A Hasty Post

Sorry, folks, no pictures this time, as my scanner is disabled for the moment in another room.

All last week, I was irritable and agitated.

Last night, I neglected to take my sleeping pill.

Now the world is bright, full of energy, and lovable. I am not groggy, angry, or confused. I woke early, but in good spirits. I think it's time to stop taking the sleeping pills.

That's all. :)

BLAH-G

I read somewhen, somewhere, that schizophrenics who are locked in dysphoria or psychosis tend to recreate mandalas to recover some sort of psychic center. Whether this is manifested as artwork (like my doodle), or just pacing in agitated circles, the desire to claim stability leaks out as a pattern that is, for the moment, holy.

The last few days of rain have been difficult. While Dad rests easy and does therapy in Tuscon (everything went well), I am home without parents who are a large part of my support system. I've been listless and down. Everything in the universe seems to be wrapped in protective bubble. Life seems plastic and unreal.

Part of it is the rain. It is monsoon season, and the beginnings of autumn blossom from thunderstorms. As much as I really enjoy daily deluges and cooler nights, my mood is affected by the gloom. The malaise of the sky mirrors my own general disinterest in everything around me. This is why I haven't blogged in almost a week. I sit and stare, but my pen remains still, and my mind remains empty.

To ease the ennui, I doodle and colour. I work on a scrapbook for my best friend. I contemplate all the things I'd do with this building, pent-up energy when it finally spurts out as volcanic creativity. I read other blogs and wish I could pull together this energy and button it over my chest.

Note To Self

You are Alive. Why sleep when you could be awake, wild, and wondrous? When the stink of sulfur surrounds you with its artificial opulence, you are always welcome to straddle the high fences of your miniscule, Mandelbrot dimensions and join the vibrant, laughing party as woman and not as ghost. The world that waits drips sweet oxygen, is laughably clean. You are half drowned in umbilical bliss, but if you reach from the swelling tides of your chemical misfortune you will not wither in the sunlit dazzle of conscious insight. Breathe with your old eyes; these new, optical prostheses are a waste of good plastic. They obscure everything worthwhile in the universe. They hide the sky like a thick blanket. You are wearing a black hood that knows about grief and shadow, but which completely obfuscates an entire cosmos of fabulous clarity. You have become a wretch, a shade of ineffectual chaos. I’m sorry you lost yourself in the quake of necessities, but you are still breathing. Here is the dynamic of peace, that world without illusion: the grave. Ignore it and wake up.

Friendly Fire

Whew! Today was LONG, but brilliant. The picture above was drawn last night, and the original title was "The Rigors of House Hunting." Bryan and I were both pretty stressed out by this morning.

UNTIL ...

The landlords called and said they wanted me to keep renting the house I'm in, but for a lower price if it would help me. And starting in November, we are constructing a new lease for 2 years with Bryan and me on it both. I cannot tell you what a relief this is! Not only is this house in our price range, but I'm a collector of books, and everything would have been a pain to move. No worries! No hassle!

BUT ...

Bryan and I had saved some money for the move. What to do? We disagreed on how the money should be spent. I wanted a new sofa, he wanted picture frames for all the cool photos he has. Mind you, there was never any real argument. We're soft, boring people, and there was no raising of voice .... but maybe there was a sharpening of tone once or twice as we explained to each other the advantages and disadvantages of each of our plots and devices.

My sofas are 5 or 6 years old, I argued. And they happen to be &#@!-Me Red. I'd prefer a mellower, Bite-My-@$$ Brown. He explained his need to decorate his office space where he is writing a novel, to "set the mood." His way was certainly cheaper.

So we went to the Sofa Extravaganza Mega-Store in town, and we picked out one we could both agree on. We came away with a sectional sofa in brown, a recliner chair, and a coffee table-ottoman.
What did I win, besides the furniture?

You guessed it! A trip to the Frame Outlet for picture frames. See? I can bend when negotiated with. *grin*

Doodles

It's been an empty day. I learned a few things.
1) Dad's having TWO surgeries; heart bypass and valve replacement on Tuesday.
2) Mom reads my blog. (General happyfaces!)
3) Bryan can sleep all day like a champ.
4) When left to my own designs, crosswords are ruined.

Occasionally Things Fall Apart

My landlord has decided to sell this house. Bryan's lease on his little apartment runs out on November 1st. This conundrum has brought up many discussions about combining our efforts into one lease, somewhere else. The problem is finding "somewhere else." 

Poor Bryan is terribly sick. There's just been too much activity around him for comfort.
So what do I do? I take him house hunting, and pack it on top of his doctor's appointment and the turmoil surrounding Dad. All in one day.

Yesterday was stressful and irritable for everyone except me. I stumbled around in oblivious bouts of good-natured happiness. I danced around, sang along to the car radio, and drove Bryan crazy. He complied sullenly with everything I wanted to do, which included:
Checking out two houses for prospective renting.
Discussions about money.
Driving all over town to show him areas where we might find a nice place.
Cooing over him with a little girl voice with lots of "I'm sorry"s about his bronchitis.
And
Reminding him that Steph will visit in just 2 weeks, and stay for about 12 days.

Oh and I forgot ... trying to convince him that we were going to move all our stuff in one day, as we can't afford to prorate for any substantial amount of time.

Really, our main worry is finding a place we can afford that will allow me to have my dog in tow. She's been my companion for a little more than a decade, and I can't leave her in her last few years without "Mommy". So, as my mind is all over the place and generating ideas -- as it tends to do -- Bryan has been silently suffering and adapting to life with crazy little me. All he asked today was that I do the dishes and let him sleep in.
Easy.
But his mercurial depression and pesky bronchitis have been slowing eroding my good mood. I guess the problem is that I let it. It's difficult to be present with someone, to be there for them, without empathy sneaking in like a thief. I feel for him. When he's down, I'm more than concerned; I take it all on myself. One worry for another. (And the voice of my Zen teacher slips into my thoughts here, and asks, "For the sake of what?" Stealthy little old man!)

So I sat zazen today. I let him sleep in. I'm on my way into the kitchen to finish the dishes from last night. It's the best I can do.

No Rewards

In Soto Zen Buddhism, "practice" refers both to sitting in meditation and then taking that stability and serenity off of the cushion into general life. At least I can say for me that sitting is almost always stable and serene, but it is not always so. Nor should it be...

Quote from The Heart of Wisdom Sutra

Abundantly obsessed with worry over Dad and The People who intrude on my peace of mind, when I sat at the temple yesterday morning, I was having terrible trouble being present in the moment. After sitting on Tuesdays, I have dokusan (which is basically a meeting with my teacher who asks, "How is your practice?").

My practice has gone from sporadic to utterly non-existent. While I was doing my zazen (seated meditation), I chastised myself for everything from my posture on the cushion to thinking too much, to how open my eyes should be to not being present. Basically I was making up issues to fret over that would keep from worrying about what needed to be worried about: me. And for the sake of what?

My teacher has a habit of asking good questions like that. He let me talk it over, asking gentle - and sometimes harsh - questions to help me figure it for myself. And it came down to this: I was worrying about everything in sight because I had this notion that worrying was actually productive. I thought maybe if I wasn't worrying about Dad (or whatever), I wasn't devoting my attention to it and was therefore not helping. The answer I came up with for myself was that probably all Dad has really wanted from me since my birth is for me to take care of myself. To not be troubled, to not worry. All this worry and fretting and brooding helped absolutely nobody ... and for the sake of what?

I am not a drama queen. I get no secondary gain from suffering or stress. By the end of dokusan, I had a lighter step and a freer heart. How to help Mom and Dad and Bryan and everyone else? Take care of myself. Be dedicated to my practice. Honour my commitments to myself. Quit the counter-productive. Be proactive, not reactive.

Do not reward myself for worrying.

~unblogginess~

It has been a Labor Day free from labors.

No one has come to visit; no one has called. Bryan and I had sweet respite all day to ourselves. I read to him from a book we started together. For me, it was a mad escape to the stars in all its science fiction glory. For him, it was a chance to lie on the couch and close his eyes, to let someone else think for him, to just listen. After a few chapters, we ate breakfast. I napped. He played on his computer. He napped. I played on my computer.

Nothing happened.

It was glorious.

What I'm Reading

2009, taken by my sister

I found an awesome book yesterday while browsing Barnes & Noble. When I got home, I thought over it. I wondered if the local used bookstore had it, as I was unwilling to pay too much for it. Especially since new books might look pretty, but there is nothing like a book that has been loved, cover to cover, by the careful hands and eyes of a reader.

No luck.

Being a "Nook" owner, I caved and downloaded it. Apparently, this book has been around awhile, but as I rarely enter bookstores (my impulse to buy out entire shelves is overwhelming), I missed it somehow. It's a book by Philip Zimbardo called The Lucifer Effect. It is a psychology book that explores why so-called "good" people do "bad" things, and vice versa. It got me thinking about schizophrenia.

If, as Zimbardo asserts, there are no real "bad apples", but there probably is something systemic wrong with the barrel made by the power elite, then perhaps - and I've been thinking about this for a long while - my illness might contain a genetic predisposition, but something, somewhere triggered it into effect. What drives a person into madness so profound they can't even calculate what day it is or remember to eat? It's not necessarily that horrible things may or may not have happened to me. This is not a self-obsessive, introverted angle I'm taking. What, I want to know, is contained in the society that shaped me that caused me to close in on Crazy Town? Why was this my "option"? Marilyn Manson noted that he had the same advantages and disadvantages as any of the kids he grew up with. He too wondered what had made him "different". His answer was much the same as Zimbardo's: "You made me, America."

I don't really believe anyone chooses to be schizophrenic. And it's not a choice I would have made, had there been one. Still, I would like some comments on this post (if you can conjure any), no matter how far-fetched, that may enlighten me. This is obviously a germ of profundity I'll have to work on.

P.S. Thank goodness for books.

More Heartaches

Anatomy of the heart by Leonardo Da Vinci

Dad is still in a lot of pain. His aortic valves won't close all the way, and his heart is working too hard. 3 days after his cardioangiogram, he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. That stubborn man! He even tried to walk to the ambulance. The EMTs were concerned, and finally convinced him to sit on the gurney after he spent all day in pain and collapsing. Mom and I are certain he suffers from "Marine-ism." Except this Marine is in his 70's with a bad heart. Semper Fi, Dad.

The doctors at the hospital did blood work to make sure he wasn't having a heart attack (he wasn't). Then he was told that all the surgeons were on vacation for Labor Day, and the thoratic surgeon is out of town for a week. Not only would Dad have to wait through that week being monitored at the hospital, he would then suffer another week at the mercy of scheduling until his valve replacement was in place. Fed up, Mom made the hospital fax all of his records to the heart institute in Tuscon, and made an appointment with one of their doctors for Dad on Wednesday. His open heart surgery will take place next week, if all goes well. We are just tired of waiting. This all could've been over and done by now, but the doctors here keep dragging their feet, adding to my dad's stress. And mine.

Unable to sleep while all of this is happening, my psychoses and depression have worsened. My pshrink decided to prescribe me a second sleeping pill with the warning that if I couldn't sleep, he would put me in the hospital. Poor Bryan has bronchitis, but still stands steadfastly by. He makes sure I know he will always be here and passes no judgment when I begin smiling at the air, or talking loudly in the other room. He's been amazing. I couldn't ask for a better companion. Still, the illness has taken a downturn. I feel myself shifting down on the uphill climb. One activity a day is too much for me right now. All I seem to be able to do is sit and stare. Painting is a tiny diversion, but my book has sat untouched for a week. All I can think about is my poor dad.

In anticipation for whatever result of the heart surgery, my very best buddy, Steph, will be flying in from California later this month. If Dad does well, he should be recovering and ready for visitors by then. If he dies on the table (even Mom has admitted this might happen), Steph will be here for the family to help take care of things while Mom becomes a disconsolate mess. Hopefully I can stay out of trouble until then.

With Bryan around, I just might make it.