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Eyes Are The Window to the Blah, Blah, BlahJanuary 25th, 2011

My Lovely Man’s just had his right eye removed, which makes him my Lovely One-Eyed Man (my LOEM). The eye was replaced with a wee bowling ball, wrapped in human sclera and protected by a plastic cap that will be replaced in two weeks by a big contact lens  painted to look like a regular eye.

I brought him home looking like Micky Rourke after a bad night. This was okay because all i could see was a puffy mush of purple eyelids and some leaky blood. I was all sweetness and light and compassion.

Two days later his swelling reduced and he opened those eyelids.  For the first time we saw the bowling ball, which is a solid, dark maroon colour as far as I can tell.

The sight of it took my legs out from under me. Figuratively, i mean. I didn’t actually drop, but Jesus Murphy, i worked hard to stop myself from crying with the shock of it.

We have this thing about eyes: Windows to the soul, truth detectors, the thing that differentiates us from evil robots, bad-guy terminators, and dead things, soulless things.

I had more than i realized invested in these associations, and for a short time it broke my heart to see something other than Pat’s eye where Pat’s eye used to be.

It scared me to look at him. (I am completely ashamed of this.)

Then, by the Grace of Something, i remembered the waiting room full of people in hospital gowns preparing to have body bits removed. I remembered all the patients i love who have fewer breasts, lungs, kidneys, fingers, and toes than the rest of us.

More than that, it dawns on me that i hack myself to pieces whenever and wherever i amputate love — for his new face, for many of my own body parts all my life, for this moment when i’d rather be somewhere else, for the world in general on a bad day.  We’re all missing bits, when you think about it.

And i realize it’s absurd to assume Pat’s missing anything has anything to do with his soul or spirit.

Bring on the wee bowling ball. I will love this face.

Thanks for the lesson in love.  Thank you for the conversation,

kristin.


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New Thwack, Same LoveJanuary 17th, 2011

So my lovely man has this malignant tumour in his eye, and after waiting long enough that we could have grown a very slow vegetable garden, we’re leaving for Toronto this morning so that he can have his eye removed.

People say, oh, how do you do it, is he devastated, i can’t imagine how that feels, etc., etc.

Truth is it feels like regular life, but with the colour turned up a bit.  By that, i mean that this is a larger obstacle than usual (than boredom, than money, than career choices, than finding my way around in Bangkok), but it’s still an obstacle. An unexpected thwack in the head.  And what matters, what comes in handy,  is the skills we’ve already developed to deal with thwacks in the head.

On good days (and most of them are good), we focus on what matters.  Do we know what makes us happiest and what matters most to us? Do we know how to listen to our hearts rather than our heads? Can we really listen to each other in this relationship? Can we act from love rather than from fear?

All the questions are the same.  Which makes me want to suggest that we’re wise to know ourselves as well as we can and to practice being here, now.  This practice is the way through boredom or Bangkok.  It’s the way through every single day of regular life. The same practice is the way when it’s cancer, life, and death.

Life is big.  Sometimes bigger than i’d like.  Not for a second does that change the fact that Love wins, and that my greatest task, no matter how big life gets, is to remember that.


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Acting LessonsJanuary 4th, 2011

My son, the actor, says this: when someone gives you something (a word, a sentence, a feeling, a breath), receive it fully. Don’t let it just ping off your surface  and give a pingy superficial response.

Instead, let the word, or breath, or feeling sink all the way back to your spine. Let it transform you. Then respond from the transformed place.

(If you like this, try it while meditating. It’s like feeling two waves, the first being the usual breath into your lungs, the second being a deeper echo of the first, allowing your breath to reach your spine, to reach deeply into your face, your chest, your pelvis. Then let your exhalation come from the same depth.)

Something funny happens with this deeper receiving and giving. It’s as though we access a truer, more direct version of ourselves rather than acting like pinball machines all day long. (I have had enough pinball conversations for one lifetime.)

You can spot someone who’s doing it, by the way. The eye contact is different.

If this draws you at all, give it a whirl. I’d love to hear how it goes.

Thanks for the conversation,

kristin


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Trust SandwichDecember 21st, 2010

My son is in his first year at The National Theatre School, which he sometimes calls The National Becoming A Human School.  One of the roughly 14,500 things he loves about school (only a few of which we covered during a five hour breakfast last week) is lunch. In the cafeteria.

There’s this lunch guy, Isaac , pronounced E-tzack, because he’s French, who works in the NTS cafeteria.  (Adrian, my son,  says something amazing must go on at job interviews there, because every single employee is interesting and passionate about being there.)  When Adrian orders lunch, he can do it the regular way if he wants.  Or, get this, he can order a Trust Sandwich, in which case Isaac, pronounced, E-tzack, will make something fabulous and original with Adrian in mind.

I swoon, contemplating this.  This is how cafeteria food can make us well.

Take this, somebody, and apply it in your home, in your workplace, at your gym, at your grocery store.  And see how quickly this changes everything.

Get back to me on how it goes, will you?  I’d love to hear.

Thanks for the conversation,

kristin


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Tasting KindnessDecember 6th, 2010

A few days ago, I flew home from Bangkok after finding out my lovely man has a tumour in his eye.

You may have had one of these experiences in your life, the kind that catapults you into love and clarity (it reminds me, now, of childbirth), not to mention instant intimacy with the Thai cab driver, the woman at the check-in counter at Cathay Pacific, cashiers at the grocery store, and on and on.

Two of these intimacies were enough to wake me up in the middle of the night to write this.

On the packed flight from Hong Kong to Toronto, I sat beside a woman whose face I never really looked at, because looking at anyone’s face made me cry. She didn’t speak English. I helped her with her seatbelt at some point and she did what I’d done in Bangkok for three days: she grunted, mumbled, and nodded her head.

We sat beside each other for something like 15 hours, during which I started to cry (silently, I hope, though why I give a damn, I don’t know) perhaps 15 times. The third or fourth time in, she patted my thigh and passed me a piece of gum. Gum. It was one of those disgusting flavours that turn my stomach: fruity, maybe fake strawberry, with an explosive, liquid centre. Horrifying.

I chewed it till it was cardboard, and in the three minutes it took, I fell in love with disgusting strawberry gum, because of the way it filled my mouth with kindness. (It’s a good thing I fell in love with the flavour, because she gave me approximately ten more pieces, one each time I started to cry.) Thanks, thanks to you, whoever you are.

Later, in Toronto, going through customs, I had one concern and one only, and that was to have a smile on my face when I met my lovely man.

The customs guy justifiably questioned my three-day trip to Asia. I doubt I look like a drug dealer, but I’ll bet lots of them don’t. I answered his questions by saying my trip had been cut short. By what, he wanted to know. By something bad happening, I said, which wasn’t good enough for him. By something bad happening to my lovely man, I said, and started to cry.

Never believe what you hear about airport personnel being unkind. He asked for my boarding pass. In full snot at this point, and rifling pointlessly through my purse, I told him I didn’t have it. How about the flight number, he asked, which sent me over an edge. I don’t remember it, I said, but every $%&*ing person behind me was on the same flight, can you not ask one of them?

He paused for a second. I’ll make one up, he said. You can go ahead. As I passed his desk, he put a hand out toward my arm and asked, how is your lovely man now?

I don’t know yet, i told him, and ran past.

Thanks, thanks to you, whoever you are.

What wakes me up tonight is that kindness is everywhere. The world is so filled with it that even this awful event in our life, this huge, catastrophic slam, is a love story.

I’m glad to know that.

Thanks, thanks to you for the conversation,

kristin


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Was Lost And Now AmNovember 30th, 2010

Bangkok is filled to spewing with smells, sounds, heat, motorcycles, and people, people, people. It’s overwhelming by 8am.

This morning, after the best coffee i’ve had in a long time, i set out walking what was supposed to be five minutes to the water taxi stop (A huge canal snakes through the old city), and got completely lost.  Which was okay with me.  I had a vague idea i was headed toward interesting stuff.

The first thing to present itself, after 4,000 street stalls selling flowers, fried things, noodley things, and apothecary-ish things, was an exhibit of modern sculpture.  Two rooms, in the middle of nowhere.  The sculptures, particularly one called Sorrow, made me feel at home for the first time in three or four days.  Who knows what that says about me.

And then, lost again, overwhelmed again, i was wandering in some back alley, wondering whether i had enough steam to pursue the sights. A Buddhist nun passed me.  She had extremely short hair and wore white robes.   A few seconds later, I heard “hello” from behind me.  It was the nun.  I said “sawatdi,” which is supposed to be hello, though no one yet has understood my pronunciation.

“Meditate?” she asked.

“Yes.  I do,” i answered.

She motioned me to follow her.  I did, through alleys and more alleys.  ”Vipassana,” she said at some point, over her shoulder.  (Vipassana is one form of meditation.)

We arrived at a doorway with 10 or 12 pairs of shoes arranged  on mats.  She pointed at mine.  I took them off.

“You meditate before?” she said.  At least i think that’s what she said.

“Yes.”

She opened the door and pointed toward a second room.  I followed her finger.

In the room were 20 or 30 people in white robes, sitting cross-legged on mats.  The nun, behind me, pointed at a mat.

I meditated with them for maybe two hours.

It was heaven.  They chanted for the last few minutes.  When i opened my eyes, another white-robed nun was in front of me.  She mimed eating and pointed to yet another doorway.  So i joined them for lunch – the best meal i’ve had in Bangkok – and then for washing dishes. It was tough to leave.

There are two thoughts for me.  One is that miracles happen everywhere you

look, or don’t look, as it turns out.  Another is be grateful, Kristin, for the way things unfold.  And those two thoughts are enough for today.

Thanks, thanks, to that nun for her generosity and clear sight.

And thank you for the conversation,

kristin


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Live Your Business With Open ArmsNovember 23rd, 2010

Over lunch today, a friend and i discussed the ownership of ideas, and whether or not you need to protect them (and your future, and your finances) by not sharing your ideas.  What if someone else uses them? What if we share and then there’s no room in the market for us anymore? Isn’t it wrong for someone else to use my ideas?  Etc.  This is the way we were brought up to think.

All of that thinking reflects a lack of trust in ourselves, in others, and in the basic goodness of the universe.  (If trusting the universe seems ridiculous to you, just ignore all of this and go on being proprietary with your ideas.)

I think business can be done with open, generous arms and complete transparency.  In fact i think that’s the only way to do business and remain human.

In the middle of this discussion, Shari, the waitress, came to our table.  I told her the raspberry cheesecake was delicious, and asked her whether the recipe was a secret or whether she’d share.

Of course we share, she said.  Our recipes are healthy and delicious.  Why shouldn’t the whole town have them?

This is good business.  Will sharing the recipe stop us from going? No.  Will it grow her business?  Yes.  Can we all apply that to our businesses?  I hope so.  Because love wins.  Every time.

Thanks to Shari and the owners of VegOut for the great cheesecake and the great advice. And thanks to you for your thoughts,

kristin


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1000 TruthsNovember 11th, 2010

This week a friend called me on the phone for help. I could hardly hear her for the banging in the background. Contractors, she said. Three of them, working on different projects in the house. I’m going crazy, she said. Crying for no reason. Hate my work, strung out with the family, don’t know where I’m going. Give me something.

It was impossible not to laugh, because we have all been there.

Here’s what she wanted to be reminded of:

There are 1000 truths in front of me at any time.

There are contractors smashing things downstairs. True.

Work is tough. True.

Family is tougher. True.

Don’t know where she’s going. True.

Those are four truths. She is honest and justified in leading with those.

But.

The contractors are making the house beautiful, not to mention warm for the winter. True.

She’s excited about what work might become when this awful patch is over. True.

Family is tough right now because she’s  standing up for herself for the first time in decades. True.

She doesn’t know everything about where she’s going. It’s been a long time since the future looked so open and full of possibility. True.

She loves her husband, she’s healthy, November is unusually warm, and she still have a sense of humour. True.

There are always 1000 truths in front of me. I am honest and justified in focusing on any of them.  But some of them empower me, and some of them are completely deflating. Some of them make me optimistic and happy, some of them make me feel like hell.

Choice is mine, and if you believe that your thoughts have consequences for your life tomorrow, the choice is pivotal.

1000 truths. I choose.

Thanks for the conversation,

kristin


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Meditation WorksOctober 29th, 2010

I’ve decided to celebrate the end of one career by spending some time at our cabin on an island in Lake Nipissing.  The point was to do enough yoga and meditation daily to slow my mind significantly, to sneak  a peek at peace, perhaps even to take a tangential nip off the edge of enlightenment.

So,  five days later the tally is five hours of yoga and approximately 15 hours of meditation.  (I’m with you if that sounds extreme.  Intensity was the goal.)

I’m back in town to charge computer batteries, get more water and food, and any Susannah Moodie books the library has in stock.

I saw no concrete results of my meditation until i drove into town on Lakeshore Road this morning (speed limit 60km/hr).  At some point i heard honking behind me.  In the rear view mirror were six cars in a lineup, two of them honking.  This alarmed me (where’s the fire? where are the flashing lights?), until i looked at my speedometer, which read 20 km/hr.  I pulled over to let the crazy speed demons pass.

It looks like meditation works.

I’m going back out to the cabin for another week, by which time i might be faster walking into town.

Do you meditate?  I’d love to hear.

Thanks, you crazy speed demons,

kristin


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Saying Goodbye to EdOctober 14th, 2010

A few posts ago, i mentioned my friend Ed, who is one of the georgeous people i’m saying goodbye to at the clinic.  Here he is, playing “You Are My Sunshine” one last time.

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( I love you, Ed.)


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