in my mother's spine was not due to porous
bones, rather to unchecked tumors. Mary Margaret Jewson -- a supremely self-sufficient
and independent woman who had left her farm home when she was thirteen to work as a
cleaning girl in order to attend high school in a small town in northern Wisconsin,
worked her way through nurses’ college, subsequently put three of her five sisters
through the same college, and for the next thirty years had a full time nursing career --
had cancer in all the bones of her body, from her toes to her forehead. It hurt to wash her
face or to put her head on the pillow at night.

Morphine masked the agony (along with erasing memory and instigating
repetition). Radiation, often for weeks, quieted, blessedly, the alien tumors and, for a
time, halted the disease, as did chemotherapy. But medication had little effect on anxiety,
fear, and mourning for my father, all side-affects, or aftereffects. Now I know that the
periods of dormancy were merely lulls before ever more violent cancer storms. While
there were constant crises, this experience was marked by duration, stamina, and
indeterminacy. For seven years, death was repeatedly imminent, only to be fended off by
yet another rally. My mother’s will to live, her unflagging spirit, was bone deep and eons
wide. She was her mother’s daughter through and through.

The most challenging task was to recover or reinvent continuity in the face of
catastrophic outbreaks, to find equanimity in the unpredictable reality of pain and death.
It is what women have done brilliantly for centuries around the world, in family after
family, privately, domestically. It has gone largely unrecorded, unlike the celebrated
discontinuity of war, upheaval, political subterfuge, and other public catastrophes.
Where are all the Iraqi women in the coverage of the war? At home, dealing with the
aftereffects, all the losses and injuries and traumas and deaths of living in a domestic war
zone.

Chemotherapy, radiation, X-rays, hospitals, pain, medication, multiple surgeries,


and talk of cancer filled our days for the coming six years. So did compassion, courage,
and love. The long-playing scene of my mother's bone cancer was a time of reckoning
(with the past and with death), and of recognition -- of the fortitude it takes to endure a
long illness as its subject but also as its bystander. For some, daughters as well as ailing
mothers, this time is not without struggle, even agony. Losing one's independence of
body is as difficult as enduring its pain. Germaine Greer's scenario is bleak. For her "it
is a bitter irony" that caring for aged parents is done by "menopausal daughters . . . To the
46

weight of depression is added the weight of exhaustion and grief . . . The world seems all
loss and death." (277) 38

Sometimes, when I was bone tired and had talked too long about the same old
and painful things, the world did get dark. But then I would see the love in my mother's
gestures toward me. There are more gains than losses. And there was much I could learn
– this was my last chance to learn from my mother and I didn’t want to waste any of this
precious time. For I knew by now that giving and taking are interchangeable.

But I was fortunate to be sharing this experience with Nancy, my younger (by four
years), beautiful sister, who was always there whenever needed. Or close by via
telephone. We complained, worried, planned, analyzed . . . for countless hours of mutual
talk therapy. We were in this together, as we had been in each other’s lives for fifty years.
At home, alone, I read wonderful novels by and about older women, creating a fictive
community of women’s experiences. 39

I intellectually empathized with one character, Patrice Umphelby, in Amanda


Cross's (aka Carolyn Heilbrun, the literary scholar) mystery, Sweet Death, Kind Death (a
title taken from a poem by Stevie Smith). Patrice is a scholar who "fell in love with death
sometime in her early fifties," and who had "knowledge of how death gave intensity to
middle age as passion and hope gave intensity to youth." In her journals, discovered after
her mysterious death, Patrice wrote some observations worthy of a famous literary
scholar. "Whenever I read the story of an older woman, I find that though it is written by
a woman in her fifties or beyond, she writes only to go back to her youth; she abandons
age, experience, wisdom, to search the past, usually for romance. . . . I am an intelligent
woman of fifty-five, and all the story I have is in the present. . . . For me, stories of youth
are tired stories. But the story of age, of maturity before infirmity, has never been told.” 40

But it was a film by a Dutch filmmaker that provided the most inspiration and
consolation for me – a film I fell in love with. Every screening has moved me more
deeply, and I feel an acute, uncanny kinship with Marlene Gorris, its maker. 41

The film, Antonia's Line (1995), opens with the day of Antonia's death and then
retraces events of her life which is composed of the loving connections among four
generations of women. The great love is that between mother and daughter, portrayed
through intercut looks between them, granting strength and self-sufficiency. This love
between women is compassionate and tolerant enough to include others. In a series of
lovely outdoor feasts, the family table expands, eventually including a family of men.
Then, with age and death, it begins to grow smaller. The film which begins on the day of
death ends on the moment of death. Death inspires the film, death, coming to the end of
it, is the culmination.

The film opens on a mirror shot (which we only realize retroactively) of an older
woman in bed beneath a blue blanket. A female voice-over tells us that "She knew that
this would be her last day. Antonia knew when enough was enough. She would summon
the family and inform them of her death." As the voice-over continues to relate Antonia's
47

interior thoughts, including the details of the funeral ceremony, Antonia gets up and
walks toward the camera (really the mirror). In the close shot, she "thinks of her
granddaughter," and says "It's time to die." The camera dollies back, revealing the mirror
shot. "She got out of bed to begin the last day of her life." The film's end will return to
finish this day, and this opening scene.

After this prologue come the film's titles. The camera accompanies Antonia
through the rooms of her farm house, moving outside to give us a sense of this place.
The film will fill this home with memories, with Antonia's family of four generations. As
Antonia makes her tea, she looks out the kitchen window. Cut to a frontal shot of her
face. Dissolve to her past, the story of her life, which is a story of her relationship with
her daughter, grand-daughter and then great grand-daughter, as we will discover.
Antonia’s Line is a story of lineage itself, of the continuity of generations, of women's
relationships of caring, reciprocity, and mutuality. While there are tragedies, crises and
dramas in the film, continuity enfolds these catastrophes within the embrace of time, the
passing seasons, and within maternal, familial love. Antonia’s Line is a film about the
cycle of life and death, in which death is a part of life. 42

This story of the past begins when Antonia and her daughter, Danielle, arrive on a
bus and walk to the home in a country village that Antonia left twenty years ago. We
immediately notice the strong and sensual way Antonia strides, purposefully, head held
high. She is a powerful and sensuous force, and we can feel the closeness and admiration
between mother and daughter. They are one, connected by intercut looks of mutual
understanding. Antonia has come home to bury her bald and ribald mother, who, to their
surprise, comes to life to make a last rude criticism and some lewd remarks. Danielle
will see her spirit in church, later, awakening from her coffin in a surreal, or grotesque,
rendition of "My Blue Heaven," a scene reminiscent of Dennis Potter's musical interludes
in his BBC productions. This, and other surreal moments, parody the hypocrisy and
intolerance of the Protestant church.

As Antonia and Danielle stroll confidently through the village, we are introduced
to an extended family consisting of eccentrics and outcasts. The characters take on
allegorical dimension, as the familial is fancifully taken into myth and Eros. Gorris has
created a world that represents Antonia's expansive energy, her powers of creation and
inclusion, her wisdom and compassion. Crooked Finger is a grizzled intellectual who
lives in a dark room, closed off from the outside, from light, immersed in books by
German philosophers professing the meaningless horror of life. Mad Madonna is a
middle-aged woman who lives alone and bays at the moon in sadness. Her Catholic
religion has kept her from her lover, the Protestant man who lives beneath her. Olga
owns a cafe where the men drink, and where the villagers gather.

The voiceover narrator – we will hear it throughout the film and ultimately
understand that it is the voice of Sarah, Antonia’s great-granddaughter -- says: "And so
Antonia and her daughter returned . . . the women settled into their house." The seasons
pass in glorious shots of the farm and the countryside as Antonia and Danielle work,
painting, plowing, milking, planting, and walking. The film's spaces are connected by
48

Antonia and Danielle, looking at each other, walking arm in arm, and working side by
side. What is compelling about the film's women, eventually consisting of four
generations (five, if we count Antonia’s mother), is how very different they are -- in
mind, body, and spirit. Their differences are not sources of conflict but pleasures, traits
to be admired.

Yet along with religious intolerance, there is domestic violence and even evil in
this small town. Deedee is raped by her cruel brother, Pitte, and rescued by Danielle who
pitchforks the rapist in his genitals. Looney Lips is tormented by the children and
brought home by Antonia. They become part of this extended family and will fall in love
and marry. Danielle goes to art school and becomes a painter, as more seasons pass. The
voice-over says, "And so Danielle went to Art School and was happy. Weeks turned into
years."

The love between Antonia and Danielle is a magnet attracting Farmer Bas and his
five sons. Bas inquires about marriage to Antonia saying, as if it were an incentive: "My
sons need a mother." Antonia replies with great logic: "But I don't need your sons."
Bas: "Don't you want a husband either?" Antonia: "What for?" So, in friendship only,
Bas and his sons join the family feasts, bringing food. Danielle wants a baby, but not a
husband. Antonia helps her find "the services of a man" in another town, and waits
outside the hotel during sex. Danielle gives birth to Therese. "And so the years passed,"
says the narrator. Therese is beautiful and a genius. As a young girl, she understood
Crooked Finger, talking with him about philosophies of time. They "enfolded each other
in their heart." Antonia finally gives Bas what he has waited so long and patiently for:
"You still can't have my hand but you can have the rest," once a week. But Bas wants
more and builds a small house for their trysts.

The voiceover: "Time gave birth again and again, and in contentment
reproduced itself." The table of the family feasts now grows even longer. Letta joins,
with her two children, which pleases the ex-priest, who will keep her happily pregnant.
Therese's teacher, Lara, and Danielle fall in love. "And then love burst out everywhere,"
precedes a sexual montage of consummation scenes among various couples.

But after this climax, the cycle of life passes into a cycle of death 43 that is broken,
if only for a moment, when Therese, now a brilliant mathematician and musician,
becomes pregnant, comes home, and gives birth to the beautiful, red-headed Sarah.
Danielle, Therese, and Sarah live and work with Antonia on the farm

Sarah, the great granddaughter, is a lovely and curious child of around six or
seven, who carries around a notebook, writing stories and asking the adults questions
about death. Sarah is the film's voice-over, the grown-up story-teller; once she was the
listener to her grandmother’s tales, which have become her inheritance. "Time flowed,
season after season, wanting to end the exhausting round of life and death." 44 Sarah talks
about death with her great grandmother, Antonia. At a family feast, Sarah watches
everyone, including ghosts of the past, subtly and almost imperceptibly become their
younger selves, and dance. It is a joyous moment of life's summation before death.
49

The film returns to the day of opening scene. Antonia tells Sarah that "I'm going
to die today." The family is gathered around Antonia's bed. She is dying. The voice
over changes into the first person "I", the grown-up now connected to the young girl, the
great-granddaughter, Sarah, with the strawberry blonde hair: "I wouldn't leave because I
wanted to be there." Antonia dies. The words, "And as this my chronicle concludes,
nothing has come to an end," are printed on the screen.

As the seasons pass, so do generations, our daughters and then our granddaughters
becoming women with minds and souls of their own. Like Antonia, being part of, then
watching (and then relinquishing), this wondrous process has been the great delight of my
life. My age has made this joy possible.

Antonia's Line remembered for me my grandmother's country life of faith,


family, and physical work, and the eccentric and disabled characters who populated the
Wisconsin town of Cadott. I didn't identify with the women characters, all of whom,
even the actress who plays Antonia as a great grandmother, are young enough to preclude
that investment. But I did identify with the portrayal of the generational passage of time
and with the close relations between women. This story, from another continent and a
director I have never met, is remarkably similar to my own history. Antonia's Line is a
distant cousin to Rose Sedlacek's line.

Like Antonia, my grandmother lived and worked on a farm near a small town.
Disabled characters with strange names, tormented by farm boy bullies, became local
legend. During the summer harvest, outdoor tables were piled high with food. Family
dinners meant twenty to forty people and often more. Like Danielle, my mother had an
artistic and serious nature, along with dark hair. Like Therese, I never felt as if I fit in.
As a teenager, I loved ideas, particularly existentialism, thought about death, and
eventually would have blonde hair (not natural). I was awkward with motherhood, never
knowing quite what to do in the maternal role.

But the most uncanny resemblance between art and life is between the gorgeous
child, Sarah, and my daughter, Dae, who has strawberry blonde hair (natural), porcelain
skin, and a beautiful face of light and happiness. As a young girl, Dae, like Sarah, would
observe life around her. Dae was born with an old and wise soul. And Dae gave birth to
Remi, who, at a beautiful six years, is grace and sunshine itself – the best of all of us.
Dae inherited my grandmother Rose’s copper hair and her joyous laugh, as did Remi
whose laughter is a source of life itself.

When Rose Sedlacek, my grandmother, was 103, my mother and I made our last
(the fifth of eight or so) pilgrimage to Cadott, Wisconsin, the small farming town in
Northern Wisconsin where my grandmother lived all of her life, the town where my
mother was born. Main Street had not changed, even a single building, in fifty years, the
time of my memory. 45

Although delicate of stature, Rose was an independent woman, self-sufficiently


living in her own home until she was 98. With red hair down to the small of her back,
50

she bore and raised ten children on a large dairy farm that had been built by her father
before she was born. My mother, Mary Margaret, was the first born, in 1915, one of six
beautiful sisters. Rose never had time or money for makeup. After morning prayers at 4
am, she labored until evening prayers at 7:30, canning, baking, cleaning, sewing, milking,
and gardening. I spent my summers on this farm, a city farm girl, wearing jeans, driving
tractor, and cleaning the barn and the chicken coop. My memories of these summer
times are indelible.

Rose's family provided great joy, and the discipline that came from hard work
became her salvation. Her staunch Catholic faith gave her sublime purpose. Every bit of
life was dedicated to God, every action became a service for God, and every morsel of
food was a gift from God. Although there was little money, it was a life of abundance,
easy laughter, and lively talk. Self-reliance was a given. Rose bequeathed all these
qualities to her ten children. As the oldest of Rose's 75 grandchildren, this mixed
blessing of spiritual faith and worldly determination has been my inheritance.

Or as Kathleen Woodward puts it more theoretically, my identity, or female


identity, is "at base generational identity," which links us to "generations ahead and
behind through the relation of caring." (99) 46 Its traits are "reciprocity, mutuality, and
continuity," (107) along with home-made bread, jam, chicken soup, poppy seed cake, and
pies, hundreds, even thousands, of home-made pies in chocolate, apple, peach, and
rhubarb. Nothing mattered more to my grandmother and to my mother than family.
Food was their love made deliciously real, plentiful.

It was a grey, overcast day as my mother and I walked into St. Joseph's hospital.
We entered my grandmother's room and I saw a skeleton, shrunken with age, gaunt with
time. This shriveled body didn't look at all like my grandmother. The eyes in the skull
were vacant, unseeing. The teeth were on the nightstand. "We must be in the wrong
room," I whispered to my mother. But she walked to the bed, leaned over and said
"Mom, it's Margaret." The eyes opened and saw my mother. The face of a stranger
suddenly transformed into the familiar expression of my beautiful grandmother. She
smiled radiantly and clasped my mother's hands to her heart with extraordinary force, as
if to let go would be to lose each other forever. "Margaret, oh Margaret, you're here."
Light poured into the room. How strange, I thought. There is no sun outside. I watched
my grandmother's spirit come to life, re-inhabit her body, upon sight of her eldest
daughter.

I was fascinated by the simultaneity of my vision with my memory, the


timelessness of sight leavened by love for these two women. I was seeing my 104 year
old grandmother and my 82 year old mother as they were now and the way I saw them
when I was a child. It's true, then, thought I. The spirit never ages, only the body ages.
Something that is eternal and ageless was peering out of my grandmother's almost
unseeing eyes. And if I could not exactly see it, I could experience it, feel it. It was
energy, it was bright, it was illuminating.
51

There was much to cherish in this scene playing out before me, and much to learn.
As I looked at my mother's back, weakened and bent awkwardly by tumors and radiation,
leaning over to embrace her mother, now just skin and bones too frail to walk, I felt the
power of maternal love, of generational love. Each was brought to life by the other. I
suspect that their mutual desires to care for each other, daughter for mother and mother
for daughter, animate their very souls.

I knew the truth of these words in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club: "You must
peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her." 47 Our mothers
are in our bones.

Later I would remember this scene when I read Ann Tyler's Ladder of Years:
"Didn't it often happen that aged parents die exactly at the moment when other people
(your husband, your adolescent children) have stopped being thrilled to see you coming?
But a parent is always thrilled, always dwells so lovingly on your face as you are
speaking." ( 48129)

Woodward analyzed it best. "In this [magical and melancholic] scene is


represented one of the deep mysteries of the body -- that in psychic space our bodies can
lose their boundaries. . . At stake is generational identity, which is bound up with two
wishes -- to be taken care of by the mother and to care for the child. But if years before
the differences were clear, now they are indistinct. . . In age, who is the mother? And
who is the daughter?" (Aging, 100) My mother’s worst anguish was that she could no
longer care for her mother. And my grandmother’s agony was that she could no longer
travel to be with my mother/her daughter. Who was the mother? We all were. The
daughter? We all were.

For Amy Tan, only when the daughter comes to know her mother, often in
adversity, can she know her own strength and wisdom. Only when the daughter can
accept and have compassion for the mother can she accept and have compassion for
herself. To do this, the daughter has to hear her mother's story, granting her the authority
that comes with history, through generation.

As Margaret Gullette reminds us, point of view matters -- and there is much at
stake. The objectifying, young gaze "can erase the idea of old age as normal," 49 along
with taking over the material of older women's lives and deaths. "If parents told their
own stories, we might learn how burdensome the loving Gaze of the Survivor can feel."
(210) "Long before we are dying, we suffer as if we had been silenced: the master
narrative takes our material and tells our life story." As Woodward cautions, "Nervous
anxiety is masked by a denial of another's subjectivity in a way that appears to be
reassuring but is in reality silencing and repressive."

So, guided by wise women, I would ask myself: Am I listening? Am I hearing?


Am I learning? Am I loving? Is my heart open? Whose subjectivity am I talking about?
And after six years of daily life together with my mother and with cancer, I concluded:
Ours.
52

Coincident with my mother's first tumor in her upper spine, I developed acute
pains in my neck, which didn't subside until her tumors receded. Although attributed to
rheumatoid arthritis, I have always known the true origin of my pain. It comes from the
ancient bond so strikingly portrayed by Tan. An old mother, a grandmother, Popo, is
dying. The grand-daughter is the privileged viewer, witnessing a scene of private
devotion as I did in Cadott. Her mother is making soup in an ancient Chinese tradition to
cure her mother. She cuts a piece of meat from her arm, adds it to the soup, and then
feeds her dying mother. The grand-daughter observes this act of love and sacrifice.

"I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain . . . The pain of the
flesh is nothing. . . because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your
bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her.
Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh." Our love for our mothers is
generation’s old, bone deep. "Here is how I came to love my mother. How I saw in her
my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones." (48) And this
mother love is bequeathed to our children, with the same ferocity and totality. I can feel
my love for Dae and Rob in my very bones, in the deepest part of my inner self. And
Dae feels an incomparable, intense passion for her daughter, Remi.

This is the law of continuity, the principle that nothing passes from one state to
another without passing through all the intermediate states. To reach old age, we have to
achieve something, to learn something; we have to gain true knowledge, perhaps even the
wisdom that true love is self love. Thus, old age, and finally death, could be the
culmination, the highpoint, of everything and every time that came before. Death would
be an arrival, a coming home -- an experience of unity, of oneness with God and the
universe, with generations past and present.

At the Theater: Three Tall Women

This is what the last scene of Edward Albee's play about his stepmother, Three
Tall Women, portrayed -- the supreme achievement of reaching the end, of dying. 50 The
three women are delineated by age. The first, A, is "a very old woman; thin, autocratic,
proud, as together as the ravages of time will allow." The second, B, "looks rather as A
would have at 52." The third, C, "looks rather as B would have at 26." In the second act,
A, the old woman, is comatose, dying in a hospital bed. Only after her spirit came
energetically to life did I realize these three very different characters were stages of one
woman's life.

C, 26, begins her monologue in the closing scene wondering about "the happy
times . . . I haven't had them yet, have I? I had some, of course . . . Maybe all you can
remember is the memory of it. . . I know my best times haven't happened yet. They're to
come. Aren't they? Please? I'm not a fool, but there is a lot of happiness along the way.
Isn't there? And isn't it always ahead?"

Character B, 52, answers: "the happiest time? Now . . . half of being an adult
done, the rest ahead of me. Old enough to be a little wise, past being really dumb. . . fifty
53

is a peak. . . What I like most about being where I am is that there's a lot I don't have to
go through anymore . . . it's the only time you get a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view
-- you see in all directions. What a view!"

Then A, the old woman, takes center stage and speaks straight to us. "You're both
such children. The happiest moment of all? Coming to the end of it, when all the waves
cause the greatest woes to subside, leaving breathing space, time to concentrate on . . . the
end of it. Going through the whole thing and coming out. . . There's a difference between
knowing you're going to die and knowing you're going to die. The second is better; it
moves away from the theoretical. . . . Coming to the end of it, yes. So. There it is. . .
That's the happiest moment." (She puts her hands out, takes A's and B's, and looks out at
us from center stage.) "When it's all done. When we can stop." (109)

I knew the simple truth of these words. All movement onstage and within the
audience came to rest in a poignant conclusion of stillness and realization. It was, and is,
an extraordinary, satiating cessation and revelation. The play's passage through three
generations, three ages of being, is one of becoming, becoming old, a process of
generational knowing. The most interesting and powerful character is the old woman.
She is the summation of all the life that comes with old age. This knowledge, this history,
this story of achievement is what I see in my mother. I hope this is what my daughter,
Dae, who looks like me, will see in me. For in many ways, we are all one and the same.
Like the discrepancy between her indomitable spirit and her collapsed body, I,
too, see the split between my mother's ailing body and her formidable mind and soul,
which grow more brilliant and more valiant as her body weakens and is bent. And I see
my mother vacillate between knowing she is dying and knowing she is dying. "The
second is better," for it embodies all of her well-earned selves, or ages. It has little to do
with fear.

In Albee's play, the "older woman -- the woman of the third generation" is a
figure of "knowledge who represents the difference which history, or time, makes." The
play literally embodies, in a single character, "a sense of mutual recognition between
generations separated by time but brought together by the wish for understanding that is
connection." The older woman is granted a point of view, and the authority that comes
from history and experience. Likewise, age is brought into visibility, taken out of the
margins where it has lodged with fear. Woodward calls this "generational simultaneity,"
based on "generational similarity more than difference." Her theory comes alive in this
play which takes generational simultaneity literally.

I want to return to the figure of Freud's protective shield, or Reischutz, seeing it


now through my double vision of my grandmother, my mother's struggle with cancer, and
the character A's doubling as body and spirit. In one sense, the shield is the physical
body, which changes and decomposes in time, becoming stiff, crusty, leaky, dry,
eventually dead. In his musings on Freud's distinction between the death instincts and the
life instincts, Samuel Weber describes a "crust that is scorched" which" shields against
powerful energies which would 'slaughter' it. The outermost surface loses the structure
54

proper to living matter, becoming inorganic . . . 51 The outer layers die to save the inner
ones; the envelope sacrifices itself for the core." (Weber, 142/145)

The core, then, would be the inner self, the spirit that is changeless, the radiant
energy that animated my grandmother's shrunken body, stiff with 104 years of life. As so
many older women report, inside the aging body is the youthful self. It is my mother's
luminous courage, generosity, and love for her family that became more apparent with
each onslaught of pain. So often during her struggle, I saw my mother as a vulnerable
girl, working so hard to be independent just as she did so many years ago. The core
would also be the wisdom and spirit of Albee’s old woman, taking center stage as her
comatose body lay in bed, stage left.

The distinction between the "crust" and the "core" comes close to my experience
in the park of an inner world encased in an outer covering. I wonder, is this the way my
grandmother saw my mother that grey day? Did she dwell in that interior space of
freedom? If my mother found this place, did she go beyond pain? This is what I have
been told is possible.

The phrase about the instincts that continues to intrigue Freud scholars is the urge
"to restore an earlier state of things." For Weber, in referring to the Upanishads and the
figure of the Atman (from Hindu scriptures), Freud is gesturing "to the story of a unity
that has been lost," "a wholeness that has been separated from itself." In Hinduism and
Buddhism, the story of reincarnation is similar. The soul, or the subtle body, keeps
taking on physical body after body throughout millennia, until the moment of its
enlightenment, when it finally merges with God, achieving the unity it has lost, and
leaves the endless cycle, the wheel of birth and death.

This experience of unity, this long journey toward wholeness, has come, for me,
through meditation. It is an experience of utter stillness, of silence, exquisite, ecstatic. I
think Woodward's more extensive comparison gets it right when she links Freud's life
instincts to movement and sounds, and the death instincts to rest and silence. (48-49)
"When we can stop," when we come to rest, in silence, we come home. And this is what
everyone is looking for, this is what life is all about, the moment of death.

The women who populate these pages, real and fictive, friends and family,
scholars and writers, have given my life continuity -- the continuity of their love, of their
stories, and of their wisdom.
55

Chapter 4
How I Learned to Read the Wall Street Journal. . .

Money, the Market, and my Mother: A Love Story

My amateur knowledge, Siddha Yoga meditation, like the 12 Steps of AA, relies
on shared experiences, on collective support, and on spiritual values. The mutual goal is
to transform our lives and our thoughts by quieting our minds. Service to others is
healing and ennobling. Both practices tell stories of the self to impart knowledge.

In sharp contrast, my third amateur knowledge -- investing, in both the


economic and emotional senses – relies on numbers, statistics, information, and emotion.
And that is where death comes in again. For the last seven years of her life, from 1990 to
1997, as she fought her prolonged, excruciating battle with bone cancer, my mother
taught me about the stock market. As I, along with my sister, Nancy, cared for her, we
watched CNBC -- the TV financial network -- and read the Wall Street Journal, along
with Barron’s, Value Line, and Investor’s Daily, the stock markets triumvirate,
together.

For me, initially, “the market” was a safe topic, a way to ward off talk of
Catholicism, politics, or feminism. My mother thought my career, along with sales of my
books, would immeasurably improve if I dropped “all that feminist stuff.” Although I
was extremely close to my mother, our differences were stark. She was a devoted,
doctrinaire Catholic who loved Ronald Reagan and the GOP, a true conservative. I loved
Eastern spiritual practices and, since 1965, was a liberal. I taught (and lived) feminist
film theory while my mother believed that “real” (not her daughter, I was an imposter)
feminists were wrecking men and marriage. Although my mother had a long and
gratifying career as a private duty nurse, she held it in secondary status to her jobs as wife
and mother. Like teacher, nurse and caregiver could be easily blended, or subsumed,
within family domesticity.

But my mother had a second career, an amateur career that would become more
important. And this career, she passionately loved. For my mother, a self-taught and
highly successful individual investor with thirty or more years’ experience, the stock
market -- or as Mom said, “the market” -- had become an occupation and a dedication. It
would become an involvement in the present moment that distracted us from fear and
death -- which says something about the complex reception of television, the way
television is refigured by the personal, the reality of individual lives. Our economic
investment in stocks could momentarily alleviate our emotional investment in each
other – the fear of losing each other, fear of the aloneness that was coming. We had
talked on the telephone at least once, usually more, every day of my adult life. Now that
she was living down the block from me, I saw her every day, for seven years.
56

I learned about the stock market as a somewhat condescending defense. The


world of finance and investing was of little interest or value to me. I thought that
investing in the market, like business itself was tediously dull. (At the same time, I was
highly respectful of my father’s, banking, and my sister’s, accounting, professions.) I
would discover the stock market’s high drama, its tragic dimensions, its unpredictable
suspense, I would learn to read the signs and decipher the logic, and I would gain respect,
along with skepticism, for its successful practitioners. Much later, during the financial
meltdown of 2008, I would chastise their greed.

Fortunately, as I began to learn, the order of things changed so fast that change
could be seen -- the Cold War ended around 1989 as the Soviet Union collapsed and the
Berlin Wall was torn down -- and the market spread rampantly over the globe, shortly
followed by digital connective technologies including the World Wide Web and the
internet. All it takes is a trip to China to see the rapid spread of market forces,
particularly consumerism. Shanghai in 2005 was a glistening shopping mall, resonant of
Hong Kong or New York, yet much bigger, with famous-architect skyscrapers as far as
the eye can see, and multiple designer malls packed with thousands of thin, young, blue-
jeaned shoppers. While the American tourists flock to the designer knockoff malls, the
young Chinese buy the real thing at the rows of luxury shops; the aura of the original is
the lure rather than the bargain of the copy.

As Susan Buck Morss pointed out in a brilliant essay, the economy was
discovered, and it was an extraordinary revision of the social contract. 52 The notion of
progress as the unlimited increase of objects produced for sale was a defining moment of
modernity. The crucial role of fabricated things, the significance of material objects, and
their money equivalents as the mediation of social relations were startling changes. This
modernity has come to China now, along with Vietnam, where business is everywhere.
Cambodia, Laos, and even Burma (Myanmar), are on their way.

Business has "transformed technological speed from a looming, exponential


threat into a lifestyle decision, a hip sensibility." (Johnson, 6 53) From being a catastrophe
machine, technology is a cultural synthesizer; how harmful can something be which can
find the best deal for us or order pizza, on its own, for us? With our computer interface,
Windows, a desktop, we are all little business people sitting at our desks and sorting
through our folders -- all on a system, the Arpanet, created by the U.S. “military-
industrial complex” of old, its system of dispersed electrical packets, code, and
interaction designed as a back-up military communication system, something that would
work during a nuclear attack. If one communication point or source were knocked out,
information, already broken up into packets, would travel a different route, or several
routes. The coded message would be reassembled from these dispersed packets at the
endpoint. All of this was funded by the US government, in tandem with the Engineering
Schools of several prestigious universities. But the system, linked to universities, was to
be open and free, not necessarily a money making machine.

The new world order of business, finance, and digital technology -- or money --
was made official during a conference in 1992: Clinton's Economic Summit, broadcast
57

for four days live on ESPN. The words from the CEO of Comcast, the television cable
company, were prophecy. He thanked his father for changing his business from leather
belts to communication systems. The latter make money through time by giving us
electrical access, a shift from product to process, from materiality to ethereality, from
reality to virtuality. Shortly afterward, the digital boom began; technology stocks took
off in 1995 and 96, as did internet plays, crashed in 2001, and then climbed back in 2005
with the reality of e-commerce and Google’s profits from the interplay between internet
search and advertising. Traditional communication media – newspapers, books,
television networks, and movies -- are all under siege in their stand-alone version, with
forms, and contents that can be absorbed into digital, personal networks. Entertainment
has meshed with communication and information to create a portable multiplex that is
graphic, tactile, interactive, mobile, seemingly private and individualistic, or communal
and networked, and perhaps most importantly, highly profitable, in fractional
increments. 54

But that's enough scholarship and thought. Back to me. In addition to my anti-
money, materialist (now a negative term for a real shopper, it used to mean quasi
Marxism), 1960s heritage, women have not been historically associated with the money
economy, despite Charlotte Gilman Perkins and other feminist activists’ advice a century
ago. This gender divide is still maintained in my profession -- in film studies, the world
of business and money has belonged largely to men who write empirical film history,
while the world of theory was women's terrain -- the domain of pleasure and narrative
leisure. The financial is separated off from the sexual – men from women, the money
economy from the sexual economy, in essence, creating the division of subject (often
male) from object (frequently female). In 1951, on “I Love Lucy”, Fred Mertz said it
best: there are two kinds of people in the world, earners and spenders, men and women --
ironic, coming from a guy who never did any work.

The question -- For love or money? -- is asked and still incorrectly answered for
women. Just think about Titanic. The James Cameron film and attendant publicity were
all about money, wealth contained in the class division between decks, in the recreated,
lavish scenes of old money, the upper class, and their demolition, and in the huge cost
overruns of the production. The tale of money, technology, and big brave male egos
retrieving and rejuvenating history, all culminating in blockbuster profits and awards,
Titanic was a supreme money machine. But only on the surface is this film a tale of love
and sex -- deep down it is a story of money and death.

What made the film of a historical disaster so resonant was the figuring of our
fears of technological disaster, maybe even Y2K, by echoing an earlier communications
failure, the unsinkable Titanic itself. The ship had the most advanced, sophisticated
communication and navigational technology. It was a high-tech ship, hence unsinkable.
This early 20th Century technology disaster was also a catastrophe of communication
systems.

Amidst all the film’s high tech spectacle of money and masculinity, Cameron
resurrected, along with the ship's silent ruins, an old movie star and an old woman, Gloria
58

Stuart. In beautiful extreme close-up, she remembers her youth -- telling her tale to an
audience of charmed listeners. It is a story of female desire and presumably great first
time sex in the cargo hold, immediately after which the ship goes prow up in a massive
phallic gesture (a technological and mechanical tour de force) and then sinks. Unlike so
many Hollywood endings, the woman lives to have a life of adventure and to grow old.
A remarkable, unusual ending!

However, in one fell and stupid swoop, Cameron reveals cultural bias at the end,
when old Rose, in a private moment on the deck of the boat, presumably remembering
her great love (Leo DiCaprio) who died, drops her fortune, the big diamond necklace,
into the sea, choosing adolescent romance over money. Then she joins the past, her sleep
turning into the white screen of death that ends the film.

Now, I've long suspected that romance was a male invention to keep women out
of the money economy and hence dependent and often apart from other women,
ambition, and achievement. No woman old or young and in her right mind would be this
foolish, this romantically sentimental, particularly an old woman, just before death, all in
the name of first love, first sex -- no matter how Titanic it was! She would have a) spent
it or b) given the jewel, her fortune, her legacy, to her faithful granddaughter, who cared
for her, a figure given short shrift in the film (despite the actress’s off-screen affair with
Cameron). It's that love between (grand) mother and daughter that culture keeps failing
to understand and to honor. That love is our heritage and our legacy.

Sometimes love comes in the form of money. My mother’s did. But it was more
than money – it was her achievement, her independence, her financial acuity, particularly
significant given that my father was the moneyman, the respected, savvy banker in the
community. My mother was self-taught and trusted herself rather than the many
investment brokers who advised her to get professional advice. And hers was a rare and
valuable legacy because the field of finance had largely been closed to women of my
mother’s generation. In many ways, this was her feminist legacy to me and to my sister,
Nancy. But she never would have acknowledged that out loud.

I had made little monetary progress, in life or in thought, by 1990, when my


parents, retired in their mid 70s and healthy, moved to Milwaukee, down the block from
me, a daunting twist to my life. My father dropped off his copy of The Wall Street
Journal every morning, very early. A conservative harangue, thought the superior
intellectual Me. Groan. But dutiful and loving daughter that I was, I grudgingly began to
read the front page feature pieces -- discovering that they were terrific analyses of
commodity culture, particularly electronic media; in fact, I learned more about the
economics of the television and developing internet industries than I ever had from
academic scholarship. The newspaper began to chart the growth and history of digital
culture and the internet in the technology companies it covered. I began to research
digital media and the history of the internet, incorporating this new medium into my
classes at the University. I created a course titled, “Arts of Entertainment: Film, TV, &
the Internet.” It was packed, as was “Digital Arts and Cultures.”
59

When I noticed that articles on the behavior of the stock market acknowledged
the centrality of sentiment and emotion, often fear, and also perfectly illustrated my
argument about obsessive logic, derived from Freud, I was hooked, at least by the literary
and theoretical aspect of the paper. I included the stock market in my book, High
Anxiety, quoting heavily from several pieces; the market crash of 1987 was a perfect
illustration of catastrophe logic, as was the future potentially rife for a technological
catastrophe, an erasure of money which was rapidly becoming only coded, electronic
numbers with no tangible material base or even paper record. But I threw Section C of
the Journal, the one with all the columns of numbers and confusing symbols – the lists
of stocks -- away. Remember that before online financial sites and trading on the
internet, these numbers in newspapers were extremely valuable, often the reason for
subscribing in the first place. In 2006, the New York Times finally decided to drop this
costly section – repetitive and outmoded in the new age of electronic numbers and “real-
time” quotes that run all day on the bottom of the TV screen or online, all the time.

When I chanced upon Georg Simmel's 1909 The Philosophy of Money, I had
an epiphany -- his was a logic of modernity akin to Freud's on obsession, dependent on
the endlessness of desire and the irretrievable, illusory divide between subject and object,
with money, not sexuality, as principle agent (as it was for Freud). 55 Regarding
economic desire: Adam Smith argues that this “state of things depends on desire not
being satiated, on being deflected onto other things, on the deceptive promise that
“happiness will be gained through the possession of objects, that promise itself, a
necessary decoy.” Furthermore, Simmel’s (we think that things will make us happy but
this is a decoy) was a logic of contradiction, created by thought, written during an earlier,
in many ways comparable, period of enthusiasm for electric and popular culture -- the
creation, profusion, and celebration in the early 1900s of new electric machines of
entertainment (moving picture machines) and new ways to make them and money. It's
not the internet which is so exciting to Wall Street -- it's the recent belief that it can make
money, from nothing except numbers and electricity, the alchemists dream. The internet
is as much a process as it is a product. Businesses can be virtual, portable, and
interactive.

For Simmel, the money economy is paradoxical, separating people and creating
strong economic bonds. Money makes the division of production possible, and money
inevitably ties people together. Like F.W. Taylor, Simmel linked money with time,
punctuality with the monetary system. However, this did not apply to domestic labor,
which didn't count. The household and the women bound to maintaining it weren't
measured; the money economy, in a word whose root means household, would be the
terrain of men.

For Simmel, money is the embodiment of the value of things; it also represents
the division between subject and object. Money is the relation between objects, it is pure
interchangeability; money is a symbol of economic value, because economic value is
nothing but the relativity of exchangeable objects. "The ability to construct symbolic
objects attains its greatest triumph in money . . . for money represents pure interraction."
(129/130) Simmel anticipates virtuality and interactivity -- the key traits of digital
60

culture and the internet, a world order based only on numbers and a sampled reality,
stored tokens of numbers, codes rather than traces of events.

Simmel's turn of the century analysis has become prophecy -- of the astronomical
valuations and fluctuations of the everyday stock market in 1999 and in 2007/2008 --
"The increase in the amount of money will cause a constant sense of disorder and psychic
shocks . . . accelerating the pace of life. Shocks and agitations come from money,
changes in prices." (499) The swings in late 2008 were more dramatic than the Great
Depression, which suddenly didn’t seem so old, so moldy, in fact, so historical.

The stock market’s ups and downs never, seriously never, made my mother
anxious. She remained perfectly calm in the storms, buying stock at the depressed prices,
never scared into panic selling. On Black Monday in 1987, when everyone was freaking,
my mother calmly bought crashing bank stocks. When they dropped further, she bought
more. For many years, I got dividends and stock splits from her prescient buying that
day. When the subprime crisis hit in August, 2007, I almost sold the same bank shares I
had inherited – but after doing something my mother never, never did – obtaining advice
from a professional, a hedge fund manager whose expertise was bank stocks -- I held on
as they began to drop. My mother would have sold. But I still couldn’t let go of her. So
I still have a few shares of Citigroup, down from 55 to below 3; and hundreds of shares
of Bank America, down from 44 to 20 and landing around a low of 3.

With history only three months long, restated with each quarterly earnings, the
market is an endless deferral, an infinite series of connections, of binarisms -- up or down,
buy or sell, gain or loss. It is pure interchangeability; money is a symbol of economic
value, because economic value is nothing but the relativity of exchangeable objects.
Simmel foreshadows the global economy of electronic money, across every hemisphere of
the planet. "Owing to the abstractness of its form, money has no definite relationship to
space; it can exercise its effects upon the most remote areas” (504) . . . increasing “the pace
of life,” (505) “feverish commotion,” (506) the anxiety and “nervousness” of the stock
market.

Ellen Ullman, a computer programmer, describes the increased abstraction -- bits,


"units . . . transferred between electronic accounts is the true nature of money" – “we no
longer need real estate . . . which bank is real. . . the one of marble or the one with silvery
sleek technology . . . neither . . . both are constructions designed to reassure us . . . you can
trust us. Give us your money . . . once we were impressed by buildings, now we are
impressed with virtual online spaces, that's all." She then compares computer spaces to
suburbia -- both turn "real places into anyplace." (80).

Echoing Adam Smith, Simmel even explains the frenzy for internet stocks that
took off in 1999. “It is quite erroneous to believe that the significance and intellectual
potential of modern life has been transferred from the individual to the masses. Rather it
has been transferred to . . . the objects; it lives in the immense abundance . . . of
machines, products, the growth of objective culture . . . the more impersonal an object,
the better it is suited to more people." (483) The world of Ipod, Razr, Treo and Palm --
61

little digital entertainment/information machines – is an “immense abundance;” it is


hardly an overstatement to say that these objects do exemplify the “significance and
intellectual potential of modern life.”

Yet, what of the personal computer? If the digital question has shifted, as
Sherry Turkle suggests, from the creation of computer machine intelligence to the
creation of computer life, to agents, objective culture is taking on its own subjectivity. 56
As Steven Johnson argues, "The enormous power of the modern digital computer
depends on this capacity for self-representation." (Johnson, 15) And what is this if not
subjectivity? Web 2.0 and 3.0 are moving in the direction of extending our subjectivity.

Abstraction, interaction, virtuality, relativity, exchangeability -- all based on


code, on numbers -- no wonder scholarship has taken a turn to the old fashioned, to
biography, to the concreteness of a life, to memoir.

When my father had botched emergency surgery, Rob, my son took a six-week
sabbatical from medical school in St. Louis in order to be with his grandparents. After
watching an ordeal of medical error, he would finish medical school and then switch
careers and universities. He became a computer engineer, getting graduate degrees in
engineering and later, business. Programming was a continuation of his early
inventiveness with computers, along with his fascination with computer/adventure
games, games of logic and new narrative conventions of interaction and virtuality. (Dae,
Rob’s gaming partner, would also learn from my father, taking his advice as I didn’t,
when she got an MBA – becoming an early executive in internet businesses, including a
clever start-up, iwon.com., which gave away money as user incentive. At the age of 38,
she is a savvy e-commerce old-timer.)

Meanwhile, my mother's breast cancer, in remission for twelve years, had spread,
undetected and misdiagnosed as osteoporosis, to every bone of her body. Hers was a
slow growing cancer that paradoxically prolonged her life and her suffering. There is
pain that even morphine cannot erase. Catastrophe happened, regularly, almost
predictably – there were many broken bones -- but Mom repeatedly outran death. We
awaited her death at least four times, to say nothing of the six or eight final goodbyes to
her mother, my grandmother.

Amidst the medical crises, there were three constants, or continuities, in my


mother's life -- her love of God, her family, and the stock market in the form of the cable
channel, CNBC. I am not sure which she loved the most, truly. For twelve hours every
weekday, from 6 am to 6 pm, she was tuned to CNBC -- a financial network of live
reporting from New York and Wall Street, a subsidiary of NBC/General Electric, which
came on the air in 1989. Although initially the ticker tape beneath the reporter or graphic
made me dizzy, I learned how to watch CNBC -- to understand what the symbols running
along the bottom of the screen represented; what all the worry or celebration, all the
reported excitement, was about and eventually, I became an amateur at this game of
knowledge, common sense, and intuition. (However, the phalanx of amateurs who
invested in the market in the l990s, believing and that the market would always go up and
62

that lows were inevitably times to buy, were no match for the subprime crisis and the
crashing financial system.)

CNBC, like most news shows, has become increasingly slick and graphic --
mimicking the desktop computer interface by dividing up the screen. The place of
numbers -- the strings of stock quotations -- and relational graphics is central. Relational
graphics (colorful graphs and charts) make economics visible, even aesthetic. Relational
graphics fulfill the desire for the visible, as argument, as proof and were discovered in the
late 1700s by William Playfair. 57 Charts enabled us to see the effects of Adam Smith's
economic theory; no longer dependent on direct analogy to the physical world, relational
graphics could place any two variables together. These are patterns of market behavior
that “emerge unintentionally as the aggregate of individual decisions -- the seeming chaos
of private persons and their self-interested desires . . . one can argue to causes on the
basis of effects . . . one can now see the social body through statistical correlations that
show patterns." (129) This resembles the logic of emergence, a bottom-up process akin
to the working of an ant colony, tactics which online companies like Amazon employ.

CNBC's twelve hours of live programming are divided into hourly and half-
hourly programs, which parallel the Eastern Standard Time work day (including an hour
called Power Lunch), segmented into sections, and all rapidly edited, live, in short
energetic spots, with more than ten regular network hosts, some old, others middle-aged,
a few younger women (more beautiful and younger every year), with different facial
styles, and a slew of guest economists, mainly men, visiting stock market analysts, along
with the CEOs and CFOs of major corporations, plugging their companies under the
guise of earnings explanations, all making predictions, evaluating the future, guessing
what the Fed would do next, and recommending “buy, sell, or hold.” Hosts decipher the
deeper meanings of their words, buttressed by colorful graphics and charts, giving an
aura of calculated rationality.

Guests, with whom we become familiar over time, are on the set or remote, with
predictable blue screen images locating them -- in San Francisco, there is a bridge, in
Chicago a series of lakeshore skyscrapers or the loud, agitated floor of the Chicago
Commodities Market. The CNBC high-tech studio and the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange comprise an in-touch central hub of financial knowledge -- with no outside.
This is an artificial world of signs and symbols. But the real broke in on 9/11/01 – when
the cameras left the studio and focused on the World Trade Center towers, capturing the
sudden fall, business anchors reporting on the attack on Wall Street and the Market.

Hosts and guests are remarkably articulate, and the good ones are relaxed,
personable, and talk in short, energetic sound bites. (Jim Cramer and Larry Kudlow
became such popular guests that they were given their own shows, initially together, a
pair of opposites. Then they were each given an hour show, more tailored to their
personalities, and allowing Cramer to be outrageous and raucous and Kudlow to be
conservative and patriotic). The sin is being dull and going on, particularly without being
concrete. All of this conversation and reporting, of monologue and dialogue with each
other, with us, with guest analysts, is upbeat and important to urgent -- intercut and cut-a
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way with increasingly fast high tech graphs and commercials -- primarily for financial
products and services. The constantly moving ticker tape, which now includes not only
the symbol of the company/stock but also the full name, suggesting an increase in (rank)
amateur viewers/traders, only stops for some commercials.

Mother referred to the hosts by their first names; she had favorites, along with
personal criticisms of mannerisms. She was always surprised, and a bit impatient, when I
didn't know who these folks were on a first name familiarity. She loved the plucky,
Armani suited Maria Bartiromo, live on the trading floor -- where my mother's fantasy
would have loved to be. Now her expertise emerges in interviews with economic
celebrities like Allan Greenspan or President Bush. And then there was Sue Herrera's
hair, which completely covered one half of her face; or the way Sue had started touching
guest analysts on their arms, flirting a bit too much for mother's taste. Although she
loved Joe Kernen, she thought he could be too grouchy and irritable. Joe, David Favor,
then the hot hunk of financial TV, and Mark Haines made up the early morning smart
boy’s club, Squawk Box -- bantering, laughing, reporting big news, but also being a bit
goofy, intercutting footage of penguins all sliding into the sea as metaphors for stock
analysts. Just like one of the girls, or David Letterman years ago, Joe would make
endless references to his bad hair days, his thick hair a rebuke to all the balding middle
aged men.

CNBC made the market personable, professional, accessible and urgent; regular
hosts represented the numbers in conversational, human terms, directly speaking to the
home viewer-investor, including us in on their conversations; they made us care about
them and the market. While CNBC loves a good crisis, it also soothes us, teaches us, and
makes watching TV important work, research. For the at home viewer, or worker, alone,
CNBC portrays the pleasure of working at an office, with personable, happy or irascible
colleagues; it gives us the social experience and camaraderie we are not having, whether
on line or off.

As I stated earlier, the market is an endless deferral and a series of binarisms -- up


or down, buy or sell, gain or loss – which offset the ultimate binary -- life or/and death.
For mother and me, the live coverage of the market kept death away, a deflection through
live financial crises and catastrophes like the Gulf War and, later for me, the War in Iraq.

This lowly cable channel not only has turned investing and the stock market into
a form of popular culture, but it now is accorded respect by even Madison Avenue
investment firms, who keep it on during “The Street” hours. In a sense, CNBC, like the
internet, has realized the noble goal of early video visionaries -- the democratizing dream
in which information and accessibility would be available to all, when two-way
interaction would mean intervention and inclusion in political decisions. But the counter
culture guerrillas of the 60s and 70s never imagined that money and commerce would be
the content and the goal of their radical medium.

While the hosts and visiting analysts on CNBC have become celebrities, as has
happened to Erin Burnett in 2008/2009, with appearances on Meet the Press, there was
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for years only one superstar of the economy -- when he spoke, CNBC stopped its speeded
up flow, its regular programming; one camera remained focused on his live speech for
what seemed like hours-- with reverence. We watched the market fluctuate according to
his obfuscating words – in a graphic chart beside his talking head. He was the benevolent
patriarch watching over the financial land. He was the embodiment of the rationality of
neoclassical economic theory, plus a dose of governmental control and firm but kindly
supervision. “Would the interest rates go (yes, another binary) up or down?” was the
narrative suspense, initiating a frenzy of speculation and prediction.

Yes, this was Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve System until
his retirement in 2006. (The multi-million dollar book contract he signed, second only to
Bill Clinton, attests to his superstardom, in late 2008, in freefall, just like the economy.)
He is not charismatic, or stately, or handsome or particularly fascinating, or even tall. In
fact, he is short, and old. His face is jowled and folded. His haircut, as it is, is a bit
uneven; basically he is bald, his stance slightly awkward, and his general demeanor
scrunched. He speaks in a slow, careful monotone, reading deliberately from his dense
text, rarely looking up and over his spectacled eyes. As he gives his speech, he first leans
to the left, then to the right, and then towards the podium in a bodily dance that is very
funny and apparent when fast-forwarded. It is a rhythmic pattern that repeats in all of his
big speeches, the Greenspan hokey-pokey.

He reminds me of nothing so much as an intellectual, an older professor at an


academic conference. He uses figures and theorems of economics, knowing that each
and every word will be analyzed, or better, deconstructed. His thoughts, his words --
replete with obfuscating statistics and economic models as demonstration of his brilliance
-- are reassurance for us, much like medical information from doctors, or news anchors
during catastrophe coverage. Greenspan embodies the flip side of what Kathleen
Woodward has called statistical panic. 58 In contrast, Greenspan represents statistical
tranquility, the other function that numbers can serve. Greenspan mollifies us with
statistics, soothes us with information, calms us with his massive intelligence and
benevolence. These static events, like a visit to the doctor when you have cancer, are,
however, filled with tension -- even a fraction of a number, if he so spoke, could freak out
the market, either up or down. Greenspan is the ‘soul of discretion,’ playing a game with
the investment professionals, who try to predict his next move.

As Simmel says, "Intellectual energy is the psychic energy which the money
economy produces in contrast to those energies denoted as emotions or sentiments.”
(429) Intellectual functions are “calculative functions,” mathematical functions.
Greenspan and the Fed represent the “intellectual, psychic energy produced by the
“money economy.” When Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson appealed to
Congress and the public for bailout money, he spoke mathematically, thereby almost
losing his case.

For Simmel, the dilemma of modernity is that money, which is a means, becomes
a goal, what he calls the "colonization of ends by means." Which leads to an endless
series, or deferral, in which “the goal of the moment lies beyond the moment, a series
65

extended by money because money creates a common interest for otherwise unrelated
series . . . the returns from one transaction enable a completely unrelated transaction."
Money, which is a means, becomes an end, a purpose, a goal, and “countless things that
are really ends are demoted in value and purpose." (431) This statement analyzes what
happened in late 2007, when subprime mortgages were packaged and resold, “the returns
from one transaction,” the mortgage, “enable a completely unrelated transaction,” the
derivative products sold at inflated prices, with hefty commissions along the way. Along
the way, money became the only goal, an end, not the means.

Mother never confused means and ends. Money was to be respected, honored,
saved and then spent when her family needed it, but it was never the goal, and it was
never squandered. Although she reveled in her great stock picks, loved dividends, and
hated capital gains taxes, she handled her buying and selling in terms of family --
graduate school tuition for my children, her future care or medical bills. She worried
about estate taxes. Because the day of death becomes the new purchase price of stocks
when they are inherited, Mom wanted to die when the market was up, not down. And,
conversely, as her stocks climbed, her portfolio’s worth exceeded the tax free inheritance
deductible. Her success meant taxes for Nancy and me. Thus, she was between a rock
and a hard place regarding taxes, which is why she loved Reagan’s market economics.

When she lost interest in the market, I knew death was on its way -- five days
later, December 19, 1997, after an arduous struggle, it forcibly came and silently left.
Holding her in my arms, I inhaled my mother's last quiet and sweet breath. The world
was absolutely still. I could feel my heart breaking as she left me -- truly a loss, truly the
collapse of emotional investment. 59 I held her body in my arms, I closed my eyes, for I
don’t know how long. I know why three days are spent in many cultures sitting with the
body – it was wrenching when the funeral home took Mom’s body.

The Dow closed that day at 7846.50, the Nasdaq at 1523.19, well below 2007’s
averages over 13,000 on the New York Stock Exchange and 2400 on the Nasdaq. There
was a steep market drop of 260 points that week, with more downturn expected. The lead
article in Baron’s, “Fat and Unhappy,” wondered whether Toyota could survive its
downturn in Japan. The government was pursuing its antitrust case against Microsoft.
Google had not IPO’d. And the Dot Com bubble had not expanded and then exploded.
Although she knew little about tech stocks, Mom bought stock in Sun Microsystems
because Rob worked there. It would quintuple in value. The last company she expressed
interest in buying was Apple, then around 14 dollars per share. Ten years later, it was
$200. The War on Terror, in Iraq, was nowhere on anyone’s radar. Neither was the
recession of 2008, when the Dow would revisit the numbers of 1997, erasing along the
way, billions of electronic, sometimes imaginary dollars. Few saw this Black Swan (the
unexpected event) coming, including Greenspan and his replacement, Ben Bernancke.
But it might be the first economic/electronic catastrophe – with money as virtual,
numbers that came from stringing money products like mortgages together. Once the
serial movement stopped, the system crashed like a Ponzi scheme.
66

Mom was buried in Dry Wood, the small community outside of Cadott,
Wisconsin, right beside her husband, my father, and close to her mother and father, Frank
and Rose Sedlacek, in the cemetery of the church built by her grandfather. The day of
her funeral was a snowy day. The Catholic priest was a friend of my grandmother Rose,
still alive at 105 in The Golden Age Nursing Home. Afterward, we went to see her. She
was a wisp of her former body, only air, light, and spirit. She opened her eyes and said
“Patty! It’s you. And Nancy! I miss Margaret so much.” The sadness in her voice was
even deeper than mine – it was that of a mother losing her oldest and favorite child, an
unnatural loss at any age. And although my aunts had decided not to tell my
grandmother about my mom’s death, she knew, just as she had known when Mom was
ill. My mother’s greatest concern during her illness and before she died was that she had
not been able to care for her mother. This love between mother and daughter is indeed
bone deep and generations old.

All those years, I thought I was caring for my mother. All the time she was
preparing for my future -- when she could no longer worry about me, or come,
unfailingly, to my emotional or financial rescue as she had done almost daily for 56
years.

Now, every morning, the first thing I do is retrieve my Wall Street Journal from
some bush, then turn on CNBC for “Squawk Box,” our favorite hour, followed by a
computer check in with my online discount broker, to the Mary M. Jewson Trust -- which
will go to my children unless I screw up. Everyone encouraged me to secure a
professional financial adviser; I tried, even meeting with a top Wall Street broker. But I
am just too much like my mother. I can still remember the day in 1987 when she bought
many of her bank stocks, the day the market crashed, called Black Monday. I used to
think it was her most triumphant moment. But the tranquil intensity of her death revealed
a more profound courage.

Postscript: After Death

The grief I felt after my mother died in December 1997 was immense. As every
writer says, it washed over me in waves, which would come suddenly, triggered by a
sense, the smell of her perfume, a photograph, the sight of her clothes, or a place we had
been together. I had to avoid driving anywhere near the Catholic hospice, where she
died. Even a glimpse of the building would trigger volumes of teary grief. Joan Didion
would call this the “vortex effect.” 60 As did she, “I plotted my routes.” My mind was
too fractured to write, so I read. I read novels about older women, written by older
women. I read novels of the dead, Lovely Bones and Being Dead, I read books by
doctors who are also writers -- the bestseller, How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final
Chapter, and the classic, Death: the Final Stage of Growth, by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross,
a book my mother had used in her nursing and often quoted. I also read literary critics,
Carolyn Heilbrun’s The Last Gift of Time, and Beautiful Work: A Meditation on
Pain, by Sharon Cameron. 61
67

The Western books that have moved me the most were personal experiences of
loss, written years ago by C.S. Lewis and in 2005 by Joan Didion, Magical Thinking, A
Grief Observed. While they are profound portraits of grief, focusing on the details of
everyday life after a death, they are so moving because they are love stories. C.S. Lewis
puts it so perfectly. “For this is one of the miracles of love; it gives – to both, but perhaps
especially to the woman – a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not
being disenchanted.” (72) Herein also lies the difference between romance and love.

Another of my favorite books was an experiential, intimate book – Richard John


Neuhaus’ As I Lay Dying, a beautifully written contemplation about his own illness and
close call with death -- after botched emergency surgery, a situation uncannily similar to
that of my father. “The operation took several hours and was an unspeakable mess. The
tumor had expanded to rupture the intestine: blood, fecal matter, and guts all over the
place. My stomach was sliced open from the rib cage.” But the bleeding didn’t stop, and
“Of course, they went in again.”

“Death is the most everyday of everyday things. It is not simply that thousands of
people die every day . . . it is the horizon against which we get up in the morning and go
to bed at night.” (4) “We tell ourselves that we are prepared. But then our wisdom is
shattered . . . not by a sudden awareness of the generality, but by the singularity of a
death – by the death of someone we love . . . Or it is shattered by the imminent prospect
of our own dying.” (21)

Although there is an element of adventure in “moving into the unknown,” in his


case, the “experience of dying” struck him as “so very commonplace, even trite.” (70)
His state after surgery reminded me of my fall in the snow, unable to move or respond
but not at all fearful: “I am surrounded by doctors and technicians talking in a worried
tone . . . I heard everything that was said,” but he couldn’t respond, he was “locked into
absolute immobility.” (84) What remained of my experience of the fall was my lack of
fear, which took me by surprise. Neuhaus has a similar experience: “At the time of crisis
and in the months of recovery following, I was never once afraid.” (154) There is
something consoling about the absence of fear – for with death, as that old quote by FDR
put it so well, we have to fear only fear itself.

But in the snow, I knew that I would be OK. Neuhaus knew that he had almost
died, and that “the final scene, death itself, was still to come.” (93) As in a dream, he was
the dreamer, the viewer, and the doer. He wonders: “This puzzled me; whether dying,
the thing itself, is something one can do. Is it an event, is it a deed, or is it something that
just happens?” (93)

He then posits the difference between dying and death. “I could not conceive
what it is to die. To be dying – I knew about that . . . But to die, the thing itself, that I
was trying to understand.” (96) 62 Unlike sleep, death “is for keeps. When you are dying
you have to do something with yourself, and since there is very little you do about
yourself, the only thing to do is to give yourself away,” to surrender. (102)
68

Like Joan Didion, he notices small details which resonate with truth – the
humiliation and embarrassment “of being exposed for what I am, the thing itself,”
stripped of all “appearances and all pretense.” And the way “friends who cannot look at
us look away and are embarrassed for us.” (108) He used to be bored to distraction “by
the sick and old chattering endlessly about their operations and medications. . . I
discovered that, when you are really sick, a more entrancing subject can hardly be
imagined. The world turns around aches and pills,” as it did with my mother’s years
devoted to managing great pain.

Niehaus describes a mystical experience of seeing messengers of light, what he


calls “presences,” in his room, giving him the message that “Everything is ready now.”
This experience has proved to be indelible for him. I have had similarly intense,
visionary moments. During Gurumayi’s visit to Milwaukee in the spring of 1992, she
invited me to her room backstage at the Pabst Theatre, after a meditation intensive. I
pranamed and she beckoned me to come up to her chair. She reached over and took a
black beaded necklace from a tray beside her table. Then she lightly pulled my head onto
her lap, and clasped the necklace around my neck. I went to another reality -- of pure
energy, light, movement, boundless, ethereal, thrilling beyond words and beyond even
my memory of it. It took several minutes for me to return to earth’s stratosphere. Like
Neuhaus, “I resolved at that moment that I would never, never let anything dissuade me
from the reality of what happened.”

And when my mother died, I looked up and over her body, quiet after her last
breath, and saw an almost blinding white light in the corner of the room – illuminating
the 4 am darkness. Shortly after, an aid walked in, remarking about the high intensity
illumination in the room. I did not tell her that Mom had died. I didn’t want anyone to
take her away from me. I wanted to sit with her, to hold her. And then to bathe and
anoint her. Her skin was impossibly youthful, unwrinkled, flawless – as if aging had
reversed. I felt her closeness to God, I thought of her favorite saint, St. Anthony, I said
her blessed name, Mary, although only the doctors and nurses had called her “Mary.”
Neuhaus suggests that “It may be in visions we touch upon realities of which what we
call reality may be only the shadowland.” Baba and Gurumayi would surely agree with
Neuhaus and his quote of Dostoyevsky. “There are moments . . . when you feel the
presence of the eternal harmony,” which fills one with rapture. “During these five
seconds I live a whole human existence, and for that I would give my whole life and not
think that I was paying too dearly.” (120-121)

Neuhaus has no pretense that he has “explained anything about death and dying.
Death eludes explanation, death is the death of explanation.” (125) But in his elegant
way, he maps the paradoxes of death. “We speak of death as an ending and as a
transition to something else. It is the terror of destruction, and it is liberation. Death
attacks from without and matures from within. It is both violent alien and a friend’s offer
of peace beyond understanding. Death happens to us without our permission and invites
our collaboration. It is the most natural of things and the destruction of everything that is
natural and right.” Little wonder that “the number of entries on death is second only to
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the number of entries on love.” (126) Earlier he suggested the troubling “entanglement of
love and death. Love at its most profound is the gift of the self.” (102)

He concludes that the “I” lasts beyond death in relationships. “’I’ continue to be a
reality in the consciousness of the other.” (142) My mother is a reality in the “I” that is
me. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t hear her in my own words. And there is another
lonely aftereffect. No one will ever love me the way my mother did; no one will ever
unfailingly greet my entrance into a room with such an expression of delight and joy; no
one will ever see me simultaneously as a girl and as an old woman. My personal archive
died with my mother. As Didion writes, “When we mourn our losses we also mourn, for
better or worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be
at all.” (198)

Neuhaus’ conclusion about his own death “turned on the personal: What had
happened with Christ would happen, was happening with me. His death and his life
anticipated my death and my life.” “What I have learned is that in living and in dying,
everything is ready now,” is the book’s last elegiac sentence.
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CHAPTER 5:

Melodrama in Morocco: From Death to Dating

In March 2001, I was in Morocco -- in Marrakesh, an exotic, dramatic setting --


with Jonathan, whom I had known for only six, albeit intense, weeks. Despite the curious
glances of the other diners, I was sobbing, pathetically. He looked stunned, bewildered.
We were having lunch beside the pool of the magnificent Hotel Mamunia, where we
were staying. So why was I crying? In such a perfect setting? The answer is
embarrassing, but here it is, in context.

We had toured this wondrous country for twelve days, exploring the ancient
Medinas of Fez, Rabat, Meknes, and Marrakesh -- and driving through the countryside of
tranquil farmland. The Medinas are the old central cities, dense warrens of artisans and
their beautiful wares, trade, and the energy of crowded communal life. Fez, the oldest
city, dating back to 808, is a medieval Islamic city, extraordinarily beautiful. Dotted with
gigantic palms and green domes, Fez is surrounded by mountains and streams running
down to the fairytale city. The white houses with flat roofs have fine minarets made out
of mosaic tiles. But even with a map, we became instantly lost in the intricate maze of
the old city within five minutes, so we hired a guide, who wore an outer robe with a
hood.

It was hard not to notice that women were largely missing in public places – the
coffee houses and outdoor cafes were filled with men talking, hanging out, importantly
so. When women did appear, they wore long, hooded gowns of many designs, jalabis,
over their clothes. In the villages and countryside, women also wore veils over their
faces. Houses were designed to surround interior courtyards, where women worked, kept
out of sight. I had never been in an Islamic culture. After a few days, I began to feel
uncomfortable in public spaces. And I was wearing my ashram wardrobe of long skirts
and long sleeve/high neck tops. (After all, new cultures suggest new styles.) I
understood the protective anonymity of the jalabi (djellaba, jalaba), a garb also worn by
many men. By not wearing it, I also felt as if I were flaunting the country’s customs –
Muslim traditions – and I did not want to be disrespectful to another culture or spiritual
system.

I had been inspired by the philosophy of the Sufi poets and mystics, Rumi 63 and
Hafez. 64 Gurumayi, my spiritual teacher, like Baba Muktananda, her teacher, often
quoted the Islamic poet saints, Kabir and Rabbia 65; or told the comic tales of Nasrudin. I
had read several books of poetry, biographies, and scholarly analyses of Rumi’s poetry
and life. One day I would make a pilgrimage to Rumi’s shrine, in Konya, Turkey and
71

attend a ceremony of the whirling dervishes, the Sufi dance of entrancement and
adoration of God.

I recalled these books and the Sufi version of love as I traveled through Morocco.
My amateur, beginner’s knowledge of Islam made the strange less so. My knowledge
was comforting to me, linking me just a little bit to the culture. I always responded to the
call to prayer and took time to bow to Mecca. I found the haunting public prayers a
beautiful reminder of our divinity, of a passionate faith in God, and of a historical lineage
that had passed on these beliefs and practices through the generations. 66 The past became
the present.

Time slipped into reverse. It could have been 1940 in the country, or even
centuries ago in the Medinas of Fez, or Marrakesh. Most of the products were hand
crafted; the wood and stone carving and inlays were intricate, carried over on a grand
scale to the fretted architecture of minarets. In the countryside, farmers tilled the fields
with a wooden plow and donkey. Stone fences decorated the landscape. We were in a
country of natural and architectural beauty. It was the setting for a fairy tale, yet one that
was real and very tangible.

But with each new five star hotel suite, in Fez or Rabat, one more luxurious than
the previous, I became more anxious. At each checkpoint, I had insisted on showing my
passport to the hotel clerk, rather than letting Jonathan handle it, which was logical
because he had taken care of the reservations. He began to become irritated with what
was becoming obvious – I didn’t want him to see my passport. Why? His suspicion, so
far in check, began to verge on anger.

To explain his frustration, he told me a poignant and troubling story of


discovering a dreadful family scandal in the microfilm archives of the local newspaper
when he was eighteen. Although he had repeatedly asked about how his grandfather had
died, his mother had never told him the gruesome story: that (when she was 17) her
beloved father had shot and killed his business partner (who had been cheating him) and
then himself. However, she had shared this tale of murder and suicide with his older
brother, Dave. As a result, when information was withheld from Jonathan, he felt
excluded, abandoned, unworthy of confidentiality. This pain triggered anger, which he
was trying to contain, barely.

What horrible fact was I trying to hide from him? Who was I? Was my passport
a forgery? The jig was up. I confessed. “I’m 60,” I sobbed. “What?” He looked
bewildered. I repeated, “I’m 60.” “Is that it? Why is that a problem? What’s wrong with
that?” He gently laughed, and his incredulity was genuine, he didn’t care in the least that
I was sixty, but I did. – I didn’t like “being sixty,” not at all. To compound my
embarrassment, I had fudged the dates of my high school and college graduations during
our many long conversations, taking me down to a presumed and more acceptable 58,
closer to his 56 years.
72

My recent birthday had not been a happy one for me. In fact, I was upset that I
was sixty. It felt as if the best part of my life had already happened and the rest was
downhill or on hold, a future to be lived in a dull, drab neutral. Who cared about 60 year
old women? No one, I decided, not even other 60-year-old women. Now 70, that would
be another story – the story of afterward . . . after children, career ambition, physical
attractiveness, and men (although I had already given them up there was still potential if
not reality). 70 would be a landmark of letting go, followed by the glorious and eccentric
80s and the wizening of the 90s, into the frail ethereality of the 100s. 60, on the other
hand, was just the dull beginning of the end.

Another trigger was something Jonathan said at our initial meeting at Columbia
Hospital, just weeks earlier. After reading me a letter detailing his goals for the
remainder of his life – no small surprise when he pulled out this intimate, typed
document, along with an Excel spreadsheet of all his business commitments for the year!
-- he invited me to visit him in Florida, soon. He didn’t want to waste any time. It was
urgent that he get on with his life because in four years he would be sixty! He repeated
SIXTY!! as if it were a death knell, the resolute end. And I had just turned his dreaded
sixty! Nine days earlier. But I didn’t tell him this. In fact, I dodged every age-related
question, smudging and fudging and hemming and hawing even my graduation year from
high school. I didn’t lie, exactly, but I also didn’t fess up.

My intense, morbid reaction to being sixty surprised me. I had written about the
double standard of age wherein older men, in life and at the movies, retain their power
and sexuality while older women lose theirs. Women could be fifty, but they had to look
thirty. I hadn’t considered sixty. And then there was the familiar scenario in life and in
film of the older man and the younger woman as the central couple or story, rarely the
inverse. At the movies, in the boardroom, and in the halls of Congress, older men were
still leading men whereas older women simply vanished. Where were they? 67

Through my spiritual practices, I had disengaged the equation of self with body,
or so I thought. Women are so much more than their bodies! Just sacks of skin which
become slack with age. I am not my skin! And why are lines on women’s faces and
marks on their bodies any less attractive than those on men’s skin? Why does Redford
get to have scars on his face? And still be attractive? Influential? Why does Nicholson
get to be fat, bald, and out of shape? And still be desirable? And powerful? In Morocco,
letting Jonathan see my skin took courage – the scars on my abdomen from surgery, the
cellulite blobs before and aft, the sundry pouches and lumps. (Years later, he let me
know that he had noticed every flaw, but accepted them as “part of the package.”)

Although I was surprised by the negative emotions raised by the number, 60, I do
think there is a landmark quality to 60 – with it comes the realization that life is about
two-thirds or more over. Now we have old age and death ahead, and most of us are ill
prepared for this awareness.

My distress was also magnified or triggered by being dumped on my 60th


birthday by mustached Bob, the first man I had dated in many years.
73

A brief history . . . After my divorce in 1975, I loved the freedom of being


single, although being a divorced parent to two children had its trials and terrors. I had a
series of intense, short-term encounters, in the end, sabotaging every one. I could not
sustain desire, after the initial romance. It took too much energy – and mine was used up
by my life. Solution? Have quick, uncommitted relationships and at the first sign of
dullness, flagging interest, conflict, or criticism, particularly criticism, break them off.
Or better yet, slyly fix up your dates with your friends. The perfection of this defense
was to eliminate intimate relationships altogether via a pre-emptive strike, while
maintaining friendships. One part of my ego was protected, invincible. The other part
was too dependent on my children for affection. Later I would learn about my arrested
emotions, their destructive nature.

After my children left for college in 1988, I learned to enjoy being and living
alone. I began a period of life-changing discovery of what I call my amateur knowledges
– of the twelve steps of AA and the principles of Eastern meditation – and achievement,
publishing four scholarly books between 1990 and 1996 and becoming a Distinguished
Professor. For seven years as I cared for my ailing parents, who moved a block from me
in 1990, I dedicated myself to teaching, writing, AA meetings, and to my meditation
practice. Being alone and enjoying the small pleasures, a book in bed, coffee in the quiet
early morning, became precious to me. They still are.

So, there I am, in 1999, twenty five years single, fourteen of them dateless,
teaching, writing, and living alone, a story of happily ever after very different from the
coupled ending of so many Hollywood movies I had so archly analyzed. My children
had become delightful adults with graduate degrees, and professional careers. Dae had
just been married in New York, in a moving Jewish wedding, and was enjoying her
career in internet businesses. Rob was working as a computer engineer in Silicon Valley
and studying for his third graduate degree at Berkeley. I had just negotiated a one-
semester teaching load, along with a year’s sabbatical and a big raise. Finally my salary
was commensurate with my title. I began to look for a second home on the coast of
California, north of San Francisco where Rob lived. I was also looking for a condo in
Manhattan. My future would be bi-coastal, an exciting conclusion to an entire life lived
in the Midwest, in Wisconsin.

For the first time in my life, I could financially relax. My parents had left me a
healthy stock portfolio. I could be writing and teaching at the University for the next 25
years – a bit of a daunting prospect yet nevertheless the easy, uneventful, and
unemotional ending I foresaw for my life. The play had been cast and the major players
had already made their appearances. There would be no big surprises, just some changes
in the supporting roles. My life wasn’t perfect, but it was fine to terrific. And I felt a bit
superior to women who still “needed” or defined their happiness by men. (To be honest,
it was more than “a bit.”)

In fact, I had become Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote. While her friends
had dreadful marital feuds, often resulting in gruesome murders she would single-
handedly solve, she was independent, above the emotional, destructive fray of marriage
74

and the family. The TV series' star was, of course, an older woman, Angela Lansbury
playing Jessica Fletcher, mystery writer/sleuth. 68

But then in 1999 Italian Bob invited me to a movie. After fourteen dateless years,
I accepted, with trepidation. It was a nervous evening, and I was home by 9 p.m. Whew!
But I was attracted to him. He was a devoted meditator, a leader of our meditation
center, where I had met him, ten years earlier. And a cook, with a pizza restaurant
outside Milwaukee. He would help me on my spiritual path! And cook! What more
could anyone need? I repressed his bushy mustache and scent of musk or sandalwood,
along with rare and anti- or better, non-, climatic sex.

In his mid fifties, short, attractive, in good shape, and never married, Bob had a
reputation as a ladies man, but after each fling ended, he would return to Deanna, who
had been rudely dumped and then reclaimed nine times by musked Bob. “Not me,” said
the Great I (aka Me), believing I was a cut above the previous dumpees, including
Deanna. After all, Bob had not finished high school and had only a modest income from
his Italian restaurant. He had a fourteen year old daughter he had never supported and
just recently met, and an irascible eighty-two year old Italian mother who was four feet
eight inches tall, with a fog horn voice that blasted trucker talk. “Lucky him,” thought
the Great I. “I will help him. I live in a glorious condominium, am economically
independent and spiritual to boot, a leader in our Center. I am a catch for him, a step up,
albeit an older one.” My logic, along with my outsized ego, was deeply flawed, in many
ways.

A little more than a year of anxiety and dissatisfaction later, after he returned
from two weeks at my house in Sea Ranch, California, which I had purchased in
December, 1999, Bob called me. It was January 15th, 2001, my 60th birthday. Rather
than “Happy Birthday” and dinner plans, he told me about the Sufi massage therapist he
had met in Sea Ranch, through our friends there, Pam and Jerry. “I love her, Pat, she is
The One.” 69

I was furious. “The One?” Something clicked, like a lamp in a dark room.
Finally! In a burst of physical strength, I hauled all of his possessions out of my
condominium, to the garage. I needed to erase any sign of him from my life. It was sub
zero and snowy in Milwaukee in mid January. Three hours later, I called Bob back, and
quietly informed him that anything he didn’t pick up today, the Salvation Army would,
tomorrow. He asked for an extra day. I refused. And that was the end of Bob. No
discussion. No shouting. No hysteria.

But there was emotional residue. How could I have been so egotistical to believe
that I was better than other women? And how could I have let myself be used like this?
How did I so misunderstand what being “spiritual” means? It is an inner state, not
outward ritual, it is action, not talk and posturing. Being spiritual is being real, being
honest, being kind, compassionate and selfless. I wanted to get over this quickly so I did
something I had never done – I relinquished my pride. I brazenly told everyone I spoke
to that Bob had dumped me for a Sufi massage therapist. If I didn’t run into someone, I
75

called with the dump news. I even called Swami Indirananda in the Ashram, who
thought this was good news! I didn’t die of embarrassment or humiliation or not being
good enough for the long haul. Quite the contrary, I began to feel relief and a bit of
humor. In the overall scheme of my life, this was not even a flyspeck. Not surprisingly,
no one was unhappy with my news, particularly Rob and Dae.

Increased meditation and chanting helped immeasurably. Charlotte Jocko Beck’s


book, Nothing Special, took care of the painful aftereffects. I read sections of it every
morning, after meditation. This little book set the emotional stage for what was to come
next. For rather than burying or running away from pain, I learned to acknowledge and
lean into it – as I had done with Rob’s diagnosis and my parents’ deaths. But this time I
did it with something ordinary and worldly. The invincible part of my ego that had
protected me from criticism and rejection would be exposed and very vulnerable. I was
out there in the world, my defenses down in an almost breathless honesty. Paradoxically,
I would soon learn, this made me infinitely stronger.

Charlotte Joko Beck teaches at the San Diego Zen Center – but I have met her
only in her two books. Her history is exceptional and typical. As the author of the
preface tells us, she was born in New Jersey, went to college, married and had children.
After her divorce, she “supported herself and her four children as a teacher, secretary, and
later as an administrative assistant in a large university department.” No status there,
believe me, but lots of work and big egos. The fault line between faculty and staff in
universities can be a chasm of inequity. That was when Beck began to study Zen with a
teacher in Los Angeles, commuting for years. She was designated his Dharma Heir, and
in 1983 began to teach Zen in San Diego. “She no longer shaves her head, and seldom
uses robes or her titles.” (vi) She sees herself “as a guide rather than a guru, refusing to be
put on a pedestal of any kind . . . she shares her own life difficulties.” (vii) Which is why
this is the first Zen book I have truly grasped. The philosophy has been too ephemeral,
too vague, too nothingness, for me

In “Love,” Beck takes a concept from a Zen scholar, Menzan Zenji (1683-1796)
– emotion-thought, which she describes as “self-centered thoughts that we fuss with all
the time.” (71) I was familiar with “fussing” with “self-centered thoughts,” through my
addiction and recovery, along with my research and writing on anxiety. ”Their absence is
the enlightened state,” what Zen calls satori. I had glimpses of this serene tranquility and
clarity. But it never lasted. Beck goes on to define what she calls “false love,” which
resembles romantic love. False love “breeds in the emotion-thought of expectations,
hopes, and conditioning . . . we expect that our relationship should make us feel good.”
But she says that this “dream collapses under pressure . . . such ‘love’ turns into hostility
and argument.” I interpret “pressure” as everyday, ordinary life, as well as crises.

False love, based on expectations and hopes, perfectly described my Bob period.
It was never real, never honest or true. Not surprisingly it had turned into hostility and
argument. Beck immediately gives the solution to this trajectory: When we just sit with
our disappointment, “experiencing our pain . . . the melting of the false emotion can
begin, and true compassion can emerge.” (72/73) Good relationships are about
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compassion, which is self-less instead of selfish. (It took a few years for me to
experience compassion and thus to truly know it. I would discover that one of its
components is empathy -- for a moment, being in the other’s pain.)

With the exception of Rob’s heart and my parent’s deaths, to experience pain, to
lean into pain, to acknowledge pain was all new to me. My solution to pain of any sort,
whether emotional or physical, was to escape, or pretend it didn’t exist --denial -- or
change my circumstances, never acknowledge it, particularly out loud. To acknowledge
being hurt (or angry) was shameful to me. And I had many tactics for pain avoidance or
denial: valium, alcohol, shopping, movies, travel, comedy, and in an extreme, recent
example, a new house in California. Beck’s solution was revolutionary to me. She
urges us to stay with the suffering, “go into the suffering and let it be.”

I believed that my ability to change unpleasant things, to make things better, for
myself and others, was my great talent and my avenue to freedom. And sometimes this
was true. But often I had only made things different, not better; and more of the same is
not better. Beck takes a very different tack regarding pain and freedom. “Freedom is
closely connected with our relationship to pain and suffering . . . Because of the fear of
pain we all build up an ego structure to shield us, and so we suffer. Freedom is the
willingness to risk being vulnerable to life; it is the experience of whatever arises in each
moment, painful or pleasant.” (189) Her words are concise, simple, simply brilliant.
“Freedom is . . . to risk being vulnerable.”

To “risk being vulnerable” was a scary endeavor for me. (Feminism was, and had
formed, a shield of invulnerability for, and around, me.) Each morning I sat quietly for
two hours, meditating, then reading and contemplating Beck’s words. I began to
understand the classic error I had made with Bob – I expected him to make me happy and
fulfilled. I even expected him to help with my meditation – which is a solitary pursuit!
As Beck and countless therapists have pointed out, this is the original false premise of
romance, at the base of many relationships. We erroneously expect our relationship “to
be the one place that gives us peace.” But they don’t. Often they do the opposite, they
make us miserable.

So, why have one at all? Why not go back to my alone state, the pre-Bob epoch?
Beck immediately answers: “We begin to see that they are our best way to grow. In
them we can see what our mind, our body, our senses, and our thoughts really are . . .
Why are relationships such excellent practice? Why do they help us to go into what we
might call the slow death of the ego?” (88) Because aside from meditation, “there is no
way that is superior to relationships in helping us see where we’re stuck and what we’re
holding on to . . . So a relationship is a great gift, not because it makes us happy – it often
doesn’t – but because any intimate relationship, if we view it as practice, is the clearest
mirror we can find.” (89)

This is what Marge Rock, my recovery therapist, had tried to tell me – a


relationship was a mirror, an opportunity for self-awareness, an exercise for my ego to
shrink; it was not simply about pleasure and security, it was about risk and vulnerability.
77

It was not happily ever after at the movies, but a chance for self-insight and reflection.
Bob was a mirror – all the fear and withholding I saw in him were actually in me; my
bottled-up anger was there, just below the surface. This was not at all what I imagined
myself to be. And this fear, anger and righteousness, this crust of invincibility, had to
surface in order to be removed.

“When a relationship isn’t working, it means that the partners are preoccupied with
‘I’. . . what I want.”(96) Yes, this was true of Bob, always on the lookout for someone
else. But it was also true of me. 70 I kept a mental list of what he was not doing for me, a
list that grew longer each week. “Our fear of our own annihilation leads to useless
behaviors, including the effort to protect our self-image, our ego. Out of that need to
protect comes anger. Out of anger comes conflict. And conflict destroys our
relationships with others.” (97) 71

But in this instance, destroying the relationship was a very good thing. And that
is a key point – if one is on a spiritual path, wrong decisions will be righted, just as self-
delusions will clear up. Bob was a delusion, a bad choice. Just as I was for him. In spite
of my clinging to the relationship, the universe intervened in the form of a Sufi massage
therapist, to whom I will forever be grateful. And I was not annihilated, only a little
humiliated, or maybe humbled. Once again, I was saved from my superficial choices in
relationships – based on outer appearances rather than inner achievements. Then the
familiar emotional scenario: Fear leading to ego protection and then on to anger and
conflict and running away is a trajectory I will try to remember. I have taken this route
so many times it has become ingrained, almost instinctual. The solution is counter-
intuitive – when I fear self-annihilation (and the instinctual adrenaline of fight or flight),
don’t leave, don’t argue, be still, be quiet, be strong.

For the first time in my everyday life, 72 I had consciously leaned into the pain
rather than denying it or running away from it. I would be OK, no matter what happened.
A mere ten days later, my speed dating experience erased any memory/thought of Bob.
Seriously. Gone, in TEN DAYS! What a joy to regain sanity!

There were other gems in Beck’s book that I stored in the back of my mind. I was
unable to handle criticism, even contrary suggestions, from colleagues and dates. “We
feel that the only way to handle an attack is to fight back; and the way we fight is with
our minds. We arm ourselves with our anger and our opinions, our self-righteousness.”
(Everyday Zen, 107) 73 I lived in “I”, the Great I, on guard for disagreement and
feminist injustice. As an intellectual and a smart woman with a great deal of concealed
fear, I fought with my mind, armed with opinions and self-righteousness. My scholarly
traits bled into my personal life. I cringe at the memories of my public academic
arrogance. And I cringe today at what’s left of my intellectual ego, and my lack of its
awareness, in this book.

Like other Buddhist scholars, Beck cautions us against hope, suggesting that we
choose life as it is, life without drama. Why? Aren’t aspirations and hope important to
essential, along with excitement? She would say no to both. They exist only in the
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future, and only in the mind. But even more importantly, they inflate the ego. “No
matter what our particular drama is, we are always at the center of it – which is where we
want to be. Through practice, we gradually shift away from that self pre-occupation . . .
Thus, to move from a life of drama to a life of no drama, although it sounds extremely
dull, is what Zen practice is about.” (Nothing Special, 249) For me, relationships were
always high drama, which is why I stopped having them. They were painful, they hurt,
and they were all about Me. But if I could be vulnerable and lean into the pain rather
than defend my fearful ego against it, there was another way.

One brief Beckism completely reversed my thinking. I put it in my pocket, for


quick retrieval. “Sharp rocks are truly jewels.” (Nothing Special, 116) The metaphor
would be echoed by Dr. Ashok Bedi, Jonathan’s Indian psychoanalyst, as the sand grit
that makes the pearl in the oyster. More of this, later.

Bob had served as great practice. The door to a relationship, which I had closed
many years before, had been opened. Nine days later I met Jonathan.

At my sister Nancy’s frustrated insistence, fed up with my moaning about being


dumped, or deep sixtied, I called the recorded voice mails of men between 55 and 70 in
the audio personals of the Milwaukee Journal. (This was 2001, the pre-dawn of
Match.com and other online dating sites.) If the brief bios sounded interesting, I left my
name and telephone number: “Hi, my name is Pat; I teach at the University, am tall and
thin with streaked blonde hair. Oh, I love my books.” Seriously. This is exactly what I
said. Could I have been more idiotic? But they all called back the same day. How
desperate is that!

From January 22 to 24, I speed dated, meeting six or seven potentials for
afternoon coffee at the local Schwartz bookstores – an hour max. This experimental ego-
booster would only be temporary until my desirability could be re-established or not.
Then right back to the single life I had embraced and advocated to other women for so
many years pre Bob blip. After all, who needed the pain and agony of dating? After the
initial meeting, they all invited me on real dates. That was all the affirmation I needed.
Without a second thought, I turned them down. I felt pretty terrific. I wasn’t the drudge I
imagined myself to be. Now I could get on with my book on death and spirituality! The
nightmare of Bob – failing to have a healthy relationship and then being dumped for a
younger woman -- was over! except as comedy.

I didn’t plan on falling in love, at sixty. But then I didn’t count on meeting
Jonathan in the coffee shop of Columbia Hospital – which was adjacent to the University.
I had stopped for coffee on my way to my last meeting, at 3:30, January 24, 2001. I was
so over the desire to date that I didn’t even “do” my hair or put on mascara that morning.
But the energy in our initial encounter, and the conversation we had while he was waiting
for the results of his thyroid exam (talk about high romance), were inspiring, thrilling.

He was 56, intelligent, attractive, funny, articulate, unconventional, even quirky,


casually stylish in a Ralph Lauren way, and a very successful businessman, an
79

entrepreneur who had become a professor at the university. After selling his trade
publication company, a family company founded by his father, in 1994, he went to the
renowned international business school, IMD in Switzerland as an executive in residence.
He stayed for four years, at 55 receiving his PhD in family business. Now he was a
Professor, teaching entrepreneurship in the Business School at the University of
Wisconsin in Madison and writing his book on selling family companies.

I am embarrassed to write that I was immediately attracted to him. Few things


have surprised me more than this – I didn’t believe in love at first sight, just a romantic
convention of the movies that I had analyzed in my 1996 book on women and film, A
Fine Romance. (My preferred title, refused by the publisher, was the clever What
Cinderella and Snow White Forgot to Tell Thelma and Louise; it reveals my rather
arch take on romance, couples and marriage.) And if not unbelievable, then the
encounter was ludicrous, maybe even lunacy. After all, I had just turned sixty! Sixty
was hardly the age of loopy romance and exotic adventure. Particularly while reading
Charlotte Beck’s Everyday Zen.

When I told my daughter, Dae, in Manhattan, and my sister, Nancy, that “he
could be the one,” they thought I was in aftershock from the mysterious grand mal
seizure I had in New York a month earlier, which had landed me in the emergency room
of Presbyterian Hospital for Christmas Eve, unconscious again for several hours. When I
said I had agreed to visit him in Florida, where he had a condominium (I would stay in a
nearby hotel), they both freaked! Was I nuts? Who was this guy? He could be a serial
slayer of feminist professors. And he was a businessman, not a filmmaker or artist, my
preferred choices. This behavior was nothing like me. What was I thinking?

Their alarm was sensible and logical. And not just for medical reasons. Or for
using romance clichés like “he could be the one.” But three weeks after this first
encounter, I spent four days in New York, staying with Dae, and her husband, Larry, who
waited up for me when I came back from my dates with Jonathan. I confess to enjoying
the luxurious way he traveled; I was honored by the way he was courting me -- with
limousines and hotel suites and constant attention. And his desire for me, which he
expressed enthusiastically, increased my interest in him. My deep seated fear of being
abandoned (yes, I know, a much over-used cliché but still true) was soothed by his
endearments and declarations of love. 74

This man felt so familiar to me – our histories were so similar it was a bit
uncanny. We went to the same college, worked at the same television station, WKOW in
Madison, knew many of the same people, and now lived on the same street, Lake Drive,
fourteen blocks apart, in Milwaukee. Our children had attended the same school,
University School, and were of comparable ages. Our fathers had the same birthday and
sense of humor. It was as if we were old friends. He was charming, a bit eccentric,
offbeat and sophisticated, with a gregarious, playful personality. He was a mesmerizing
story-teller and had a very sexy smile. Nothing daunted him; nothing was impossible; he
took action effortlessly and perfectly. I loved his style, his energy. I was impressed by
his self-confidence, and his competence -- the way he saw opportunity and took hold of
80

life. I mentioned that I wanted to travel in Morocco. Less than two months later, there I
was, in Morocco, in what was rapidly becoming a committed relationship.

After this being sixty incident in Morocco, repeated with therapeutic glee
countless times by Jonathan at gatherings and parties (and chance encounters with
strangers, whether store clerks or waiters—“How old do you think she is?” -- he can be
relentless in pursuit of the good cause), I gritted my teeth, held his hand, found my own
extraordinary Jungian analyst in San Francisco, Dr. John Beebe – Jonathan had his
Jungian analyst, Dr. Ashok Bedi -- and began to take another look at my self. I went
from rejection through acceptance and, I like to imagine, on to at least a small celebration
of my 60 years. It took some time before I trusted his acceptance of my age. My interior
visual critic was ruthless. Honesty became a premium, and a challenge, given my
opening hedge about my age.

Jonathan was gregarious with all our guides and merchants, particularly the
Moroccan rug hawkers, establishing short relationships with strangers who happily
responded to his open, and amusing engagements. Jonathan was a character, a delightful,
considerate, generous character. The creativity of his competence and his tenacity will
always amaze me. I had been used to doing everything myself – what a luxury it was to
rely on another. Trust had been elusive for me. This feeling, which grew slowly in time,
was one of comfort and relief, of relaxing after an exhausting journey.

But I suspect the quality that initially attracted me as much as any other was
Jonathan’s interest in my intellectual work – we talked about how my writing on theories
of anxiety related to his work on selling family companies. My intellect didn’t threaten
him, rather, it fascinated him. In turn, I was equally entranced by his stories (and
practices) of business – and understood how he had come to be successful and respected,
without any of the pretensions that come with achievement and status.

At sixty, on January 24, 2001, at 2:30 p.m., my life took an abrupt turn, and within
six months, I began to live a coupled life that I had fled in 1974 and to entertain thoughts
of an institution, marriage, that I had disparaged for so long So . . .this is the “dating” of
the book, but it only came after a decade or more focus on death, a quest that was
personal and intellectual.
81

In retrospect, I think I was crying so uncontrollably in Morocco because I was


afraid – I didn’t know how to let my guard down, I didn’t know how to maintain my
independence and freedom with another, I didn’t know how to risk being vulnerable. To
be frank, I didn’t know how to be completely honest and I knew little about my emotions.
Feminism made me stronger but it had also made me arrogant and wary, if not downright
suspicious, of men. Feminism gave me a focus and a career. It gave me a voice and a
place in the academic world. It convinced me that my thoughts and my life and the lives
of women mattered. It made me truly independent. Love made me stronger in a different
way. It made me vulnerable, it humbled me. The rest of this book is about the distance
from that afternoon of shame and denial in Morocco, to being 60.
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CHAPTER 6:

The Sea Ranch and The Buddha

In the fall of 2001, I took a year’s sabbatical from the University and lived full
time in my house at Sea Ranch, California. I was, yikes, still 60. I had no job, no family,
no friends, no history in the area to anchor me. For the first time in my life, I was
without a built-in identity (as daughter, wife, or mother) or professional purpose. And
there was no place to escape, no multiplex or mall. I had set the perfect scene for a life of
simplicity and solitude. Now I had to live it.

Jonathan would fly out every weekend, from Madison, Wisconsin, where he was
a Professor in the Business School, roaring up the Pacific Coast Highway 1 in his
Porsche, making record time. His ardor captivated me: he missed only one weekend,
when all the planes in the U.S were grounded – after 9/11/2001. (But I was not alone that
historical day. Dae and Larry were visiting me from New York. The universe can be so
mysterious in its affection.)

Three hours north of San Francisco, The Sea Ranch nestles along nine
spectacular, windy miles of Northern California coastline, with its rugged bluffs, high
surf, and cold seas. It is a dramatic locale, right out of the movies. The “planned”
community was designed in the 1960s by architects who wanted to “live lightly on the
land,” preserving an aesthetic balance between the built and the natural environments.
Simple modern houses of redwood or cedar, in subdued brown hues, are interspersed
with nature preserves and walking trails. Soaring windows bring the outside in. The
Design Committee approves every tree, window, or nail. Property lines are not
demarked, they merge and flow into each other. Landscape style is natural and
indigenous. It cannot mark ownership.

Nature has not only provided a gorgeous backdrop, like living on a Hollywood
movie set, but it also serves as a barrier to development, as does the isolation and lack of
distraction.

Sea Ranch is accessible only after an hour’s drive along the ocean on the sharply
curving Pacific Coast Highway, or the narrow, steeply pitched Skaggs Spring Road
through the mountains. During the summer, a dense mist hovers over Sea Ranch like a
protective covering for this enclave of 1500 houses and 500 permanent residents, many
who left successful careers in their late 40s or early 50s to live here. Sometimes I think
Sea Ranch is where over-achievers go to decompress before they die. Or where
unrequited leaders can enact their unfulfilled professional desires as volunteers.

The nearby town of Gualala, population 685, also straddles Highway One. Along
this short stretch, there are two supermarkets, two video stores, two lawyers, two gas
83

stations, two hardware stores, one small gym, one local newspaper, the Independent
Coast Observer, one drug store, several hotels, restaurants, art galleries and gift shops.
Social interactions occur in the produce aisles at the Surf supermarket, at the P.O. Boxes,
at Trinks Bakery or the funky Café LaLa, and at events in the Gualala Art Center, built
from redwoods by locals and full timers. Volunteers also refurbished the movie theater,
thirty minutes north in Point Arena. Here, a bit bedraggled, the hippy 1960s are alive and
well in clothing, hairstyle, and the drug culture, just barely underground and aging.

On the first day of my new life in a very small town, I did two things: I joined the
gym, a small town social hub, and I attended the local meditation group. The bright little
gym was a perfect place for an older stranger to go, without feeling too awkward. Fitness
centers are public spaces in which one can be quiet, private. Yet the space affords the
support and promise of human interaction. I had been lifting weights since the early
1980s, when the Nautilus centers were first built. (But I don’t have anything near a taut
body.) I had discovered that lifting weights was the best way to deal with my high
anxiety. The after-sixty weight gain is another story.

I met Angela, a wiry trainer, who had married a Mexican immigrant and had two
children. Like so many along the northern coast, she struggled to make a living, shifting
from massage to fitness and then on to real estate and whatever. You just knew she
wanted more out of life than was coming her way. There was beautiful Jack, her workout
partner, a gay flight attendant. Soon came Edie, an award-winning young novelist with
her latest book being reviewed around the country. (Her abstract painter husband, Stan,
from Brooklyn and comically depressed, thought of San Francisco as a stetel.) David
was a tall, sweet red-haired local decorator, who worked in San Francisco. By night, he
was Amanda, an acerbic and familiar San Francisco drag queen who would go on to host
the fundraisers for the Gualala medical clinic, with his partner also in glittery drag.
Gordon, the best massage therapist on the coast, fancied himself a hands on healer and
on-deck therapist. (I began to wonder who wasn’t a massage therapist in Northern
California.) I met Mark, whose lower legs and several fingers had recently been
amputated after a death-defying bout with an infection he caught in Africa. He was a
wealthy real-estate developer from Reno. I loved his spouse, Fianna, who would die
from cancer. John Ford, a retired PhD toxicologist who testified in criminal trials, loved
to talk about western films. He became a reverend over the internet. The gym would be
sold eventually to a gay man from Georgia, who moved to the coast with his young
pharmacist boyfriend. What a motley, clever and interesting crew, not so far from the
eccentrics of academia.

Sea Ranchers are distinct from the “locals.” Elegant cuisine with paired wine
courses is the favored entertainment. These lively dinner parties begin at 6 pm and end
by 9 pm, an unwritten code. Our first time out, we pushed back our chairs after the
dessert course, as did everyone else. We were settling in for after dinner conversation.
Everyone else stood up, thanked the host and hostess, and left. We soon learned this was
not eat and run, but local custom. In case a guest doesn’t realize that the party is over at
9pm, one host will bring out the vacuum cleaner, or his bull horn, and make a public
announcement.
84

Often retired and older professionals, some Sea Ranchers become amateur
writers or painters, unless writing was one’s real profession. Quilter is the most popular
talent for Sea Ranch women who belong to quilting leagues; wood worker is the
provenance for Sea Ranch men, formerly corporate leaders or successful entrepreneurs,
who make beautiful bowls and furniture with expensive wood working tools in their
enlarged garages. Still photographer is the third preferred talent, the result of treks into
the Antarctic and other exotic journeys by retired couples, he photographing, she
cataloguing and scrap booking; and amateur painting, watercolor and oil, appeals to both
sexes. Local galleries show these “emerging” artists, now in their sixties and seventies
and selling their work to their friends and neighbors. There are also serious and secretive
hunters and gatherers – of mushrooms and huckleberries – who rarely shared their haunts.
These pursuits didn’t attract me, except art patron, at which I briefly excelled. 75 Here,
being a good neighbor and community volunteer, and being committed to environmental
causes, are the highest values, with a coveted accolade, “Sea Rancher of the Year.” Last
year’s winner is my AA sponsor. 76 I didn’t really fit in but I loved being 60 here.

There was little pretense, makeup, or current fashion and much tolerance, a
disdain of big egos, and a reverence for nature. This was just what I needed in my search
for humility and contentment. And the local eccentrics added just a touch of spice and
comfort to my everyday life. My small town world resembled that of Jessica Fletcher, in
Murder She Wrote, her neighbors, an extended family, with the older generation the
most influential, intelligent, and eccentric. The series was a celebration of Jessica's
globe-trotting independence through her work as a bestselling author. In this dream of an
active, productive old age, Jessica was always the best detective. She was not married
and was dedicated to her work which made her a famous celebrity with influential friends
around the world. In fact, Jessica had the best of both dreams of retirement -- she travels
internationally and she lives in a Maine village (actually filmed in Mendocino,
California) with a close-knit community of old, eccentric friends and neighbors who run
the small, quirky town.

The program was about self sufficiency, freedom, and the pleasures of work,
with a critique of the younger generation along the way. Often marriages were a surface
covering violence and hatred in families. The guest appearances of aging actors, familiar
to us from their old films and TV series, resembled old friends at a college reunion,
whom we recognized and then identified, connecting their aging bodies to their youthful
selves. The increase in cosmetic surgeries on aging faces made recognition more
difficult.

The irony that the coastal community of the series was actually on the west, not
east, coast, in Mendocino, California, only one hour from my home in Sea Ranch, is not
lost on me. Now I am retired, living on the coast, and writing a book, this book. I am
trotting around the world, from Tibet to Manhattan, Nepal, and China; I am running into
old friends along the way. Sea Ranch is a small town, a community of fascinating,
quirky neighbors, highly educated, kind and idiosyncratic in their own ways. Everyone
knows everyone else. All the news comes in the weekly newspaper, the ICO, the
Independent Coast Observer, or is conveyed on the treadmills and stair machines in the
85

gym. Being a neighbor and taking time for others is an art form. Unlike any other place
I have lived, here I am watched over, cared for, and recognized as a neighbor. No
wonder I loved this series. It prophesied my future. 77

The meditation group, like AA, crossed all lines – of age, education, and
economics. It met weekly for an hour at Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church, on and
around the altar. On my first visit, there were six or seven people sitting cross-legged in
front of a burning candle. A humble gathering, nothing fancy. I tiptoed in, as only a
klutz can do, noisily arranged my big meditation cushion, which squished, unfolded my
several shawls, swish swish, wrapped myself up, took a deep breath, and tried to settle
into meditation. This felt so good. A bell signaled the end of the forty-minute
meditation. Wow! Time had vanished. Then the others began reading from a book that
they passed around. I joined in the circle, noticing the author’s name, Charlotte “Joko”
Beck, and the title, Nothing Special. (You already know about Joko Beck.) The words
of the text were simple, clear. Just hearing them was uplifting. This was a Buddhist
meditation group. Yet it felt completely familiar. I would attend sessions whenever I
was in town.

Because northern California is filled with spiritual centers, many of the teachers
would come to Gualala for weekend retreats. Most were Buddhist. So I began to learn
about Buddhism – not to replace Gurumayi or Siddha Yoga but as knowledge to sit
beside them. Buddhism, like Siddha Yoga, began in India, with the same roots and
cultural traditions. What attracted me to these new texts, and there were many, was the
joy I experienced when reading them – my soul was thirsty for this knowledge. I try,
and often fail, and then try again, to apply these insights to my everyday life. But old
habits are hard to dislodge. I am willful and so emotional in my responses that this will
take more time than I have. And compassion was not a first principle or priority in my
western education as it is in Buddhism. But there is solace in the effort and wisdom in
the intention.

Buddhism doesn’t advocate what can be so off-putting to many about Western


religions or Muslim and Hindu practices – the centrality of God or deities for attaining
access to a spiritual or divine realm. (For AA members, God, particularly the Christian
concept of God, is often the greatest stumbling block of the Twelve Steps. AA allays fear
and difference by defining God as “a power greater than oneself,” or adding, after “God,”
the words, “as we understand him.”) Venerable Henapola Gunaratana writes that
Buddhism’s “flavor is intensely clinical, more akin to psychology than religion. It is an
ever-ongoing investigation of reality, of the very process of perception.” Buddhism is a
system, or a science, of the mind, “down to the very root of consciousness itself.” 78

Buddhism can be, therefore, very dense and complex. Older monks at the
monasteries in Tibet are, in essence, studying for their PhDs. While there is much to
learn in this 2600 year old tradition, it is also simple, for everyone, and to be used in
everyday life.
86

There are many schools of Buddhism. But one thing is constant: Almost every
book I read tells the founding story of Buddha’s journey from the luxury and illusion of
living in the palace as a prince to the reality of the world with illness, aging, and death.
Eventually I realized that this could also be my story -- one of developing spiritual
awareness of old age, sickness, and death and the freedom that can come from that
awareness.

“Prince Shakyamuni [Buddha] was confronted with the inevitability of old age,
sickness, and death,” and he wondered why these were an “inherent part of the human
condition.” 79 Although a young and wealthy man, he left the luxury of his palace and the
kingdom and “became a spiritual seeker in the traditional Indian way. He wanted to
resolve the very reasons for birth, sickness, old age, and death.” So he lived the life of a
wandering, penniless monk, begging, meditating and practicing rigorous asceticism. But
his questions were not answered. He was emaciated but not enlightened. He eventually
gave up strict asceticism and advocated what he called “the middle way.” He continued
to meditate. Finally he realized that all things are just as they are, yet we are not aware of
this. We concern ourselves with our “likes and dislikes, our gains and losses. (xi) But
even with gains, we suffer because we fear losing the gain. We hold onto objects,
experiences, feelings, and people with great attachment. Out of this attachment, we
create separateness.” Everything we “experience as self and environment are temporary
and constantly changing, and if we are attached to them they cause us suffering.” (xii)

I was holding on to so many things – particularly possessions; I could obsess over


my losses on the stock market, never satisfied with my gains, which I would fear losing.
I held on to old sad feelings of inadequacy, including a feeling of being separate from
everyone. I couldn’t shake my shame hang-over from my addiction, particularly the
emotional harm I believed I had caused Rob and Dae. Whenever they experienced any
disappointments, fear, or doubts, I blamed myself. I was still attached and hence still
fearful. As I continued to rehearse my past offenses and failures, I created my own
suffering . . . . in my brand new life, which had no remnants or reminders of my old and
over past, except in my mind.

Buddha summarized what he had learned in the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism,
one of his earliest teachings: “1) suffering, 2) the cause of suffering, 3) the cessation of
suffering, and 4) the path that leads to the extinction of suffering.”

Suffering is unawareness of the impermanent nature of all things. We are in


constant struggle, rejecting what we dislike and seeking what we desire. This “rejecting
and seeking is the cause of suffering.” (Master Sheng-yen, xii) Buddha (or Gotama, or
Gautama, other name s, from various countries, for Buddha) observed, “As one craving
after another took possession of his mind and heart, he noticed how human beings were
ceaselessly yearning to become something else, go somewhere else, and acquire
something they do not have. It is as though they were continually seeking a form of
rebirth, a new kind of existence, even constantly changing our position, having a snack,
talking to someone.” 80 (Armstrong 74/75)
87

Recovering addicts recognize these cascading desires, which are never satiating,
only endless. Beck calls them “emotion-thoughts” which we “fuss over.” I could never
do or be enough. I could never know enough, or publish enough or be recognized
enough. My thoughts, not the reality of my life, were the cause.

Buddha taught that suffering can be overcome, that if we realize the “fleeting
nature of all things,” suffering can be extinguished. The eightfold path is the way to do
this. For his “forty-five year ministry, the Buddha taught all that was necessary to reach
the goal of liberation.” And he advised his disciples not to depend on him for leadership,
but to “be islands unto your selves, refuges unto yourself.” 81

“For Gotama [Buddha], and others in India then, the prospect of living one life
after another was horrifying.” Today, many of us “feel that our lives are too short and
would love the chance to do it all again. But what preoccupied Gotama and his
contemporaries was not so much the possibility of rebirth as the horror of re-death. It
was bad enough to have to endure the process of becoming senile or chronically sick and
undergoing a painful death once, but to be forced to go through all this again and again
seemed intolerable and pointless.” (Armstrong 9) There had to be another answer to
existence, to the meaning of life. 82

Buddha found it in the Upanishads, 83 which emerged shortly before his birth. A
core teaching was that the highest, eternal reality was identical to one’s own inner Self
(Atman). (In Armstrong, 25) This belief is also the foundation of Hindu variations,
particularly Siddha Yoga. It eliminated the need for a priestly elite. Nirvana was to be
“found in the very heart of each person’s being.” (Armstrong, 86) 84

A memory changed Buddha’s (Gotama’s) spiritual quest – from one of rigorous


austerities, what we might see as deprivation. He remembered a moment of bliss when
he was a boy. It had come when he was sitting alone, in nature, and after he had felt the
pain of other creatures. It was “a rapture which takes us outside the body and beyond the
prism of our own egotism, unpremeditated joy, with nothing to do with craving and
greed.” “This surge of selfless empathy had brought him a moment of spiritual release.”
(Armstrong, 67) “Had his teachers been wrong? Instead of torturing our reluctant selves,
could we achieve enlightenment effortlessly and spontaneously?” (Armstrong, 68) The
answer is “yes,” if we have tamed our restless mind and emotions.

Stephen Batchelor, a former monk in “both the Zen and Tibetan traditions,”
points out that the four “truths of Buddha” are “not dogmas, simply beliefs. They must
be experiences.” (5) 85 If they were only beliefs, it would be a religion, not a spiritual
practice. He reiterates this point: “The dharma is not something to believe in but
something to do.” (17) 86

This notion of lived, experienced thought, knowledge taken into action, is


significant for me. There is an immense distance between what Batchelor calls
“something to believe in” versus “something to do,” between intellectual and experiential
knowledge. I call the latter wisdom – when our thoughts, our actions, and our words are
88

on the same track. I must confess that I believe in and have often professed meditation
more than I have actually meditated; there can be a misfire among my thoughts, my
words, and my actions. When my actions begin to speak louder than my words or
beliefs, then I will be a true meditator.

Batchelor takes the Buddha’s story and applies it to our everyday lives. 87 “We
too immure ourselves in the ‘palaces’ of what is familiar and secure. We too sense there
is more to life than indulging desires and warding off fears . . . we realize that the only
certainty in life is that it will end. We don’t like the idea; we try to forget that too. . .
Everyone collaborates in everyone else’s forgetting . . . We seek to arrange the details of
our world in such a way that we feel secure: surrounded by what we like, protected
against what we dislike. Once our material existence is more or less in order, we may
turn our attention to the psychomanagement of our neuroses. Failing which, the worst
anxieties can be kept at bay by a judicious use of drugs.” (23)

But none of this works for long. Pain, illness, loss, and death keep returning in
various forms. “We still don’t get what we want and still get what we don’t want. . . . We
may know this, but do we understand it?” We cover it up, forget it, and return to the
distractions of the world . . . “For were we to understand it, even in a glimpse, it might
change everything.” (23) When addicts have this aha moment, they begin to recover.

Although I have had intense spiritual experiences, and loved the tranquility that
came with meditation, everything for me had not changed. My emotions could be roiled
by my thoughts. Anger could best me by causing me to react unkindly. Self-pity and
feminist injustice/aggression could turn my wonderful life into a sad tale. Although I
knew that the problem came from my own mind, and was reflected in my roiled
emotions, I looked for someone or something to blame.

Because we were together most of the time after 2002, Jonathan was often the
perceived cause – by becoming irritated or angry or moody (which is only human). Or he
was a tease – a brat, actually, who would continue to poke until he got a response (which
can be inhuman). At these rascally moments, he was the bad boy with a stick prodding
the frog to jump. Ignoring him never worked, he continued until I eventually responded
negatively and hence, hurtfully. Then he would feel shame, and I would feel irritated by
his depressed mood – and my irritation would trigger his – and around and around we
would go -- all this from nothing! And about nothing! It (nothing) could be exhausting,
it could escalate into a full-force blowup. The key is that our dramas were about nothing
-- in the present. “Nothing” was a deep well of past injuries and outmoded emotional
responses. Which is why nothing was our biggest problem. And one of which we
initially had little awareness. Not surprisingly, we could rarely remember what “nothing”
was. Why? Because it truly was nothing.

This nothing solidified into a series of skirmishes. We might play tit for tat,
matching point for counterpoint, or try to establish who did what first, or who did it the
most or the loudest. The scenes could be initially playful, always over nothing, but the
nothing could escalate into a ferocious storm of yelling, threatening to leave, and then
89

walking out, 88 and always coming back, immediately. How could words so affect me? I
knew about maya, about the illusion of language. I had been on a spiritual path for years,
what happened to my discipline? Within seconds, I could morph into a screaming
banshee. Where was the serene meditator? The loving partner? The gentle mother?

My beloved, my relationship, could be a sharp rock, indeed. When I defended my


position, fortified with self-righteousness, I couldn’t see the jewel. Or anything else
except my distraught emotions. Elegant dinners, in lovely venues, were spoiled by my
interior hurt and reactive anger. But when I listened, remained quiet, or apologized for
my furor, my rage would melt, and I could see, with compassion rather than my lust for
justice, the jewel that was us, or the jewel that was me, or at least the charm of the
restaurant. I began to see that all my years of ardent spiritual practice had primarily been
focused on my self-contained actions – initially the practices of meditating, chanting, and
selfless service. I had worked on accepting others, on having no expectations or
attachment to the outcome of my actions, overcoming my fears, including fear of public
speaking by accepting frequent engagements; and letting go of my attachment to my
children and to my parents. Although I had faced death, it is, after all, inevitable, neither
a choice nor a personal failure. In certain ways, my practice had been all about Me --
granted a Me with higher aspirations.

Buddhism is all about reactions – and emotions – what Beck calls emotion-
thoughts. It is a rigorous science through which we can train and discipline the mind,
body, and spirit to literally see and react to the world and everything in it with equanimity
and compassion rather than destructive emotions. Buddhism importantly includes you,
the you that comprises our mutual humanity and prevents us from being separate, a
deathly and lonely state. And it took a relationship with Jonathan for me to become
aware of this – that you and I are one, and the same.

Eventually I would see the larger reason for this newfound knowledge – as an
antidote to my self-sufficient way of living alone. Whenever I would experience
upsetting emotions, I usually had them in private. My emotions were secret, or so I
imagined. When my old computer crashed, losing 200 pages of my book, High Anxiety,
I completely freaked out – only my dogs BP and Baggins saw or heard the tirade. When
my father had criticized me as I drove him to the hospital for his regular blood
transfusions, I could wallow in self-pity, but no one would know. I could be irritable, I
could be angry and hurt – without consequences. My reactions (and pride) belonged
mainly to me. As long as I lived alone, the shame of experiencing what I believed to be
negative emotions, particularly rejection, hurt, and anger, was manageable. Only my
daughter, on the telephone in New York, could hear through my pretense.

But when I began a 24/7 relationship, Jonathan would react to my reactions –


sometimes with irritation or hurt. And given his narcissistic bent, he took most things
personally. Initially his responses bewildered me – I was just talking to myself out loud
(which I had been doing for fifteen years! thank you very much!) Or, I’m allowed to
express my feelings towards inanimate objects like my computer, aren’t I? Or I would
deny my emotions, pretending they didn’t exist. No! Of course not! I’m not angry!
90

But he saw through my denials of hurt or anger. He would accuse me of being


“inauthentic,” which made him even more upset. It was initially so infuriating to have no
private space for excess or negative emotions. “Yes, I’m furious but it will pass if we
ignore it,” just wouldn’t cut it with him. To be honest, I often didn’t know what emotion
I was feeling other than he was over-reacting and I was being treated unjustly, unfairly.
It was an intense pain, almost claustrophobic, like being buried alive. And because I
viewed these emotions as illegitimate, base feelings, I couldn’t acknowledge them, at
least out loud. But I did know how to childishly, furiously, act them out.

The minefields of emotions that would play out caught me by surprise. I


regularly packed my bags and left, dragging my little, reluctant dog, Rishi, after me. But
I always came back, sometimes minutes later. I didn’t want to leave him, I just wanted to
escape my own skin, my own shame at being less than noble or kind or tolerant or
perfect. I hated failing. I couldn’t deal with criticism. And he judged, as a matter of
course. I couldn’t withstand another’s anger at me. And his hurt was expressed as anger.

Or Jonathan would come after me. Which is what I wanted and needed –
reassurance that he did love me, that he was at fault, not me. I hated being wrong and
being the bad guy. How could the martyr be wrong, or the villain? So much sound and
fury and raw pain coming from within me. And from within him. Our pasts could be
very heavy. Where did this anger and hurt come from? Where had it been hiding all
these years? It took two of the finest Jungian psychoanalysts, Dr. John Beebe in San
Francisco, and the extraordinary insights of Dr. Ashok Bedi in Milwaukee, to explain
these destructive, warring emotions.

Jungian psychoanalysis, my fourth amateur knowledge is remarkably compatible


with Buddhist (and Hindu) philosophy, particularly regarding the stages of life and the
great value of old age as a time of spiritual endeavor. (Dr. Ashok Bedi, Jonathan’s
psychoanalyst who came from a lineage of Indian gurus, or teachers, has entwined these
two systems, enriching one by elaborating the other. 89) But I must confess that I was not
drawn to reading Jung as I had previously been to Freud. His prose was dense and my
brain was tired of working so hard. So my knowledge is secondary and cursory, just
enough to make sense of my analyst’s commentary on my life. 90

Jung, the loyal disciple and heir of Freud, broke with him in 1913. The reasons
were personal and intellectual. Jungian analysis was developing substantial differences
from Freudian, 91 including the role of the analyst, which Jung saw as involved and
participatory. Rather than seeing symptoms as a “form of futile suffering,” Jung saw
them as “an invaluable opportunity to become conscious and to grow.” Symptoms were
the “growing pains of a soul struggling to escape fear and find fulfillment.” (125) Dr.
Bedi greeted each repeated sad tale of our conflicts with a joyous “Wonderful! This is
great! Your souls are involved in a dance with each other. Do you want my feedback?”
Unfailingly, this was always his positive response to dark moods and anguished voices.
It was hard to hold onto feelings of tragic, hopeless, woe is me injustice in the face of
such authoritative, intelligent optimism. Dr. John Beebe, my shrink, took our ragged
91

scenes as clashes between our types which he would then unravel, like an intuitive
magician.

For Dr. Bedi as for Jung, “Pain is a valuable spur to self-examination, an


incentive to ‘wake-up’.” The Jungian analyst “encourages the patient to participate in his
suffering,” to “confront its meaning and mobilize the healing power of the unconscious.”
(128) Which sounds remarkably similar to Buddhist teachings, not surprising given
Jung’s fascination with Eastern philosophy, including the I Ching. Jung had a deep
spiritual (not religious) bent and believed that “the more secular, materialistic, and
compulsively extraverted our civilization became, the greater the unhappiness.” (129)

Jungian analysis encourages us to accept “full responsibility for our


circumstances.” (128) Each of our therapists traced problems and solutions back to their
respective client. As a result, I loved joint sessions with Dr. Bedi, and Jonathan loved
sessions with my therapist, Dr. Beebe. Jonathan would be amazed that he would get off
so easily, for something he had initiated. Or that I would not retaliate against Beebe’s
admonitions. True, I would try to hedge and wiggle out of accepting full responsibility,
always seeking qualifications and offering explanations. But blame, like partial
responsibility, just wouldn’t fly with either therapist. “The real therapy only begins when
the patient sees that it is no longer father and mother who are standing in [her] way, but
[herself.]” (131) 92

While Freud looked backward, often to infantile sexuality as a cause, “Jung’s


tendency was to look forward,” to goals. Not surprisingly, given his recurring and
painful cancer of the mouth and use of cocaine and morphine, Freud feared old age. For
Jung, old age is a continuation of our development. He called this lifelong process
individuation – a confrontation “between the conscious subject who experienced and
struggled to survive, and the unconscious ‘other,’ in the personalities and powers that
forced themselves on him.” (38) This “heightened consciousness” of what was
unconscious sounds similar to the Buddhist notion of “awareness.” When he was 82,
Jung wrote that “the only events of my life worth telling are those when the imperishable
world erupted into this transitory one . . . All other memories of travels, people . . . have
paled beside these interior happenings.”(43)

The thing about death that impressed Jung the most was “the lack of fuss the
unconscious makes of it. Death seemed to him to be a goal in itself, something to be
welcomed.” (45) While this is diametrically different from Freud, who feared death, it is
also different from Buddhism. Whereas Jung’s ultimate question was whether we are
related to something infinite or not, for Buddhists the answer could only be affirmative, if
they even asked the question. (42)

In 1921, Jung published Psychological Types – an area of his complex, varied


theory in which my analyst, Dr. John Beebe, is a noted authority. 93 Jung’s types refer to
the way we perceive and respond to reality and how “people differ in using the four
components.” (85) 94 My analysis deals with the collision and interplay between
Jonathan’s and my types. Beebe tells me that I am an extroverted intuitive, and that
92

Jonathan is an introverted feeling type – that we are diametrically oppositional. If I can


understand his type, “I will have the keys to the kingdom,” and there is nothing I will not
be able to grasp. Our opposition continues in what Jung calls auxiliary functions.
Thinking is my auxiliary function and sensation (dealing with the logistics of the outer
world) is my inferior function, my real weak spot. Jonathan’s is thinking. And sensation
is his auxiliary function. But the good news is that because of our typologies, we are also
predictable. Hence, our squabbles can be dissected by an authority versed in Jung’s
types. Ergo, Dr. John Beebe. The intellectual explanation of what triggers pain and
conflict causes both to disperse, like popping bubbles or balloons. Amazing!

For four years, we regularly called Beebe and Bedi every week, sometimes adding
joint-emergency telephone sessions, CPR interventions to resuscitate a momentarily
drowning relationship, huddling around one of our cell phones on speaker, shouting our
various complexes (“Can you hear me?”), detailing personal arguments (“Are you still
there?”), while walking through some airport, or freeway gas station (“Hello, Dr.
Bedi/Beebe”), or riding in cabs, never noticing how strange this must have seemed to our
drivers or passersby, hearing intimate details declared in public space, with no awareness
of being overheard. (“Yes, Dr. Beebe, Jonathan’s mother‘s rage.”). Emotionally
distressed and sometimes furious, we competed for the status of injured party, both
wanting to be right, or to receive credit, and oblivious to everything except the need to
resolve our misunderstanding and our respective pain. In retrospect, like all of our
arguments and scenes, these are very, very funny.

Very gradually, with the weekly guidance of two psychotherapists and the
collaboration of Jonathan, I began to gain awareness of and take responsibility for my
reactions – for the emotions they unleashed and then unloaded on others. 95 Gradually I
am defusing their old familial sources and patterns – particularly my intense response to
anger or rebuke from men, a response locked in during my childhood with a good father
who also, and often, yelled, slammed doors, and stormed out. As these reactions are
being slowly tamed, I am changing, at last. I had not been able to do this alone. It took a
partner who wanted what he calls “emotional intimacy.” This also meant practicing the
principles of Buddhism (and Siddha Yoga) in my everyday life instead of simply
enjoying them in my thoughts. (There is physical pleasure in reading books about
spirituality, a soothing, enriching intellectual delight which can become a substitute for
practicing spirituality.)

The key to all the various schools of Buddhism is that “the realization of the
Buddha’s teaching is not an intellectual or philosophical pursuit . . . it must be put into
practice in daily life.” “Only in this way can it free us from the fetters of disturbing
emotional afflictions and suffering, and enable us to realize enlightenment.” As the
American Buddhist scholar, Robert Thurman, tells us: 96 “The enlightenment of the
Buddha was not primarily a religious discovery. It was not a mystical encounter with
‘God’ or a god . . .The Buddha’s enlightenment was rather a human being’s direct, exact,
and comprehensive experience of the nature and structure of reality. . . ‘Buddha’ is not a
personal name; it is a title, meaning ‘awakened,’ ‘enlightened.’” (9) 97
93

Similarly to Siddha Yoga, any of us can attain enlightenment, or Buddhahood.


And we can do it in this lifetime, not after death, in some other place, but right here and
now, no matter who we are, or what we have done, no matter how smart we are or are
not. It is there for everyone – if we can see it. 98

With the Buddhist meditation group as my touchstone, I spent the fall semester
in Sea Ranch trying, and usually failing, to write this book. I had an alliterative title, On
Death and Dating, but I had little to say about the latter.

We were very busy just being together and becoming a couple. And very restless.
He loved great hotels, and I loved the adventure of new places. We both enjoyed being
with our children, doubled for each of us. We wandered from place to place, sometimes
productively, always enjoyably. In December of 2001, Jonathan arranged for us to spend
two weeks on the CEO fast track of the Mayo Clinics – in Jacksonville, Florida and
Rochester, Minnesota -- seeking a diagnosis for my mysterious grand mal seizures.
During my four-day “fasting” test, he settled into a corner of my hospital room, nesting,
creating a miniature office complete with computer, printer, and hanging files. He loved
“playing office,” his favorite game as a child, and served as a gracious host to the
battalion of specialists who were trying to diagnose the source of my ailment.

The team of doctors concluded that rather than epilepsy, I had a rare pancreas
disorder – producing an excess of insulin that would devour my blood sugar, precipitating
grand mal seizures. They strongly recommended surgery to remove a section of my
pancreas; I declined. I knew about the pain and risks of abdominal surgery from a 1982
near death experience and six weeks in the hospital. I would be careful about my diet.
And the disease has abated, at least when I don’t have sugar.

In October, we had visited Hawaii to meet Jonathan’s parents, George and


Dorothy, and his brother, and sister-in-law, Dave and Kathleen, from whom he had been
estranged. The welcome we received from this witty and loving foursome was generous
beyond my imagination. This began a joyous process of reconciliation and healing. It
started with a simple question I asked Jonathan. “What do you want? A loving
relationship with your brother or do you want to be right?” He picked love and stuck to it
(with a few small relapses of defensive righteousness). The reconciliation was fostered
by his parents’ acceptance of the past and of me, and Dave and Kathleen’s graciousness
and hospitality. They included us in their social events, along with hosting fabulous
parties, and making us feel completely at home. Bygones became just that. I loved them
all, and I will never forget their loving acceptance of me. We visited Honolulu every
other month. In January of 2002, after renting a home in Kailua for six weeks, we almost
moved to Oahu. Fortunately (or not), our bid on a beach house in Kailua was not
accepted. After Jonathan’s mild heart attack in Honolulu, we returned to Silicon Valley
and bought a condominium in Menlo Park, near Stanford University’s medical center, 3
½ hours from Sea Ranch. We found superb specialists for our respective medical
problems – Jonathan loved Rob’s cardiologist. And we knew we had found the perfect
climate and setting for our old age.
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Now we each owned a house in California – hedging out bets in case things didn’t
work out. We lived together, economically separate but equal. That summer of 2002,
wanting to live fulltime in California, not Wisconsin, I retired from the University, sold
my condominium in Milwaukee, and moved everything to my home in Sea Ranch. To be
honest, Jonathan and his brother Dave, with great perception, called me on my fear of
relationships, forcing an outcome. I made the decision to leave the University and my
hard-earned, rather plush job and status quickly, so that I would not change my mind.
Commitment still terrified me, being equated with imprisonment as it had been for so
many years.

Meanwhile, Jonathan had given his wife all the personal property in his divorce.
And he had given up more than one-half of his wealth, no small sum. The divorce was
emotionally messy, expensive, with vitriol to spare. Although he had few personal
possessions, Jonathan hauled truckloads of “business” to his new office in Gualala,
California. He also kept his movie size popcorn popper, the first prop for our home
movie theater. We began the process of remodeling and redecorating two houses, with
two talented gay decorators – no small task and sometimes a tense one.

Jonathan’s mind worked deductively; mine was strictly inductive. Jonathan


worked through a step by step, logical process, I used intuition and randomness. That I
would begin before I had a plan for the whole drove him nuts. So did my making
mistakes and then returning them to the store. He began to think I had a distribution
business. To me, he spent too much time talking and meeting. I wanted to get on with it!
Impatient as I was, I always trusted his sense of style; he has superb taste and is highly
creative. My indecisiveness loved deferring the final choice to him. In these instances,
his judgments served me very well. Eventually, I would realize the great value of his
commentary on me, what Dr. Beebe would call “the eyes in the back of my head.”

Life was busier. Our respective constituencies had doubled. Between us, there
were two parents, four adult children, four in-laws, two siblings, Dave and Nancy, along
with Kathleen, and, since 2002, three beautiful granddaughters: Remi, Siena, and
Alessandra. Regular travels to Denver, where Jonathan’s son, David, lived, and Tulsa,
where his daughter, Amy had just moved, began to heal old familial wounds. We
regularly spent time in New York with Dae and Larry, who loved and admired Jonathan.
He would become their business mentor. Rob immediately liked and respected him, and
would come to love him. Amy would warm up to me eventually, but this took some
painful time for both of us. She is an extraordinary woman, teacher, and mother.

Jonathan and I were buddies, we were partners, we hung out, we made new
friends, and we traveled – together, often for 24/7. 99 Our days began with coffee, The
New York Times, and morning talks in bed; they ended with books in bed. We read
sections to each other, sharing thoughts and encounters from the day. We wrote together,
we went to movies, plays, AA meetings, and lectures together, we decorated two houses
together, we spent time with our adult children together, and we cared for our
granddaughters together. Jonathan was infinitely more patient than I was; he loved
95

childcare and child play. I loved the girls and looked forward to their growing
independence and conversation. We all loved Disney cruises in the middle of winter. 100

Jonathan and I also had therapy, alone and together. Why? Because along with
the intense love came arguments. And Jonathan was, by nature, hypercritical. And, by
nature, I was not at all a perfectionist, along with being unaware of others around me.
We had skirmishes, squabbles, and full-scale battles. If they occurred on the way to a
dinner party, we would turn around sometimes three or four times, drive back home,
decide to go, turn around, etcetera , before arriving in some dizzy state of frazzled
detente. Then we would experience a usually delightful dinner party. The ride home was
always touch and go – the slightest tinder could ignite into a forest fire. Several times I
almost walked off airplanes (to Honolulu), or refused to get on board (in Japan). High
drama indeed. Why? The simplest reason is that I had lived alone for so many years and
had no skills for long-term intimacy and interaction. And although Jonathan had been
married for 35 years to the same woman, he had serious unsolved issues around women,
and had escaped from confronting them in his own deceptive way.

Sea Ranch is about the present – in California, with new friends, and without a career
and the identity that had accrued from thirty years as a Professor. At 60 my life abruptly
shifted directions, allowing me to go back and clear up old interior wounds, along with
granting me companionship, adventure, and intimacy. Dating is about aging and
acceptance, of another and of myself. Dating, like motherhood, is about unconditional
love. And it is about the sheer pain that comes with change – the change that it takes to
truly accept myself and another. This pain is a step on the way to joy and freedom, this
pain, if acknowledged and endured, transforms into gratitude.

This is Charlotte Beck’s pain, the sharp rocks; and it is also the passionate anguish
Rumi wrote about. Acknowledging, embracing, or leaning into pain is a key to Eastern
traditions of meditation and philosophy. This is a far cry from the Western pursuit of
pain avoidance and the denial of death that drives consumer/drug culture and most of our
lives. For years, I tried to build up my ego, only to learn that it was also the source of my
fear, anxiety, and anger. Solution: turn around, face it, and walk through fear rather than
run away from it. This can be like a walk through fire, only to discover at the end that the
fire didn’t burn, it was only burning in my mind.

Being Nobody Going Nowhere, like Nothing Special, is a perfect title for this
process. 101 The sense of ego is miniscule, humble. The author, Ayya Khema, was
German-Jewish and lived through the Second World War. 102 Afterward, she became a
Buddhist nun and founded a Theravada monastery in Australia, despite the fact that this
tradition “denied her full ordination.” She became an activist, founding several Buddhist
centers in Sri Lanka and Germany, and teaching around the world, including California,
until her death in 1997. 103

Khema describes one persistent pattern of my life: “In daily living, we try to get
rid of unpleasant feelings by getting rid of the people who trigger them in us, by trying to
get rid of situations, by blaming others instead of looking at the feeling . . . This reaction
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of ours, trying to keep the pleasant and trying to get rid of the unpleasant, is a circular
movement . . .It doesn’t have a doorway . . . [it is] a never-ending circle. The only
opening leading out . . . is to look at the feeling and not to react.” (31)

Not react? Not defend the injustice of it all? Not blame my parents, my economic
circumstances, my former husband, my job, or even child rearing? Or find an escape
hatch or clause out of a painful situation? Or hedge the truth? Deny? Cry? How would
not reacting be possible? I have left so many relationships behind, I have run away from
so many skirmishes with people – I got rid of, or iced, people who triggered any
unpleasant thoughts. Rarely did I ever “look at the feeling.” I used to take valium to
avoid any “unpleasant feelings.” (32) And thus, in one “situation” after another, I
repeated the same behavior, trapped in a circular logic.

Khema’s solution is so simple, so easy, and it doesn’t cost anything. (Initially, it


can hurt.) Khema suggests: “There’s no one to blame for the feelings that arise. These
are just feelings that arise and cease. [I love the comfort of “just feelings,” without the
emotional charge, without the negative punch, without the high drama and shame.]
Watch the feeling and know. Unless you stand back and look at an unpleasant feeling
and not dislike it you will never be able to effect a change.” Our mind will be like “a
muddy driveway on which the car goes back and forth and the ruts get deeper and deeper.
. . When we see that we don’t need to pay any attention to our thoughts, it becomes easier
to drop them. When we see that we don’t have to react to feelings, it is much easier to
drop the reaction.” (33)

I don’t need to “pay attention to my thoughts?” I will not die from my feelings?
Where did I get the idea that not to react was subservience, timidity, or even passive
aggression? And that to flare up in a ready retort or defense or justification was a sign of
courage and openness? Just “drop the reaction?” A sweet command indeed. But for me,
trained like Pavlov’s drooling dog, no small task.

My solution to painful feelings was to have an emotional outburst and then


escape, which sometimes took the form of shopping. I simply covered up or replaced one
feeling with another. These quick fixes never lasted. Why? The causes of human
problems are: “wanting pleasurable sensations, wanting the gratification, often not
getting them and never being able to keep them.” The first step of letting go of wanting
is “to sit with an uncomfortable sensation. Not wriggling and shifting around, not trying
to get out of this discomfort by changing position. There is no wriggling out of suffering.
Suffering cannot be eliminated in this way. The only out of it is to let go of craving. One
can’t wriggle out of craving. One really has to let go it.” (60)

We can practice not wiggling out of suffering in meditation. The discomfort in


our sitting positions “gives us a wonderful opportunity to learn about our sensual desires .
. .” One leg will hurt, I move, then the next leg cramps, I shift direction . . . etc. Or one
entertainment finishes, boredom sets in, I want another. “It’s a lost cause.” (61)

---------------
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Being in a “serious relationship” (a few steps above “dating”), which is where I


now found myself, was the last thing I would have imagined for my future as an old
woman. My future would be living alone or in an ashram. And these are noble choices
for those who already know how to have close, intimate relationships. I didn’t. Nor did I
know much about real tolerance and vulnerability. In addition, my deep-seated belief in
my own inadequacy and unattractiveness were dark notions that needed to surface in
order to be removed. It took dating and then a relationship to do this. Now this might
sound paradoxical, to say nothing of masochistic. Or sadistic. Perhaps. But it is also
about experiencing and unraveling the mystery of many women’s lives – how to truly
love another and not give your self away – that I have spent my professional life
analyzing in film and on TV, and in my personal life escaping.

Initially, I had two ingrained obstacles to overcome – obstacles which I saw as


achievements. I think they might be typical of women of my generation, women who
were young in the 1950s and 1960s.

The struggle for me has been to become the author of my own life. I wanted to
write my own script, as well as being the lead and directing the show. I was not
comfortable as a supporting character, I liked center stage. (And when I had it, I also
feared it and often didn’t know what to do with it.) Maybe that’s why I admired and
wrote about “I Love Lucy.” And other strong women who took center stage – Katherine
Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Rosalind Russell, Amelia Earhart, Babe Didrikson Zaharias. I
loved paying my own way and being economically independent. In fact, like the early
feminist, Charlotte Perkins, I believed this was the only way to truly become
independent. Unlike Perkins, I thought I had escaped the narratives of others, including
my mother’s and the 1950s, and had succeeded in charting my own idiosyncratic course,
guided by spiritual principles.

Herein lies the rub – spiritual principles: the ambition, competition, and
compulsion to be center stage diminish or are lifted. As the mind becomes still and the
ego smaller, quieter, the personality can recede, move offstage to the wings, witness
rather than perform, watch rather than be watched. Lucy could never do this, even when
the series left New York and moved to the quiet suburbs of Connecticut near the end of
the run. Lucy and Ethel, now in their Pendleton country clothes, created a new upper
middle class stage, replete with suburban decor and chicken farming. But there was only
one star – Lucy.

For the rest of her life, as a person and a character, she appeared only as Lucy,
with her flaming, upswept red hair, arched eyebrows, and false eyelashes framing wide
eyes. In her sixties and seventies, her voice became huskier, almost sultry, but everything
else was the same. Older now, like Lucy, could I let myself, unlike Lucy, age, with
acceptance? Could I give up my metaphorical center stage? Could I take a back row and
quieter seat? Could I let someone else write at least part of the show? Like Jonathan, or
Dae, or Rob? Could I change? After all, dating, like death, is co-authored. Dating could
be harder because the co-author is human, not divine.
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The second obstacle: Unlike Lucy, who was rarely alone, I also believed that
living alone was the only way for me to be not just independent but free -- for me a very
high and elusive attainment. Could I adapt to the constant presence of someone else?
Could I survive all the talk that comes with another person? Their quirks, habits,
ailments, and sounds? Would I ever get to sleep? Or find time to meditate or write?
What about reading in bed at night? My habits were deeply ingrained after almost thirty
man-less (and thirteen child-less) years. 104 I carried on cogent conversations with myself
and answered my own questions, truly enjoying my own company. Coupled with my
independence, these could be irksome traits indeed for a partner, particularly a forceful
personality who was used to being in charge (with a CEO’s assistants and secretaries) and
who also loved center stage.

Fortunately, I had learned some things about a relationship from my years of


spiritual practices. Love is the highest value and goal. And I loved this wonderful man.
I could see the goodness and purity that is Jonathan. I had frequent glimpses of his gentle
soul, his fragile sense of himself, deep within his Chairman of the Board traits. I had
found a good, kind man. And although he was not a meditator, we were both on a
spiritual path. I had much to learn and to gain from him.

In Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor’s epigram is from Marcel


Proust, and it perfectly captures the life of the Buddha as a model for all of our lives.
“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through
the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our
wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.” 105

The rest of this book is about my journey through the wilderness of emotions, a
sometimes frightening place that came into view only after being reflected in the mirror
of a relationship.

I would understand Marge’s comments when I began dating – “now the work
can really begin.” After making the same mistakes, over and over, I became aware that
the pain I felt did not come from Jonathan. It came from within me. I could indulge it
and act it out, or I could let it just be until it passed. It took time for me to realize that my
emotions were not inevitable triggers to a response, that I had a choice: to up the ante
and inflict more pain, or not, to let my hurt and anger turn into reactions and actions, or
not. I love Proust’s image of wisdom as our point of view of the world, a point we reach
“at last.” There is such relief in “at last.” But “at last” can take years for some of us.

An Afterthought

In Nora Gallagher’s Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith, 106 I
identified with her description of a fight with Vincent, her partner: “It was one of those
stupid marital fights in which things escalate so fast you’re left with your head spinning,
and words come out of your mouth you cannot believe. Worse, I provoked it.” This
could be my story: “I work against myself. I enact and reenact old, painful patterns . . .
In the early days of therapy, I thought, Well, now I know about this, I’ll change. To my
99

astonishment, it was nearly impossible. I had formed a complete self around


unconscious, simple rules: I won’t get what I need; I have to solve everyone’s problems;
it’s better to build up resentment, provoke a fight, and then lick my wounds in private.”
(136)

Gradually, through therapy, Jungian analysis, she “found an antidote to poison.”


“These experiences built up in me, into memory, making a place and a voice inside
myself that was less anxious, more forgiving, and had a longer sense of time. But it was .
. . painstakingly slow . . . My new behavior got good results, but it necessitated a new
identity . . . if the old rules didn’t hold, how was I to understand my life?” (137)
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CHAPTER 7:

An Asian Odyssey: Buddhist Boot Camp

Centuries ago, Buddhism spread from India throughout Asia, taking two general
forms: Mahayana and Theravada. “Mahayana Buddhism shapes the cultures of China,
Korea, Japan, Nepal, Tibet, and Vietnam. The most widely known of the Mahayana
systems is Zen, in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the U.S. The Theravada system of
practice prevails . . . in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Laos and Cambodia.” 107 The most
significant difference is that “The more popular Mahayana school virtually deified . . .
the Buddha as an eternal presence in the lives of the people.” “Theravada stress[ed] the
importance of yoga.” (Armstrong, Buddha, xxiii)

From 2003 to 2006, Jonathan and I traveled to all these Asian countries,
excepting Sri Lanka, and adding Bhutan. The experience was magical and deeply
moving. That our travels paralleled the historical spread of Buddhism is, in retrospect,
more than coincidence. But it was not something we consciously planned or even
realized at the time. We simply felt that these were the places we needed to explore and
experience. Were we simply curious tourists or were we on a pilgrimage? I think a bit of
both – the quest for adventure mingled with the quiet sense of pilgrimage.

We visited hundreds of Buddhist temples and monasteries -- spinning prayer


wheels, pranaming (kneeling and bowing), meditating, and making offerings. The exotic
and the sacred merged in these historical and holy places. Jonathan engaged countless
saffron robed monks living in and tending these sites in conversations. For him, language
was never a barrier. In all the countries, the monks ended up smiling, or laughing, as did
the children who would inevitably surround him. He always left an offering, along with
joy and good will.

As I look back, the guidance was so subtle and soft that I failed to notice. But
maybe the universe’s plan only emerges in retrospect for some of us.

In 2003, we traveled with a small group of twelve, led by Geographic


Expeditions through the Himalayas in Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. When the Chinese
cancelled our airline tickets out of Tibet, we made a night time trek in SUVs through the
Himalayas, walking across the border to Nepal. In 2004 we spent six weeks in Vietnam,
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand, initially with a CEO group in Hanoi
and Saigon. The journey back through the aftereffects of the Vietnam War, or as the
Vietnamese call it, the American War, paralleled the Iraq War (another American War),
which we watched in our hotel rooms on CNN’s international channel in a devastating
juxtaposition.
101

One thing was very clear – Vietnam is on the entrepreneurial move, with more
than one-half of the population 25 years or younger. They could soon own all of
Southeast Asia. In 2005, we marveled at China’s economic and architectural growth,
visiting the major cities and its huge dam project, the Three Gorges, an explosion of
construction that is a wonder of the 21st Century. As in Vietnam, we spent the first of
three weeks with CEO in Shanghai. In several countries, we took long boat trips on
famous historical rivers. We briefly visited Korea and Japan, only staying in the major
cities. 108

These sacred places would touch both of us in ways we couldn’t imagine or


initially detect. We entered a period of emotional boot camp, a Buddhist training ground
in awareness of our emotions, and of our untrained reactions to each other. As
educational, delightful, and moving as all these glamorous and eye-opening adventures
were, the distances were shorter and less dramatic than our inner journeys – which were
revelatory, sometimes painful, often very funny, and always conciliatory. Acceptance
and surrender are not for sissies; neither are patience, humility, and tolerance, which take
the courage of warriors.

While we both had great compassion for the suffering inflicted on these
countries by war and despotic rule, we sometimes had little compassion or empathy for
each other – we could become encased, or trapped, in our respective dramas of imagined
hurt and rejection – imprisoned in our pasts. That we visited famous war prisons in
Vietnam and Cambodia is no coincidence.

In Tibet, we were allowed only one small suitcase. But our emotional baggage
was heavy with old storylines: Jonathan’s history with women and mine, without men.
Fortunately, we didn’t travel alone. Along with our local tourist guidebooks, the first
items packed in my suitcase were my spiritual books, my companions and my teachers.
The authors include the Buddhist nuns and monks Ayya Khema, Pema Chodron, Stephen
Batchelor, Charlotte Jocko Beck, and Thich Nat Hanh, along with the other Buddhists I
will cite. Pema Chodron, her teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, Stephen Batchelor, Master
Sheng-en, Charlotte Jocko Beck, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Daisatz Suzuki belong to the
Mahayana tradition. Ayya Khema, Christopher Titmus, and Venerable Henepa
Gunaratama to the Theravada. 109 Their words are precious to me, and thus I will
continue to quote them at length. 110

Although I frequently saw Jonathan as my problem, either a fiercesome antagonist


or needy, demanding child, I eventually realized that we were co-protagonists. My drama
queen solution to any unpleasant eruption was to leave, to run away and live alone (or in
a forest or cave or the local airport or nearest seedy motel). He stayed, and talked, and
talked. I had trouble facing the pain and holding my ground. He continued to repeat and
rehearse it. I still have trouble hearing anything critical – taken as a paternal rebuke.
When criticized, whether justly or unjustly, I feel the shame of abject failure. It is an
intense, burning experience, I want to escape my skin, along with the situation and
person. The friction, sometimes grating and often painful, is helping me to see myself
both differently and accurately.
102

I still threaten, in emotionally intense moments, to leave. He tells me that my


anger is “very scary,” that my face contorts into a frightening grimace. When his brows
furrow, his eyes narrow into slits, and his skin becomes dark with frustrated rage, I can
see myself. We mirror our anger. It’s not a pretty sight for either of us. Particularly for
two people who see themselves as happy and kind, loving and tolerant.

If he is hurt, he becomes aggressive; and he has remnants of the CEO or


punishing patriarch; he can launch into a cold cross-examination that resembles a
criminal trial. Or he can regress back to being a wounded child, abandoned by his
mother, easily hurt and angry with angry women and me. Sometimes the “hurt” lasted
three very long, depressed and arduous days. We called them his sinkers, which are
fewer and shorter every year. He is unaware that the air turns dark and heavy with his
pain, which is ages’ old. Often I would not have a clue about what I had said or done to
trigger such a big response. Slowly I am coming to realize that I can have the delicacy of
a Mack truck. And I am not as smart as I think I am. Jonathan is such an energetic
masculine personality that it took me years to see, and then believe, his extreme fragility.
He feels things intensely and deeply. I am learning to honor his feelings, to believe in
their reality. And to accept responsibility for my triggering actions and apologize, rather
than minimize or excuse them or inform him of their triviality. “They hurt him, they are
not trivial, Pat,” repeats a frustrated Dr. Beebe.

Ayya Khema described our collisions perfectly: “The defense and attack which
happens on a large scale happens constantly with us personally. We’re constantly
defending our self-image. If somebody does not appreciate or love us enough, or even
blame us, that defense turns into an attack. The rationale is that we have to defend this
person, ‘this country’ which is ‘me,’ in order to protect the inhabitant, ‘self.’ Because
almost every person in the world does that, all nations act accordingly.” 111

Not to be grandiose, but like the War on Terror (and in Iraq) which continues to
parallel the years of our relationship, we turned “defense into attack.” Our personal
reactions to each other and the political actions leading to the invasion of Iraq
overlapped. 112 In Vietnam, we feared the spread of Communism; in Iraq, it was terrorism
in the US. Our defense became military invasions.

Initially, neither Jonathan nor I had much awareness of the unintended,


inadvertent, hurtful effect we could have on each other. Stephen Batchelor perfectly
describes what we needed: “Awareness recognizes emotions but doesn’t condone or
condemn them . . . Awareness notices without . . . repressing or expressing. It recognizes
that just as hatred arises, so will it pass away . . . By identifying with it, we fuel it. The
impulsive surge has such an abrupt momentum that by the time we first notice the anger,
identification has already occurred . . . The task of awareness is to catch the impulse at its
inception, to notice the very first hint of resentment coloring our feelings and perceptions.
But such precision requires a focused mind.” 113

“To catch the impulse of anger at its inception” would become my goal and
greatest achievement. If and when I could do this, the subsequent storyline of “poor me I
103

do everything for you and you are so mean to me” would not capture me. I would not
identify with “poor me,” “I” was so much greater than that forlorn tale. And the wave
would recede, quietly, and I could see and enjoy the reality of our life rather than wallow
in the messy interior of my mind. Jonathan was less successful in avoiding the martyr
trap, having a history of seeing himself as the aggrieved party.

One trait would emerge as a central, sometimes upsetting, agent in our


relationship – the need to be right. This quality was bone deep. It began with the story
about Jonathan’s grandfather, who was dead when he was born, a tale I will repeat. The
tragic tale was of a murder/suicide, discovered on microfilm as front-page news when
Jonathan was twenty. His grandfather had lost majority ownership and control of the
Milwaukee manufacturing company he had founded to a partner he had brought in as a
financial officer; this former university business professor had taken additional shares
during each refinancing, concealed in the fine print. It was legal, his grandfather had
signed the documents, failing to pay attention. Thus, the courts were of no recourse as he
tried to reclaim the company he had founded and once owned. But rather than accept this
turn of events, he shot and killed his partner and then himself.

This sense of justice, or of being wronged – what Dr. Ashok Bedi calls his
“grandfather complex” -- would be passed on to Jonathan – who can turn everyday life
into a courtroom drama where he plays the judge, prosecutor, and jury. It’s always over
something that I think is small, insignificant, like who said what first, or did you have a
bite or a few crumbs of brownie? I say something careless (“You’re always angry at
me.” “Always? Always? Am I always angry?”), or offhand, or ironically honest, that
hurts him, usually remarks that imply a judgment, and the fireworks begin. He feels
stupid and attacks me, often by taking my language literally. I fight back, defending my
feminist self, failing to realize that my insensitivity caused the tornado in the first place,
that there is another way to act and react, a way that has compassion rather than veiled
criticism at its core. For a woman who had a thin skin for criticism, I could be critical,
often camouflaging my negative take in an intellectual argument, or burying my negative
remark in a compliment, a double whammy, and frequently a sarcastic remark, often
funny, yes, and cleverly ironic, but still wounding.

Beneath all of the outer drama, particularly my Bette Davis outbursts, were my
own deeply buried childish hurt and anger – which I am still coming to recognize. Rather
than dealing with it, I just eliminated that part of my life, subsuming it into my
indignation about the lower status of women in narrative cinema, there as sexual object or
servant, subservient to men who controlled not only the gaze in cinema but the story as
well. No man would ever control the Great Me, heaven forbid that he might be offering
helpful observations and often help.

I didn’t know how to receive, or how to actively listen, only to defend myself or
jump to my own conclusions. I liked to cut to the chase, bypassing lengthy explication.
Passive acts like listening and receiving help didn’t come easily or naturally for me.
(Why? I already had all the answers I needed. And what did most men know about
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women anyway?) But they are refreshing. Jonathan wanted to care for me. But I feared
any strings. My initial refusal was feminism as deprivation

I learned more about Jonathan – including his sometimes irritating traits like
obsessive teasing. He knows the brat factor and persists even more intently when he
knows something upsets me. It’s as if this elegant, intelligent man had momentary
relapses back to 8 years old, reminiscent of Tom Hanks in Big. But I, too, could react
with a five year old’s emotional immaturity, stamping my foot, crying in frustration,
having a temper tantrum that could be loud and ugly. “No, you did.” “No, you did it
first.” Pick, bicker, whine, sometimes yell, swear, and name call. How childish (and
aggressive) could I get?

When I see others fight, I recoil from the violence in their angry words and the
distortion on their faces. I don’t want anger to take me over any longer. But I don’t want
to repress it either. I did this for too long, burying it in shame. I want to acknowledge it
and then let it recede.

So I knew, early on, that this journey into a relationship would not always be
smooth sailing and that I had much to learn. For you see, I hate being wrong and have a
killer need to get in the last word. My ego doesn’t need to be right, but it just cannot be
wrong. Neither can it remain silent in the face of injustice, particularly to me. Why?
Being wrong is deeply embarrassing. This is where my shame becomes destructive – all
I can imagine is that I will die if I don’t get out of this situation, or relationship, or place.
Our explosions can be dramatic, even if they are all about nothing.

It slowly dawned on me that Jonathan’s long stories, insistently and yes,


sometimes endlessly, repeated, were, in fact, the groundwork for a lasting relationship,
that he had endurance -- the ability to see an issue through to its conclusion. Eventually I
would learn to listen.

Pema Chodron describes how we use our emotions unwittingly -- And because
the words of these writers are so perfect, so true, I directly quote rather than summarize
passages; that way, anyone can forge his or her own interpretation; thus, I see these long
quotes as gifts: “A simple feeling will arise, and instead of simply letting it be there, we
panic. We begin to weave our thoughts into a story line, which gives rise to bigger
emotions.” (69) We fan and inflame them. “So what began as an enormous open space
becomes a forest fire, a world war, a tidal wave. We use our emotions . . . we take them
and use them to regain our ground . . . We use them to try to make everything secure and
predictable . . . We could just sit with the emotional energy and let it pass. There’s no
particular need to spread blame and self-justification. Instead, we throw kerosene on the
emotion so it will feel more real.” She urges us to see the “wildness of emotion,” and
then befriend and soften them and ourselves, and other people.

Awareness of “this silly thing” is the solution. “By becoming aware of how we
do this silly thing again and again because we don’t want to dwell in the uncertainty and
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awkwardness and pain of not knowing, we begin to develop true compassion for
ourselves and everyone else” (70) 114

In The Places That Scare You, Chodron advises us to “let go of the story line
when emotional distress arises, just abide with the energy beneath the storyline.” (28)
“Most of us when we’re angry scream or act it out. We alternate expressions of rage with
feeling ashamed of ourselves and wallowing in guilt. We become so stuck in repetitive
behavior that we become experts at getting all worked up . . . we continue to strengthen
our painful emotions . . . but wisdom is inherent in emotions . . . Anger without the
fixation is clear-seeing wisdom. Pride without fixation is experienced as equanimity . . .
we welcome the living energy of emotions. When our emotions intensify, what we
usually feel is fear. This fear is always lurking in our lives. In sitting meditation we
practice dropping whatever story we are telling ourselves and leaning into the emotions
and the fear. Thus we train in opening the fearful heart to the restlessness of our own
energy. We learn to abide with the experience of our emotional distress.” (29) Fear turns
into wisdom when we can “welcome the energy of emotions” rather than act out an old
story line.

“The practice is always the same: instead of falling prey to a chain reaction of
revenge or self-hatred, we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction and drop the
story lines . . . One way of doing this is to breathe it into our heart. By acknowledging
the emotion, dropping whatever story we are telling ourselves about it, and feeling the
energy of the moment, we cultivate compassion for ourselves . . . Then we can take this a
step further . . . and recognize that there are millions who are feeling the way we are . . .
the circle of compassion, which is where the magic is.” (33)

I can use the energy beneath my self-pity and my fear of being boring and
unattractive and rejected and unloved. As Chodron says, “These juicy emotional spots
are where a warrior gains wisdom and compassion.” (34) But for this to happen, I have to
be honest with myself, and I have to unearth qualities I have buried, or repressed,
dragging them out of the camouflage in old sad stories and into conscious, immediate
awareness. But I could only do this when the pain became extreme – and it took a male
psychoanalyst and a male partner to create this amount of pain. For it was with men that
my problems lay.

“Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something – usually ourselves.


When we feel unhappy, when we feel inadequate, we get stingy; we hold on tight.
Generosity is an activity that loosens us up.” “The essence of generosity is letting go.”
(94) Letting go can be arduous, taking mighty effort. Simply saying, “You’re right, I’m
wrong” can take great strength.

“The essence of bravery is being without self-deception . . . Seeing ourselves


clearly is initially uncomfortable and embarrassing . . . A Warrior begins to take
responsibility for the direction of her life. It’s as if we are lugging around unnecessary
baggage . . . Some things are no longer necessary.” (75) Of all the roles I have dreamt of
playing, Warrior is the most thrilling and challenging.
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Chapter 8:

High Drama in the Himalayas: On the Road in Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan

We met our group of twelve, and our Indian guide, Rahul, from Geographic
Expeditions, in Hong Kong, in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel. The flight to Tibet was
noisy, packed with Chinese travelers. Outside the plane windows, the white peaks of the
Himalayas were silent, spacious, unchanged by politics or history. For centuries these
sacred heights had attracted meditators and adventurers. Meditators came on pilgrimages
to explore their inner world just as mountaineers came on expeditions that challenged the
limits of their outer world. I simply couldn’t believe I was going to Lhasa, to Tibet! For
fifty years or more, this place had existed only in my dreams or at the movies. 1959, the
year of the Chinese occupation and the Dalai Lama’s exile, was the year I graduated from
Madison West High School, in Wisconsin.

Our Chinese-owned hotel was once an upscale Holiday Inn, its glory days in the
1950s. Now the pool was empty, the convention rooms dark, deserted, and the décor,
shabby moderne. With one exception in the breakfast room: a bold, wrap-around mural
of the Himalayas in the style of 20th Century Soviet Realism. Nothing can diminish or
impose itself on the grandeur of these mountains. The hotel was like the city of Lhasa –
worn out from the Chinese occupation and overwhelmed by recent modernization.

Outside, however, everything new and old is overshadowed by the dramatic,


spectacular Potala, the former home of the Dalai Lama, 115 which sits commandingly,
impressively, overwhelmingly on a hill above the flat city. The Potala, completed in
1694, is a huge palace of more than 1,000 rustic rooms of irregular shapes and ornately
painted walls that presides over the entire city of Lhasa. This is where the Dalai Lamas
lived and worked. Hundreds of monks used to live in this unique building, comprised of
a Red Palace (for spiritual functions) and a White Palace (for political functions). Now
there are around thirty-five monks. The Tibetan visitors wore their traditional, colorful
clothing, quietly praying and bowing. Chinese tourists wore western clothes and talked.
After a wrong turn in the tour, we had a quick glimpse of the past as the monks were
sorting through old Tibetan books, leaflets in a wooden tablet, in a small tower room that
was the library or archives. More visible was the present: the Chinese soldiers posted as
guards, charging high prices to take photographs, and the energetic Chinese tourists
laughing and taking photos.

The magnificent structure is the goal of all Tibetans who make yearly pilgrimages
after the harvest, often trekking hundreds of miles from their small farms. Then they
walk, clockwise, around the base, carrying and twirling prayer wheels and prostrating
themselves on the pavement, hundreds, even thousands, of times. Their pilgrimage can
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take many days and is physically arduous. We saw old and wizened men and women, in
traditional Tibetan woolen clothing, climbing hundreds of steep stairs, devoted to their
mission and to this holy place – which contains not a single photograph of the Dalai
Lama.

This old, Tibetan architecture contrasted with the monumental style of Chinese
architecture. The modernization continues in the new roads, dams, airports, and train
routes, along with square, stern high rises and steel monuments. Tibetan folk culture
crashes into Chinese modernity.

The old city of Lhasa is built around the Jokhang, the most sacred temple in
Tibet. It was built in the 7th century to house an image of the Buddha, a gift from a
Chinese bride. (Many temples in Tibet contain images of historical llamas, but none of
the Dalai Lama.) The Jokhang consists of many temples, dedicated to various holy
figures, and central halls. The building is dark, musty, window-less, with the smell and
light of burning yak butter candles. Walls are intricately painted, and peeling, telling
stories of the Buddha and showing various llamas. One-hundred monks currently live
here, chanting, meditating, and maintaining the rituals of the temple.

Outside, surrounded by hundreds of small merchant stalls hawking their wares,


pilgrims pay tribute by circumambulating, walking in clockwise direction, and bowing
with each step. At the entrance to the temple is a long corridor of prayer wheels, which
can be spun by crawling under them. This action sends the prayers inscribed inside the
wheels out into the universe as blessings. Jonathan and I managed to scrunch our bodies
into a low crouch and walk the entire length. This would be the first of hundreds of
Buddhist monasteries and temples we would visit in the next three years.

Drepung Monastery is outside Lhasa. Previous Dalai Lamas lived and were
entombed here. Although crumbling, it is an active monastery, with red-robed monks
studying the traditional texts and practicing their energetic style of philosophical debate
in the courtyard. Jonathan, of course, wanted to be involved. And the fact that this was a
private, scholarly exercise and that we had been allowed to quietly observe didn’t daunt
him. So he casually and quietly moved into their arena and asked one of the monks to
pose the most difficult question to his debating partner – all in gestures, which the young
monks sweetly received and finally understood. After some intellectual struggle, the
young student got the answer. Everyone clapped, breaking the intense concentration of
the debate.

Ganden Monastery is also in the steep hills some miles outside Lhasa. After
being largely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, it was partially rebuilt and is the
home of 400 monks. But it was a way station just off the steep dirt path on the way up
that I remember: the small cave, around eight by eight feet, of two nuns who had lived
there, meditating, for many years. By the time I reached the cave, Jonathan was already
inside, sitting cross-legged on the floor, between the two beaming nuns, asking them for
meditation tips. The cave was orderly, with two sleeping pallets, a wood burning stove,
and a low wooden table. There were a few books in a nook in the dirt wall and a small
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garden out front. Sparse would not describe the living conditions. But I felt such joy – as
I always did when engaged with the monks in Tibet.

For several years, I had been reading women’s spiritual auto/biographies. Two
were tales of nuns living in Himalayan caves. Sorrow Mountain: The Journey of a
Tibetan Warrior Nun 116) is the tale of Ani Pachen, a Tibetan. It describes her survival
during the Chinese takeover in 1959, including her years as a female resistance leader,
followed by twenty-one years of imprisonment and torture. She vividly describes
walking around the Jokhang Temple during the protests in 1987 against the Chinese
occupation. Along with the monks from Drepung Monastery, Ani marched around the
Temple three times chanting “Chinese go home” and praising the Dalai Lama. In the
police crackdown, over 1,000 protestors were arrested. (264-265)

Her lifelong inspiration was her desire for the solitude of the spiritual life. As a
little girl, she had been a novice monk. When she was released from prison, she went to
Lhasa, where she stayed in a cave: “During those months, I existed in a state of abiding
calm. No one to make me feel bothered, nothing to fear except the contents of my own
mind. Food and drink were brought by those on pilgrimage.” But she still had a great
deal of fear until her meeting with the Dalai Lama in India: “It was as if a radiant sun
had shone through the darkness. All the years I’d suffered had not been in vain. I was
finally free.” (278)

.Cave in the Snow is the story of Diane Perry, who was born in London in
1943, during the bombing. 117 When she read her first Buddhist book, at 18, she knew that
this was for her. She began practicing Theravadan Buddhism, the Southern School that
existed in Sri Lanka Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, (21) but this felt too cold
for her. “She then read Nagarjuna, the second-century Buddhist saint and philosopher,”
and the founder of Mahayana Buddhism, followed primarily in Tibet. (23) But in the
1960s, little was known about Tibetan Buddhism. “Unlike the chaste lines of Zen and the
straight dogma of the Theravada, Tibetan Buddhism was seen as too exotic, too odd.”(24)

She studied with Choygam Trungpa -- who had just come to England, and would
go on to write many books, found meditation centers, and teach and train many disciples,
including Pema Chodron, before, reportedly, becoming a bit too notorious for his
organization to thrive. (29) Perry went to India, to a school for nuns, living in
uncomfortable conditions. She met the Dalai Lama, early on, along with other Tibetan
spiritual leaders. She found her Guru and was ordained a nun within three months. Yet,
like Ayya Khema, she felt the discrimination that prevented women from some of the
teachings, or being a lama and a core part of the lineage. Women were still viewed as the
source of the man’s desire and hence as the problem.

. In 1976, when she was thirty-three, she began a twelve year meditation in a
remote cave, six feet by six feet, in the Himalayas. She ate once a day, at midday, the
Buddhist tradition. (86) “She faced unimaginable cold, wild animals, near starvation and
avalanches; she grew her own food and slept in a traditional wooden meditation box . . .
her goal was to attain enlightenment as a woman.” (Back cover) When she came out, she
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became involved with the issue of women within Buddhism, speaking at the conference
in 1993 to the Dalai Lama.

Images from these books play over the faces of the two nuns (and Jonathan)
before me. The scene is still fresh, an indelible memory, a touch of the divine. It
reminded me of an experience in Morocco. We were driving through the countryside in
our rental car to Casablanca for our flight home. We were late, and racing. A tire burst.
We pulled over. It was deeply silent. There was no sound or sight of human life – only a
very old man, bent, in the distance plowing his field with his donkey. When Jonathan
began to change the tire, the car jack snapped in two. We were stranded, in the middle of
nowhere, two hours from Casablanca. We had not seen a house for miles. There was
little traffic on the road. Silence, a slight breeze. Then, from out of this nowhere came a
young man – who saw the broken jack and began to gather stones from the surrounding
fences, piling them under the rear wheel. He was joined by a sheep herder and his flock
of sheep, which circled the car. The young shepherd was carrying a black lamb that had
just been born! I felt as if we were in a Fellini movie, or a romance fantasy novel. On
our car radio, a chant led by Gurumayi played softly in the background. Then a black
limousine stopped. The wealthy owner and his burly driver both got out and began to
help with the tire changing. Two young girls in white organdy dresses got out of the back
seat, and ran to see the newborn lamb. Within minutes, the tire was replaced, the sheep
were herded on their way, the limo drove off, and the young man walked back into the
mist that hung over the fields. We were stunned. What had happened? The only
common language was that of two strangers in need. Morocco had taken gracious care of
us. But back to Tibet.

As if Lhasa were not exotic enough, political intrigue was added to our itinerary.
Our airline tickets out of the country to Nepal were cancelled. Chinese dignitaries
usurped our seats. At the earliest, it would be three days to a week before we could get
out. Our guide decided on a rugged route through the Himalayas – in Toyota SUVs,
leaving in the dark of night. It was a spectacular journey, on a steeply pitched, one lane
dirt road through mountain peaks. If I had not been driving the hairpin roads leading into
Sea Ranch, I would have been terrified. Although the landscape looked barren and
brown, every inch was farmed, tilled and terraced; even the highest and smallest plots
were hoed, readied for spring planting. There were small villages, yaks, sheep, and miles
of brown/grey space, all dominated by the Himalayas. There were no trees, or bushes,
for miles. The road followed the course of rivers, running to Nepal, the land becoming
greener as we went. At several peaks, tall prayer flags sent out blessings. We stopped
only to pee, men on one side of the deserted road, women on the other.

The terrain became greener, and the rivers faster. As we came close to the
Nepalese border, there were burly trucks on the road, increasing in number. We left our
cars and guides, and walked across a long bridge and through an ominous official
military checkpoint. The setting was right out of a 1940s Hollywood thriller -- an
international border town, packed with animals and people of all colors and costumes,
carrying their possessions and papers. The area was congested with traffic, trucks
unloading commercial merchandise. It took two hours or more to pass through; I felt like
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a secret agent. That night we stayed at a border hotel – a seedy place where the bed
coverings gave me the creeps.

The intrigue intensified. During the dark and cold dinner that night, we learned
that British tourists had just been kidnapped nearby, by Nepalese rebels, Mao loyalists.
Traveling by car to Kathmandu was deemed too dangerous. So early the next morning, at
a deserted building site, cheered on by hundreds of excited Nepalese children, we were
helicoptered to the Yak and Yeti, a five star hotel, in Kathmandu. The flight was
magnificent, revealing green terraced hillsides, using every available inch of Nepalese
land.

Again, it was hard to believe that I was in Kathmandu – with its dense throngs
and noisy big city life. And then in Bhaktapur, an ancient and preserved city ten miles
away. Hindu deities adorned many buildings – as did Buddhist icons adorn others. And
the central market, Durbar Square, was bustling with street merchants and beggars.
Negotiating with vendors was a game Jonathan loved – and he was wily as well as
friendly. To stop the incessant demands by grasping young girls selling cloth bags,
Jonathan bargained for twenty bags and then offered to sell them back to the next
onslaught of girl hawkers. At a local art shop/gallery of traditional paintings, Jonathan
spent two leisurely hours angling back and forth for a Buddhist thanka, 48”x 48”. It is a
splendid, intricate piece that greets us every morning in our condominium in Menlo Park.
As do wooden book tablets and prayer wheels from Tibet, and calligraphic paintings from
Morocco.

The Buddhist mountain kingdom of Bhutan was bucolic, a country preserved in


time and served only by Bhutan’s air line, Druk Air, which had two large planes. The
flights from Kathmandu have extraordinary views of the most spectacular Himalayan
peaks, including Everest. One must either enter or leave Bhutan by air, on one of
Bhutan’s two jets – a rule of the strictly regulated tourist trade. Situated between India
and China, in the Himalayas, Bhutan has a population of only 650,000. 80% of the
population is agricultural . . . “Religion, tradition, and ancestral custom” are the core
principles of this pastoral country, its laws and etiquette. Animals wander on the neat
roads, often dirt, lined with deep green grass. Stupas, beautiful chortens or temples, are
everywhere. Monasteries are peopled by hundreds of monks. “There are no beggars, no
violent crime, and few thefts.” 118 All the architecture is in the colorful traditional style of
wood, which resembles Swiss Chalets, with painted, colorful window frames. It’s a bit
like Disneyland on a grand rural, national scale. The internet and national television
came in 1999 and the income tax in 2001.

The national religion is Buddhist. “Bhutan is the only country in the world to
have adopted Mahayana Buddhism . . . as its official religion.” (92) Everyone wore the
national costume: women in long, similarly patterned, hand-woven skirts, blouses, and
jackets, and the men in coats that resembled bathrobes, with knee socks. This was the
legally mandated garb in this Buddhist kingdom that was largely rural, green, unpolluted
by industry or commerce or, so far, tourism, which is carefully regulated. “Tourists are
charged a daily rate (then $200. per day) and must visit the country in groups of at least
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three,” orchestrated by only a few tourist organizations. It will increase with the first
class hotels and resorts which were being built when we were there. The entire country
was so quiet, so unspoiled, so spare and pure and natural, it was as if it had missed the
20th century completely. Perhaps the 19th, as well, with its industrial, urban density
completely absent in Bhutan.

Bhutanese art came from Tibetan art. “It is religious, it is anonymous, and
hence, it has no aesthetic function by itself.” (75) There is little distinction between art
and craft. The makers of both are anonymous. And there is no competitive pricing;
demand is known and therefore stable and the labor to make them is limited. Fabrics are
hand-woven and paper is handmade.

Despite the national tranquility and serenity, my first night in the hotel in
Thimphu in the Paro Valley was very noisy and chaotic. I had a meltdown during dinner
with our group. It is still a cringe to remember it. First, a bit of background. Our small
group consisted mainly of older couples and two single women. Three travelers were
from Arkansas and knew Bill and Hillary Clinton and other protagonists in the long-
running Monica Lewinsky investigation. Of course, Jonathan was fascinated, as he
always is by trials and prisons. (He would attend the Enron trial in Texas and get to
know Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and other players in this drama, as well as the Scott Peterson
murder trial, which was in Redwood City, California, near our condo.)

Dinner was served at a long table, banquet style. Jonathan sat between me and
the younger Kathy, a flirtatious, slim, attractive real estate agent, married to an older
businessman from Little Rock. Turning his shoulder to me (albeit slightly), he conversed
with bubbly, perky Kathy the entire meal, listening with rapt attention to her tales of the
Clinton saga in Little Rock. I felt excluded, separate, embarrassed. I became furiously
jealous and left the table before dessert, obviously angry. Jonathan followed. And so did
a huge argument. The hurt and fear I felt overwhelmed me. I was terrified. Where did
such pain come from? The magnitude of my negative emotions erased any tranquility in
Bhutan. For hours, I was caught in my suspicious, clanging mind, oblivious to the
natural beauty that surrounded me. Even our room, with its magnificent views of a green
valley and hazy mountains, seemed dingy, ugly. But it was my jealousy that was ugly,
not the spectacular countryside of Bhutan.

Writing about anger, Ayya Khema put it very simply: “Anger arises because one
feels hurt. Pain has arisen and the absurd human reaction, the natural instinctive one, is
to inflict pain too. Unless we become aware of that, we can’t change it.” If we
reciprocate, rather than eliminate the pain, “we simply create double pain . . . another
absurd human folly.” (65) Rather than just letting the pain sit and then subside within me,
I reciprocated by storming off and then inflicting my verbal anger on Jonathan, blaming
him. I created what Khema calls “double pain, an absurd human folly.” 119

“The Buddha compared anger with picking up hot coals with one’s bare hands
and trying to throw them at the person with whom one is angry. Who gets burned first?
The one who is angry of course.” My upset destroyed my evening, literally, a once in a
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lifetime experience in Paro, Bhutan, ruined by my reaction. For me, this awareness is
key. The majority of the pain I experienced came from within me. It wasn’t Jonathan’s
action that caused the intensity of my pain. It was my reaction, my acting out, my
reciprocation.

“All problems are created by our own reactions and we have the natural tendency,
another of our absurdities, to blame the trigger. We get angry and blame the person, or
we blame the event . . . but we forget that we have the tendency inside us waiting to be
triggered. It could never happen otherwise.” (69) The “tendency,” my fear of rejection,
my deep insecurity, was within me. My anger happened because of that, not Kathy or
Jonathan.

Khema goes on. “When one is angry, mindfulness is lost . . . If anyone ever had
time to look in a mirror when they were angry, they’d be surprised at the kind of face
they would see.” (66) Jonathan would often tell me about the distinct, fierce, cramped
expression on my face when I was angry. I had no awareness that even my physical
appearance was altered by anger.

Transforming Problems into Happiness, the title of a book by Lama Zola


Riposte, says it all. For this is what we, Jonathan and I, have been able to achieve,
happiness, most of the time. 120 “The antidote to anger is patience. Each angry thought
must be countered with a patient thought, for the angry thought itself cannot recollect the
drawbacks of anger . . . The pain of anger is like burning red-hot coals in your heart.
Anger transforms even a beautiful person into something dark, ugly, and terrifying . . . as
soon as anger stops, even your appearance suddenly changes. (23)

As with anger, “as long as you cling to and follow desire, there can be no lasting
happiness or peace in your heart . . . Something big is always missing. Your life is
always empty. In reality, having the object of your desire and not having it are by nature
suffering.” (24/25) Having this relationship would be very painful if I clung to Jonathan,
if I feared losing him to another woman.

The solution: “Transforming miserable conditions into necessary conditions that


help us move along the path to enlightenment.” (32) “Whenever a problem arises, you
can be happy by recognizing it as beneficial. Rejoice each time you meet an obstacle.”
(34) Which sounded exactly like Dr. Bedi, who did our “rejoicing” for us. The obstacles
I met in this relationship could be a cause for celebration rather than depression? There’s
a thought. . . But I shouldn’t repress them, I should acknowledge them.

In Anger, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, says that “happiness
is not an individual matter. If one of you is not happy, it will be impossible for the other
person to be happy.” 121 We have to let the other “know when you suffer, when you are
angry with him or her. You have to express what you feel. You have the right. This is
true love. . . . Try your best to say it peacefully. Don’t say something to punish or blame
. . . This is the language of love . . . When you are happy, share your happiness. When
you suffer, tell your beloved one about your suffering . . . Use loving speech. This is the
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only condition. You must do this as soon as possible. You should not keep your anger,
your suffering to yourself for more than twenty-four hours. Otherwise, it becomes too
much. It can poison you . . . Twenty-four hours is the deadline.” (56/57) I would angrily
relay my anger, forgetting to use “loving speech,” which changes everything.

My acted out anger, my aggressive reaction, intensified by my storyline, has a


childish immaturity about it that addressed one of my character defects – impatience.
“We want things our own way now. When it doesn’t happen, an impatient person
becomes angry. It’s a vicious circle of impatience and anger.” (Khema, Being Nobody
Going Nowhere, 144) One solution is to be patient with ourselves. “If not, we will be
impatient with others’ deficiencies, we do not appreciate ourselves or others.” (145) If I
had been patient during the dinner, rather than dramatically racing off, “not appreciating
ourselves or others,” the interlude would not have exploded into a scene.

On a general level, Ayya Khema analyzed the destructive quality of negative


emotions. “When we get upset, angry, worried, fearful, envious, jealous, and greedy . . .
there is no security to be found. We’re not reliable . . . and we have no self-confidence.
Only when the emotions are brought under control and there is a feeling of security inside
oneself that no matter what happens the reaction is going to be mild and equitable, then
one feels self-assured.” (84) I love the idea that “security” is to be found within me, a
security and self-assurance that has little to do with who or what are around me.

Cultivating patience, along with “loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy,


and equanimity” are Buddhist solutions for anger and jealousy. As Khema says, “joy
with others is a sure antidote for depression.” The result: not just smoother relations
with others, but self-confidence, self-assurance, all missing in anger, jealousy, envy,
greed, and fear.

Gaining control of (or better, befriending and taming) my wild emotions was (and
is) no small task for me. I truly believed that if emotions were ignited, it was inevitable
that they would play out. If I didn’t react strongly to others,’ particularly men’s, behavior
I deemed “disrespectful,” then I would be a wimp, a weak woman. I needed to talk back,
to speak up, to defend myself. I was on defensive guard, ever alert for a slight. Yes, I
was dramatic to hysterical, a Joan Crawford wannabe, but it was not my fault. I was
innocent, merely protecting myself in order not to be a victim. I took no responsibility
for my reactions. I blamed Jonathan, and then my father, and then social structures.

Not only was I emotionally challenged, but I had a limited concept of love.
Although I had learned another, more expansive and generous model in Siddha Yoga, I
had not yet put it into practice with a partner. I had changed my mind but not my
experience – and there is a big difference between the two. I had the words but not the
reality. Ayya Khema warned about the danger of words: We can believe that because
we have read, or said, the words, “we’ve actually done it.” But “one hasn’t changed
oneself yet.” (73) The words are only a landmark, a street sign. It takes great work to
turn them into reality. It took me several years, and then some, of daily effort
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For Khema, if we are attached to people, “that attachment creates hate, not
towards the people we are attached to, but towards the idea that they might be lost. There
is fear and we can only fear what we hate. Therefore the purity of love is lost. The
attachment makes it impure and thus less satisfying. No total fulfillment can be found.”
(37) “Love without attachment is the only kind of love that has no fear in it and is
therefore pure. Love with attachment is a fetter. It consists of waves of emotion and
usually creates invisible iron bands. Real love is love without clinging, it’s giving
without expectation, it’s standing next to rather than leaning on.” (140) I wanted to stand
beside a partner, I wanted to love without fear, what Khema calls “pure love,” love
“without clinging.” To do this, I needed to believe that “everything happens for the
best,” and that I would be cared for, no matter what would happen in the future.

The best way to discover “pure love” is to focus on being loving rather than being
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loved. As Khema revealed, “Most people are looking for someone to love them. That
someone loves us doesn’t mean that we are loving. The other person is feeling the love.
We don’t feel a thing. All we feel is gratification that somebody has found us lovable.
That makes the ego bigger. But loving others goes in the direction of making the ego
smaller. The more love we can extend, the more people we can include in it, and the
more love we have.” (41) Extending what Buddhists call loving kindness can not only
assuage the negative emotions, including attachment, but it makes the ego smaller. And a
big ego is the repository of fear, a place of loneliness, not love.
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CHAPTER 9:

Southeast Asia: The Silence of History

In April 2004, close to the Asian New Year, we were in Vietnam, at the beginning
of six intense and lovely weeks in five countries in Southeast Asia. Never did I imagine
that I would be in Vietnam, yet something feels eerily familiar, as if I were haunted. I
remember so many of the cities’ names, scenes of famous battles, from the nightly TV
news in the 1970s. I can hear Walter Cronkite or Chet Huntley saying “Danang” or
“Haiphon.”

(During this same period now thirty years ago, my disillusionment and
restlessness with marriage increased to such a pitch that I got divorced and began the
adventure of being a single parent and becoming what was then called a “liberated
woman.” [Marriage became a “no-never” for me.] “Liberation” was also at stake in the
Vietnam War.)

This time, I am seeing the countries caught up in that war with my own eyes, not
through media words and images. And I am beginning to feel and to think very
differently about marriage, relationships, to say nothing about the meaning of
“liberation.” This personal view is very different. Rather than an enemy, a violent
aggressor, I see a peaceful people, small in stature yet vastly ambitious, savvy in
business. Cold War paranoia is what we shared from afar. The fear that drove the war in
Vietnam is, in retrospect, incomprehensible. Although it is changing rapidly, Vietnam is
still largely rural, a green land of rice paddies, oxen, small villages and farms that we
massively bombed and poisoned. The domino theory in Vietnam makes as much sense
as the war in Iraq – excuses for military actions in the name of security and protection.

I am realizing that my life has been framed by four wars, events that linger and
overlap in later decades. As I wrote in an initial and discarded first chapter, “I had just
started walking when WW II began in 1941. I have memories of scarcity, of looking up
and waiting in long ration lines for eggs and sugar. I remember the preciousness of
money, of a fifty-cent coin. Then came my parents’ post-war move to the suburbs, and
1950s upward mobility – a domestic consumer surge fueled by Cold War paranoia,
nuclear fear, and double standards.” The Cold War inculcated a fear of the dark and
night as I imagined the sound of every plane’s engine as “Russians” bombing the US.
The second war was in Korea. “I loved (and later wrote about) Lucy in the 1950s and
remember (and later wrote about) where I was when Kennedy was shot in the 1960s.”
My third war was the Vietnam War. “The anti-war and women’s liberation movements in
the 1970s changed the course of my intellectual and personal life.”
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“Since 9/11, 2001, my history has been refiguring itself. The Wars in Iraq, my
fourth war, and the 2004 presidential election replayed Vietnam; the attack on the World
Trade Center, remembering the Kennedy assassination, has unleashed a war on terror
driven by fear and paranoia, similar to the Cold War. Like the 1950s, homes have
become the focal point of the economy – paradoxically serving as both the equity for, and
the repository of, consumer durables. The student youth movement of the late 1960s and
1970s has morphed into an obsession with being and looking young.”

Traveling to Southeast Asia intersects with this past – and in many ways, the
countries are suspended in this time period. Development was halted forty years ago, and
is only beginning to resume again. Recently open to trade and tourism, the communist
regimes are still in power, yet changing with prosperity and mini versions of market
economies.

Hanoi! I could hardly believe it. I can still see images of Jane Fonda from
grainy film clips during her controversial visit to North Vietnam. French colonial
architecture and design survived the U.S. bombing. Our hotel, the graceful, lovely
Metropole, is a restored French building. We would repeat this elegant turn of the
century experience in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh at the Hotel Le Royal and the Grand
Hotel D’Angkor in Siem Reap. I love Hanoi! which is the heart of a burgeoning art
scene, galleries springing up all over the city. Several large oil paintings will journey to
Sea Ranch, carefully packed in hand-made wooden crates. 123

Although bustling, there is a pastoral quality about the city; in the middle is a lake
(Hoan Kiem Lake), a place of quiet, peaceful tranquility. Early in the morning hundreds
of Vietnamese slowly and gracefully performed Tai Chi in the park. There are few
automobiles on the streets. Instead, thousands of bicycles and motorbikes swarm around
the city square and streets, in choreographed patterns and lines.

At the Temple of Literature, the first national university, constructed in 1076, the
names of great teachers were engraved on stone tablets, along with “laureates” who went
on to become famous scholars. The university was dedicated to Confucius, a revered
teacher and politician. I felt connected to this culturally important site that honors
scholars and education.

The most astonishing moment was standing in Ho Chi Minh Square (Ba Dinh
Square), a vast expanse of open space. With its huge, towering mausoleum, in the
monumental Chinese style, it is an experience of power and awe – particularly when
compared to the simplicity and silence of Ho Chi Minh’s residence. His traditional
Vietnamese house was built of wood; it is small, spare, with two stories and porches open
to the outdoors. There is little furniture. It is simplicity itself. He chose not to live in
the palace of the French Governor which had been built in 1906, preferring a more
modest place, built in 1958 on the grounds of what is now the Presidential Palace.
Standing in Ho Chi Minh’s home, I can feel the air and sun and hear the wind. This
tranquility and humility is in contrast to old media images of Hanoi.
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Standing in Hoa Lo Prison -- where U.S. soldiers including Senator John McCain
and Pete Petersen, formerly U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam and our companion/educator on
this trip, were held captive for years -- was an intense experience. We all imagined the
scenario in this dark, cramped space, and realized that few of us would have been able to
endure. Hoa Lo was a French prison, built in 1896, and the largest of a network of
prisons built to counteract anti-colonialism. During this time, many leaders of the
Vietnamese revolutionary movement were imprisoned. From August 1964 until March
1973, “it was used to detain American pilots whose aircraft had been shot down over
Hanoi whilst bombing or attacking the North Vietnamese people. It was during this
period that the Americans gave Hoa Lo the nickname ‘Hanoi Hilton.’” Only 1/3 of the
prison remains, the rest demolished in 1993 for a high rise, modern hotel. What remains
is now a memorial “to the revolutionaries incarcerated here who gave their lives for their
country.” The different occupants portray very different memories, dependent on point
of view.

CEO arranged spectacular side trips from Hanoi: to the Mekong River, Ha Long
Bay, and China Beach. Ha Long Bay, “with more than 1600 limestone formations, caves
and grottoes” is a place of magical fantasy. The fanciful bay is populated by fisher
people who live on flat boats that are moored in the deep water, a mobile community that
included floating restaurants and stores. Ha Long Bay is two hours from the industrial
city of Hai Phong, the setting for an historical drama when the U.S. bombed the harbor. I
felt as if I were familiar with Hai Phong, almost as if I had been there. But it looked
nothing like I imagined. The city was booming with industry and new construction.

Signs of the war were not only in my memory. Da Nang, a key port in Central
Vietnam, still has bomb craters, turned into fishponds, in the middle of their rice paddies.
Da Nang was a major U.S. Marine base and the setting for fierce fighting when it fell to
“the Communists” in 1975. Today, because it is close to miles of sandy ocean beaches, it
is a portal for tourism, development mapped out by new roads, building sites, and a few
commercial buildings, empty, waiting for business tenants. The plots have been
prepared, awkwardly awaiting the tourist influx. We stayed at the German owned
Furama Resort, a luxurious enclave just down the beach from China Beach, the setting
for a former U.S. military hospital and television series. The beach is vast, beautiful,
almost empty, with only a few tourists.

. Why couldn’t I call Saigon by its new name, Ho Chi Minh City? Because Saigon
was a name that had permanently etched itself in my brain. As we learned from our
many Vietnamese guides, the difference between South and North Vietnam is still
operative in personal histories, although the North officially forgave South Vietnamese
after the war if they confessed. Saigon is busier, noisier, more commercial than Hanoi.
The hotels are glitzier, as are the shopping districts.

The place that houses the war history museum is almost ramshackle, concealed
on a side street, with virtually no signage. The American War Museum, or The War
Remnants Museum, is a jumble of temporary buildings that tell the war story through
photographs and captions. It is a profound documentation. The plastic coatings on the
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photos are dulled, the edges of the paper frayed, but the statistics of Agent Orange, the
brief stories of massacres, and the extraordinary force of the photos reveal a harsh truth –
the US was a brutal aggressor. Outside, among the five small exhibit buildings, parked
tour buses are interspersed with massive U.S. tanks, flamethrowers, fighter planes, huge
B 52 bombs, and artillery, along with tiger cages for torturing captured Viet Cong. Even
on such a hot humid day, the little buildings are packed. But there is little noise. The
silence of terrible actions is heavy.

The small brochure begins with a quote by Robert McNamara: “Yet we were
wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.” 124 The
statistics it marshals are brutal: “543,000 soldiers, 7,850,000 tons of bombs, 75,000,000
liters of defoliants sprayed over the country. Nearly 3 million Vietnamese were killed,
and 4 million others injured. Over 58,000 American army men died in the war . . .
human beings will not tolerate such a disaster happening again, neither in Vietnam nor
anywhere on the planet.” The most brutal photographs starkly show bodies burned black
by napalm, or men being thrown from flying helicopters, or a bombed hospital, and color
photos of the massacre at “Son My” (My Lai) village. 504 people were killed.” 125

During the war, Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, toured the U.S.
for peace 126 Born in Central Vietnam, he entered the Buddhist monastery when he was
sixteen, a few miles from Hue. (3) 127 After his ordination in 1949, he moved to Saigon.
“A younger generation of Buddhist monks was eager for Buddhism to emerge from its
ivory tower and to become engaged with social realities.” (4) He had seen the French
occupation, the Japanese in WW II, and then in 1954, the division into the communist
north and the capitalist south.

In 1962, he accepted a fellowship at Princeton University to teach Buddhist


studies. His first book, A Rose for Your Pocket, was “an encouragement” to “enjoy the
most simple and beautiful things in life.” (7) In 1963, he taught at Columbia, and by then
“the oppressive measures of the Diem regime in South Vietnam had become intolerable.
Buddhists were prohibited from displaying the Buddhist flag . . . Electricity and water to
the most important Buddhist temples in Saigon were cut off . . . A prominent Buddhist
monk, Master Quang Duc, publicly immolated himself as a silent protest. Thich Nhat
Hanh worked hard to make these events in Vietnam known and understood by the
American public.”

The Diem regime fell and Nhat Hanh returned to Saigon, founding “the Unified
Buddhist Church of Vietnam.” (7) It had a social and educational mission to improve the
villages, and a way of teaching that did not impose itself on traditional practices. It was a
philosophy of wisdom plus social action, embodied in a unified Buddhist
endeavor/community that went beyond its monastic domains and various origins. Thich
Nhat Hanh refused to take sides in the War, yet along with his Buddhist colleagues, many
of whom were killed, he lived in danger of assassination. In 1966, he toured the US to
appeal for peace, meeting with U.S. Senators who opposed the War, as well as with
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Martin Luther King, who would nominate
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him for the Nobel Peace Prize. (9) After this visit, the South Vietnamese government
refused him permission to return. He became an exile. (10)

In 1969, he created a Buddhist Peace Delegation in Paris, the site of ongoing


peace talks between North Vietnam and the US. After the end of the war, in 1975, Nhat
Hanh was not welcome in Vietnam. The Unified Buddhist Church was outlawed. Its
monks were imprisoned. (11) His life was in danger as he continued to write the history
of Vietnamese Buddhism and traveled the world working for refugee relief and aid. In
1982, he established Plum Village, in France, a rural community for refugees of all sorts.

Many of our local guides in Vietnam knew his writings and practiced his
teachings. They spoke of him with great reverence, surprised that an American, at an
event sponsored by CEO, capitalism par excellence, would be familiar with his work.

Sister Annabel Laity, the author of the “Introduction,” describes working with
him on a printing project for the Plum Village Newsletter. Fired up and ready to go, she
arrived for work and was surprised when he suggested tea. Then a long walk in the
countryside. Finally the printing began, on the slow speed of the press, which he
preferred. Sister Laity concludes: “I was surprised at the end of the day when he told me
that we had almost finished.” This was a “very important lesson. You feel that you are
living in eternity and there are no deadlines. In spite of this Thay [Teacher] accomplished
a great deal in terms of writing, teaching, gardening, and designing. Whatever he does,
he does with zeal and application so that it is more like interesting play than toil.” (16) I
long to meet Thich Nhat Hanh before I die.

I studied other writers in the Mahayana tradition, which flourished in variant


forms in China, Korea, Japan, Nepal, Tibet and Vietnam. “Bodhidharma was an Indian
Buddhist monk who brought Buddhism to China in 475 A.D. -- Buddhism inflected with
meditation techniques from Indian yoga. Ch’an Buddhism spread from China and “was
called Zen in Japan, Son in Korea, and Thien in Vietnam.” (Master Shen-yen, 16) 128

In the Ch’an or Thien tradition, “the ultimate truth is sometimes compared to the
moon, and the conventional truth to a finger pointing at the moon. Someone seeing the
moon points in order to show it to people who haven’t seen it yet. If they look at the
finger, not the moon, they are not getting it. The finger is not the moon. Words,
language, ideas, and concepts are like the finger; they can express only the secondary
truth, but they can point to the ultimate truth . . . this is something everyone must
experience personally. It can never be described.” (21) This author, Master Sheng-yen,
became a monk near Shanghai when he was 13. He fled to Taiwan and later earned a
doctorate in Buddhist literature in Tokyo. He founded a Ch’an Meditation Center in New
York.

He provided a perfect take on the nature of “problems“-- being of our own


making. “Buddha saw that it was more important to save the mind than the body . . . If
our mental problems are illusions and are cured, that is liberation.” (38) Buddhism
believes that “there are no problems that exist objectively per se. Problems have to exist
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in your own mind and perception. When there are no problems in your mind, objective
problems do not exist . . . that everything is created by our minds is not easy to grasp.”
(Master Sheng-yen, 38) The Western belief in a reality, out there, a reality that exists in
tandem with our senses, our perception, and a reality that is the cause of our suffering is a
far cry from this belief that problems are created by and exist in our own minds.

Unlike psychoanalysis, Buddhism “is not concerned with the causality of a


person’s delusion and suffering. It is concerned only with their recognition and
elimination . . . the power to do that is within the mind of the individual.” (42) We can
change our lives by changing our thoughts. One simple step concerns eliminating
dualities: “If you don’t desire the pleasant, or repulse the unpleasant, your mind will
naturally become focused.” (69) “To cultivate Ch’an is to transform ourselves, not the
environment. Once we are transformed, the environment will also have transformed, and
we can positively influence everyone we come in contact with.” It is such a simple truth:
transform myself and my world will change.

Stephen Batchelor is a “former monk in both the Zen and Tibetan traditions,
associated with a nondenominational Buddhist community in England.” Born in
Scotland and educated in Buddhist monasteries in India, Switzerland, and Korea,” his
writings on Buddhism are beautiful and for me, insightful. On distraction: “Distraction
is a state of unawareness.” (24) “Distraction is . . . an escape from awe to worry and
plans.” (32) Most of the time “we are reliving an edited version of the past, planning an
uncertain future, or indulging in being elsewhere . . . Who ‘I am’ appears coherent only
because of the monologue we keep repeating, editing, censoring, and embellishing in our
heads.” (24) Later on (82), he asks: “So what are we but the story we keep repeating,
editing, censoring, and embellishing in our heads?” “We flee from the pulse of the
present to a fantasy world. . . This craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere, permeates
the body, feelings, perceptions, will – consciousness itself.” (25) “Anguish emerges from
craving for life to be other than it is.” (25)

I think about my many cravings over the years to be elsewhere and otherwise . . .
teaching at a different, or better, university; living in another state; finding a bigger,
better house; receiving more speaking offers and achieving greater fame, and earlier,
having wealthier parents, a more successful husband, all cravings for status and money.
The cravings I have today are much simpler – chocolate, ice cream, a new pair of jeans,
and, oh yes, a house with a better view of the ocean. But I anticipate that with the
exception of chocolate, the others will soon leave me. For I truly love my life today.
And I am beginning to see the light at the end of my tunnel vision: As Batchelor points
out, within Indian tradition, “the aim of life is to attain freedom from the anguished cycle
of compulsive rebirth. (It’s a curious twist that Westerners find the idea of rebirth
consoling.)” (35) Once again, I am seeking liberation – from the worries and problems
created in my mind.

Batchelor advises us to have friends who are “skilled in the art of learning from
every situation.” One of these friends is my traveling companion, my partner, Jonathan
who has a skill for learning from and adapting to situations. “We do not seek perfection
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in these friends but rather heartfelt acceptance of human imperfection.” For so many
years, I found others, particularly my dates, wanting, imperfect. Rather than acceptance,
I felt critical, intolerant. But this has changed to “heartfelt acceptance of human
imperfection.” We are human, after all, therefore imperfect, a perfectly acceptable
reality.

Batchelor goes on to elaborate that these friends have been taught by others,
“through a series of friendships that stretches back through history – ultimately to
Gautama [Buddha] himself.” (Dharma practice, 51). I think of Gurumayi, the Siddha
Yoga Swamis, all the teachers I have met in Siddha Yoga. Along with my little
meditation community of good friends in Sea Ranch who practice all manner of
meditation.

For myself, now, I don’t search for “omniscience but an ironic admission of
ignorance.” (50) I no longer care whether I have an answer. On the contrary, I love not
knowing, because a whole realm of knowledge awaits me. “The questioning that
emerges from unknowing differs from conventional inquiry in that it has no interest in
finding an answer . . . The deeper we penetrate a mystery, the more mysterious it
becomes . . . This perplexed questioning is the central path itself . . . Fired with intensity,
but free from turbulence and the compulsion for answers, questioning is content just to let
things be. There is not even a hidden agenda at work behind the scenes.” (98)

My not very hidden agenda used to be egotistic – to demonstrate my brilliance,


my superiority, and other’s incorrectness. (I am embarrassed to admit that I thought no
one else knew this, that I had concealed my false pride and arrogance, as well as other
imperfections.) As a paradoxical result, I always came up short in my own estimation; I
had severe bouts of intellectual insecurity and personal inadequacy.

But there is another way to seek knowledge, finding wisdom instead of answers:
“To dwell in unknowing perplexity before the breath, the rain . . . we are poised in a still
vital alertness on the threshold of creation . . . waiting for something to emerge that has
never happened in quite that way before and will never happen in quite that way again.”
(101) I want to be “poised in a still vital alertness” to the rest of my life. I want to be
“fired with intensity, but free from turbulence and the compulsion for answers.” I want
to be “content to just let things be.” “Such a person values lightness of touch, flexibility
and adaptability, a sense of humor and adventure, appreciation of other viewpoints, a
celebration of difference.” (105) This is exactly the person I want to be.

For Batchelor, like Thich Nhat Hanh and others, Buddhism must live in the world,
not be confined to arcane monastic practices. He finds an aesthetic sensibility in
Buddhism’s core principles. “Awareness is also an experience of beauty, beauty in
nature and in art.” “Great works of art” portray “the pathos of anguish and a vision of its
resolution . . . They accept anguish without being overwhelmed by it. They reveal
anguish as that which gives beauty its dignity and depth. The four ennobling truths of the
Buddha provide . . . a template for aesthetic vision.” (105) What a magnificent
description of great theater and cinema.
122

“Our life is a story being continuously related to others through every detail of our
being.” (106) I was beginning to enjoy the story of my life, with “flexibility and
adaptability, a sense of humor and adventure, appreciation of other viewpoints,”
particularly Jonathan’s, which was not always complimentary. On this Asian Odyssey, I
felt intense compassion for the suffering these countries had endured; and I felt great
admiration for what they were achieving. I think the commitment to Buddhism had much
to do with survival and with “accepting anguish without being overwhelmed by it.” I felt
a oneness with each culture, realizing all the time that my five feet and eight inches, my
streaked blonde hair, and white skin made me look “other,” foreign. I knew we shared
one thing – a reverence for Buddhist culture and practices, and that one thing united us.

We left Saigon and flew to Cambodia, its bloodbath killing fields and Khmer
Rouge torture prison, S21, in Phnom Penh, and its monumental Hindu and Buddhist
temple ruins in Angkor and Siem Reap. The banality of evil is stifling, terrifying, both
overwhelming and incomprehensible. 1.7 million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer
Rouge between 1975 and 1979. This immensity is beyond comprehension, on historical
scale that can barely be imagined. Immensity also describes the magnificence of the
temple ruins in Angkor Wat, a temple, and Angkor Thom -- a 9th century city abandoned
to the jungle and an earlier war with the Thais, stone fortresses undone by mammoth tree
roots, monsoons, and intense heat. All these remnants of God and then of violent history
are silent. The places are empty of life except for tourists and quiet with death. War and
revolution killed even the jungle animals in Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat.

Outside Phnom Penh, we are the only tourists at the killing fields – the recently
excavated gravesite of 20,000 bodies – accessible by a badly pocked dirt road and newly
marked by a tall white marble monument filled with skulls in glass cases. A gaggle of
young children surrounded Jonathan, hands outstretched for money, which he
humorously provided.

In the city, the horror is made personal in the individual photographs of the
numbered, tortured prisoners on exhibit in the school turned infamous prison, S21,
nondescript except for the barbed wire surrounding it. The jailers kept meticulous
records, photographing the prisoners upon arrival and after their tortures. The pick axes
used to maim and kill are rusted, ordinary, almost small. But if you close your eyes, the
atrocity is palpable. We read books in an attempt to understand the forced evacuation by
the Khmer Rouge of Phnom Penh in 1975. Our guide, Suk Lang, a 45 year old woman
who lived it, explained it best to us. After they captured the city from the army, the
Khmer Rouge rebels told the citizens that the Americans were going to bomb – as they
had invaded and bombed other cities in Cambodia in the 1970s. They promised that
everyone could return to their homes in three days. Thus began the forced march of an
entire populace into the rice fields and communes of the country – a three-year nightmare
of separation that didn’t end when another Communist regime, the Vietnamese, occupied
the country from 1979 - 1989. When Suk Lang returned, her family house was gone.
Two of her brothers died from starvation and overwork.
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Like the major cities of Vietnam, the French colonial style and culture lie
beneath the teaming streets of shopkeepers and beggars. But the splendor, the marks of
economic exploitation, has faded, decayed. Cambodia is very poor, ragged, darkly sad
about the past and quietly wary about the future. You can see something like pain in the
eyes of the tour guides who very carefully tell their personal stories, which make up the
country’s history – the tragedy of war, of liberation gone mad, of freedom not yet gained.

Vietnam, a communist country, has been open for only a decade, Cambodia, a
repressive mix of the military and the monarchy, a few years less. Already the tourist
attractions, particularly luxury hotels but also the glittering luxury designer stores like
Louis Vuitton and Cartier, are refiguring the cities and crowding the landscape. Young
men and women are migrating from the rice fields to the cities for work. Mom and Pop
entrepreneurs line the available sidewalks, hawking their services, selling local handcrafts
and recently available consumer durables. TVs and cell phones are ubiquitous, as are
motorbikes, parked four deep or flowing through the streets like a great marathon race.
Although communist countries, these are consumer cultures, noisy, on the move, the
current generation, making up for lost time. Their history – one of colonialism, war,
occupation, deprivation, starvation, poverty, and communism -- is so different from mine.
So many in these countries did not make it to my age. The women’s faces are lined with
sorrow and deprivation, aging them by twenty years or more.

I am sitting at the Bangkok airport to board a flight to Yangon (Rangoon) -- our


jump-off to ten days in Myanmar (formerly Burma). Mandalay and cruises on the
Irawaddy and Mekong rivers and other exotic places I have never heard of, even in the
movies, are on our six-week itinerary. All I have known of Mandalay is that is mystical,
strange, a romantic setting for a 1940s film noir. I never dreamed I would be there, in
reality. Burma’s (Myanmar’s) borders and economy have been closed since the military
coup in the 1960s, a ban lasting until the late 1990s. For half a century, socialism held
back modernity.

But technology and popular culture are breaking through the military regime’s
hold. TV antennas sit atop the thatched houses on stilts of the lake people, fishermen
who still row their hollowed dugouts with their legs and know English phrases from
MTV. Hollywood “action cinema” is so popular in Myanmar via pirated tapes that
“Arnold” is a familiar figure. But only the military have cell phones, and the internet is
heavily censored. Yahoo is banned, along with amnesty international sites. I cannot
retrieve my email, late in the afternoon, at a local internet cafe in Rangoon. Myanmar is
exotic, and darkly repressive. The military regime controls everything, and everyone;
paranoia is operative as residents are fearful of even the slightest anti-government
remark. Our guide speaks to us in whispers. He is a medical doctor who dreams of
getting out of the country on a student visa, to resettle in Europe. He would love to come
to the US, but that is impossible for him. We share typical Burmese dinners with him,
eating with our fingers.

Although the country is rich with beautiful stupas and temples, and lovely
French colonial architecture, much is in disrepair. On our first day of a walking tour to
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Rangoon, now Yangon, the closely watched state of repression becomes evident.
Although there were barriers blocking access, and signs that prohibited photographs,
Jonathan (for whom rules and prohibitions existed as a challenge) was determined to get
a photo of the American Embassy. So he nonchalantly stepped up to the barricades, took
out his camera, and snapped. Immediately, he was surrounded by police, forcibly trying
to grab his camera, and pelting him with loud questions and threatening him with waving
arms. He remained unbowed! Our guide and I caught up to this explosive scene, with
our guide explaining that we were ignorant American tourists. It took several minutes to
assure the police that we didn’t pose a threat. But this was a very sharp warning that
Myanmar’s current politics are very real indeed. This didn’t deter Jonathan in his
obsessive desire to drive past the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, the imprisoned freedom
fighter. Her home was in a former French colonial enclave of tired, beautiful mansions
and lovely foliage. But there were barricades on her street. Our guide feared losing his
job, so Jonathan decided not to attempt to walk past them.

The owner of the resort on Inle Lake, a primitive outpost, is also said to be a
former freedom fighter, now a radical politician, actively working for the overthrow of
the present regime. We met him but didn’t discuss his past or his imprisonment. We
spent several days in his local resort of thatched roof huts in this remote culture only
accessible by boat. As for hundreds of years, life is lived on the water. Crops are planted
on the water atop floating weed beds, and tended by boat. In scenes right out of National
Geographic, boatmen row with their legs and feet while standing up, their hands free to
fish or farm. Homes are on stilts, with the lake beneath providing plumbing. We boated
to local craft factories and temples, knowing that we were at the edge of a delicate
balance with the ways of the past and with nature. How long could a place like this
survive now that there were TV antennas on a few thatched roofs? And tourists as
regular customers? Again, Jonathan’s smile and engaging nature were magnets for the
female sales force, hawking local trinkets/artifacts in their dug-out canoes. It wasn’t that
he was a sucker, he just loved human beings, a passion fueled by his immense curiosity
about people’s everyday lives. He was unfailingly kind, respectful, a bit irreverent, and
could laugh at his own ignorance, which never seemed to bother him.

We traveled down the Ayewaddy River, on a five day Pandaw River Cruise. The
Irrawaddy Flotilla Company was “established by Scot’s merchants in 1905, eventually
running over 650 vessels in Burma, mainly paddle boats.” This was the river of the teak
trade, when the forests were cut over to supply the exotic wood for furniture and decor.
The company was done in when the Japanese invaded in 1942 and “revived in 1995 by a
Burma historian, who restored an original Clyde built steamer called the Pandaw.” Life
along the river was primitive – the villages were comprised of mud huts and a single
industry, like making whiskey. There were a few motorbikes and more oxen River life
still dominates Burma and forms the main system of transportation and irrigation.

Even more remarkably, Buddhist activities permeate every aspect of life.


Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) is a magnificent, spectacular golden
domed Buddhist temple, on a hill overlooking the city. Like other famous and sacred
Buddhism temples, it is adorned with precious jewels and gold and silver. This temple
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was the focal point for the post WW II Independence movement and again came to
prominence in the 1988 revolution against the Burmese military regime. It was the
anchor point for the Buddhist protests of 2007 – until the military crackdown imprisoned
hundreds of monks. North of Mandalay, near the banks of the Ayewaddy River, is a
gilded Buddha. As an offering, people paste gold leaf on the Buddha, now thickly
crusted in gold. In this country, building a stupa is still one of the most meritorious
acts. 129

The signs of so much Buddhism in the midst of a repressive military regime is a


striking contrast, nowhere more astonishing than in Bagan, where there are remnants of
4,000 stupas. It’s actually hard to describe this wondrous place, for there are temples
everywhere, now protected in an enclave, outside the city proper. It is a major tourist
attraction and a reminder of the power of spirituality. We stayed in a resort owned and
managed by Germans, as was our hotel in Rangon. The signs of the U.S. are minimal, at
least for now.

I had received a book of Stupas at a talk by the Dalai Lama in San Francisco, a
gift for being a sponsor of his visit. It perfectly described the role of these sacred
buildings in Buddhist cultures:

“The stupa fuses two functions:” 1) keeping alive the memory of the “great teacher,
Gautama Buddha, by providing a focal point for commemorative activities and a
container for holy relics;” and 2) “serve[ing] as a bond among members of the Buddhist
community who view the structure as a potentially powerful instrument for spiritual
transformation.” (When the Buddha died, it is said that eight kings divided up his
remains – building stupas to house them.)

Pilgrims make offerings of flowers, incense and candles at the base, particularly
on the east side, the direction from which the sun rises. Another form of reverent
offering is circumambulation; walking along the circumference in a clockwise direction.
This is “said to induce a meditative state of mind to better contemplate the Buddha and in
some traditions, accumulate religious merit.”

The Buddhist scholar and teacher, Robert Thurman, writes that “Stupas are
memorials to the immanent possibility of freedom from suffering for all beings . . .
Stupas stand as eloquent testimony to the higher purpose of life, beyond competing and
struggling, getting and spending. Consciously or subliminally, they help turn people’s
minds away from their frustrating obsessions and towards their own higher potential.” 130
“An encounter with a stupa is an encounter with myth – or as Carl Jung and Joseph
Campbell might have phrased it, an archetypal truth. What may at first seem only to be
an artistic and perhaps nostalgic arrangement of brick, stone or wood may eventually
come to be seen as an elaborate vessel, transporting the Boddhidharma across three
millennia.” (8)

We returned to Thailand, to Chiang Mai, 430 miles north of Bangkok. On our


first day, we visited every temple in the old city. But by now, we were in overload; we
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had taken in and experienced all the sacred temples we could hold. It was as if my
spiritual energy had been either exhausted or over-indulged. And it was a national
holiday in Chiang Mai, an ancient celebration of water and the rainy season. The
contemporary ritual involved throwing water on everyone who walked or rode or ran
past. There was a water parade set up on the main streets – a soaking festival replete with
fireworks, music, high spirits, and Buddhist monks. After being deluged by buckets of
forcefully thrown water, when walking, and then having our car window bombarded with
sudden and abrupt bursts of water, we decided to ride bicycles, away from town. Bad
idea. Individual houses had big barrels of water in front and pails to pelt all passersby.
We got soaked, and it was more dangerous than walking. People and traffic were
everywhere, celebrating. My hair was a mess!

This was the excuse we needed. We retreated to the sumptuous oasis of our hotel
suite in The Regent Chiang Mai – where we could watch a farmer and water buffalo work
the rice fields just below our terrace. The hotel surpassed even the brochure: “A true
showplace . . . the majestic resort sits amid 20 acres of tropical gardens, looking out over
rice paddies to the mountains beyond.” The rooms were luxurious, of deeply polished
and gleaming teak, with silk embroidered linens and traditional arts. Our exquisite meals
were served in our private gazebo, or sala. We abandoned any notion of cultural
enlightenment, education, or adventure and enjoyed this private respite. Being with
Jonathan made this, and many other extraordinary experiences, possible. By opening up
my heart, and my mind, my life and my environment had expanded, exponentially so. I
was overwhelmed by gratitude. What a long way I had come – from being afraid of a
committed relationship to being deeply grateful!

We emerged on the third day, and drove to the royal summer palace and the most
sacred temple in Thailand, on the top of a mountain. By now, my mind could not absorb
any more experiences, to say nothing of place names. Both places were teeming with
tourists, but the throngs couldn’t override the magnificence of either site.

But the most moving experience came from the performance at the Elephant
Conservation Center. Here, elephants, no longer necessary for labor, perform for tourists
to earn their keep, taking their strength and abilities into entertainment rather than
logging, hauling, and construction. This project also provides work for the elephants’
now out of work owners/handlers who used to make money hauling teak, before the
forests were decimated, before Caterpillar replaced the strength of elephants. I first
learned about elephant painting in Palo Alto, at an opening/charity auction at a local art
gallery. I bid on, and won, an elephant painting, a work I love which hangs at Sea Ranch.
Here, at the Conservation Center, was the source of that painting. We watched elephants
paint, holding a brush in their graceful trunks. And it was lovely. The painting I bought
for Dae was beautiful and inexpensive, unlike the pricey auction item I purchased.

I was deeply touched by the elephants’ humility, apparent in their performance of


log rolling and lifting; I was impressed by the grace and agility and power of these
wondrous creatures. Why is it that elephants always make me cry? This has been true
since I was a child visiting the Vilas Park Zoo in Madison, Wisconsin, and standing in
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awe and melancholy, outside Winkie’s cage. My emotions were exactly the same, now
more than 55 years later. I realized that elephants have much to do with time. When
riding one this day, I was aware it felt like time had slowed down. To encase such
gentility in a large covering is, perhaps, the source of elephants’ mystery. Finally, I think
it is their humility that so inspires and moves me. They could so easily crush us, yet they
quietly serve us.

From there we went to Chiang Rai, the Golden Triangle where the borders of
Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet – famous as an escape or attack route during the
almost constant wars in this region and infamous for the drug trade, for opium and
heroin. We boarded a private river boat, a Pak Ou boat with a staff of three and “open air
seating,” that would take us to the Luang Say Lodge, on the shore of the Mekong River,
the half way point to Luang Prabang, in Laos. For seven hours of solitude, we observed
the forests and river life. Fishing poles lined the bank, discretely so, the only sign of
people. The Mekong is a way of life in Laos, a source of food and a social center for
settlements. “It is the tenth longest river in the world, and its source is the Tibetan
plateau. After the Vietnam War, anti-communist forces escaped across the Mekong to
refugee camps in northern Thailand. And during the war, the Mekong provided bases for
raids.”

Laos has been invaded many times during its history. More recently, the Siamese
(Thailand) were the overlords until the French arrived at the end of the 19th century --
gaining sovereignty in 1904. Following the Japanese occupation during WW II, France
united Laos into one nation. “Within five years, the new nation endured communist
incursions and a civil war which lasted for over 20 years.” The rebel Laos, backed by
China, established the Peoples Republic of Laos in 1975. “In the 1950s Laos received
more American aid per person than any other country. In the 1970s it received more
bombs from America than any other country.” 131 The country is still recovering from the
effects, physical and political, of this large scale disastrous bombing in the 60s and 70s.

Along the way are many large Hmong villages. The Hmong are mountain
farmers whose main cash crop was opium, used for heroin production. They are semi-
nomadic, clearing the forest area by burning and then abandoning the fields, exhausting
the land. Traditional costumes are still worn by Hmong, who live in houses of wood
planks and bamboo, with dirt floors. Villages had a single hanging light bulb. I
remembered the large Hmong community in Milwaukee; it had severe social problems
primarily manifested by street gangs and poverty. Displacement and separation like this
is an ordeal I’m not sure I could survive. The much vaunted, sought-after modernity has
a dark downside.

We arrive at Luang Say Lodge, on the steep shore of the river backed by thick,
dense mountain jungle. Now this is an adventure! “The 16 large pavilions of solid wood
all have balconies looking out onto the Mekong River. The buildings, of traditional
Laotian architecture, are connected by planked walkways.” The food, served by
candlelight, is simple, as are the sparse, handmade accommodations. But the setting is
very dramatic, right out of another 1940’s movie.
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The night is black dark, moonless, with a single, hanging electric bulb in our
room. An intense thunderstorm blows open the wooden shutters and blows out candles,
making the stilts and bamboo walls rattle and sway. The sound track mixes jungle noises
with wind. I love this experience! Jonathan, on the other hand, is apprehensive, worried
(terrified?) about, of all things, bugs. (Not that the shaky structure will crash down the
steep hillside!) So I scramble, ducking the banging shutters, soaked, to rearrange the
mosquito netting over him. He is not the outdoor type, although he wouldn’t admit this.
Then again, neither am I any longer. But tonight I was in a movie, playing my role of
fearless heroine with bravado.

Near Luang Prabang, our destination in Laos, set into a high vertical cliff face on the
river bank, are the “magnificent cave temples of Tham Ting . . . which contain thousands
of Buddha images, 1 or 2 metres high, made of wood and coated with lacquer and gold
leaf 132.” Begun in the 15th century, this is the site of a ceremony at the Laotian New
Year. Jonathan’s knees are too inflamed to climb the many tiny stone steps. I proceed,
alone, awed by the reverence for nature, the water, and the Buddha.

Our boat docked at marble stairs along the riverbank, right below the Royal Palace
Museum, which houses many 15th century Buddha images. Declared a world heritage
site by the UN in 1995, Luang Prabang is a sweet, small city of 16,000. Much of the old
town is preserved, with cafes along the riverbank, curvy streets with small craft shops,
and 32 old and well-preserved temples. In 1990, there were only 300 tourists. But that is
rapidly inflating for this gem of a city, still preserved in time. Luang Prabang “is being
recognized for the exotic Asian jewel that it is.” 133 We loved this precious city and
walked to most of the thirty-two temples, filled with monks of all ages. We rode bicycles
around the town and took a motor scooter out to the country. I could have stayed here for
weeks.

One morning was memorable. We got up at 4am. It was pelting sheets of rain,
and we had a big box of ramen dried noodles to balance on our motor scooter as we rode
into the quiet center of town. Jonathan dropped me off on the main street. I stood
awkwardly, balancing the box, until an old woman with a big bowl of sticky rice kindly
beckoned me to sit beside her. Soon, more than 200 saffron robed monks walked by –
with their bowls, for alms. I bowed each time I placed a packet of rice noodles in their
bowls. Meanwhile, Jonathan, wanting to get to the heart of the experience and be a more
active participant, had driven his motor scooter, vroom, vroom, into the temple courtyard,
where the monks were gathering for their morning ritual walk through the town. He was
jocular, talking, smiling, not noticing the silence of the monks or the quiet of the early
morning. However, the monks were not censoring. They saw his generosity and
enthusiasm and responded in kind. It was a delightfully loveable scene.

My memory of the kind Laotian grandmother, welcoming me to her side, looking


at me with acceptance, is one to keep. At heart, we are the same. The differences were
only on the surface. It was a gesture I will equate always with Southeast Asia.
129

In Bangkok, we checked in at our favorite hotel, the Peninsula Hotel, and hired a
cab for a high speed, low pass of major historical sites, including the opulent Grand
Palace and the spectacular reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, in the Temple of the Reclining
Buddha. This magnificent 150 foot sculpture, covered with gold, fills the entire temple
and is surrounded by bells which visitors can ring. This was my first experience with
Buddha in recline, a pose I read that he assumed at his death. Jonathan was lagging
behind me, like an absorbed child, striking every one of the bells that lined the walls.
Our guide loved his enthusiasm. This was the last Buddhist temple we would visit. It
was a big finale, and a sight without any distanced perspective. For the building fits the
statue like a snug glove. It is impossible to stand back and comprehend the whole.

We concluded this joyous adventure at an elegant resort on the beaches of southern


Thailand, in Krabi, the Rayavadee Premier Resort, accessible only by boat. As the
brochure understated, there were “26 acres of palm trees . . .Circular pavilions built in
traditional Thai style have spacious living rooms with curving staircases that lead up to
opulent bedrooms and sumptuous baths with huge round bathtubs. There are several
pools and five star restaurants” and the amenities go on, and on, until they were swept
away by the Tsunami that hit Thailand. It was a spectacular beach, surrounded by rock
hills on the shores, but the inhabitants of the oasis were white tourists, like us. The
luxury made it feel like anyplace. And because there were 26 acres of anyplace, there
was no outside, no Thailand, no Asia. It was time to go home.
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CHAPTER 10:

A Man, A Plan, A Canal: Panama

Dr. Ashok Bedi, Jonathan’s elegant, brilliant Indian psychoanalyst -- who has
infused Jungian principles with Eastern spiritual philosophy -- has a metaphor for the
irritants and conflicts in relationships. He sees them as the sand grit in the oyster that
ultimately creates the pearl. For him, these grating frictions – replays and mutations of
age-old complexes -- can be beneficial if not transforming. All we need for old pain to
turn into joy is to develop the awareness of these unconscious patterns of thought.

Sound easy? Not at all! Because they are old and deeply buried and we are
unaware of their nature, this is clearly not a simple task. Which is where a psychoanalyst
comes in – as the translator of flailing emotions into their underlying causes and
subsequent patterns of behavior. Which is something Buddhism, or Siddha Yoga,
doesn’t do. An intimate relationship can thus become a means of self-healing by
uncovering and then taming old fears and insecurities. Now this is easier said than done.
Going through old defenses or complexes involves pain, it takes staying power, to say
nothing of humility and surrender. To say that these are not my strong points is a severe
understatement.

As I have repeated perhaps too many times, Jonathan and I both brought old
baggage into our new partnership. Neither of us initially had much awareness of the
effect of our fears and defenses on the other. We were both too enthralled with our own
stories, or blinded by our own pain, or caught up in our own fears, or seeking praise and
credit for our actions.

In addition, I had no role models for intimate relationships. When taken


individually, my parents were gracious, intelligent, generous people – beloved by their
children, many friends and extended family. And they truly loved and were devoted to
each other. But the way they often conducted their marriage was another story,
particularly for young children. First would come a small criticism (Peg, the beans are
burned again, or Bob, you need to watch your weight); then bickering, which would erupt
with my father’s shouting, door slamming walk-out, and my mother’s tears in the closest
bathroom. These scenes never changed – they simply replayed. They were food fights.

My own marriage, now more than a quarter of a century ago, locked in my fear of
long-term commitment. It went something like this: I would become dependent and
trapped in his limited ambition and achievement, embalmed in a stifling boredom and
inequality, with no financial independence or security. As a result of this fear of
entrapment, akin to being buried alive, my solution to disagreements and squabbles is to
131

leave, or at least threaten to leave. The internal pressure to run away builds to such an
intolerable degree that I feel as if I will implode. Instead, I explode – and say things I
regret, necessitating apologies and the attendant quilt.

Jonathan’s fear is both older and more recent. His mother was a brilliant woman
who received a degree in economics – then a rare achievement for women. She worked
in the family business alongside her very charismatic husband, George, a very creative
and restless entrepreneur who had great successes in his ventures, along with failures.
Jonathan remembers Dorothy as a creative, involved mother who also had outbursts of
anger with him. And he was the second son, the trouble-maker and tease rather than the
A student his older brother, Dave, was. While Dave left home for college in the east and
adventures in Africa and Asia, becoming a journalist and magazine publisher/editor in
Hawaii, Jonathan married his childhood sweetheart, a short, attractive blonde he began to
date in high school, and worked in the family business in Wisconsin. They married while
still in college so most of his history as an adult, thirty-five years, includes her.
Reportedly, she withheld her feelings and emotions, except for the power of her
disapproval. Dr. Bedi analyzed Jonathan as having a severe mother complex, based on a
deep fear of abandonment and anger toward unpredictable, irate women.

. (I suspect that like me, addiction can be traced back in Jonathan’s family,
explaining some of the painful history. For anger is the handmaiden of the disease.
Today, at 92, Dorothy is sweet and mainly air, sipping her vodka, smoking, and going in
and out of memories, acceptant of life as she awaits death, always thrilled to see the two
sons she dearly loves. She lives in beautiful condominium overlooking the harbor in
Honolulu; her main companions and caregivers are Collette, a lovely woman who has
become a daughter, and Kathleen, who oversees, loves, and cares for everyone.)

Thus, during his marriage, he always had what Bedi called his hedge fund, a
female backup when his wife would shut down to (or protect herself from) him. He had
lived the male double standard that I had railed against for much of my feminist life. For
him, however, this was also denial, or disavowal – call it Jonathan’s addiction, of which I
was initially unaware. In doublespeak that he truly believed, akin to the process of
denial, he insisted that his wife had complicitly agreed and that his behavior benefited
both of them. (AA would soon disadvise him of this delusion.) Thus, after 35 years of
marriage, he envisioned a harmonious divorce and a future as friends, including a fantasy
building a joint family compound on 35 spectacular acres they jointly owned in the
mountains of Telluride, Colorado. After all, they were wealthy and money wouldn’t be a
problem. 50-50 was fine with him.

This illusion of happily ever after affairs began to unravel even before the
divorce (but it took time for Jonathan to accept the reality of her negative feelings for
him.) The clincher came when she locked him out of his home office, cutting him off
from his financial and professional materials. Talk about castration for a businessman!
Jonathan was dealing with a very angry woman, and it was not me! Her anger inflamed
him. And his irritability could rudely shift onto me.
132

And I have my problems with angry men, due, primordially, I imagine, to my


father’s yelling, scaring me when I was a little girl, and later, conversely, to my former
husband’s regular and torturous use of the silent treatment, withholding any revelation of
his feelings. Yes, there is heavy baggage. And we sometimes whack each other with it.
For example, it was January, 2005, the balmy night before a cruise through islands in the
Caribbean and the Panama Canal on the way to Costa Rica. We were in a hotel in
Florida, sunny, 75 degrees, 1000 thread count, gourmet food, and a view of the ocean,
with a breeze. It was late and we would be boarding the luxury liner, Crystal Harmony,
early in the morning. Then Jonathan checked his e-mail, receiving a notice from Dee
Dee informing him that she would be sending him less money from the trust for his next
monthly allotment. Fury! This was the family trust, established from the extraordinarily
successful sale of his publication company. He was the President, the Chairman of the
Board. She was the wife, the trustee only for tax purposes.

I initially felt empathy and tried to console Jonathan. Meanwhile, his resentment
toward her (and perhaps toward angry, out of control women like his alcoholic mother)
would build up and sometimes spill over on me. Jonathan was not aware of the
displacement, along with the changes in his mannerisms – narrowed eyes, clipped
syllables, curt, unsmiling replies. I would hear anger, even disgust, in his voice. Fear
like that of a child about to be chastised would well up in me. In addition, I resented the
sleepless night, the loss of tranquility, the intrusion of his ex-wife who was, for several
years, present in our relationship, another elephant in the living room. Invariably, I
reacted to his irritability. Inevitably, I talked back, fueling the flames, now angry at his
anger and disrespect.

After this slow emotional buildup, the main event was a big, climactic scene, not
between Jonathan and Dee Dee or his mother, or between me and my dead father or my
ex-husband, who would have been the true antagonists, but between Jonathan and me.
Raging, I packed my bag, heavy with evening clothes for the cruise, and dragged it into
the hallway of the Lago Mar Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. “I’m going to the airport. You’ll
have a better cruise and life without me.” The drama queen dosed with the martyr took
center stage and made a big exit. Slam, bang.

Out in the empty hall, I had second thoughts about missing the cruise, along with
hurting Jonathan, and sheepishly returned to the room in a conciliatory manner. Not to
be outdone, Jonathan, now the drama king, packed in a parallel furor, and left. I sat on
the edge of the bed, stunned. How had this happened? We had been so content, so
harmonious and then, wham, this emotional explosion, which felt more like mortar fire
than sand grit.

Jonathan’s fear of abandonment was triggered (not surprisingly) first by Dee Dee
and then by my threatening to leave. He in turn aggressively attacked me for hurting him
and I become terrified of staying . . . and so it goes, round and round. In a way, these
dramas are very funny, and great if redundant grist for psychoanalysis, but mainly they
are exhausting, like two old boxers in the ring who can’t quit throwing punches until they
both pass out. As Dr. John Beebe, my Jungian psychoanalyst in San Francisco, says, we
133

don’t have complexes; rather our complexes have us. Weary from battle, I hauled my
suitcase down to the lobby of the Lago Mar Hotel. He was still there, waiting. Then I
followed Jonathan into the waiting cab. The unspoken, the tension, between us was so
heavy it hurt.

That sunny afternoon, in a quiet, wary truce, we boarded the Crystal Harmony
and were escorted to our penthouse suite on the 10th deck of the ship – spacious,
luxurious quarters, including a Jacuzzi and a 24 hour butler. The Caribbean air was
balmy. Again, I was in a romance setting, with ten days of exploring, reading, and
writing, and nights of black tie dinners, shows, and movies ahead of me. How lovely can
life be? I feel such gratitude for the pleasure and kindness of companionship. For so
many years, I carried all my own bags, making all the decisions. To be the beneficiary of
another’s care and love is a cherished state.

After the Canal and docking in Costa Rica, we spent five days in a small resort,
Punta Islita, on a coastal mountaintop – in hammocks, infinity pools, eating delicious
South American cuisine. I awoke each morning in a four poster canopy bed, with a
glorious view of the Pacific Ocean – just like in the movies. I remembered many years
ago being in Tahiti, on my way back from talks in Australia. It was the same balmy
weather, in a beautiful ocean resort, and I remember feeling very alone, unable to share
the romantic setting with anyone. Seeing life with comparable eyes, building a history of
shared experiences, being emotionally open with and vulnerable to another . . . are new
found values for me. I never thought this would happen to me. This was impossible.

For me, the key is my reaction, my response – I can be compassionate and truly
listen with patience or I can feel hurt, second best, as I did in the hotel room the previous
night. I can consider Jonathan’s emotions seriously, or I can judge them, usually as
excessive or ridiculous. In choosing compassion, I treat myself with tenderness as well
as Jonathan. Patience allows time to listen or time to cool down. When I react by
choosing hurt and anger, then I make both of us miserable. Mmmmm . . . let’s see, which
one? Oh, compassion, yes. If the positive choice is so obvious (and so easy -- silence
and listening), then why is it so difficult? Why do I so often behave like Pavlov’s dog,
responding with hurt and anger?

I have more than 50 years defending myself against emotions I didn’t understand
or like but emotions which I also learned -- my father’s sudden anger and irritability, my
mother’s martyrdom. In the rare instance that I choose compassion, my higher self
emerges, and it is healing, soothing. But more often, my ego, my false pride, takes over
and defends itself at both slight and intense provocations. The scenario of the martyr
emerges, triggering the need to run away – which my father and mother both did, usually
getting only as far as the garage (my dad) and bathroom (my mother).

The moment of choice is subtle, but this space between thoughts and words is
always there. What to do? Run away? Be righteous, or simply right? Or stay, which
means experiencing pain, learning about surrender as strength and humility. Do I want to
polish this pearl or do I want to find another oyster without so much history? No matter –
134

the same insecurities will come up in me. And if it’s not an ex-wife who can become
prominent in another’s imaginary, there will be something else. If I can stay, if I can
listen, if I can surrender my will to be righteous or even right, then we can go somewhere
beyond our personal fears and limitations. Of course, there is a third option – becoming
an oyster myself, without either the grit or the pearl. This will leave me without the
friction. But then I will go nowhere, gain nothing, and lose the insight into my soul that
the frictions can reveal.

The American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, has all the answers I will ever need.
This brilliant woman was trained in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism, as a student of
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a meditation master who founded Naropa University in
Boulder, Colorado. 134 I have learned much from three of her books, The Wisdom of No
Escape, When Things Fall Apart, 135 and The Places that Scare You. 136

The first step is to “face how we harm others, and it takes a while. . .because of
mindfulness, we see our desires and our aggression, our jealousy and our ignorance. We
don’t act on them; we just see them. Without mindfulness, we don’t see them.” (WTFA,
33) Just a caution – mindfulness takes great effort and is an achievement. “The next step
is refraining . . . It’s the quality of not grabbing for entertainment the minute we feel a
slight edge of boredom coming on. It’s the practice of not immediately filling up space
just because there’s a gap. . . If we immediately entertain ourselves by talking, by acting,
by thinking – if there’s never any pause – we will never be able to relax. We will always
be speeding through our lives.” (33)

“We learn to pause for a moment . . . it’s a transformative experience to simply


pause instead of immediately filling up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with
our fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness.” (35/36)

“Buddhism teaches that there are four things that we like and become attached to
and four things that we don’t like and try to avoid . . . First, we like pleasure; we are
attached to it. Conversely, we don’t like pain. Second, we like and are attached to praise.
We try to avoid criticism and blame. Third, we like and are attached to fame. We dislike
and try to avoid disgrace. Finally, we are attached to gain, to getting what we want. We
don’t like losing what we have.” Becoming immersed in “these four pairs of opposites –
pleasure and pain, loss and gain, fame and disgrace, and praise and blame – is what keeps
us stuck in the pain of samsara, the world.” (46)

“We carry around a subjective reality, which is continually triggering our


emotional reactions. Someone says ‘You are old,’ and we enter into a particular state of
mind, either happy or sad, delighted or angry . . . the irony is that we make up these eight
worldly dharmas. We make them up in reaction to what happens to us in this world.
They are nothing concrete in themselves.” (47)

“We might feel that somehow we should try to eradicate these feelings . . . A
more practical approach would be to get to know them . . . to see that they aren’t all that
135

solid . . Then the eight worldly dharmas become the means for growing wise as well as
kinder and more content.”

“Seeking security or perfection, feeling self-contained and comfortable, is some


kind of death . . . We are killing the moment by controlling our experience.” Chodron
advises us to sit on the razor’s edge, not hanging on to being right or wrong, being in that
space where “we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong? . . .Could we
have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say?”
Everything is ambiguous, everything is always shifting and changing. (83)

“We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to
ourselves. The truth is, we only become more fearful, more hardened, and more
alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole. This separateness
becomes like a prison for us, a prison that restricts.” (87) “When we protect ourselves so
we won’t feel pain, that protection becomes like armor that imprisons the softness of the
heart . . . When we breathe in pain, somehow it penetrates that armor.” (89)

“The journey goes down, not up . . . Instead of transcending the suffering of all
creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We jump into it. We tiptoe into it .
. . We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to
push it away.” (When Things Fall Apart, 92)

When I can “explore the reality of insecurity and pain,” I become aware of the
mirror a relationship can be. I can see myself in him; and I can see myself through his
eyes. Both views are ultimately generous and acceptant – of sags, wrinkles, flaws,
quirks, habits, pains and all the imperfections that make us human.

“The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval, we are practicing
disapproval. When we buy into harshness, we are practicing harshness . . . The more we
do it, the stronger these qualities become. How sad it is that we become so expert at
causing harm to ourselves and others. The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting
go . . . Instead of struggling against the force of confusion, we could meet it and relax.
We can learn to meet whatever arises with curiosity and not make it such a big deal.” (27)

The title of this chapter, “A Man, A Plan, A Canal: Panama,” is a palindrome, it


reads the same backward and forward. This is also true of emotions – which can be read
positively or negatively. So the trick is not to repress or deny them, but to let them
breathe and then recede as, simply, feelings. Letting negative emotions fuel actions only
rebounds negatively. Why do I make “such a big deal” out of my emotions?

I am learning about the conflict points, my words that are tinder boxes of
hurt/anger. I am trying to apply this scrim to my words: Are they necessary? Are they
honest? Are they kind? Many of my little remarks are not, at core, kind. My irony can
slip into deep sarcasm. In Be An Island, Ayya Khema stresses the right time for
speaking. “The right time to speak is when we are completely calm and the other person
is attentive, at ease, and ready to listen. If there’s anger, it’s the wrong time. . . Unless we
136

learn these skills, we will have many emotional accidents in our relationships.” I love
this phrase, “emotional accidents,” they used to be commonplace experiences for me.

Most importantly, I am learning to hold my ground, to stay, to lean into the pain,
as Buddhism teaches, rather than escaping it, to admit my responsibility, to accept
criticism and then to own the error. Interior pain is unfailingly a sign that I am learning
about surrender, patience, and humility – the triad that makes unconditional love
possible. As feminism had done for me previously, helping me discern the way women
were viewed and contained in the real world as well as on television and in the movies,
the irritable (and delightful) encounters of an intimate relationship are leading to self
insight, to self awareness – to the deeper layers; the process can be nourishing, and
painful, but insightful and ultimately beneficial. When I look back, after I have passed
through an issue by taking responsibility for it, I wonder why it hurt in the first place. 137

AA encourages us to take personal inventory, a detailed analysis of our “character


defects.” Some of my defects had not been glaringly apparent as long as I lived alone.
Or at least so I imagined. But there was no one there to tell me. Being in a relationship
was a different story, with a great deal of feedback and sometimes reverb. I had much to
learn, and much to change. Ayya Khema points to many of them in Be an Island. .

On Listening: “creating our own viewpoint is one of the worst errors we make
when we believe we are listening . . . Listening means being empty of self-importance
and reacting to what we hear with empathy . . . Just listening, with total attention . . .
without making up our own story about it, without our mental chatter, is part of
compassion. It is also loving kindness.” (48)

I am a terrible listener, impatient, often jumping ahead and providing the answers
to my own questions. Or I would interrupt, or change the subject, cutting off the other
person. More than anything, Jonathan needed to be heard, needed his thoughts to be
recognized. And he would tell me later that this was true of my sister, Nancy, and Rob. I
needed to let them speak and to listen quietly. Rarely could I listen without providing my
own summary analysis, usually a grand and often flattering theory. I was so full of “self-
importance” there was little room left to learn from another. I was focused on “making
up my own story,” for which I expected praise and credit.

“A feeling of superiority or inferiority is the opposite of peacefulness . . .


producing restlessness. There is always the reaching out, the craving for a result in the
form of other people’s admiration or their denial of it.”

Khema speaks of “emotional accidents,” a great concept – and cautions us about


deliberate speech, watchful action. ”Clarity of thinking comes from the purification of
our emotions . . . we must not identity with emotional upheavals. . .” (53) and say
something hurtful we do not mean, or do something we would regret.

My habit was to jump into my own drama as the wounded party, or the worthless
one, thereby perpetuating the “emotional upheaval” by turning it into a melodrama
137

worthy only of Harlequin or LIFE. When the drama began, I needed to win,
paradoxically by being the acknowledged victim of another’s aggression, by being right
and righteous.

“In war there is never a winner, only losers . . . both sides lose. The same
applies to a feeling of being victorious, of being the one who knows better or who is
stronger or cleverer. Battle and peace do not go well together.” (62) Just so in
relationships. There are only losers when emotions go into competitive battle.

“Is it really peace we want? Or do we want to be somebody special, somebody


important or lovable? A somebody never has peace.” (63) “Wanting to be somebody is
dangerous . . . it hurts constantly.” (64) “Being content means being satisfied with what
we own and with how we look, speak, live, and react.” (94)

I have some distance to go but I am on my way.


138

CHAPTER 11

An Old Girl Learns New Tricks: China, the Market, and Me

Jonathan and I spent three weeks in China, which began with a CEO University in
Shanghai, September 18-23, 2005. Like the Vietnam CEO event, there were terrific
speakers during the morning sessions. But their words could not describe or fully explain
the economic explosion that is occurring in Shanghai. Learning came from traveling
around the city. Skyscrapers, built by some of the world’s foremost architects, stretch
into the horizon. A brand new, modern city of comparable size, across the river, has
been built in only ten years. Every detail is planned and executed by the government.
The scope is in multiples of imagination. Just the planting along the freeway from the
airport into the city is wondrous. Four to five rows of perfectly placed trees and then
more rows of flowers and shrubs extend for miles, with nary a single weed, an
unbelievable scale of landscaping, a scale of labor that is incalculable.

Like countries in Southeast Asia, there are remnants of colonial powers, particularly
in the Bundt, an international zone reminiscent of the presence of the British, French, and
Germans. Tourists flock to this part of town with its lovely restaurants and shops,
including designer venues, which the young Chinese prefer to the knockoffs. China feels
like money and economic power on the move, billions, not millions, of dollars in
energetic motion. The art market has taken off, although we visited the loft painting
studios of several up and comers whose work in 2005 was still affordable. The influence
of U.S. pop and collage artists from the 1950s and 1960s on younger artists was apparent.
These works would soon be reviewed in The New York Times and their prices
immediately escalate. In their own context, some of the images must be very
sacrilegious.

On our own, we flew to Wuhan 138, boarding a Chinese boat for a Yangtze River
Cruise, visiting the spectacular Three Gorges Dam. This half completed project, in
Yichang (Hubei province), is a mammoth undertaking to provide hydroelectricity and
flood control for the millions of inhabitants along this major river. Entire new cities of
millions have been built on higher ground along the banks, modern high rises replacing
small village homes; millions of people have been relocated, by government mandate.
Urban planning in China can move swiftly and totally, massively, giving a new definition
to this last word. We ended the cruise in Chonqing, a huge city with 9 million population
and construction cranes everywhere. When the Japanese captured the Nationalist capital
in 1938, the government moved here. 139

We flew south, to Guilin, to see the poetic Li River. Rather than take the large,
crowded cruise boats, Jonathan hired a private motorboat to take us from Guilin to
Yangzhou. We speed-boated through this ancient, world-renowned landscape. The
139

fantastic peaks along the riverbank were right out of a movie studio’s special effects
department. Watching rural farm life, fuelled by only human and oxen labor, along the
riverbank sent me back a century or two in time. Life on the river appeared to be
peaceful, humans living in tandem with animals and the land, rather than dominating
both. There were no high-rises, no property lines, only washing clothes and feeding
animals. Scenes like this are vanishing from the world, and the sadness in this loss can
be penetrating.

The unimaginable scale of China is not new, as was apparent at the historical
monument, Qin’s Terra-Cotta Army in Shaanxi, rightfully known as the 8th wonder of the
world. This monumental discovery in 1974, near Emperor Qin’s mausoleum, opened to
the public in 1979, with work and discovery still going on. Pit 3 opened in 1989 and Pit
2 in 1994. The entire mausoleum is enclosed, stretching out like several domed football
stadiums. Qin was the first emperor in Chinese history; he built the Great Wall of China.
Obsessed with his fear of death for most of his life, the Emperor looked for the elixir of
immortality. When he was seriously ill, ministers were not allowed to even mention the
word, “death.” in his presence. Despite his efforts, the Qin Dynasty only lasted from 221
to 206 BC. 140

In a final attempt to outrun death, the Emperor built this huge mausoleum, in the
belief that there was life underground. The life he imagined was a warring one, with a
full army. Pit 1 has 6,000 warriors and horses. 13,000 are in Pit 2, arrayed in battle
formation, including chariots and charioteers; Pit 3 is the command center, with fewer
figures, well protected. The warriors were life-sized sculptures, exquisitely made, fired at
very high temperatures, and individualized. “No two figures unearthed so far have the
same features or expressions.” (Catalogue, 78) The figures were painted in great and
colorful detail, but a fire in 206 BC damaged the pits, fragmenting the figures, which had
to be pieced together after their discovery in 1974. Finding one piece per day is
considered a success. The act of reconstruction is a magnificent restoration. Like the
landscaping, it is on a scale imaginable only in China.

Paradoxically, the mausoleum -- filled with the ancient energy of an army of


thousands of figures, permeated by our imagination of the artisan’s labor, and noisy with
the throngs of chattering, pushing tourists and the ongoing archeological work -- is in the
tranquil, quiet countryside, discovered by farmers plowing their fields. All the action is
underground, buried by the silence of history and the tranquility of nature that has
covered over the grandiose effort to master it.

We stayed in Xian city, in a huge, sumptuous hotel suite the Clintons had occupied
during a recent visit to China, where they were superstars. We had no idea why we had
been upgraded to this room, which felt cavernous, like the mausoleum. During our tour
of the suite, Jonathan grimaced with worry that I might ask “Why us?” jinxing our good
fortune, but I didn’t. (Old girls can learn new tricks!)

Xian is, I think, a more accurate portrayal of China – the roads are pockmarked
and bumpy, most buildings are 1950s modernism, now decrepit, cold and ugly, built
140

haphazardly, wherever. There is debris, no landscaping, and virtually no trees, destroyed


as foliage was during the Cultural Revolution. The air is dense with pollution, as in all
the big cities, made worse by the escalating number of cars and trucks and industrial,
super-sized factories. It feels like everyone is in a hurry, trying to become rich! hastening
to capitalize on this moment in Chinese history when enterprise is making millionaires of
individuals working in tandem with the Communist government. China is for a younger
generation’s imagination. Our granddaughters need to learn Mandarin.

Our final stop was Beijing – and more famous sites: Tiananmen Square, the
Forbidden City, and Mao’s tomb in Chairman Mao Zedong Memorial Hall, open to the
public since 1977, a year after his death in 1976. It was a national holiday, so miles of
Chinese visitors waited patiently and quietly in line to walk past this tomb. Somehow
Jonathan skipped to the front, taking a sheepish me with him. (This took an
accomplished skipper, given the pushback quality of the Chinese citizens.) Mao’s face is
visible through glass. “His embalmed body lies in state, wrapped in a Chinese flag inside
a crystal coffin that is lowered each night into a subterranean freezer.” I just couldn’t
believe I was seeing the head of Mao Zedong, in this famous square I never imagined
experiencing. Famous television images of the stand-off in this square superimposed
themselves over reality. Where was the tank? The protesting student? We didn’t see
any other Caucasians in the thousands of visitors in the Square. On the way out, the
hawkers of Mao wares found an avid customer. I enthusiastically bought a dozen Mao
key chains, only later realizing that no one I knew would want one.

The critique of Mao and the Cultural Revolution is just beginning in China,
although one could see the effects of its destruction everywhere, particularly in the
absence of foliage and the decay of the outlying areas. So much had been destroyed.
There were no Buddhists left in China, at least that I could see. There are few trees and
fewer temples or stupas. While the centers of big cities were changing into postmodern
havens of glass, steel, high tech, and green, landscaped areas, the remnants of the
devastating past were still visible in decaying sections of town. 141

I was exhilarated by the monumental quality of China, and I was exhausted by it.
How to wrap one’s mind around the contradictory economics of China? Its population
density? Its massiveness? The fact that I felt completely safe, in Beijing as elsewhere,
late at night, alone, and this was not true of New York or Menlo Park? There were no
beggars on the streets, as there are in San Francisco. Although there was so much more
to experience, the thick air and the noisy congestion made me long for the solitude and
purity of Sea Ranch. I was weary of a material logic of more, as far as the eye and mind
can see.

We drove to the Great Wall, out in the tranquil countryside. The long lines of
backed-up tourist buses at each entrance, the throngs walking along all parts of the wall,
made it feel like the Super Bowl or the Fourth of July more than China. I tried to imagine
the heroic endeavor of building the wall, but Chinese tourists kept bumping into my
historical reverie. The crowded present erased the solitude and quiet of the past. It was
too late to really have an experience of the Great Wall. China felt frenetic, in a terminal
141

hurry, as if the entire populace had to get somewhere or something now, before it was too
late. After about 100 feet, I had enough. We have a photograph of the two of us, on the
Great Wall, at least a few feet of it, for just a few minutes. The polluted air of China was
becoming enervating. My eyes were weary from looking. I had lost my desire to shop,
even for knockoffs. We changed our reservations and left Beijing a day early.

As always, the drive up the California coast, on Highway 1, to Sea Ranch was
exhilarating, as if I were there for the first time. By now I knew the curvy road well and
drove it like a racecar driver. As I passed the farms along the coast, I realized that it’s
true. Even the cows are content in California.

Where to next? 142 After a CEO trip to the Middle East was cancelled as being too
dangerous, Jonathan and I began to get serious about contentment, about avoiding drama
of any sort, about quieting our noisy minds, and learning to accept ourselves, as we are,
“warts and all,” to use his favored phrase. For two restless souls, afflicted with
wanderlust and easily distracted thoughts, this was no small task. I already had the
answer: sitting still, observing our thoughts, in silence. Meditation is a paradoxical
endeavor -- It is so simple, yet it is the most difficult thing I have ever done. Seriously.

As Khema tells us: “In the beginning, meditation is not delightful at all. It
seems bothersome . . . with ingredients of suffering. But when the mind understands
what one is doing, namely watching each moment as it arises, it becomes fascinating to
get to know one’s mind.” (Being Nobody Going Nowhere, 75) Our thoughts are just
that, passing, elusive thoughts. We can watch them and not get caught up in them. This
is harder than it seems. As the Buddha said, “The one who conquers a thousand times a
thousand armies is as nothing compared to one who conquers him or herself.” (77)

The goal of meditation is not a blissed out high, or an escape from reality, or a
series of fantastic visual images, although this can be part of the experience. “Meditation
has one object only, namely to prepare the mind to get out of all suffering, to prepare it
for liberation. It is a means to this end and not for pleasant experiences. Those do
happen, and why not? Let’s be grateful for them.” (77) There’s that word, liberation,
again. But rather than escape from someone or something, this liberation comes from
within.

In Be an Island, Ayya Khema writes: “In the Buddha’s words, nothing is more
valuable than a controlled and skillfully directed mind.” The greatest support for a tamed
mind is “mindfulness,” which means being present in each moment. If the mind remains
centered, “it cannot make up stories about desires, or sorrows or injustices.” (23) As I
reflect on these words, I realize, with a smile, that most of my worries and fears were
(and some still are) contained in stories about “desires, sorrows, and injustices,” in one
form or another. I had repeated these sad tales so many times, they had become real, they
had become my history. If I could stay mindfully focused on the present moment, these
stories would not automatically rewind and then replay. They could be stories, not my
life. They could just be passing thoughts rather than triggers for sad emotions. After all,
I was not the star of a Hollywood melodrama.
142

Khema expands on the negative effects our stories of “desire, sorrow, and
injustice” have on our minds and hence our lives. About desire, she writes: “Notice the
dissatisfaction, the pain, the dukkha, that arises in the heart and mind whenever we want
something. When we drop the wish, we experience relief . . .the dukkha lies in the desire
itself, which creates tension, a feeling of expectation thinned with worry. . .The desire
creates a thought process that is no longer concerned with the here and now, but with the
future. A mind preoccupied with the future cannot attend to the present moment . . .
When we deliberately drop our wishes for things, the release and relief generate a feeling
of strength, a feeling of self-confidence ensures. The more we drop our wishes, the more
powerful the mind becomes . . . here power means power over ourselves, not others . . .
Such potential is like a powerhouse from whom energy can be drawn . . . As soon as the
mind has dropped its wishes, we can experience the ease of contentment.” (119)

The Pali word for suffering, or pain, is dukkha; according to Venerable


Henepola Gunaratana, this doesn’t mean just the “agony of the body. It means that deep,
subtle sense of unsatisfactoriness which . . . results from the mental treadmill.” 143 The
way off the “mental treadmill” of repeated stories of woe and worry is to realize that
there is nothing left to want. Although the habit of having and then fulfilling various
desires through eating chocolate or shopping or remodeling or planning trips and parties
or writing yet another book can kick in, at heart I have no more wishes. What is there
left to want? I already had everything (and more) that I needed.

The realization of enough, of no more, changes the very nature of reality and is a
soothing, freeing experience of contentment. “If we can see that there is nothing solid
anyway, that everything is moving, even our blood stream, such a moment of seeing frees
us from craving and clinging . . . Clinging is always connected with the fear of losing,
and craving is always connected with the fear of not having or not being. Fear and
anxiety are the natural states of being in this condition.” (Khema, Be An Island, 120)
The Buddha saw that “everybody was suffering on account of craving and clinging.”
(121)

“Liberation does not happen by grace from above, descending on us like a golden
mantle of bliss. It requires moment-to-moment mindfulness. Unless we are fully aware
of the contents of our minds, unfortunate moments may predominate. That’s why one
sees so very few happy people. Happiness is not an accident, it requires hard work.
Peace comes about by letting go. . .Wanting nothing goes beyond not wanting, because
one now accepts the reality that there is nothing worthwhile to be had . . . Wanting
nothing makes it possible to experience that actually there is nothing – only peace.” (121)

Khema concludes her wondrous little book with the way to get to liberation,
moment by moment:

“Being mindfully aware in and out of meditation is that practice that brings
results. It means doing one thing at a time, attentive to mind and body. When listening,
just listen. When sitting in meditation, just attend to the meditation subject. When
planting a tree, just plant. No frills, no judgments. This habituates the mind to be in each
143

moment. Only in such a way can a path moment occur, here and now. There is no
reason why an intelligent, healthy, committed person should not be able to attain it with
patience and perseverance.” (129) 144

Earlier, she described some of the benefits of meditation. “The more we


experience every moment as worthy of our attention, the more energy is generated in the
mind. There are no useless moments, every single one is important if we use it skillfully.
Then strength of mind arises. Single moments add up to a life that is lived in the best
possible way.” (25) Along with my exercised body, I can strengthen my mind through
meditation, through mindfulness – focusing on the present moment as a practice,
something I can do. This is in accord with the principles of AA which advises us to live
in the present moment, not regret the past or anticipate the future. 145

“Unless the mind becomes extraordinary through meditation, we cannot possibly


gain the understanding that the Buddha expounded, the ordinary mind does not have the
depth, lucidity, and expansion necessary for such transcendental wisdom.” (103) “Full
meditative absorptions are the means to an end, namely insight. If the mind cannot
become one-pointed, insight will not arise. The mind will remain contracted, dull,
hampered by obstructions . . . meditation removes the limitations, widens our horizons,
and deepens our perspective. We can believe in the impossible just as children do and
trust in the seed of enlightenment in our hearts.” (105)

I suspect this wisdom often comes in the form of joyous laughter that bubbles up
from a well-spring within – I can still hear and see the Dalai Lama’s sweet smile and soft,
rolling laugh. And Gurumayi, unable to continue speaking because her impish laughter
keeps floating up as sheer joy, delirious happiness, without limit, infinite. This is self-
generated, spontaneous laughter and joy and it is highly contagious. It is the giggling
laughter we remember as a child.

I might always have an “ordinary” mind, but I, too, long for the “wisdom” of the
“extraordinary mind.” This light-hearted feeling that arises after meditation of any sort is
a childlike feeling of joy. I have felt it often, momentarily. But then my thoughts of
“desire, sorrow, or injustice,” puncture it, sometimes congealing into an old story of
“poor me.” But I can stop this immediately through the self-effort of focusing on the
present moment, of being “mindful,” which prevents my stories from gaining momentum
and carrying me away with them like an inevitable Tsunami. Sometimes Jonathan will
look at me with trepidation, anticipating my flight of irate fancy: “Pat, don’t go there,
please, you don’t have to go there.” I used to feel like indulging whatever story was
being fuelled by untamed emotions and thoughts. Now I know that his warning is
accurate. I no longer enjoy in any way the pain of indulgence. Now I try and listen to his
old stories and complaints with compassion. Not surprisingly, our clashes have subsided,
downgraded to minor skirmishes, gnat bites.

Stephen Batchelor provides another reason for the central place of meditation and
discipline. “Meditative discipline is vital . . . because it leads us beyond the realm of
ideas to that of felt-experience. Understanding the philosophy isn’t enough. The ideas
144

need to be translated through meditation into the wordless language of feeling in order to
loosen those emotional knots that keep us locked in a spasm of self-preoccupation.”
(Buddhism Without Beliefs, 88/89) 146 I have lived so long in the realm of “philosophy”
and my own ideas, my intuition and memories, my own “self-preoccupation,” that the
“emotional knots” were very tight. As a result, I had what Khema calls “emotional
accidents.” Yet my “emotional knots” are loosening, although it has taken a Guru, a trip
to India and many visits to an ashram, two psychoanalysts, countless spiritual books, one
grown-up daughter and one son, and a seven-year relationship with Jonathan – a complex
man, a man of complexes.

Khema tells us that equanimity is “the crowning glory of all emotions, even-
mindedness. Its far enemy is anxiety and restlessness but its near-enemy is indifference.
Even-mindedness is based on the wisdom and the insight that everything changes, on an
understanding of total impermanence. No matter what happens, it will all come to an
end. . . There is nothing that is really significant except liberation . . . Everything
constantly changes, whether good or bad, ‘It’s just happening. What is there to gain?
Where is there to go? It’s just happening.’”

Gunartarama describes a point that comes in meditation when “you vividly


experience the impermanence of life, the suffering nature of human existence, and the
truth of no-self. You experience these things so graphically that you suddenly awake to
the utter futility of craving, grasping, and resistance . . . our consciousness is transformed
. . . Craving is extinguished and a great burden is lifted. There remains only an effortless
flow . . . There remains only peace.” (191) And this is what I have been looking for, all
my life. This is what “happily ever after” has come to mean to me.

“Happily Ever After”

In July of 2005, a few months before China, Jonathan left Sea Ranch for a
motorcycle trip with his Milwaukee group of businessmen, arrayed in his Harley-
Davidson leather best. This rough bunch of sixty-year old Midwest CEOs, the “leather
buts,” begins with a big catered breakfast, rides for a half day, meeting up with an
elegant picnic luncheon delivered by the host’s private jet, and then rides for two more
hours to reach the private Wisconsin lodge and lake of the host, where they are feted with
champagne, duck, caviar, and other delicacies throughout the afternoon and into the
evening of billiards and brandy, their every need tended to by a large, crisply uniformed
staff. This is the new motorcycle chic, a far cry from Marlon Brando in The Wild One.

(Yes, I have ridden on the back of his Harleys, on a trip from Oregon down to Sea
Ranch, in my new black high-tech motorcycle garb. Yes, I also have black leather pants.
And I gradually began to enjoy the experience. The Harley noise-level is ferocious, the
close-up view is the back of a black helmet, and the wind on the North California coast
145

dries out eyes. But I want to take motorcycle lessons, on a quiet Honda or BMW. Why?
If the experience is as meditative and thrilling as reported, then I don’t want to miss it –
even if, at 66, I might need a three-wheeler. And help getting my leg over the seat.)

In tandem with this yearly event in Milwaukee, Jonathan had scheduled several
in-person sessions with his psychoanalyst, Dr. Bedi. (For the rest of the year, they had 55
minute telephone sessions from wherever we were – phone analysis.) Jonathan insisted
that I be on the phone from California, for a three way. And this was not unusual. We
often did tandem telephone sessions with each of our shrinks. This particular morning, I
sat in our bed at Sea Ranch, looking out over the golf course and the Pacific Ocean,
feeling very lucky indeed. When Doctor Bedi asked for my input, I reported that I was
concerned that Jonathan was taking on too many projects with/for others. After all, he
was trying to find the time to write his book on selling family companies, and he had a
great first section and title, “When the Passion is Dying, It’s Time to Sell.”

When I finished squealing on him, Dr. Bedi asked if Jonathan had anything to
add. I expected a rejoinder or a rebuttal. Then, out of the blue, he asked me to marry
him. I almost dropped the telephone. This had been on the agenda several years ago,
before his father died. But after his Hawaiian proposal, Jonathan had dropped the
subject. I was glad that we didn’t have video phones because my hair was ratty,
uncombed; I was wearing old pajamas, surrounded by piles of books and newspapers,
hardly a glamorous vision for a proposal. But on second thought, this was nothing.
Jonathan was in his analyst’s office, calling in his proposal, with Dr. Bedi on the phone!
He must have been very fearful. There was a very long pause. Not because I had any
doubts. I was, for the first time in my life, speechless.

Cut to the chase: I accepted, happily, and we were married six weeks later, on
August 27th, 2005, in our home at Sea Ranch, with a brunch at the house and a luncheon
for AA friends, and an impromptu evening dinner/dance in a large, unfinished space next
to our office in downtown Gualala. We wrote our own vows, and John Ford, our friend
from AA who got his minister’s license over the internet, married us. There are no party
planners in Gualala, so it was a do-it-yourself wedding, a humble, makeshift
extravaganza. 147 Every member of our immediate families came. 148 We didn’t dance
until dawn, but it was late for Sea Ranch, 11 pm. And everyone wore evening clothes,
quite a change for this casual place.

Married, at 64! And in love for the first time. Why? It was not only the insights
that came from our psychoanalysts, although they figured crucially, or the inspiration that
came from spiritual teachers and practice, it was witnessing the healthy marriages at Sea
Ranch. We were surrounded by older couples who enjoyed and respected each other,
with few of the buried tensions and irritations that infected and interrupted the many
pretenses of happy marriages I had known previously. All the women -- the dreaded
“wife,” spouse, or my preferred, partner -- were powerful, talented, outspoken. In this
isolated place of few distractions, where everybody knows what everybody else is doing,
Tim and Dibby Tyler, Kathleen and Dave Ball, Bill and Jeannie Osterland, Rich and
146

Kathy Geary, and Ned and Connie Seale, along with many others, had made marriage
look desirable and possible.

In fact, their marriages felt like freedom, not imprisonment. They shared the duties
and joys of everyday life, along with the adventures of travel. When the health of one
partner failed, the other effortlessly and lovingly picked up the slack. At parties and in
life, they were like smooth tag teams. They still laughed at each other’s jokes and
listened to each other’s stories, with interest, not long-suffering tolerance. They cared
deeply about each other but were not at all solicitous or gushy. The harshest
admonishment was Connie, in exasperation, “Oh, Ned.” They turned my negative
attitude about marriage around.

But I knew I was taking a big risk. I was an expert on living alone. I was used to
making all the decisions, to say nothing about having my own way. In fact, my way or
the highway was accurate. And I knew for Jonathan that I was a risk, given my short
track record on relationships and my dramatic, untamed emotions. His record of marital
fidelity and honesty was at the bottom of any scale. But I also knew that we had
admiration and respect for each other at our cores, despite the sometimes volatile surface.
I knew that we ran deep, that we wanted to go even deeper. That for us, pretenses and
easy ways out would never suffice. We were both too curious. We vowed to be
thoroughly honest, from the start.

I was also inspired by Dae’s and Rob’s recent marriages. In 2003, Rob’s heart
had begun to improve enough so that he began to think of dating, for the first time in his
life. He met Priscilla Fung -- who had come from Hong Kong to study for her Master’s
in Engineering at Stanford, eventually moving with her elderly Chinese parents to the
Bay area and working in the computer industry. Like Rob, Priscilla’s history was of
being the best student in class. These two brilliant, attractive, and shy computer
engineers wrote long e-mails to each other for months. They were perfectly suited and
were married in the Stanford Chapel.

Being with Jonathan at Rob and Priscilla’s traditional Chinese wedding –


beginning with a tea ceremony and concluding with a ten course dinner -- was a
delightful experience. He galvanized out of town guests, 149 serving as a lovely host and
enthusiastic participant. The fact that he didn’t speak any Chinese didn’t deter him from
leading the toasting party in a conga line through the large Chinese restaurant with Mrs.
Fong, Rob’s new mother-in-law who didn’t speak English but had a lovely laugh. Dae
stood up for her brother and gave a moving toast to their loving history as brother and
sister. In the video of the couple’s history, I saw familiar old photos of Rob and Dae as
children, of my parents, and of the five of us, together. In a flash, I saw what my life had
been about! In 1990, I had been in India, asking for Gurumayi’s care and guidance for
Rob’s heart. My gratitude to her came in large doses.

Dae’s wedding to Larry Peck, a successful portfolio manager from Long Island, in
1999, was a magnificent affair in a mansion on Park Avenue. With Larry, Dae
meticulously fashioned every detail of a Jewish wedding to perfection. But the
147

experience wasn’t as smooth as Rob’s. Two nights before the wedding, on the way home
from The Lion King, Rob slipped and broke his shoulder in several places. We spent the
next eight hours in the emergency room. The scene was uncannily familiar. This scene
happened all the time in our lives together. Rob was patient, stoic; Dae was upbeat,
emotionally supportive; I was anxious, efficient, pro-active. Dae selflessly dismissed any
concerns about her wedding. Miraculously, we all made it to the rehearsal dinner the
next evening. With his shoulder in a sling, Rob danced at the wedding the following day.
He had taken lessons in San Francisco, which completely surprised us. 150

It was an elegant, joyous, traditional Jewish wedding. But there was no Jonathan
to share the emotional side-effects. And it almost didn’t happen. Because Dae had not
converted to Judaism, Larry’s rabbi and others had refused to marry them. They were in
a panic about what to do. I flew to New York and called a delightful Rabbi whom I knew
from the Ashram in upstate New York. Now in his 80s, Rabbi Gelberman had been a
close friend of Gurumayi’s teacher, Baba Muktananda, and had an ongoing relationship
with Gurumayi. I told him of our plight. He agreed to the wedding and arranged a
meeting with Dae and Larry. They loved him. The ceremony was magical. I could feel
the presence of my parents and the blessings of Gurumayi. Rob and I walked Dae down
the aisle, Rob was her best man. Nancy was my gracious and charming date, dancing till
dawn with Patrick, her son.

One recent experience, in 2006, was particularly wondrous and unexpected: a


conference on Buddhism and neuroscience at Stanford University, a gift from Rob and
his wife, Priscilla. For ten hours, we sat fifteen feet in front of the Dalai Lama, listening
to talks by leading scientists and meditation teachers on the intersections between
Buddhism’s complex theory of the mind and contemporary scientific research on the
mind. The Dalai Lama participated in the dialogue after each talk. By the end of the
day-long event, it was clear that the academics, and everyone in the packed auditorium,
were in awe of the Dalai Lama, who graced the scholars with long white scarves as they
bowed, humbled by his presence and wisdom. It was also clear that the most advanced
intellectual research on the mind and brain was child’s play compared to Buddhism’s
system of the mind and emotions.

One significant aspect of the experience was attending with Rob. Against all odds,
he was alive, handsome and healthy, and married. This was not the scenario predicted by
doctors in 1987, when his cardiomyopathy was first diagnosed; or when his congenital
bone disease, osteogenesis imperfecta, was discovered in 1975. Part of the reason was
Rob’s sweet nature and extraordinary discipline in mind and body. But his twenty years
of high professional and personal achievement were in the realm of miracles more than
medicine.

Seventeen years ago in India, I had asked Gurumayi to care for my son’s heart.
And this is what she has done. 151 And more. For she has given me a spiritual path which
is the most fulfilling, joyful endeavor of my life. As my heart becomes softer and more
open in my new marriage, I look back and realize that I, too, had a serious “heart”
ailment. It was closed to true intimacy. I had locked the door to even the possibility of a
148

loving relationship with a man. I had been given a second chance. And this time, I was
getting it right.
149

EPILOGUE

Now

Our quest for contentment, for serenity, became paramount when Jonathan’s heart
began frantically beating at 200 to 220 in December 2006, racing for five weeks until the
electrical paddles shocked and then restored his regular heart beat. For a split second, he
died.

In February, 2007 Jonathan had surgery for two knee replacements. Two years
before that, it was a new hip, with another in the offing. Cataracts and hernias added to
the hospital time, diabetes to the urgency of the present. What used to be crises have
become everyday life. And this is our mutual future in old age – of the body giving way
and the letting go of the identity that comes from the body, including its achievements
and ingrained habits. Andrew Harvey puts it better than I can: “As long as we remain
ourselves – the story, the biography, the vanity, the self-obsession, the addiction to the
body . . . death will terrify us, because death is the masterpiece of illusion.” (290) 152
Jonathan and I will face our deaths together and alone, and what could be a more
significant or dramatic adventure than this, except, perhaps, getting ready for the
journey?

“When we come to the end of life we have to renounce everything . . . we might


as well learn something about death before it comes. This is why the death moment is so
often a struggle. Many are not ready to renounce everything. Previously they hadn’t
given this a thought.” (Being Nobody, Going Nowhere, Ayya Khema, 139)

Although I have looked for freedom all my life, I have never thought that
“liberation” was possible for me. In fact, even imagining it was embarrassing. I was just
too superficial, too material, too undisciplined for such a lofty aim. But Khema makes
“liberation” accessible, in small increments, by suggesting the following: “Suppose we
are attached to or highly appreciative of a person, a situation, a belonging. Can we let go
of clinging to it?” This is a great practice for a relationship. Ditto the aging body. We
see that “everything is fleeting; we let go of our belief in the solidity of things. We
thereby let go of our attachment. If we can do that with anything, even for a moment, we
have won a moment of liberation . . . a moment of direct knowledge that nothing has any
intrinsic value, that it’s all a passing show . . . this is an inkling of what the Buddha meant
when he spoke about freedom.” (Khema, Be An Island, 117) Letting go “for a moment”
is something I can do, lengthening the moments into an “inkling” of freedom.

When we can see that “all is fleeting, flowing, moving, and changing from one
moment to the next, we have a moment of freedom. And so the body, its fleeting nature,
and our attachment might wane. Buddha recommended the daily recollection, ‘I am of
the nature to die’. . .This body cannot remain, no matter how hard we try to keep it . . .
We are fighting a losing battle.” (118) With age, the awareness of losing the battle with
150

our bodies becomes apparent. Khema practiced daily that “everything that is mind and is
dear to me must change, even our bodies.” She repeated: “I cannot escape decay, I
cannot escape illness, I cannot escape death.” 153

The ongoing and coming stage of our mutual life is an inner journey; it is a
journey of less, not more. For we are letting go of many things – the identities that came
from professional achievement, the adrenaline of ambition, the addiction to work and a
busy social life; the definition of what a productive day means; the need for distraction
and continual entertainment; for me, the craving for shopping, fashion, and other stuff;
and most visibly, our bodies. We are trying to lose, finally, the burden of old complexes,
old habits, old fears and stories, and the weight of old egos of self-importance and
vanity. 154 And we are gaining, at last, the freedom (and adventure) we were both looking
for, and so much more.

Along the way, we can share, with our grand-children, what Sogyal Rinpoche
calls “the power of wisdom and compassion.” “The teachings of all mystical paths of the
world make it clear that there is within us an enormous reservoir of power, the power of
wisdom and compassion . . . If we learn how to use it, it can transform not only ourselves
but the world around us. Has there ever been a time when the clear use of this sacred
power was more essential or more urgent?” 155

In January 2007, Jonathan, and I attended an all-day conference at Stanford


University to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the birth of Rumi, the Persian poet and
Sufi leader. We sat with Rob in an enthusiastic audience consisting of many Iranians.
This day together, spent with Rumi scholars and admirers, was Rob’s gift for my 66th
birthday. The event concluded with a deeply moving, improvised evening performance.
Robert Bly, the poet/philosopher, white haired, tall, still vigorous, and eighty-nine years
old, read poems by the Sufi poet, Rumi, accompanied by Iran’s most famous violinist,
small, wizened, delicately bent, and eighty-six. The joy of lives well lived came over the
audience in waves. Old Age made this possible -- along with the power of a spiritual
path that picks us up and carries us to unplanned places even when we don’t know it.

Being something, anything, is to fully inhabit, or embody . . . whatever, without


hedges, or qualms. It is a state without equivocation. Being 60 (or 70, or 80), is to
embrace all the aches, joys, wrinkles, intelligence and experience that have accrued in six
decades. Being 60 is facing the last part of life with an attitude – of assertion and
acceptance, of curiosity and humility, all dosed with humor and joy. Being 60 is prime
time – experience has taught us how to live well, and contemplation is readying us to die
peacefully if not nobly Life and death have begun to harmoniously co-exist. We are
finding the last of what we were looking for – and we are letting go of things we no
longer need. We know that nothing lasts and everything changes. There is nothing to
wait for and nothing to want. We no longer wish ourselves to be “elsewhere or
otherwise.” Any wealth that is worth having is within us – and we now have the
awareness to truly know this.
151

Our many roles or impersonations are no longer center stage, just so many bit
players who make brief appearances. Our identity is much deeper than any role. Being
60 is, for me, the fruition of accomplishments – of being a mother and teacher and seeker.
It is also a last chance – to do what remains undone, unfinished. For me, that is being an
equal partner – a part that was derailed for me in the 1970s. Mother, teacher, partner and
seeker are all born from love and nourished by compassion and selflessness. As the roles
continue to fade in time, the love and compassion will last forever. This is a legacy
worth living and dying for. Being 60, what a time! The time I have now. 156

The Author

Patria Mellencamp is a Distinguished Professor Emerita of Film and Media Studies at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the author of many essays and seven books on
film and television. Her books include A Fine Romance: Five Ages of Film Feminism
(Temple U. Press: December/January 1995/1996), High Anxiety: Catastrophe,
Scandal, Age, & Comedy (Indiana U. Press, 1992), Indiscretions: Avant-Garde Film,
Video, & Feminism (Indiana U. Press, 1990), and Logics of Television: Essays in
Cultural Criticism, editor/contributor (Indiana University Press, 1990.

Since 2001, she has been living on the coast of Northern California, first at Sea
Ranch and since 2008 in Monterey, briefly teaching at the University of California-Santa
Cruz. Her email is patmellencamp@yahoo.com, or you can access her through her web
site, patriciamellencamp.com.
152

ENDNOTES

1
And importantly, be recognized for their talent.
2
This secret and arduous process involves the Committee of Distinguished Professors soliciting letters
from famous scholars around the world, at least, thirty, testifying to the fact that the candidate is among the
best in her field, internationally. The candidate never sees the letters, nor learns about the writers or the
vote or the debate.
3
The doctors first ruled out a viral infection, then genetic disposition, taking a history of four generations of
both sides of the family. I called clinics around the US, talking with recommended heart specialists. None
promised anything but all wanted an 18 year old as their patient – this case was extremely rare. But we felt
as if we had found the best in Dr. Brooks. Finally, we were given these odds, along with a warning that
anything could happen at any time: There was a 33-33-33 chance that his heart would degenerate, remain
the same, or slightly improve. There was no medicine that could cure him; there was no time frame, from
sometime today to twenty years from now. The only eventual solution was a heart transplant.

4 I had just returned from 30 days at the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs in April 1987 and treatment for
a grudgingly admitted addiction to valium. I was 46. Seventeen years earlier, my gynecologist had
prescribed this tranquilizer for my difficulty sleeping. I was a single parent, with little money, two
children, one chronically ill with osteogenesis imperfecta, a fulltime job and no daycare. No wonder I had
trouble sleeping! Over time, valium became a problem, not a solution, resulting in blackouts, suicidal
thoughts of death. Then came the recovery years of skin crawling anxiety and the discovery of the 12 steps
of AA. This was the same time that Murphy Brown, a TV news anchor played by Candace Bergen,
declared herself a recovering alcoholic, just back from the Betty Ford Center, on the premiere episode of
the TV situation comedy, Murphy Brown. After she faxed her chest to the West Coast, it began to dawn
on her that she had a problem. I loved her stylish character, which was very smart, talented, beautiful,
outspoken, and funny. We had an identical taste in fashion – Donna Karan, then a new label pitched to
professional women. I was thrilled that Bergen’s character played a recovering alcoholic; I became sober
along with her. (In 2005, on Boston Legal, Bergen has returned to series television. On this quirky one
hour show, she plays a senior partner, Shirley Schmidt, in a prestigious and eccentric law firm, setting a
standard of accomplishment, independence, beauty, fashion and wit for older women.)

Around the same time period, Chris Cagney (Sharon Gless), on Cagney and Lacey, stood bravely at
an AA meeting and dramatically declared, voice quavering, hesitant: "My name is Chris and I am an
alcoholic." The moment was poignant for me, beyond mere identification with a fictive character or
situation. Unlike Murphy, who was more comfortable with male buddies, intimate female friendship also
starred on Cagney and Lacey, a cop series; one partner, Tyne Daley as Mary Beth Lacey, was married,
with children, the other, Sharon Gless, wasn't. Making the middle-aged leads of two popular TV series
drunks, attractive, clever, single, recovering alcoholics and working professionals, was no small
achievement, bringing addiction into the light and respectability of network television. It took some of the
edge off my shame; it also made being an alcoholic fashionable, almost a trend.

Indeed, this was one incentive for going to BFC, as we inmates and alumni affectionately called this
desert oasis; I went there because of the Palm Springs, California sun, the warm weather of the desert, and
the promise of celebrity encounters -- sort of like a paid vacation (due to full insurance coverage then) and
one that would make great gossip. After so many sightings in The National Inquirer of movie stars at
BFC, especially Liza and Liz, I was curious to learn more.
153

5.
Rene Thom, Structural Stability and Morphogenesis: An Outline of a General Theory of Models
(Reading, Mass: W.A. Benjamin, 1975), 251.
6.
This is taken from High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age, & Comedy (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1992), p.4. It concerned a diagnosis of lymphoma after Rob had a lump removed. Two
months and many tests later, the doctor reversed his initial analysis.
7.
Sigmund Freud, The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 20 (London: Hogarth,
1969), 165.
8.
Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 143.
9.
It included an analysis of women's aging, and a long section on gossip, along with a brief history of The
National Enquirer and defamation law.
10.
Thus, it wasn't the daily ritual of reading bedtime stories to my two children that I remembered in detail,
but the many trips to the emergency room for Rob's forty-one broken bones (from osteogenesis imperfecta, a
connective tissue disease), the emergency surgeries, and the late night traumas in the intensive care unit.

11
Unless, of course, one is akin to Joan Rivers, whose verbal comedy, like her multiple surgeries, also
depended on abusing her own body, on savaging her own and others’ appearance.

12
These quotations were taken from a manuscript by Margaret Morganroth Gullette, "On Doing Age
Theory," eventually published in a book, Cultural Combat (Charlotte: UP of Virginia). It came from
Woodward, for our reading group at the Center for 20th Century Studies. Gullette urges us to distinguish
our own stories from the "false narrative of culture," including the "gaze of repugnance" which many of us
have internalized.
13
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart (Boston & London, 2000).
14
In The Places That Scare You, Pema Chodron writes of the great value of what she calls a feeling of
dread or psychological discomfort as “a sign that old habits are getting liberated . . . When our attitude
toward fear becomes more welcoming and inquisitive, there’s a fundamental shift that occurs . . . we are
curious about the neurosis.” 107. (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2001).
15
Ego kept me separate, ego kept me captive to insecurities, ego repeated that I was fatally flawed and
never would be enough.
16
I returned to the Ashram laden down with shopping bags. Very embarrassing! It took four trips to carry
them up to my third floor room and store them beneath my iron cot. In one bag was a large and heavy
sandalwood statue of Ganesha, the Hindu Elephant God who removes obstacles and is considered a
protector in India. That night I had an unsettling dream of a huge ball of fire rolling through every room of
my home in Milwaukee, burning everything, all my possessions. It was, I would learn later, a metaphorical
prophecy for the work of the Guru, which is to burn away our egos, our small selves, to break our
attachment to things.
17
Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (San Francisco: Harper 1993).
154

18
Yes, there was a dress code for speakers – long skirts, long sleeves, and high necklines. But by now,
rather than rail against this restriction as offensive to my feminist sensibility, I took it as a shopping
opportunity. My closet previously contained only two black skirts, for summer and winter.

19
Swami Muktananda, Does Death Really Exist? (South Fallsburg, NY: SYDA Foundation, 1981); a
special issue of Darshan: Beyond the Reach of Death, Volume 133, April, 1998, a magazine published by
the SYDA Foundation.
20
Swami Muktananda, Play of Consciousness (SYDA Foundation: South Fallsburg, New York, 1978;
1994, 2000.)
21
Not only did Buddhism begin in India and include many principles from Indian meditation, there is the
commonality of the philosophy and techniques of Patanjali, along with other Indian saints.
22
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Remembrance (South Fallsburg, NY: SYDA Foundation, 1998).
23
Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying (New York: Riverhead Books, 2000).
24
Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life (New York: Riverhead Books,
2002).
25
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Boston & London:
Shambhala, 2000).
26
Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter (New York: Random
House/Vintage Books, 1995), “Introduction,” xvi.

27
Quoted in Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Boston:
Shambala, 2000), p.43.

28
Judith Lief, Making Friends With Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality (Boston &
London: Shambhala, 2001)
29
Cited in the Kapleau book, 104, below.
30
Philip Kapleau, The Zen of Living and Dying: A Practical and Spiritual Guide (Boston & London:
Shambhala, 1998).
31
Tyler Volk, What is Death? (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002).
32
He then compares the primary emotions -- anger, sadness, joy, surprise, disgust, and fear, expressed
between birth and 6 months – to what he calls the “self-conscious emotions” -- pride, shame, guilt,
embarrassment, envy, and empathy, which come around 2 or 3 years. “Gratitude is not primary like fear.”
It is on the side of “life forces,” emotions that reduce stress. The “death forces” include anger, depression,
and shame. (67) “It seems to me the trick in contemplating death is to turn the awareness of it into a
response that is a life force.” What fascinates him is that the “gratitude toward life in general is not aimed
toward any person. Life itself has given me a gift.” Gratitude is not just an antidote to the concept of death,
but “an emotion that can be intensified throughout life as death is kept conscious.”( 69/68) When he cites
155

terror management theory, the concept that people hold more tightly onto a world view when their
mortality has been mentioned, unconsciously, the idea that “some of who we are is built on a response to
the fear of death,” he comes to the ultimate contradiction – we experience the need for life and the
knowledge of our death, simultaneously. “Realizing that death structures our life in the present can lead to
a new kind of future life, a life more conscious of the interpenetrating co-existence of death and life.”
(124/125) He then gives examples of our living on – “we are composites of people we know and love.”
(128) Our favorite teachers are alive within us through images and teachings. (129)
33
Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell (New York: Harper Perennial, 1988), #33.
34
Linda Johnsen, Daughters of the Goddess: The Women Saints of India (St. Paul, Minnesota: Yes
International Publishers, 1994, 82. See “Gurumayi Chidvilasananda: Beauty and Grace,” 73-85.
35
Many of the books I loved were published in translation by the Shambhala Center. In fact, publishing
books is a key activity of many Eastern spiritual communities.
`
36
My Guru and His Disciple, Christopher Isherwood (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota
Press, 1980).

37
The teachings of Aurobindo Chose, or Sri Aurobindo, have also drawn many western seekers, as have the
writing of Jiddu Kirishnamurti (1895-1986) been widely read in the West. Then there is the Spiritual
Regeneration Movement of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, known as TM, or Transcendental Meditations
(Classical Hinduism, A.L. Basham, 114-115).

38
Germaine Greer, The Change: Women, Aging, and the Menopause (New York: Fawcett, 1991).

39Throughout the writing of this book, I sought the company of older women in fiction, in novels whose
authors are aware of the presence and effects of aging and death on the lives of their characters.

In The Gravity of Sunlight, by Rosa Shand, her protagonist, in her fifties, “halfway whispered to
herself, sometime before they married, that she might not genuinely love this man. And that mere hint
served to terrorize her – because she herself had chosen just as he had chosen. And she would never find
the courage to listen to this interloper, truth – though from then on out she would somewhere know, beyond
her rationalizing, that the bewilderment and anguish of their marriage grew from this one colossal
cowardice of hers. But she could rationalize back then that a whole vast structure had been hammered up
around them – by friends, by families, by their own heady expectations. And he provided her a place, an
escape from parents who had dwindled, in her exacting eyes, to a heap of dull conventions. Everything
supported their young marriage.” (48) These words could have been mine. They are frightening in their
accuracy regarding my marriage in 1965.

In Anita Shreve’s, The Last Time They Met, a woman arrives at a hotel, checks in, and is taken
to her room. The next passage struck me with an uncanny force. “She was aware of scrutiny . . . impartial
scrutiny simply because she was a woman and not entirely old.” (4) “Not entirely old” is a delicate put-
down of women. Before her talk, this character, a famous poet, feels a “slight chagrin that she could never
quite manage to hide . . . as if the men and women in front of her might challenge her, accuse her of fraud -
- which, in the end, only she appeared to understand she was guilty of . . . There was nothing easier nor
more agonizing than writing the long narrative verses that her publisher put in print.“ (5) She will then meet
an old lover, at a cocktail party “Their meeting after so many years seemed a large occurrence, though she
156

knew that all the important events of her life had already happened.” (17) The belief that the best part of
life is over at fifty was, to my surprise, one held by me, until I lived my sixties and knew better.

Margaret Drabble begins The Seven Sisters with this sentence: “I have just come back from my
health club.” But it is a rather sad endeavor, not an assertive one for this character, who is forlorn. Much
later comes this awareness: “Women are supposed to go on looking sexy when they are into their sixties.
That’s all very well for people like Julia, who like that kind of thing, but it’s not very good for the rest of
us, is it? For some of us, it means nothing but a sense of unending failure and everlasting exclusion.” (278)
Drabble’s characters feel much older than I feel at sixty. And no wonder. Of older people, Drabble
observes: “They are past the age for good news.” (232)

. Speaking about Virginia Woolf in The Hours: “She has aged dramatically, just this year, as if a
layer of air has leaked out from under her skin.” Elizabeth Berg’s “Never Change” is about a “self-
anointed spinster at fifty-one, Myra Lipinski,” who begins to date at the end of the book. And Carol
Shields’ Unless opens with: ”It happens that I am going through a period of great unhappiness and loss
just now.” (1) This opening sentence, by a character/author who has “her writing” as a consolation,”
concerns her daughter, Norah Winters, who has become a street person, homeless.

In sharp contrast to these melancholic or bittersweet renderings of aging women, is Gail Sheehy’s
Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life, a u-rah rah book for aging women
(women older than 40), a book that discovers that older women are passionate and still love sex. Needless
to say, this will come as no surprise to sixty-year old women, although Sheehy’s research, interviewing
actual older women, on site, in their homes across the country, conducted like an anthropologist in the
wilds of suburbia, is a thudding, repetitive conclusion presented as if titillating and profound. “Almost a
million of the earliest boomer women will celebrate their 60th birthday . . . “The great transition in the
passage to Second Adulthood for women is to move from pleasing to mastery . . . In our First Adulthood,
we survive by figuring out how to please and perform for the powerful people who protect and reward us . .
. But by our mid-forties, we are all looking for greater mastery.” (17) Sheehy must have thought life ended
in the late 40s. Now that she is alive and kicking, she decided to form a movement, trying to elicit women
to join together as Seasoned Women by going online, to her website, and signing up. This image of
sexually aggressive sixty-year olds, asserting themselves by going online, is a bit like Lily Tomlin’s ironic
incredulity when she described the activism of 70s feminism – beginning women’s consciousness groups as
a solution to social inequities.

Finally, I read novels about dead protagonists: Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones (New York:
Little Brown, 2002), and Jim Grace’s Being Dead, a Novel (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999).
But these dead points of view, while telling good tales, were all about the mystery of being alive. Being
dead is a tale that cannot be told. It can only be experienced.
40
Amanda Cross, Sweet Death, Kind Death (New York: Ballantine Books, 1984).
41
I was profoundly moved when I watched Marlene Gorris receive an Academy Award in 1996 for
Antonia’s Line. First came astonishment that the director of A Question of Silence, a radical feminist film
if ever there was, was being feted by Hollywood, and watched on network TV by billions. Then I felt a
sense of exuberant kinship. Gorris, and feminism, did it! Feminism has had real, apparent effects.
42
How to Make an American Quilt by the Australian filmmaker, Jocelyn Moorhouse, has a scene of
community comparable to the outdoor feasts of Antonia. Women, now grandmothers, who have been
together for generations make quilts which tell the story of their lives. Together, they have grown older,
wiser, funnier. They have survived romance, loss, death, and betrayal and can embrace life with equanimity.
Age represents gains as much as losses. The older women are beautiful; plastic surgery has not erased the
expression on these actresses’ faces.
157

Ditto a Canadian film, directed by Cynthia Scott. Strangers in Good Company is about a group of
older women, without any elements of masquerade, stranded when their bus breaks down in a beautiful
countryside landscape. They have to spend the night in a deserted farmhouse. Nothing happens, except the
stuff of ordinary life. No one panics, but they accept events and don't treat things like a crisis. They wait,
survive, and remain calm, together. They rescue themselves, take care of themselves, and get to know each
other. The ordinary, on second thought, is extraordinary indeed. But these films are rare experiences.

The Silences of the Palace, a Tunisian film directed and written by Moufida Tlatli, is another version
of generational history -- of a national culture and women's complexly subservient role within it. Patriarchy
is not figural, but a deathly reality. The drama, and the love, between mother and daughter is a drama of
revising history. Here, strength and support comes from the group of women working in the kitchen --
chanting, laughing, and helping each other. Like Tracey Moffatt's Night Cries, the mother-daughter is the
scene of political history, one of class and economics, as well as gender and ethnicity.

Bhaji on the Beach takes on gender, race, ethnicity, as well as age in its history of generational
difference. Here, Indian women of several ages in England go on an outing to the beach. Generational
history is being made by women, for women, and about women. During each of these films, I felt love,
remembering particular scenes as figures for the whole.

This love is akin to the fetishist -- not of perversity, of the dirty old man, or of sexuality and the dirty
look, the focus of feminist film theory, bound up with theories of narrative. This fetishist cuts out the pure
segment of the tableau, an act which channels emotion. The figure, a gesture, a memory "becomes the
sublime substitute of meaning -- it is this meaning that is fetishized!"

This is what I experienced when watching the German documentary film about a highly controversial
figure, Leni Riefenstahl. The Wonderful and Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl dramatizes Riefenstahl's
great passion for filmmaking, for her intellectual life. At ninety, she is working on her underwater still
photography. Shots of her skin-diving, liver spotted hands and all, are remarkable. Work is her sustenance,
the animating source of her energy and desire. Analyzing her films on the moviola awakens this passion.
She is articulate regarding the past and determined to stay in control in the present, including the direction of
her scenes. But her love of film and her ambition have also been her agony. She has not been able to make
a film since the 1940s. The scene I remember with poignant empathy is a shot of the facade of an apartment.
Riefenstahl remarks that she lived there after the war and was not allowed to work for twenty years. The
shot of the window is just a minute of a very long film, but it speaks volumes to me, of the sacrifice of
twenty years of her life. For her, not working must have been a great agony.

43
Mad Madonna "died of a broken heart. The Protestant howled at the moon and died soon after." Pitte,
the evil son of Farmer Dan, returns from the military, now fifteen years later, and rapes the beloved
Therese. Antonia gets a gun, walks to town, and curses him. The villagers beat him, and finally, his
brother drowns him. Antonia cries, for the first time in the film. Crooked Finger quotes the truth of
Schopenhauer, that the world is a hell inhabited by demons. "Time does not heal all wounds. It blurs the
memories." Therese goes off to college, where she is a brilliant mathematician, teacher, and a composer,
but very unemotional.
44
Deedee dies unexpectedly, Looney Lips is killed in a tractor accident, Letta dies in childbirth and the
priest leaves for the city, but "the tragedies were not over." Crooked Fingers hangs himself in despair.
Sarah consoles her mother, Therese.
158

45
My grandmother’s parents were German immigrants who founded a small farming community, Drywood,
ten miles from Cadott, a very small town in Northern Wisconsin. Grandpa Goodman built the Catholic
Church, St. Anthony's, where my father and mother are now buried, the dry goods store, and the cheese
factory, along with his family home, creating a unique plumbing apparatus for bringing water up from a
fresh spring. During my early visits, there wasn’t electricity or hot water. Heat came from a wood burning
furnace in the basement and a stove in the kitchen.

My mother, the eldest of ten children, left this same farm home against the wishes of her father to
go to the city and get her high school diploma and then her degree in nursing – she always wanted to be a
professional, to make her own money, to become educated. The local postman loaned her the initial
payment for college. Soon after she graduated, she would support three sisters through nurses’ college.
Her brothers are still dairy farmers, living in the same area of Wisconsin; the sisters left for California and
Connecticut.

My mother, like my grandmother, was made of steel, with a soft, generous heart; I can only
remember her being angry once; she never “raised her voice.” After college, she married my father, from
Wausau, the city in northern Wisconsin where my mother was attending Saint Mary’s College. My
grandfather George was in banking and insurance, involved in the Wausau business community and my
grandmother, Beth, was a homemaker and volunteer at the Presbyterian Church. The divides that made up
this marriage were then social chasms – country vs. city, poor vs. middle-income, farming vs. business,
working class vs. middle class, and grade school vs. college education. But of all the obstacles, religion
was the greatest – Catholic versus Protestant, a hard and fast line. These differences would never heal
between my mother and her mother-in-law, my Grandmother Jewson. Later I would learn about others –
Grandmother Jewson was against smoking and drinking, it was forbidden in her house. When she visited
us for holidays, my parents pretended that they did neither, never smoking or drinking in her presence. But
despite the strained relationship and the many religious and class or social differences between my
grandparents, there was one constant: they loved me unconditionally and I, them.

Both of my grandmothers were devoted to their families, to their homes, and to their religion. In
fact, faith, family, and domestic labor were inextricably intertwined. I never heard them complain about
their enormous amount of work -- clothes on the line, picking and canning fruit, sewing all the clothes,
scrubbing floors, baking bread, cookies, and pies and making three large meals per day, particularly on the
farm. Most of the food was produced at home and then preserved in a fruit cellar for the winter. Work was
their joy, a sign of their love, the measure of their usefulness, work ensured happiness, while faith gave it
all meaning. My grandmother Rose claimed that cleaning kept her alive and healthy, completely, until 105.
She painted the ceiling of her kitchen when she was 98 and continued to scrub her bathroom until 103.
She credited God with granting her a clear mind and memory until the minute she died.

But more astonishing, I never saw either of these hard working women as subservient to their
husbands. Both couples were devoted to each other – not in the sense of romance but in serving and
supporting each other. In this, equality was never at issue, the division of labor was clear and their work
was important, demanding; they knew it took talent and discipline. They knew that cooking, cleaning,
sewing, gardening, tending children’s health and values, and helping their neighbors in time of need,
serving their community selflessly, were nourishing, acquired arts, passed on from mother to daughter,
perfected through generations. There was esteem (not egotism) and continuity in that lineage, the pride of
having a spotless house, of baking the best pies, of having taste in clothes and talent in decorating, of
managing money thriftily, of making ends meet, of providing food in abundance (after all, delicious food
meant love), of being able to entertain graciously, and of both being a leader and able to serve one’s
extended family. Mother was an honored to sacred position -- seen as the beloved teacher and nurturer she
would continue to be for daughters.
159

Later, I would discover just how hard being a home-maker or house-wife was – to say nothing of
being a mother. Wifery proved to be impossible for me – a role of just waiting and praising and performing
domestic that was not noticed or acknowledged. Motherhood was tough for me – demanding fractured,
constant attention, difficult for my intuitive mind that liked to wander, lost in thought. At times, I thought
my brain had melted – there is no focus to maternal, domestic work, only scattered distraction and
interruption. The most difficult and demanding period of my life was the two years I “stayed home” and
“raised children.” I got a part time job outside the home to avoid going bonkers. Years later I would
discover one reason for my restlessness – I saw myself as a victim, I had to stay home while he, my former
husband, was able to have a real job. I resented that women’s domestic work was second-classed or not
worthy of notice. After I was divorced, being a mother got easier. But I still had the inability to state what
I needed, to admit that I had limited stamina for motherhood, that I needed my own time.

I believe that my grandmothers viewed their lives as good fortune, as freedom rather than
imprisonment, as both choice and duty – and for them duty was a high calling, not enforced labor. Their
thoughts, their interior perceptions about themselves and their work, granted authority and expertise to
domesticity, an authority that their husbands respected and acknowledged. This respect was bequeathed to
their children.

46
Kathleen Woodward, Aging and Its Discontents: Freud and Other Fictions (Bloomington, Indiana:
Indiana University Press, 1991).
47
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club (New York: Putnam, 1989), 48.
48
Anne Tyler, Ladder of Years (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1995).
49
Gullette, Margaret Morganroth, Declining to Decline: Cultural Combat and the Politics of the Midlife
(Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1997.)
50
Edward Albee, Three Tall Women (New York: Penguin, 1994).
51
Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press, 1982)
52
Susan Buck-Morss, “Envisioning Capital: Political Economy on Display,” in some issue of, I think, Zone,
111-133.
53
Steven Johnson, Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way we Create and
Communicate (San Francisco: Harper Edge 1997.) This is a wonderfully smart and inventive book about
contemporary technology. See his Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is
Actually Making Us Smarter (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005; and also his Emergence: The
Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software.

55
Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money, ed. David Frisby, Trans. Tom Bottomore and David Frisby
(London & New York: Routledge, 1978, 1990).
56
Sherry Turkle is a professor at MIT who wrote an early book on the culture of computers.
57
Susan Buck-Morss, 129-130.
160

58
Kathleen Woodward, “Statistical Panic,” Differences, 11.2 (1999), 177-203.

59
Ayya Khema in Being Nobody Going Nowhere: I love the idea “One dies an unconfused death.” We
are all going to die. “The moment of death is important, because it is the moment of rebirth. It’s actually
our birthday. Everybody talks about death as something sad and filled with grief. If death is experienced
consciously, with awareness and full loving-kindness, then it is a good birthday.” 44.

60
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2005), 113, 114.

61Carolyn Heilbrun, The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty (New York: Dial Press, 1997); Sherwin
Nuland , How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter (New York: Vintage, 1993).

62
Richard John Neuhaus, As I Lay Dying: Meditations Upon Returning (New York: Basic Books,
2002). It was appropriate that this book was the most directly applicable to my experience of my mother’s
death, for Neuhaus is a Priest, a Catholic, like my Mom. To explain, he recalls being a boy in the attic
bedroom, remembering the actual moment when he went to sleep: “I wanted to know, to witness, the event
of passage from the stage of being awake to the state of being asleep. But of course I never succeeded in
this quest.” “Sleepiness was experienced as a thing within me moving toward sleep, and at the same time,
a thing outside me that overtook and overcame me. Where am I, am I at all, when I am sleeping?” (96)
But when we go to sleep, “there is a qualifying clause; at some point you are going to take your spirit
back.”

63
For more on Rumi, see Addendum to this chapter.
64
See Haleh Pourafzal and Roger Montgomery, The Spiritual Wisdom of Hafez: Teachings of the
Philosopher of Love (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1998). Hafez was the pen name of Shams-ud-
Din Mohammad, who lived in the 14th century, in what is now Southern Iran, in Shiraz. He wrote hundreds
of poems, and “he remains Iran’s most popular poet to this day,” 3.
65
See Margret Smith, Rabi’a: The Life & Work of Rabi’a and Other Women Mystics in Islam” (Oxford,
England: Oneworld Publications, 1997). “A complete biography of this woman of unique personality did
not appear until Dr. Smith, published his account, initially her dissertation. “Rabi’a, like so many of the
saints, lived to a ripe old age and must have been nearly ninety when she died.” 61. Rabi’a rejected offers
of marriage, preferring a celibate life. She practiced extreme austerities, rejecting offers of even the
smallest material comfort. One of her devotees reported that at eighty, she had a brick for her pillow,
sleeping on a mat of reeds on a dirt floor. “She was a very old woman . . . a worn-out skin almost falling
down.” She was devoted to a life of prayer and sparseness. 44/45.
66
As Robert Frager so clearly says in his wonderful introduction, “Communal prayers are visible
manifestations of the doctrine that all are equal in the eyes of God, irrespective of class, social, and
economic distinctions,” Essential Sufism, ed. James Fadiman & Robert Frager (Harper San Francisco,
1997), 7/8.

67
In Morocco? Behind their veils? Later I would see them on a Panama Canal cruise, ballroom dancing
with the unctuous on-board male escorts – old, retired men unable to conceal their glee at their desirable
161

status and many choices. And six years later, they would become, to my delighted surprise, Speaker of the
House and potential Presidential Nominee.

68
Several family members, including her husband and son, worked on the show, which she executive
produced.
69
“The One” had an apartment in San Francisco. Bob visited her there and all was well. But within two
months, she decided she wanted to be with him all the time, to make their relationship real. So she let go of
her apartment and moved her stuff to Milwaukee, into Bob’s small apartment. They broke up a few weeks
later. Bob did write to me, with apologies. But his words, along with him, meant nothing to me. The last
time I saw him, he was with Deanna in California.

70
In Nothing Special, Charlotte (“Joko”) Beck.

71
This is equally applicable to national politics, including the Iraq War and the US War on Terror – the
nation and its populace fears annihilation (after 9/11), a fear that results in conflict -- wars.
72
In extraordinary events, like facing the deaths of my parents and the loss of my son, I had looked directly
at my fears, learning to acknowledge them and deal with them. However, these were big events, God
events. Ordinary daily life was another matter, and that was up to the Great Me.
73
Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen: Love and Work, ed. Steve Smith (San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1989).
74
His eagerness for me to have dinner at Windows on the World, the restaurant on the top floor of the
World Trade Center, struck me as a little strange. But nine months later, 9/11/2001, I would sadly
understand. 2001 was a transformative year historically as well as personally.
75
Bill, a chemist who retired at 49 from Clorox to live in Sea Ranch, worked out twice every day. He was
a consummately kind man and community volunteer who drove aging or ailing residents to appointments.
Jeannie, his wife, volunteered for Hospice; she walked her black Labrador, worked out, swam, played
tennis, did yoga and aerobics, every day! Bill and Jeannie were close friends of my neighbors – two lovely
people. The Seals moved to Sea Ranch years ago, after Ned’s third heart attack, at 48. They invited me to
dinners with their friends and looked after my house when I was gone. They defined what being a good
neighbor meant -- the bedrock of the self-sufficient community that is Sea Ranch.

76
I donate to local charities, but I am a non-volunteer. My ego was already too big for old age. I didn’t
need any more achievements or accolades. But I did feel the need to help the part of the community that
had no time for volunteering – Mexican immigrants, many illegal. My minimum wage is $25./hour;
Patricia Agis helps me move furniture and organize the house; Griselda Ortega works with me in the
garden; Rutilia Cortez painted my house; Martine Diaz mows the lawn/field, and Ricardo Estrada was the
contractor for my new deck. Although this might sound subservient, the trend is clear and promising – from
handyman or service jobs to entrepreneur and small business owner. Recently, the ownership of four local
restaurants has been sold to Mexican residents, formerly bus boys, cooks, and waiters. We eat there
frequently. These new owners still perform labor alongside their employees. But with success, they are
also becoming managers. Unfortunately, there is little social mixing across these three groups, but the
community lives in harmony and appreciation.
162

(An aside: All my life, like my mother and her mother, I had done all my own housework,
including painting rooms and planting grass and trees. Housekeeping for them was both an art and a labor
and hence had to be tackled alone. Now I have learned to cherish the privilege and luxury of having
domestic help. I no longer exhaust myself as my mother did by trying to do everything. But I still work
alongside anyone I hire; and yes, I pre-pick up and organize.)

78
Venerable Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1991),
2.
79
Master Sheng-yen, Subtle Wisdom: Understanding Suffering, Cultivating Compassion Through
Ch’an Buddhism (New York: Doubleday, 1999), x.
80
Karen Armstrong, Buddha (New York: Lipper/Penguin, 2001).
81
Ayya Khema, Be An Island: The Buddhist Practice of Inner Peace (Boston: Wisdom Publications,
1999), Preface, xv.

82
As Karen Armstrong emphasizes, Buddha (Gotama) “took it for granted that family life was incompatible
with the highest forms of spirituality . . . a perception shared . . . by Jesus.” (2) He left his wife and son,
Rahula. Buddha also had difficulty accepting women as monks, finally relenting but granting them a
subordinate status. “The Buddha’s quest was masculine in its heroism: the determined casting off of all
restraints, the rejection of the domestic world and women, the solitary struggle, and the penetration of new
realms are attitudes that have become emblematic of male virtue. It is only in the modern world that this
attitude has been challenged. Women have sought their own liberation, they too have rejected the old
authorities, and set off on their own lonely journey.” (Armstrong, 56)

83
Indian texts which reinterpreted the Vedas.

84
Buddha also used the teaching of Patanjali on yoga, which he “adapted to develop his own dhamma, or
dharma.” (48) “Yogis of India had discovered the unconscious mind and had, to a degree, learned to
master it.” (Armstrong, 49) “Aspirants” had to “live above the confusion of the emotions,” (Armstrong,
44) Yet the sacred, “as close to us as our own selves, proved to be extremely hard to find.” (Armstrong,
53)
85
In Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening (New York: Riverhead Books
1997), he writes that in his first teaching, in Deer Park shortly after his awakening, Buddha declared “how
he has found the central path through avoiding indulgence and mortification. He then describes the four
ennobling truths: those of anguish, its origins, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation. Anguish
can be understood, its origins let go of, its cessation realized, and the path, cultivated (4) and this is what he
had just done.”
86
Letting go begins with understanding, a “calm, clear acceptance of what is happening.” He uses the
example of a wave - - if we try to avoid it, it will send us crashing into the beach. “But if we face it head-
on and dive right into it, we discover only water.”(7/8) He acknowledges that awakening “is indeed close
by – and supreme effort is required to realize it.” (13) “It is a method to be investigated and tried out.” (18)
163

87
“The course of the Buddha’s life offers a paradigm of human existence.” (107) The tale is worth
repeating. “It is said that until Siddhartha Gautama [Buddha] was in his late twenties, his father, King
Suddhodana, kept him immured within palaces” (Batchelor 21), keeping anything unpleasant away from
him. But the Prince became restless. During a carefully planned tour of the beautiful countryside,
Siddhartha saw “a person disfigured by disease, another crippled by age, a corpse, and a wandering monk.”
(Batchelor, 21/22) He left the palace and for six years studied, meditated, and “subjected himself to
punishing ascetic rigors.” His body became emaciated. He had tried everything but he still was not
enlightened. “Seven days later he had an awakening in which he understood the nature of anguish, let go of
its origins, realized its cessation.” (Batchelor, 22)
88
We both were world-class players. Or should I say we were equally immature? Inevitably, I would cry,
quickly becoming a martyr, which would cause even more irritation, and he would retaliate by ascribing
first cause guilt to me. He would escalate into name calling, using words I hated; I would threaten the
relationship, which he hated.
89
For more on Dr. Bedi’s extraordinary synthesis of Eastern philosophy, Jungian thought, and the resultant
insights that emerged in this brilliant melding, see Path to the Soul (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser,
2000); Retire Your Family Karma (Berwick, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, 2003); and Awakening the
Slumbering Goddess, copyright 2007 by Ashok Bedi, MD.
90
I found some helpful information in Jung: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 1994)
by Anthony Stevens.
91
That the source of motivation is sexual and that the unconscious is strictly unique and personal. Jung
preferred a concept of “life force” which included sexuality. The central role of the mother as caregiver is
also different from Freud’s centrality of the father – and truer to my own experience.

92
Jung believed that beneath the “personal unconscious of repressed wishes and traumatic memories,
posited by Freud,” there lay a deeper and more significant layer he would call “the collective unconscious,”
which contained “the entire heritage of mankind.” (22) These archetypes make up the unconscious – and
they are “identical psychic structures common to all.” (47) For Jung, like Hinduism, we come into the
world with a “blueprint for life.” (53) The Self, the Ego, the Persona, and the Shadow are different aspects
of the individual. The Self is our greater, interior being; it seeks “fulfillment in spiritual achievement.” (61)
The Ego, the sense of “I and “Me,” is the center of consciousness. (62) The Persona is our mask, a façade,
which we fashion “to be acceptable to others,” “a shop window where we display our best wares.” (63)
And our Shadow is a lower, disowned personality, like the stories of Jekyll and Hyde, or the Portrait of
Dorian Gray. We keep the worst part of ourselves under wraps, not fearing castration by the father
(Freudian) but rather being abandoned by the mother for not being acceptable. (66) This centrality of the
mother was more in accord with my experience; fear of losing her love accompanied me throughout my life
like a censor.

The most painful part of analysis is confronting the shadow -- which is not surprising because the
shadow is “tinged with feelings of guilt and unworthiness and with fears of rejection should its true nature
be discovered or exposed.” This is precisely the way most addicts feel when they begin sobriety –
unworthy, guilty, fearing rejection but meeting acceptance in AA. They begin to confront their shadow,
where “so much potential and energy is locked away,” hidden within the addiction. (76) Or the addiction is
the literal embodiment of the shadow. After the initial painful struggle, there is a “feeling of being more
creative, more whole . . . to own one’s shadow is to become responsible for it . . . ethical choices become
possible.” (67)
164

93
Dr. John Beebe is an international figure in the psychoanalytic community, an intellectual who was the
editor/founder of the professional Jungian journal for many years. He is a noted scholar of, among other
things, Jungian readings of films, along with his particular expertise in typologies. He did have semi-
trances during some of our sessions, periods when he would appear to doze off. Sometimes I was uncertain
whether he was exhausted or intuiting something from my words. I was a very slow pupil, finding it
difficult to comprehend things that I had repressed or buried for so long. It took months before I had any
real awareness of what his words were referring to.
94
There are four basic types of perception and response: “Sensation (sense perception) tells us that
something exists; thinking tells you what it is; feeling tells you whether it is agreeable or not; and intuition
tells you when it comes and where it is going.” (In Man and His Symbols, 61) (86.) Thinking is paired
with feeling (which should not be confused with emotion or affect; it is judgment, evaluation) and sensation
with intuition. One of the four will be our superior function and the other of the pair our inferior function.
Each of the four types is further distinguished by being either extroverted or introverted. Introverts place
great “importance on inner subjective realities and extraverts on objective events.” (86) Very briefly, the
four types: intuition and sensation, thinking and feeling, doubled by being either introverted or extroverted,
making a total of eight psychological types.
95
And slowly, I am acknowledging the role certain of my actions play in upsetting him -- like interrupting
him when he is on the telephone, or asking for his help without relinquishing the task myself. To me, these
are small annoyances; to him they are felonies. But the reality is that they hurt him, they upset him, so I
need to have empathy with his feelings, which are real. To see them as insignificant is actually insulting to
him. This has come only very recently. It has involved what Dr. Beebe calls “an ethics of caring versus an
ethics of justice.” Being right, along with adjudicating the severity of another’s feelings, are habits I am
changing. I no longer value them as I used to.
96
Robert Thurman, Essential Tibetan Buddhism (New Jersey: Castle Books, 1995).

97
Buddha “emphatically disclaimed the possession of the Godlike power of creatorhood . . . but he was not
an atheist. He believed he had met a number of enlightened beings.” (10)

98
Like Gurumayi, Buddha again and again told his followers not to take “anything on trust.” (Armstrong
47) He urged them to test everything. Thus, Buddhism has no “theories about the creation of the universe
or the existence of a Supreme Being. These matters might be interesting but they could not give a disciple
enlightenment.” (Armstrong 102)

99
We became patrons of the Telluride Film Festival, watching wonderful films at the magnificent event
every Labor Day weekend. I taught a film history course at UC-Santa Cruz, a beautiful commute from our
condominium in Menlo Park. It was on the war against terror, with Iraq just beginning to gear up in the
spring of 2003. But that was it for professional engagements and the movies. I had retired, with one book
to finish.
100
“I found the revelation that I could look back upon my sixties with pleasure astonishing.” (7) I quite
agree with Carolyn Heilbrun, another professor, who did not find “the joy in my grandchildren, great as it
is, half so profound as the pleasure I take in my adult children. To perceive the enchantment of small
children does not require the eyes of the old. To taste with special relish the conversation of one’s grown-
up children does . . . Perhaps because I am not a natural lover of children, the most potent reward for
165

parenthood I have known has been delight in my fully grown progeny. They are friends with an extra
dimension of affection.” I am thrilled listening to Rob and Dae talk about their work, or politics, or their
lives in general. How did they become such remarkable adults? So intelligent, so perceptive, so creative?)
See Carolyn Heilbrun, The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty (New York: Dial Press, 1997). See also
Writing a Woman’s Life (New York: Ballantine, 1988).

101
Ayya Khema, Being Nobody Going Nowhere (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1987).
102
See Ayya Khema, I Give You My Life: The Autobiography of a Western Buddhist Nun (Boston &
London: Shambhala, 2000).
103
In Ayya Khema’s Be An Island, “Forward,” Sandy Boucher, 1998, ix – xiv. She spoke without notes,
in a simple, accessible style. Like so many other spiritual teachers, including Baba Muktananda and
Gurumayi, Khema preferred the peace of monastic life; yet she was willing to travel around the world to
share her insights. In 1988, she received ordination in the Chinese Buddhist tradition, in Los Angeles. As
one of her followers wrote: “Nothing could be more essentially Buddhist than spiritual equality, regardless
of gender.” (xiii)

104
I decided early on that rather than being irritated by his quirks and habits – including a unique piercing
nasal trumpeting to clear his ears -- I would accept them all (OK, with three exceptions) as part of the
package. I had realized years ago that my intolerance of others’ personal traits made me anxious and
unhappy and did not change anything. Jonathan tried to accept me in the same way, what he would
“romantically” refer to as “taking the “rocks with the farm.” I tried to see the rocks and the farm as the
same. Charlotte Beck would see the sharp rocks as jewels. This became our mutual goal.
105
Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs, A Contemporary Guide to Awakening (New York:
Riverhead Books, 1997).
106
Nora Gallagher, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith (New York: Vintage, 1998).
107
Venerable Guntarama, Mindfulness in Plain English (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1992 (Taiwan,
1991), 4.
108
In 2006, the Middle East beckoned. The outbreak of fighting between Israel and Lebanon in July 2006
forced cancellation.

109
Early Buddhist texts were written one hundred years after the Buddha’s death, in Pali, a dialect of
Northern India, after being orally transmitted for many years. These are the source for much of the barely
recorded history of the Buddha’s life. Theravada Buddhists preserved these early texts. The Sanskrit texts
were Chinese or Tibetan. The Sanskrit “karma, dharma, and Nirvana,” become “kamma, dhamma, and
Nibbana” in Pali. xxix in Karen Armstrong’s Buddha (New York: Penguin Books, 2001). This little book
is a concise, accessible account of the Buddha’s life. “What is historical is the fact of the legend.” As it
spread through cultures, the dharma maintained its integrity and “responded to the needs of the new
situation . . . it had to imagine itself in original and unexpected ways (compare the Pali discourses, a
collection of Zen koans, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead). ” 107 They were imaginative, they were not
orthodoxies. Buddhism is “the freedom from anguish and the freedom to respond creatively to the anguish
of the world.” 109
166

110
There were other books, the beautifully written Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the
Sublime by Stephen Batchelor; Taming the Monkey Mind by Thubten Chodron, a Buddhist nun; and
many books on Zen Buddhism, including three collections of the writings of the well-known Buddhist
scholar, D.T. Suzuki: Introduction to Zen Buddhism, with an introduction by Carl Jung, published by
Grove Press in 1964; Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki, originally published in 1956 and
reissued in 1996; and The Awakening of Zen, Shambala Press in 1980.

111
Ayya Khema, Being Nobody Going Nowhere, 47.
112
Through meditation, we will have fewer grandiose ideas about “one’s person.”
113
Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs, 60.
114
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Boston & London:
Shambhala, 2000).
115
Lama is a translation of the Sanskrit word, guru, and means spiritual teacher.
116
Co-written with Adelaide Donnelley (New York: Kodansha International, 2000).
117
Vicki MacKenzie, Cave in the Snow: Tenzim Palmo’s Quest for Enlightenment (Great Britain:
Bloomsbury, 1998). As a young woman, she had two sides: “On the one side, I was fun loving and
frivolous; and on the other I was serious and ‘spiritual.’ These two sides were at war.” (27) I so identified
with this double aspect.
118
Francoise Pommaret, Bhutan: Himalayan Mountain Kingdom, trans. Elisabeth Booz & Howard
Solverson (Hong Kong: Airphoto International, 1998). This was the first guide written about this country
in 1990.
119
In Being Nobody, Going Nowhere.
120
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Transforming Problems into Happiness (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001).
121
Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001).
122
“Love cannot be encased in a person. A person is nothing but a bag of bones . . . How can love be
embedded in that? Yet that is what the famous tragedies are all about. (38) Love is embedded in a feeling.
(39) Love is more importantly cultivated when we confront someone who is totally lovable.”
123
Vietnam was my first CEO trip, a unique travel experience. CEO is the outgrowth of YPO, Young
Presidents’ Organization, to which Jonathan belonged. This international group consists of individuals who
became presidents of companies before they were forty. (At age fifty, 10% of these members are invited to
join CEO.) The selection criteria for both versions are stringent, involving a nomination and election
process. CEO, like YPO, sponsors numerous events, including international travel, for members and their
families. This is ultimately luxurious, over-the-top travel, involving not only five star hotels and services,
but first class education about the places visited. Speakers at YPO events include the leadership of
countries, along with leading intellectuals on the area. Mornings are spent in class; afternoons on special
tours, privileged inside glimpses into cultures, and evenings at black-tie dinners, dances, and other
extravaganzas. The settings for these events will be presidential palaces, national museums, famous
restaurants.
167

124
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), Preface, XVI.
125
When the point of view changes, so does history. Jonathan visited the Cu-Chi tunnels, outside Ho Chi
Minh City. It had originally been built during the resistance war against French colonialists, from 1945 to
1954. From 1961 to 1965, it shielded soldiers “operating in the enemy’s rear zone,” the U.S. As the war
escalated, the tunnels expanded into the north. “The tunnels were not dug deep, but still were resistant to
canon shells and to the heavy weight of tanks and armored cars . . . there were block-points at sensitive
spots to obstruct the way of the enemy or to stop the toxic chemicals sprayed by them . . . there were
sections structured from two to three stories . . . there were also narrow sections that only light and thin
persons could worm their way through . . . carefully-designed shafts for fresh air connected to the surface
face by multiple secret openings . Pitfalls, nail and spike traps were set at critical points of the system.
Around tunnel entrances and exits were also laid nail and spike traps, land mines, as well as antitank high
explosive mines . . . Inter-related to the system were broad trenches for rest after combat where hammocks
could be hung up. There were reserves of weapons food, water, facilities for surgery, living quarters for
wounded and convalescing combatants, shelters for women, old people and children . . . and theaters for
film shows and productions. All this underground world was elaborately concealed overhead.” From the
tourist pamphlet of the site.
126
Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential Writings, “Introduction, ‘If You Want Peace, You Can Have Peace,’” by
Sister Annabel Laity (Mar knoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2001), 1. Other books which have accompanied
me include Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, with a foreword by the Dalai
Lama (New York: Bantam, 1992); The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of
Meditation, trans. Mobi Ho (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975/1987); Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames
(New York: Riverhead Books, 2001) and No Death, No Fear (Riverhead Books: New York, 2002).
127
As a novice, he learned to be present in everything he did. “While closing the door you learn to be truly
present while closing the door. While cooking you are truly present in the cooking.” (4)
128
Master Sheng-yen, Subtle Wisdom Understanding Suffering, Cultivating Compassion Through Ch’an
Buddhism (New York: Doubleday, 1999).

129
In Buddhist Stupas in Asia: the Shape of Perfection, Photography, Bill Wassman, Text, Joe
Cummings, Foreword, Robert AF Thurman (Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publications, 2001).

130
Foreword, 5.
131
Guidebook, 24/25
132
Guidebook, 22/23.

133
Guide book, 26/27.

134
Chogyam Trungpa, Great Eastern Sun: the Wisdom of Shambhala, ed. Carolyn Rose Gimian
(Boston & London: Shambhala, 2001).

135 I have quoted from her second book in the previous chapter.
168

136
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Boston & London:
Shambala, 2000); The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path if Loving Kindness (Boston & London:
Shambhala, 1991); The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Boston &
London: Shambhala, 2001).

138
Wuhan was the site of Mao’s Villa.

139
Our driver and guide, who was a medical doctor, as was our guide in Myanmar, took us to see an
historical theater in the center of town. This ruse was one of many tourists sites for “original” art, actually
copies of paintings sold throughout China. Yes, we bought three pieces from fast-negotiating sellers who
had taken them down and wrapped them up before we could examine them. Chinese merchants can be
relentless and blithely deceitful in making the sale.

140
Awakened: Qin’s Terra-Cotta Army, Shaanxi Travel & Tourism Press, October 2001, 10, 11. This is
the catalogue for the monument.

141
We stayed at the Peninsula Palace, which was just off the square, downtown, a great hotel. And we
trekked through the famous knock-off malls, where Jonathan loaded up on Ralph Lauren shirts and Mont
Blanc pens (100 for $50.00, after two days of hard bargaining), and I found cashmere and silk items for
gifts. These warehouses must be the sources for New York city street vendors. The low prices speak of
cheap labor and lots of it, primarily by women, in country villages or huge factories. And what if China
ever raised their prices? We would be captive. The U.S. has given up most sources of production. What
would happen to China if the US stopped shopping?

142
An eagerly anticipated CEO trip to the Middle East, in 2006, would be cancelled due to the U.S. War in
Iraq. We were scheduled to visit Jordan, Syria, Israel, Egypt, and Turkey. We would take our
granddaughters on two Disney Cruises, in January of 2006 and 2007, to our mutual delight. We would visit
Jonathan’s 88 year old mother in Hawaii several times, including an early 90th birthday party, and spend
time with his brother, Dave, and Kathleen – a lovely couple I have grown to love thoroughly. They will
join us in Telluride, Colorado for the film festival again in September. Nancy will come and visit for the
holidays, staying in the Stanford Park Hotel, right behind our condominium in Menlo Park. We will spend
time in Boca Raton, Florida, with Jim and Deanna Rosemurghy, Jonathan’s cousin, who is like a brother to
Jonathan, and celebrate the weddings of two of their three children, in a year. There are regular trips to
New York, where we will eventually buy a condo in The Caledonia, in Chelsea, on the newly planned High
Line, only three blocks away from Dae, Larry, and Remi; and visits to first Tulsa, Oklahoma and then
Portland, Oregon, to enjoy Amy, Jonathan’s daughter, Brian, her husband, and our two grand children,
Alessandra and Siena. We will share our weeks in our house in Hilton Head with both families in the
spring of 2006 and 2007. And in Menlo Park, Rob and Priscilla keep us updated on current politics and
contemporary culture. Our little expanded family is filled with people we love and care about. Jonathan
and I both got so much more than we bargained for, and for which we are deeply grateful.
169

143
Venerable Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in lain English (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1992),
11. First published in Taiwan, 1991.
144
Ayya Khema, Be an Island; The Buddhist Practice of Inner Peace (Boston, Massachusetts: Wisdom
Publications, 1999). The Hershey Family Foundation sponsored the printing of this book.
145
Venerable Henepola Gunaratana writes about meditation: “Meditation teaches you how to disentangle
yourself from the thought process. It is the mental art of stepping out of your own way . . . Meditation is
not other-worldly.” When we can disengage the old and tired logic circuits that have formed, almost by
habit, it lets our intuition, our deep mind, emerge. (27) He talks about the difference between Hindu and
Buddhist meditation, stating that Hinduism is “purely concentrative . . . Within the Buddhist tradition,
concentration is also highly valued. But a new element is added . . . awareness.” (34) And there are many
schools of thought . . . Vipassana is the oldest of Buddhist meditation practices.

146
At death, letting go is the one thing we can still do. One isn’t striving to get anything, one is striving to
get rid of every thing. There is nothing to achieve. There’s only letting go.

147
Jonathan made the invitations on his computer, I compiled the gift baskets, which he delivered just
before guests arrived. Prior to the evening dinner, I taught the teen age girls hired to serve how to properly
set a table. We rented furniture, plants, and dishes in Ukiah and hired cooks for the parties, housing guests
in a charming B & B on the ocean, with spectacular coastal views, near Anchor Bay.
148
Our children and grandchildren all came, as did my sister, Nancy, her son and my nephew, Patrick, and
Jonathan’s brother, Dave and his wife, Kathleen, with Kanti, Jonathan’s nephew, along with our friends in
Sea Ranch and several old friends of Jonathan’s. Jonathan’s mother got out of her bed in Honolulu and
onto an airplane, with two caregivers, and danced with her son.
149
By organizing and cooking a dinner for the family, and even inviting Tom, my ex-husband; orchestrating
a rehearsal dinner at the Stanford Park hotel, personally preparing a luncheon for the family tea ceremony
before the wedding.

150
Once again, Dae had to take care of us, including my petulant sulk when the photographer spent too
much time with Tom and his wife.

151
Dae has met Gurumayi several times and has attended many programs at the ashram, including
meditation intensives. She knew the power of the Siddha path. But Rob had stayed far away. Years ago, I
had obsessed about Rob meeting Gurumayi, particularly when she visited Milwaukee. He refused, no
matter my wheedling and whining. It took years before I could let go of this desire. Rob has walked his
own spiritual path. But it has taken even more years for me to let go of being an overprotective mother.
Jonathan regularly kicks me under the dinner table as I continue to suggest items for him.

152
In The Way of Passion, his book on the Sufi poet, Rumi.
153
Ayya Khema, I Give You My Life: the Autobiography of a Western Buddhist Nun (Boston,
Massachusetts: Shambala Publications, 1997), 139. Her epigraph is a poem by Hermann Hesse, Stages:
“As every flower fades and as all youth
170

Departs, so life at every stage,


So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
Or guarding us and helping us to live. . .

There are three more stanzas of this delightful work. The last is particularly pertinent for this book:

“Even the hour of our death may send


Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.”
154
In this endeavor, we are supported by our small, sweet AA group in Gualala, where we regularly attend
meetings. (Jonathan began to attend AA in 2002, quite to my surprise.) This group of eccentrics is beloved
to us. There is first and foremost our good friend, Thayer, a former TV journalist and a documentary film
maker – articulate, dramatic, brilliant, and always available for service; Jim, the local dentist and comic,
formerly from Marin County, who tried all the wild and crazy drugs available to his profession; Tim, the 80
year old silver haired, elegant corporate CEO, who is involved in the politics of Sea Ranch, as is his second
wife, Dibby, a retired city planner running for director and the pillar of the women’s AA group; Patty, a
former convict and tattooed tough drunk who is getting her appraiser’s license and raising her teenage
daughters in a loving manner very different from her abusive background and former homelessness Then
there is Rug, who survived radical chemotherapy, beating all the odds; Jim gave him new front teeth; and
Lyle, a sewer supervisor in the local town, afflicted with emphysema and no longer able to work; Wink, all
6 feet 10 inches whose liver is ailing, and articulate Marie, with virtually no education and a history of
violent abuse as a child, is gaining personal strength and making a career for herself . . . along with the food
addicts who are so few they attend AA. A humble group, always a source of wisdom and compassion.
We did attend one meeting of the Food Addicts – with only two other people. The secretary introduced
herself six times – I’m Nita, and I’m a food addict – before she read introductory passages, standing each
time she started a new item. It was very funny, and sweet.
155
Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (San Francisco: Harper, 1993).

156
While stories end, life goes on. I had one fear left – a fear of heights, particularly in small planes. Thus
it should not come as a surprise that Jonathan and I began flying lessons in 2007. For him, this was the
completion of a process that began in the 1960s, which became pragmatic in 2007 with the unexpected
purchase of a plane. For me, it began as a one-time confrontation with fear – to see whether I would be
able to fly with Jonathan; then the lessons became a mental and physical challenge. Now I am resurrecting
a childhood hero, Amelia Earhart.

But that’s another story! With new settings, in Mexico, and the Monterey Peninsula!

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