Gratefulness, Episode 2

I think it's quite natural for children to take their parents for granted, and for parents to take what they do for their children for granted. If the parents are there, doing their jobs well, the child just is used to it. It's just the way life is. And the parent does his or her job without thinking about it. It's just what you do.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was planning to tell my mother how grateful I am for how much she taught me. I don't think I've ever told her that, so it seemed very important to do it now, this time when I saw her.

Last week I was at my parent's cabin in New England. One day, while my dad was out running errands, my mom and I were just sitting companionably and talking. So I told her:

As I've gotten older I've realized just how much of what I know, she taught me, and I really appreciate that. She taught me some major skills, like how to cook, sew, knit, and crochet, and I've been passing on some of what she taught me. I taught my daughters how to crochet when they were younger, and one of them, who's been more interested in crafts, how to knit. My granddaughter and I bake cookies and other treats together pretty frequently. At 5 years old, she could separate eggs by herself.

Other little tricks, like putting a slice of bread in a container of freshly baked cookies to keep the cookies moist, my daughters and granddaughter have learned from me. I told my mom how one day when my granddaughter was 3 or 4, she had cookies in her lunch at preschool. She didn't eat all the cookies, so she carefully wrapped up the remaining cookie with a slice of bread to take it home.

I told my mom she also taught me, just by example, how to keep a family running smoothly, looking ahead at what could go wrong, and trying to stay one step ahead.

I think my mom was surprised to hear how grateful I was. As I said, I think parents take all the things they do for granted too. She thanked me. I think it made her feel good to realize the impact she had made, and the ripple effects to at least 2 generations beyond me. And I was grateful that I taken the opportunity to tell her.

Bzz Bzz Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz

In the desert, you can do T'ai Chi outdoors at sunset in August quite free of insect harassment. No mosquitoes. The number of flies is negligible. There are bees and ants, but they mind their own business. It's an ideal environment for focusing the mind. Ideal in the sense that it's easy, because there's nothing harassing you to distraction.

New England, on the other hand, is abundant with sadistically harassing insect life. Today's practice at around 4:30 in the afternoon was an intense exercise in focusing the mind. During my warm-up, I had bugs buzzing my head incessantly. (My mom was watching my practice. I made a point of telling her later that the frantic flailing of arms about the head is not a T'ai Chi move.) You'd think that after they'd been whacked by a flailing arm a time or two, they'd find some safer place to buzz. But no. They were remarkably, and distressingly, persistent.

However, by the time I began practicing the form, I was grateful that my harassers had finally found some other way to amuse themselves for a while. I managed to have a pretty pleasant practice for 5 or 8 minutes.

Then, The Big One came. I don't know what this thing was--a horse fly? deer fly? moose fly? (elephant fly? blue whale fly? you get the idea.) Anyway, a Big Honkin' Fly. With a BIG BUZZ. And it buzzed my head, and buzzed my head. But I was doing the form, and really, really didn't want to interrupt it to frantically flail my arms. So I breathed and ignored it and kept doing the form. And it buzzed my hair. And it got stuck. Yes, stuck, where my bangs attach to the scalp, a few inches above my right eyebrow.

Now it was his turn to frantically flail. He buzzed and flailed in my hair. But I was almost done! Just a couple more movements! So, with nerves of steel, I breathed and continued to do the form, as The Big One flailed and buzzed furiously against my scalp, and eventually either wore himself out or gave up, and became still.

When I finished the form, I immediately ran my fingers through my hair with a great "Uuuggh" and a shudder. I freed The Big One, and he was outta there, at the speed of light. A whack or two of flailing arms may not be enough to make them find a safer place to buzz, but I guess being trapped and helpless was.

So, yeah, that was my first T'ai Chi practice here. I'm going to be here a week.

Going with the Flow

Yesterday was the first day in over 3 months that I did not do a T'ai Chi practice. I knew in advance it just wasn't going to happen. I had a flight at 7:30 am and was not supposed to arrive at my destination airport in a small New England town until 10:11 pm. Then I had about an hour drive to get to my parents' place. So, I thought: If I can't do a normal T'ai Chi practice, what could I do instead, on a plane or in an airport, to not feel like I'd missed it completely?

So I brought my DVD with me, figuring I could play it on my laptop, listening to it with head phones. I planned to do a Qigong breathing exercise and review my latest lesson and the practice, which shows the entire form. I figured I'd do it on my last flight, and that would leave me relaxed and alert for the drive.

I arrived at JFK airport 45 minutes early because of a tail wind. Things seemed to be looking up. I had almost 4 hours before the last flight, and spent it productively enough--charged my laptop and did some work. I relocated myself to the gate about a half hour before the departure. Our plane had landed, but no air conditioning, and they were going to try to fix it. We waited.

I didn't want to pull out my laptop, because I didn't want to run down the battery. I didn't want to do the Qigong exercise in the airport anyway, because I'd have my eyes closed for 15-20 minutes. Can you say "Steal my luggage, please?" So I pulled out my book, T'ai Chi Classics, and began learning a number of ways to cultivate my chi.

The guy sitting next to me began regaling me with stories of other airline snafus, asserting how unlikely it was that they would find a different aircraft at that late hour, and predicting we'd be spending the night in a hotel at JFK. I "Oh, really?"ed and "Oh, no"ed in the appropriate places and returened to my chi cultivation.

About an hour and a half after the scheduled departure, they found another plane. Half an hour or so to re-fuel and board. So, it was now about 10 pm. Two hours late. Not bad. Then we learned that we were number 30 or 40 in line for takeoff. We waited more.

But, at least, since they knew we weren't going to be taking off any time soon, they allowed us to use our electronic devices. Most other people were snoozing away. So I implemented the laptop/DVD/headphones/eyes-closed Qigong breathing exercise. It was wonderful. So relaxing! Then I reviewed my lesson and the practice session. And I even learned something new about my breathing. My plan went off without a hitch. And I definitely didn't feel like I had "cheated."

Finally took off a little after midnight. Got to the destination airport at 1:15 am, alert and ready to drive. As I descended the escalator, the Avis counter looked ominously dark, employees conspicuously absent. It turns out that a rental car reservation is of limited value if there's no one there to give you the keys. The only rental car company open was Hertz, and they were out of cars.

Someone was looking out for me, though, because the hotel adjacent to the airport had a vacancy.

Maybe I am learning to be more calm. Dare I hope it? This whole thing never phased me. I just kept breathing, and going with the flow. It was really quite "entertaining."

My Anchors

Today marks 3 months since my first T'ai Chi practice. I've carved out 20-30 minutes a day every day for 3 solid months to do T'ai Chi. It feels like an important milestone. A quarter of a year! Obviously, I'm still a beginner. But I believe it has officially become a habit. Which I feel is a very good thing.

I've been trying to think if I have given this kind of time investment to any other activity in recent years. Not counting breathing, eating, sleeping, and other activities essential to life. And I can't think of anything. Not reading, not watching TV, no other physical exercise. Not working, not chores, not hobbies. I do all these things, of course, but not religiously dedicating a half-hour every day to one specific thing.

The only thing that measures up is spending time with my husband. I definitely spend much more than 30 minutes with him each day. Working, laughing, talking, reading together. Just plain hanging out and loving each other.

For 15 years, my husband has been my anchor. No matter which way the winds push me each day, he can always bring me back to center. Back to feeling calm and safe.

Now I feel like my T'ai Chi practice is an extra anchor. Each day I can fling off my worries, fling them Out There for the Universe to work on and take care of, so they don't have to be my worries anymore. And that also makes be feel calm and safe.

I wonder if, over time, I'll become so anchored, the winds don't even push me around so much anymore?

Gratefulness

I've been sad lately about the health problems and suffering of people I care about. My close family member with thyroid cancer. My mom's strokes and Bell's palsy. I also found out recently that a friend of mine is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. I've been feeling a little guilty lately about actually being healthy, when so many people I know are not.

I remember that the diagnosis of thyroid cancer came about a month after I started T'ai Chi. And I thought, this is another motivator for me to do T'ai Chi. It'll help me stay grounded and calm, so I'm not constantly stressed out about the cancer. And it will help strengthen my own immune system, so it will maybe help prevent my getting cancer some day. So here I am doing something to try to stay healthy, and at the same time I'm feeling guilty about being healthy. Sometimes I'm just an idiot.

Guilt is such an unproductive emotion. And what am I going to do anyway? Try to make myself sick? So no more wasting energy on that. That's a glass-half-empty way of looking at things. So what's the glass-half-full view? Gratefulness.

There is a wonderful gratefulness meditation in a book I have. You basically just sit and think of all the people and things in your life you're grateful for and why. It may seem like you'd run out of things, that you couldn't possibly fill 20 minutes doing this. But I found that once I got going, the list was a lot longer than I realized. It brought to my conciousness some things I didn't even realize I was grateful for. It was very affirming and uplifting.

So here is my gratefulness meditation (don't worry, I won't ramble for 20 minutes):

I am grateful that the thyroid cancer was only in the tumor and not spread throughout the thyroid, nor to nearby lymph nodes.

I am grateful that I'm going to visit my mom next week, and I can look her in the eye and tell her how much I appreciate all she taught me.

I am grateful to be back in touch with my friend, whom I haven't seen in a couple of years, and I look forward to going hiking and laughing with her.

These strong and wonderful women are in my life, and I am grateful.

From Tears to Laughter

Just before my T'ai Chi practice today, I received an email from my dad. My mom has had a number of strokes--even she has lost count. Her health has been declining over the last few years. This email reported that the left side of Ma's face was drooping, that she'd had a CT scan, and had Bell's palsy. With medication it usually is resolved within 6 weeks. But the photo he attached was shocking!

This is my mother! The woman who not only taught me how to cook, sew, knit, crochet, and a million other little life skills, but also taught me subconsciously how to be the sun in the little family solar system. You know, the sun that generates the light and energy to nurture the life and activity of the solar system? This was my mom. She always provided wonderful food, mended ripped clothes, typed papers for school, thought ahead to what was going to be needed. She was problem solver extraordinaire that drove the life of the family. And this photo made her appear wilted and helpless. On the verge of tears, I went out into my back yard to practice.

I began to focus. But I had a little distraction, in the form of a 6-year-old angel. Our granddaughter is spending the night with us tonight, and she wanted to come out into the back yard while I was doing T'ai Chi. Although my husband, her grandfather, warned her that they were not to talk to me, she just couldn't help herself. She walked right up to me and said "Grammy?" I didn't say anything, trying to show her I was focused and not to be distracted. So she just started trying to copy my movements (more or less). I could see her out of the corner of my eye, a little to my right and a little behind me. I could hear her deep breaths and exaggerated exhalations, the sound of 6-year-old concentration. I turned and she was now on my left and a little in front of me. I still stoutly refused to look at her, to acknowledge that I was being distracted by her, but I was suddenly surprised to discover that I was smiling. And then I was grinning. And she said she was going to make up her own T'ai Chi. And then I was laughing. I couldn't help it.

Somehow I managed to finish the part of the form I've learned so far, even while telling her to move this way because I was going to punch, or move that way because I was going to kick. So it wasn't the absorption of a good book, where you're not aware of what's around you. It was more like enjoying a good meal with loved ones. I was enjoying the T'ai Chi, while performing this beautiful, magical dance with my beloved granddaughter.

Journey or Destination?

I am an extremely goal-oriented person. I don't think this was a learned thing. I think it is hard-coded in my DNA. When I was 10 years old, if I felt like going for a walk, I would ask my mom if she needed anything at the store, so I'd have a destination, a reason to walk the half-mile each way.

One thing that appealed to me about T'ai Chi (as compared to yoga or meditation or going to the gym) was that there is a goal. Not a goal like being able to stick your foot behind your head or lose 10 pounds, but to learn an entire form. Since May, I've been learning the Kuang Ping Yang right long form. It takes 20 minutes to complete the whole sequence. I've been learning from a DVD that Bill Douglas (the Complete Idiot's Guide author) created. (I considered going to a T'ai Chi school in my town, but at $60/month and the aforementioned race against the bank balance, decided the rave-review DVD was a better investment at this time.) There are 18 lessons. You do a new one each week.

I had gotten through lesson 9 when I was talking up my new-found love of T'ai Chi to my family, including my loved one with the thyroid cancer. She was very interested, so I lent her my book and DVD. And thus began my little journey-vs-destination experiment. Not learning any new parts of the form. Not making any new progress toward my destination. Just practicing what I already knew.

The first Saturday (the day I usually did the new lesson for the first time), I didn't even realize it was New Lesson Day until after I was already in the middle of practice. I seemed very much on the journey that day, and was very pleased with myself. The second Saturday, I was out of town, busy at the convention, so New Lesson Day wasn't even on the radar. Focusing on the journey wasn't so hard! But when I got back, at about two and a half weeks, I realized I was starting to get antsy. I heard myself saying, "I should do T'ai Chi early today and get it over with." Get it over with! Oh no! Noooooooooooo!

Time for intervention. I asked my loved one if she had looked at the DVD at all. No, she hadn't had time, what with the upcoming surgery and all. Could I have it back until after you recover? Sure. (BTW, the surgery went "perfectly". She is on the mend, and more perked up and acting like herself today. More later.) So, after a few days of withdrawal, today was New Lesson Day again. Yay! And now my hips are blissfully sore from the high kicks I learned today.

So, these are the results of my experiment: Three weeks of journey-only is my current upper limit. But considering that waiting an entire week for the next lesson was a stretch at the beginning, that's progress, right?

I'm already starting to worry about what I'm going to do once I've learned the long form. What's next?

Can I have the goal of not having a goal?

Nah!