Gratefulness Episode 3

The results from the scan have come back. There was no sign of thyroid cancer anywhere else in her body.

All these weeks and months, I have believed that the treatment would work. That the surgery to remove the thyroid, followed by the irradiated iodine treatment, would rid her body of cancer. That my loved one would be among the 90-something% of people who survive thyroid cancer. I believed that, expected it.

But this result is what we've been waiting for. This result is the answer. No signs of cancer.

And again, I am grateful.

Not Just Going Through the Motions

Last night, I was just getting into bed, when the shocking realization hit me. "Oh, my God!"

My husband sat bolt upright in bed. "What?!" he asked in alarm.

"I can't believe it! I forgot to do T'ai Chi!"

"Oh, my God!" he agreed, just as shocked as I was. "Can you do it now?" he asked.

I looked at the clock. 12:34. Ugh. "No," I sighed, dismally aware I was letting myself down. "It's too late."

"Just do 5 minutes," he suggested. (My anchor!)

"OK." I decided to do one pass through the part of the form I know so far, which takes 12 or 13 minutes. (So, more than 5! Yay for me!)

I didn't feel like going out into the back yard at that time of night. We have a large family room with enough space to do T'ai Chi, if you move furniture out of the way. I went downstairs, in the ready-for-bed state I was in, which included bare feet.

I skipped the warm-up entirely. So I observed that my knees were a bit creaky. My high kicks were not so high. Bare feet on carpet presents its own kind of challenge to the balance. I didn't feel like moving furniture, so my space wasn't quite wide enough, so this meant creatively modifying some movements to stay within the confined space. All of these hindrances actually drew my attention more into the moment.

I could have literally just gone through the motions, just to be able to say I hadn't skipped. Instead, it became an interesting new experience. Entertaining. Playing T'ai Chi.

Mr. Bunny Revisited

I'm back home from the convention, and resuming my back-yard practice. I haven't practiced with Mr. Bunny for a long time.

My husband looked out the window last night around 6:15 and told me the bunny was out there, so I right quick changed and headed out, hoping he'd still be there.

I always do some warm-ups before beginning the form, to loosen up spine, hips, knees, shoulders, and what-not. Mr. Bunny seemed to be watching me while nibbling some yummy grass. I did a deep lunge, right leg out front with a deeply bent knee, left leg lengthened way out to the back, to stretch my left hip flexor. Long, deep streatch. Aaaahh.

Just then Mr. Bunny did a deep cat stretch, front paws way out front, back paws way out back. It was as if he was thinking, "Wow! That's a good idea! I think I'll do that!"

He stayed with me for the entire practice. This made me happy.

I was wondering why I haven't seen him for a month or two, and I think I figured it out. During the longest days of summer, I practiced at twilight, which was 8:30 or 9. And Mr. Bunny was there. As the summer wore on, I've been sticking with the 8:30 or 9 practice time, but recently it's been full dark.

But I think Mr. Bunny's been hanging out in our backyard at twilight, whatever time that might be. He doesn't have a watch in his waistcoat pocket, like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland (at least, not as far as I can see).

Look to Infinity

Another convention this past weekend. Another hotel. Another attempt to find a place to practice T'ai Chi.

The last hotel had a separate yoga room that was empty, so I commandeered it for T'ai Chi. It was out of the way of the panting treadmill runners and grunting weight lifters. I didn't figure any yoga practitioner would begrudge me the space to do T'ai Chi. But there were no yoga practitioners elbowing in for space when I was in there anyway. It was perfect.

I hoped I could find a similarly perfect place in this hotel. I headed for the fitness center to check it out. No yoga room. Machines packed in like sardines. Narrow pathways between them. There was one pathway that was maybe big enough, but it led back to a machine that surely, as soon as I started, someone would want it. Sigh.

Then I noticed a sign. "Stairway to Pool." I'm open-minded. Through the door and up the stairs. A pool. A big, mostly empty pool, with a big patio around it. And here I found a space the perfect size between a row of chaise lounges on one side and a row of tables on the other. The only people in the pool had their stuff at the other end. This was it. This was going to be my T'ai Chi space for 4 days. So I did my practice. It really was pretty ideal. Except for the fact that it was like a sauna in there, and I had sweat running down every vertical surface (but hey, that's detoxifying, right?).

And also except for the fact that some days I kind of had an audience that was trying not to be an audience. I mean, picture this: you're at a pool, ok? Hanging out, swimming, splashing, or reading, or whatever. And this person camps out a few feet from you and starts doing T'ai Chi. Maybe you've never seen someone do T'ai Chi in real life before. You've seen it on TV. You recognize it when you see it, but here's someone right in front of you doing it. Do you watch? You don't want to stare at the person, make her feel uncomfortable.

And me, I travel 15 or 20 feet as I go through the form. When I start maybe I'm 20 feet away, but at one point I'm only 4 feet from this person reading on a chaise lounge. I don't want to invade her space. I don't want her to feel like I'm staring at her. I studiously avoid looking at her. She studiously avoids looking at me. We are both studiously, politely, refusing to even notice the other's existence.

So if I mustn't look at her, and she's right in front of me on a chaise lounge, where do I look? At first I looked at the floor a few feet in front of me and little to the side. This was an unfortunate choice. You try doing some balance-challenging high kicks right in front of a non-audience while looking at the floor, and see how that works out for ya. For the first time since starting on my T'ai Chi practice 3 1/2 months ago, I have a non-audience and I'm wobbling all over the place. If this is her first non-viewing of T'ai Chi in real life, why can't I be perfectly balanced and graceful, like on TV?

Then I remembered some advice from a T'ai Chi book I was thumbing through at a book store recently. "Look to infinity." Don't look at the ground. Don't look at the sky. Look to infinity. So I tried that--well, looking at the wall straight ahead anyway. And, quite miraculously, this improved my balance tremendously. The next practice I maintained the infinity gaze throughout, and it was quite possibly the most balanced practice I've ever had. Maybe not quite like on TV, but at least I need not be embarrassed.

I began thinking about how this could be a metaphor for life. If you look to infinity, keep your sights on the big picture, that can help you stay balanced, and not wobble over every little thing.

I need to go back to the bookstore, find that book again, and buy it.

Moon Shadow

Tonight I did a late practice. It was completely dark.

Partway through my practice I became aware that I was casting two shadows, in completely different directions. I looked around. One was from my patio light. The other was from the moon. I turned off the patio light, and continued with just the moon's illumination.

It was very peaceful and calming, almost like a cool light was pouring down on me. My moon shadow made me smile.

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.